Washing Away Our Lavalava? Women, Tradition and Power on Lamotrek Atoll

Abstract

The women on Lamotrek have a special status in the community because the clans administrate and pass on their land and their political influence through the maternal lines. The result used to be a power gradient from women to men, which was balanced by the public freedom of speech and conduct which men held. In a dualistic view of life, the people could always think in terms of relationships: the one cannot manage without the other. Since the colonisation and Christianisation of the Caroline Islands, the gender-balance is in a process of reversal. Through the amalgamation with the western patriarchal social systems, the association of the male gender with public space and the female gender with land, house and family cements the disadvantage felt by women who are dependent on men to make their voices heard.