Women and Kava

[Summer]

I don't know how many female members are on the forum, but in a recent thread someone stated that women in some kava producing countries look down on drinking kava. Does anyone know why?

Was wondering how many people have females in their lives who enjoy kava?

 

[KavaKitty]

I'm clearly a woman, and if that's true (about women in kava-producing countries) we need to begin a global effort to change it!

 

[currentbun]

Female here and I enjoy kava.

That is an interesting question though. Thinking there might be something to the "ew" factor. I keep trying to get my young adult daughters to check it out, but they prefer their weed. I think they just don't like the way it looks, but I keep jabbering about the traditions and stuff, hoping eventually their curiosity will get them there.

Maybe kava just needs a bigger social media presence.

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

It's because kava producing countries are largely 'third world' countries, who for the most part still have a strong attachment to ancient village life and traditional rules. Primitive cultures around the globe typically held the belief that men do men stuff and girls do girl stuff. Fragments of this mentality persist even in our modern culture, but is much stronger where life is still traditional.

In Vanuatu, Port Vila has been modernized enough that women will publicly drink kava, though still in much smaller numbers than men. If you go to a more primitive island or traditional village, they still hold the belief that it's Tabu for a woman to even look at a nakamal when it's kava time.

Hawai'i, of course, has assimilated to modern ways so much, that it's not really an issue there.

There seems to usually be about 4 or 5 active female members on the kava forums at any one time, several other previous active members and certainly many lurkers. We've had a thread on it before, but it seems like there's an inherent divide, even when you have no attachment to traditional rules.

In my life, the only person willing to drink kava with me when I bring it up, is a woman. She still doesn't prefer it though.

 

[nabanga]

In 1960 in the UK, Australia and NZ there were usually 2 bars in most pubs, one for men only and a "lounge" bar for men who brought their wives. This went on till about 1995.
In Vanuatu drinking kava has many attachments to old cultural beliefs, important connections to relations with the next village (who may have been enemies for centuries till the missionaries turned up with their placebo), and grade taking ritual. It is not just a root that makes you feel relaxed to the original users, who still outnumber us dry kava mail order folk by about 10,000 to 1.

In Vanuatu women are welcome to turn up to a nakamal in Erakor, Tongoa and many places in central Port Vila - more and more every year. But if a woman even passes in view of a nakamal in Tafea province she can be shot with an arrow even now.
In 1997 I went with the female NZ High Commissioner to Vanuatu to a small island in south Vanuatu to open a water supply system that I put in, and NZ paid for. She wasn't even allowed to see the nakamal ground even 5-6 hours before kava time. The local woman I was staying with was 50, had lived 50m from the nakamal all her life, and had never seen it.

So, getting back to your point, women in kava producing countries don't so much look down on kava drinking - it is more a very long standing cultural aspect of kava drinking being a male thing, right or wrong.

 

[Edward]

In 1960 in the UK, Australia and NZ there were usually 2 bars in most pubs, one for men only and a "lounge" bar for men who brought their wives. This went on till about 1995.
In Vanuatu drinking kava has many attachments to old cultural beliefs, important connections to relations with the next village (who may have been enemies for centuries till the missionaries turned up with their placebo), and grade taking ritual. It is not just a root that makes you feel relaxed to the original users, who still outnumber us dry kava mail order folk by about 10,000 to 1.

In Vanuatu women are welcome to turn up to a nakamal in Erakor, Tongoa and many places in central Port Vila - more and more every year. But if a woman even passes in view of a nakamal in Tafea province she can be shot with an arrow even now.
In 1997 I went with the female NZ High Commissioner to Vanuatu to a small island in south Vanuatu to open a water supply system that I put in, and NZ paid for. She wasn't even allowed to see the nakamal ground even 5-6 hours before kava time. The local woman I was staying with was 50, had lived 50m from the nakamal all her life, and had never seen it.

So, getting back to your point, women in kava producing countries don't so much look down on kava drinking - it is more a very long standing cultural aspect of kava drinking being a male thing, right or wrong.

There are still thousands of pubs all over the UK that have separate bars but their use for the purpose of putting men in one bar and couples in the other died out well before 1995.

 

[Zac Imiola (Herbalist)]

Haha ya once they don't like weed anymore and want some thing less heady but not alcohol kava will come to the rescue

I think kavas feminine energy is Ecspecially beneficial for overly masculine energies men

It helps us connect to emotions in a way that women already have access to.
Now I don't mean female gender /male gender.
I think each one of us has male and female energy in us and the female has been suppressed even in women. Kava helps us reconnect to this energy, which is feeling. Listening.

Male is looking and thinking.
Female listening and feeling.
Not gender just energy

So I feel that maybe if a women is imbalanced toward masculine (excessive need for control over life) or inability to feel, they may benefit from kava more.
Where men naturally are that way so kava automatically speaks to them more.

This is the reason I think we still have more male members regardless of social "equality" in modern world

 

[Summer]

@nabanga Interesting information, thank you.

 

[nabanga]

There are still thousands of pubs all over the UK that have separate bars but their use for the purpose of putting men in one bar and couples in the other died out well before 1995.

You're right - I meant to write until about 1985, not 1995, but my fingers are too fat for my phone..
I grew up in Teeside in the 70's & 80's and got dragged to the pub every Sunday as a kid , my dad & grandad in the men only smoke-filled public bar, and us kids and the women in the slightly less smoky lounge bar.

 

[TheKavaSociety]

The interesting thing is that there seems to be a sexual health element to the beliefs about kava's effects. Apparently lots of women believe that kava can weaken female fertility. I don't know if this is a kind of excuse that was made up by men to prevent women from enjoying kava (most likely yes), or if this idea is deeper and is yet another dimension of this weird kava-sex connection that Lebot describes in his "Pacific Elixir".

 

[moff000]

Gypsy folk that live in the same town as me never take their women to the pub!

 

[KavaKitty]

It's because kava producing countries are largely 'third world' countries, who for the most part still have a strong attachment to ancient village life and traditional rules. Primitive cultures around the globe typically held the belief that men do men stuff and girls do girl stuff. Fragments of this mentality persist even in our modern culture, but is much stronger where life is still traditional.

In Vanuatu, Port Vila has been modernized enough that women will publicly drink kava, though still in much smaller numbers than men. If you go to a more primitive island or traditional village, they still hold the belief that it's Tabu for a woman to even look at a nakamal when it's kava time.

Hawai'i, of course, has assimilated to modern ways so much, that it's not really an issue there.

There seems to usually be about 4 or 5 active female members on the kava forums at any one time, several other previous active members and certainly many lurkers. We've had a thread on it before, but it seems like there's an inherent divide, even when you have no attachment to traditional rules.

In my life, the only person willing to drink kava with me when I bring it up, is a woman. She still doesn't prefer it though.

You're so awesome. I love that you know so much about this root. Seriously. You're awesome.