The Burden of Womanhood

By Emalee Castro

My cousin was given an opportunity to pick between a car or a quinceaña for her fifteenth birthday. She chose the quinceaña. The most basic definition of a quinceaña is the Latina celebration of the transition from childhood into adulthood on her fifteenth birthday. Though, I never needed a quinceaña of my own to endure the burden of womanhood. Meaning, the experience of being and becoming a woman in a Mexican family differs greatly from the male experience of becoming a man. A great example of this is found in Judith Ortiz Cofer 's poem, "Quinceaña ", from her book, Silent Dancing. Despite the lack of Cofer 's own explanation of her poem, readers can easily navigate through the ideas she presents using imagery and personal experience.

The gifts I received from my father were always apparently opposite to what he gifted my brothers. He would give me dolls whilst saying, "So you can practice for later," and gave my brothers’ action-figures with words of, "Have fun." I was five. Cofer begins her poem with, "My dolls have been put away like dead/ children in a chest I will carry/ with me when I marry." (1-3). The speaker is referring to the dolls she received as a child that have been forcefully taken away from her. This notion follows the implication that the speaker will no longer require the practice of caring for children. Cofer 's choice of the word "when" in reference to marriage over the word "if' sticks out as deliberate to me. When looking at the origins of quinceaña -- a way to display girls' availability to marriage in the public eyes of every man in town-and how many of those values still exist now, readers can identify the concept that the emergence into womanhood comes with the expectation of marriage (Suzuki). It would be impossible to count how many times my father referenced my "future husband" in casual conversations.

My father once said, "How do you expect to wash your husband's clothes if you shy away from folding your brother's boxers?" I was eight. Another significant transition into womanhood is the moment a girl begins her menstrual cycle, or period. When I got my period, my father made it a point to humiliate me and demand my mother teach me the act of cleaning blood off of cloth. I was eleven. Cofer references a similar experience when she said, "I am to wash my own clothes/ and sheets from this day on ... / as if/ the little trickle of blood I believe/ travels from my heart to the world were/ shameful." (11-16). Cofer goes on to say, "Is not the blood of saints and/ men in battle beautiful?" (16-17). This particular sentence reminds me of the Spartans from ancient Greece who valued a man's role in their army above all else. A mother was recorded saying to her son, "Come back carrying your shield or carried on it" (Spielvogal). Furthermore, the bloodshed in battle is usually described as sacrificial and part of the bigger picture of victory; whereas the blood shed during one's period is "shameful," even if the process is part of the bigger picture of procreation.

As a little girl, I would oftentimes wake in the middle of the night and cry out from growing pains. I grew to be taller than most of the women in my family so growing pains became a familiar ache. It wasn't until the third or fourth time I woke and cried that I realized there would be no parent coming to ease my pain. I was fifteen and had officially begun my transition into womanhood. Cofer begins the end of her poem saying, "At night I hear myself growing and wake / to find my hands drifting of their own will / to soothe skin stretched tight I over my bones." (19-22). The way Cofer describes this action as subconscious gives insight to how often the speaker must have woken doing the same action. Additionally, the absence of any adult figure mentioned in the sentence provides me with the feelings of loneliness a Hispanic girl feels growing into womanhood.

One thing I didn't experience that most Mexican girls do was a quinceaña. A quinceaña is a Latina's physical celebration of her transition into womanhood at the age of fifteen. However, to understand the importance of this transition and what it means for the quinceaña is hard to process without a reference or first-hand experience. A good example of this is Judith Ortiz Cofer's poem, "Quinceaña", from her book, Silent Dancing. Cofer dives into many aspects of becoming a woman in a Hispanic family, such as the expectation of children, the expectation of marriage, the confusion of one's menstrual cycle, and the loneliness of growing-up. My own experience of being and becoming a woman in a Mexican family proves to be similar to what Cofer references. I know that if I was given the opportunity to choose between a car or quinceaña, I would choose the car.

Spielvogel, Jackson J. "The Civilization of the Greeks." Western Civilization, 2015, pp. 55-85. Accessed 23 October 2023.

Suzuki, Mizuhiro. "Affording expensive ceremonies: Evidence from Quinceañas in Mexico." 2021 , pp. 6-7, https ://mizuhirosuzuki.github.io/assets/pdf/quinceaneras_paper.pdf. Assessed 23 October 2023.