Male roles in the Aborigine culture of Australia, traditionally defined, revolve much around their sacred “rite of passage”. This rite serves to separate the genders into two distinct, yet “equal” parts. This equality has much debate surrounding it, as many westerners will label the Aborigine as abusive of their women, while Aboriginals are more likely to defend their culture.

Perhaps, among all this debate concerning different cultures, there is a third option (that this author will advocate) that encourages peaceful understanding of the Australian Aborigine, yet advocates a progressive feminist movement within their people.

To begin our brief look at the tribe’s traditions and culture, let’s begin with their “rite of passage”. The rite involves circumcision and a painful procedure called a penile subincision. These two surgeries are performed by tribal leaders, about 9 months apart from each other (circumcision and then subincision in that order).

These rituals are kept very secretive from Western civilization and females of the tribe. Typically, women have their own rites and it is known as “Women’s Business” while men carry out these traditions known as “Men’s Business”.

While some of this may seem sexist to Westerners, it is an important part of an individual’s identification with his community, spirituality, and self. There appears to be positive benefits to these rituals (aside from occasional health complications due to a subincision).

The penile subincision, which many Americans are not familiar with, is an operation in which the urethra is slit from the meatus (the urethral opening) to the base of the penis. If that sounds painful, it’s because it is. The young man is given a boomerang to bite on to distract from the 10 minutes of agonizing pain.

The slit must be completely even, and so a piece of wood is inserted into the urethra to aid in the bisection. After this part of the rite is over, the young man is lead to a fire so the smoke and flames can help heal his new wounds.

The rough, and violent nature of this act may lead Western people to deem this as “backwards”, but fail to see some of the good points offered from this. The slit on the underside of the penis indicates status within the tribe, and may give the individual a sense of pride at his newly accquired wound.

After the rite, division of labor continues in a traditional gender-based way: men hunt larger, aggressive animals while women gather vegetables and fruit. If a small animal passed, the children around the mothers usually hunted it for sport.

There is considerable respect for women in the Aborigines, as they are not forced to share their food with any specific persons, and they are free to distribute their goods as desired. Older women hold many positions of importance, aside from gathering, and will often hold statuses higher than that of males.

Young women, on the other hand, are not looked upon as important but rather as trophies. The considerable depth of male dominance in the Aborigines is still evident, even in this semi-egalitarian group.

Previously, women dominated the spiritual-system (or primitive religion) of the Aborigine. This changed eventually, as men somehow took over control. Women still are in charge, or even dominant, within many different Aboriginal cultures across Australia.

That being said, no question remains that the Australian Aborigines do have subtle male-dominance, but are quite advanced (even by Western standards) in ways of gender-relations and equality.