Man in Tahiti and Semai

Men in Tahiti and Semai

Men in Tahiti:

Tahiti, an Island in Polynesia, has a much less marked differentiation between masculinity and femininity then most societies. Furthermore, the Tahitian concept of masculinity does not require men to act as providers and protectors. There is little need for men to take physical risks since there is no warfare, and there are few dangerous occupations. The lagoon offers a plentiful supply of fish so risky deep-sea fishing is not necessary.
Families co-operate together in economic activities and there is no social pressure to be economically successful. It also encourages men to be timid and passive, They are expected to ignore insults and very rarely fight one another. Tahiti men are neither protective of their women, nor possessive towards them. A French explorer found that Tahitian men were extremely hospitable and even offered him their daughters.
The Semai people live in central Malaysia. Both men and women are strongly opposed to violence and aggression. Aggression is denoted by the word ‘punan’, which also means ‘taboo’. The Semai try to avoid anything that frustrates another person and goes against their wishes. As a consequence, both women and men are usually expected to agree to a request for sex, even if they are married and the person requesting sex is not their spouse. There is very little jealousy and Semai men and women tolerate the extra-marital affairs of their spouses as being no more than a loan.

Semai Men:

The Semai do not engage in competitive sport, and are not materialistic. Men do not have to compete with each other because farming is co-operative and if one man has too little to get by. he simply asks another man for some of his. It is punan to refuse. Although the Semai do hunt, and hunting is reserved exclusively for males, the hunting is not dangerous or difficult.
They hunting nothing larger or more dangerous than small pigs, they stop hunting before noon when it gets too hot, and ‘if they encounter danger, they run away and hide without any shame or hesitation’.
There are some differences between men and women in both Tahitian and Semai society (although amongst the Semai they are not particularly pronounced), neither has a cultural image of the ‘the real man’. Gilmore suggests that the unusual characteristics of masculinity in these societies may result from the material circumstances in which the societies exist.