Women's Mysteries

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

"Strange feminine secrets."

—Michael, Picnic at Hanging Rock

Women's Mysteries are stories, rituals, secrets, etc. which, for reasons of either magic or tradition, only women are permitted to know. Often, they are said to be passed down from mother to daughter, and may be associated with some sort of puberty initiation rite.

Prevalent in literature that has a mystical or mythological theme, as well as in mythology itself.

Very rarely gender reversed - or, rather, male versions (involving hunting, circumcision, warfare, initiation etc.) are treated very differently. The most notable difference is that Women's Mysteries almost always remain mysterious to the audience. This Double Standard probably results from their being mysterious to the author as well since Most Writers Are Male. Related to the idea (apparently held by many men) that women are somehow inherently mysterious. Also, secret societies with exclusively male initiates tend to be treated as a Brotherhood of Funny Hats, while the female version is much, much less likely to receive this treatment.

In Real Life cultures, this sort of thing is mostly just details about female biology (pregnancy, childbirth, birth control, menstruation, etc.) that men simply don't need to know and women don't care to discuss in mixed company. But it's a rare work of epic fantasy that's willing to admit its "Women's Mysteries" are little more than a Fantasy Counterpart Culture equivalent of that special sixth grade health class for girls.

If you want to look at a humorous modern descendant peek into the Wondrous Ladies' Room. See also Men Are Generic, Women Are Special.

Examples of Women's Mysteries include:

Comic Books

  • The "Tales in the Sand" plot arc in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman in which the character Nada is introduced is framed as an oral tradition passed down from father to son as part of a puberty rite. We hear the male version, which has a downer ending, but it is hinted that the women of the tribe tell it differently when they pass the tale down to their daughters. The womens' version is never revealed.
    • The Sandman also has "A Game Of You," where the women who are being tormented by the Cuckoo are the only ones allowed to go on the journey into the Dreaming. Apparently, moon magic specifically cares about whether you have two X chromosomes - which pisses off Wanda, a transwoman, to no end.
  • In Alan Moore's Tom Strong, the young Tom does manage to see the women's mysteries, and so does the reader. Then he's caught, and since he saw the woman's mysteries, he's declared a honorary woman until the next moon. Hilarity Ensues. (Presumably, the author of Promethea reckons there's nothing mysterious about women being inherently mysterious.)
  • The Invisibles has Lord Fanny, a transvestite shaman in the Aztec tradition. Her back story reveals that she was the only son in a line where only women learned the secrets of shamanism; after a failed attempt at a daughter resulted in a miscarriage, her mother and grandmother raised her as a girl.
  • Atalanta, a French comic, has the eponymous heroine raised by her grandfather in the middle of nowhere. Then one day he notices she's bleeding, even though she hasn't been wounded. So he takes her to an old woman in a cave to learn of Women's Mysteries, the old woman lampshading the fact that the men of the tribe get rid of these incomprehensible-to-them matters as soon as they arrive.
  • Parodied in The Cartoon History of the Universe. In a sequence depicting the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution (which women are widely thought to have initiated), an exhausted woman farmer tells a man the women could use some help and asks if he'd like a job. He covers his ears and says, "Silence! These mysteries are not for the ears of men."

Film

  • Inverted with the secret book of sex tips from American Pie, passed down from brother to brother.
  • The book and film Harvest Home (a variant where by the end EVERYONE knows what the mysteries are, though they are things man is not meant to SEE. Or talk about). This is an example where they are revealed to the audience.
  • Some teenage males, upon seeing Flashdance back in the 80s, were astounded by the fact that the heroine could take off her bra while still wearing a baggy sleeveless sweatshirt. Yes, guys, it's doable, although it's not recommended as it weakens the shoulder straps' elastic.
    • In fact it can be done while wearing a fitted, long sleeved shirt - but that is really bad for the elastic.

Literature

  • Inverted in Jean M. Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear, when the heroine secretly follows some male shamans into a deep cave and witnesses their secret rituals.
    • Women do have some secrets in the Clan of the Cave Bear series - the most notable being a form of birth control that only medicine women may know about and which, it is said, men would forbid if they knew of it.
      • Also played straight in Clan of the Cave Bear with the women staying within their family hearth during their moon time.
      • In the sequels, the various Cro-Magnon tribes have shamans of both genders, but there are rites that are sacred to women.
  • Nanny Ogg's grandmother (in Discworld) did the same thing. She thought it was a bit sissy.
    • Nanny herself, along with Granny Weatherwax and Magrat, may have originated a Women's Mystery in Witches Abroad, when they disrupted the hypermacho running of the bulls Thing With The Bulls. It's stated that in the years to follow, nobody ever talked about how the witches' unwitting actions had humiliated all the competitors... or at least, they didn't talk about it in front of the men.
  • Inversion: Jorge Luis Borges' story The Sect of the Phoenix involves a secret known only to men, and told only by older men to younger, in every culture and society in history. In typical Borges fashion, the piece is an elaborate literary joke: it's clear that the secret is sexual intercourse, confirmed by Word of God.
  • In Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Legacy books, D'Angeline women can only become pregnant if they pray to their goddess of healing, Eisheth. (See No Periods, Period .) The second trilogy of books are narrated from a man's perspective, and he mentions that men are not allowed to watch these rites, although earlier hints in the book implied that it's as simple as lighting a candle and saying/thinking a few words. There is a similar occurrence when Phedre visits a shrine of Naamah, the goddess of love, which Joscelin and Imriel are not allowed to enter; however, in this case it's because only Servants of Naamah (ie, courtesans, which can include men) are permitted.
  • In contrast to the Tom Strong example above, in Jack Chalker's Soul Rider series a teenaged boy is punished for spying on Women's Mysteries with "honorary woman" status for life by way of castration, followed by an involuntary Gender Bender. Hilarity definitely does not ensue.
  • The Bene Gesserit in the Dune series are composed of only females, though apparently not by choice; their existence is dedicated to producing a male who can do the stuff women can do. Be Careful What You Wish For.
    • And, yes, the Bene Gesserit harbor tons of mysteries. Some of which are tantamount to secret superpowers.
    • The point behind the breeding program is that the Kwisatz Haderach can do what the Bene Gesserits can't: access all of his Genetic Memory. Reverend Mothers only have access to the maternal line.
    • Justified in-universe, as all males trained by the Sisterhood who went through the Spice trial died. It was not by choice, but biological limitation.
  • Exists in full mystical wonder in P.C. Hodgell's Chronicles of the Kencyrath where the "Women's World" is a deliberate mystery that the Highborn women have constructed in part to prevent themselves from being used as brood mares by the males and in part so that they can secretly guide the genetic lines by deciding who will marry who and whether there will be children.
  • The novel Conjure Wife (originally appeared in Unknown Worlds, April 1943) by Fritz Leiber relates a college professor's discovery that his wife (and all other women) are regularly using magic against one another and their husbands. Interesting story as it is set in the real world around the idea that women practice magic but not only keep it secret from all men but almost from themselves, as they just act as if it really isn't anything important but just superstitious meaningless acts, like not walking under a ladder. It was filmed three times:
    • Weird Woman (1944)
    • Burn, Witch, Burn! (aka Night of the Eagle) (1962)
    • Witches' Brew (aka Which Witch is Which?) (1980)
  • In Dream Park, the gamers visit a New Guinea native village in their Show Within a Show adventure. The male and female gamers are separated, and each group attends a meeting of tribal elders of their own gender. Only the male meeting is shown on camera, but the idea that each gathering is strictly forbidden to the other gender's eyes is implicit.
  • In Chuck Palahniuk's Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey, the title character gets outraged that girls can excuse themselves from class by claiming to have "cramps". He later fights for boys to get a similar treatment by having a "situation" (=boners!).
  • In The High King when Taran and Eilonwy are married, she must lose her magic powers so that she can stay in Prydain with him. When she wishes them away, Dalban comments that she still "Will have that strange magic all women have and Taran, like most men, will often be baffled by it.
  • Played with in Stickfigure. When the narrator is with her mom getting dressed for her brother's graduation, her mother, very seriously, says to her that there's something she needs to tell and it's very important and because she loves her. The narrator listens carefully, expecting some coming-of-age advice, but instead is told that she looks like a stick figure in the dress she wants to wear and should use a different one.
  • In Terry Pratchett's Nation, the Women's Place is a giant mystery (and taboo) for men, who aren't allowed in under any circumstances. And the women in there have the secret... of beer.
  • The Red Tent. Unlike most versions, they're spelled out in detail to the readers, but you might wish they hadn't been.
  • In Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, the main character Lily, her friend Snow Flower, and several other female characters communicate through nu shu, a special type of women's writing written on fans and handkerchiefs.

Live-Action TV

  • Played with in Strangers with Candy, in that the mystery is only a mystery to gay history teacher Chuck Noblet (played by Stephen Colbert). When he is asked to teach a phys ed class while the regular teacher is absent, he discovers that the class topic is 'the vagina'. He asks a girl to draw a diagram on the board for the class, is disgusted, erases it and picks another girl, saying she looks cleaner.
  • On CSI, Hodges is trying to determine how much alcohol a tampon can absorb. He's stumped, as each time he sinks the absorbent cotton part in a beaker of booze, it expands too much to be used afterward. Wendy comes to his rescue and demonstrates the cardboard applicators' mechanics. Hodges remarks that he'd always wondered how that worked, and she smugly replies: "Every man does".
  • Why the hell does Kathryn Janeway have a vision quest? A ritual for teenage boys entering manhood? And why is Chakotay doing this when he's canonically Mayincatec and vision quests are associated with plains tribes and (even outside the plains) Algonquian speakers? Man, and you thought V'ger's physics was inaccurate.
  • In Community episode "Cooperative Calligraphy" this is the response of the women after finding Abed's charts of their menstrual cycles.

Newspaper Comics

  • One Bloom County strip features a conversation between Hodgepodge saying, "I tell ya, there's a conspiratorial air about females! Like those suspiciously vague commercials that never say just what they're about. What exactly is 'feminine protection' anyway? A chartreuse flamethrower?"

Recorded and Stand Up Comedy

  • Eddie Izzard has a bit about boys in the playground regarding Hopscotch as the age group's equivalent of Women's Mysteries. "What, what do they do??"

Tabletop Games

  • The Black Furies from Werewolf: The Apocalypse have several gifts and rites that are exclusive to them, although there are technically some male metis (offspring of two werewolves) in the tribe. The trope is fully invoked with Maiden and Mother gifts/rites, which can only be used by Furies who have yet to give birth and does that have (neither of which any metis could do). Also played straight with a camp of Get of Fenris who are exclusively female.
  • In Traveller the Kenningsboken is a partial example. It is a book few Sword Worlder males read all the way through and while it contains lore on child care and farm management it is rumored to be a psionic exercise manual.

Web Comics

Real Life

  • This is where the myth of the Maenads came from. Women in the cult of Dionysus would go off to perform their sacred rites, and since the men didn't know what they were doing, they made up stories about mad women having wild orgies in the woods. "Orgy" here refers to any sort of excessive activity; it could be sexual, but it could just as easily be a frenzy of eating, violence, or just religious fervor.
  • Publius Clodius, an ancestor of Claudius and Caligula became notorious for dressing up as a woman and sneaking into the Festival of the Great Goddess.
  • In the Nordic tradition, only women could learn seidr, the prophetic magic. Odin got around this through obvious means. The reason for this was because it was considered unmanly. A real man would confront his enemy face to face, using his own strength to succeed. There were plenty of instances of Sithmathr, men practicing Sithr, though they were practically reviled by society. This didn't stop people from using their services though. By contrast, rune-magic was largely seen as the province of men.
  • In a museum display for native Australian items, a portion of the display was covered by shutters, concealing the contents from sight. They were there to ensure that these contents (tools for male subcision, an ancient puberty-rite) are kept out of view from any aboriginal woman who might drop by the exhibit and not wish to see these Men's Mystery items.
  • Some rituals performed by females in Aborigines cultures are rumored to strike men dead if they see them. One such ritual requires a male singer, so he is blindfolded as a safety precaution.
  • That turban thing women do with their towels when they get out of the shower.
    • That's not a mystery; that's just a way to dry long hair, and it's not that complicated
  • Most women can take off their bra, one-handed, without removing their shirt, many men can't manage it with both hands when all she's wearing is a bra.
  • In the Olympic Games of Ancient Greece, married women were not allowed to be in the audience, much less participate in any way. May have had something to do with the fact that male athletes competed naked. There was an actual law stating that the penalty for any woman attending was the death sentence, though they never had to enforce it because it deterred the women from coming. However, one year a woman snuck in by cross-dressing as one of the athlete's coaches. When the ruse was revealed, there was a great commotion about what to do, given that they'd never actually killed a woman just for coming to the Olympics before and were uneasy about making this the first. The solution they ultimately settled upon was to give the woman who had snuck in a one-time pardon... while at the same time declaring a new law, that from now on all coaches, as well as athletes, would have to enter the arena naked...
  • Girl Code. Some close friends can carry on an entire conversation with looks and hand gestures or with as few words as possible.
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