Possessing the Secret of Joy - Alice Walker

This book is dedicated to the blameless vulva.

Alice Walker aint easy. This book is about women, the clitoris, the vulva and about a traditional practice in parts of the world where the clitoris is cut out and the vagina is sown up. Some say female circumcision - others say female genital mutilation. Some say honourable tradition, other say misogyny (often a part of tradition too).

We do not hear much about FGM in Guyana.. male circumcision is supposed to be a good thing these days for cleanliness and now to harden the glans so that the HIV virus does not pass through.
As Tashi rejects Jesus and Christianity..(taking off her gingham mamma hubbard dress and leaving her breasts bare, she goes to do her operation as a connection to her ancestors and heritage. The operation had killed her sister. Sex and birth are painful.  The trauma of the operation has left Tashi with mental health issues so a lot of the book is dealing with the recovery.
I read the book while over nighting in Berbice. In the car coming up to Berbice, I was talking to one of the few psychologists in Guyana about trauma and the experiences of children. I also spoke to a colleague here in Berbice about her experiences  with mental health. I did not realise the book was also going to be about mental health.

Alice Walker slips in some political commentary here.. Mbati, also circumcised/mutilated looks after the woman Mama Lissa who has helped to uphold tradition.. and she tells Tashi.. "so much has fallen apart here : independence is killing us as surely as colonialism did. But then she said , sighing, that is because it isn't really independence."
There is commentary as well on  on psychotherapy.. counselling.. the subtle critique of the white perceptions of 'Negro women'... then the Old Man and Uncle Carl.. and
the half French anthropologist son Pierre who is biracial and 'bisexual' 'everything he learns he brings to bear on Tashi's dilemma" . These bits of the book were puzzling .. was 'therapy' supposed to be one of the colonial impositions like Jesus?
There apparently was FGM in the US too in the 1800s.


In the after note, Alice Walker says that a lot of the things were made up. A bit sad, given that FGM is a real thing. Good for her that she brings up the issue of tradition and women upholding traditions as a way of countering colonialism. But it would have been good if the context was real and not made up. The anthropology is credible (the termites as models for how men and women live)- but maybe Alice Walker is being satirical in this weaving of  tales of the past because that is how so many of the ugly human traditions are given credence.. based on some histories which are no longer relevant.


As the debate goes on here about beating children as a form of discipline, and the character Mama Lissa becomes cynical about her role in the tradition of 'purifying' women --. Alice Walker makes her say "In service to tradition, to what makes us a people. In service to the country and what makes who we are. But who are we but torturers of children?"








RESISTANCE IS THE SECRET OF JOY is what Tashi-Evelyn sees before she is shot for killing and cremating the body of Mama Lissa. Even if the book is not perfect, the message is clear.