Grinding, Metates and Sex
Did I mention that backbreaking labor was not the only burden borne by women who ground in Mexico? Now this gem (thanks to Michael Coon and Tacopedia on FB)
Buena para el petate, pero mala para el metate”
¡Quien le entendió, le entendió!
Y cabe aclarar que no en todos los casos aplica
Good for the mat but not for the metate
Oh dear. Bing unhelpfully translates this as:
“Good for the backpack, but bad for the metate”
Who understood him, understood you!
And it should be clarified that not in all cases applies (Translated by Bing)
A petate, mistranslated by Bing as back pack, is a woven floor mat. Doesn’t that make more sense of the illustration.
Edit. I’ve been informed that my last comment “And oh dear, oh dear, oh please, oh please” is obscure and, if explained, shows a lack of humor.
Well, the “oh dear” is a weary exclamation at yet one more image that trades on the assumption that any woman kneeling at the metate is fair game, down there, submissive, butt up, tits out. I find it hard to chuckle. I find it much easier to start weaving theories about the relations between machismo and the metate, probably all wrong, but, as I say, oh dear.
¡Bonita!
Gracias
Saludos,
Don Cuevas
It means that a body like that is better in the bed than in the kitchen, and that hotties can’t cook. Of course there are exceptions, it goes on. It has nothing to do with her being fair game.
Sorry, the pattern is too consistent for that.
Bueno para el petate — a petate is the straw mat she is kneeling on (or the bed she could be lying on);
pero malo para el metate — the metate is the grinding stone; the stone that she uses to grind with on the stone is called a mano — the same word as for “hand.” (The pair together are called metate y mano.)
So I would say that the interpretation by STREET GOURMET LA is a good one.
Dear Dr. Pegueros, Thanks for the comment. I don’t think we disagree about the correctness of LA Street Gourmet’s translation (it was Bing’s I was objecting to).
What troubles me about this cartoon is that it is part of a long tradition of treating women who grind as fair game for sex.
Rachel, I know this is an old, old post, but it came up in conjunction with your new post about how to choose a metate.
The saying you post here simply means that whatever woman is being referenced is good in bed but a lousy cook. It has nothing to do with tits or ass or availability, as depicted in that leering cartoon. Your theory is natural, but IMHO way too much of a stretch. Why?
In the way-back olden days, many if not most campesinos slept on woven rush petates, not in beds. The saying merely harks back to sleeping and other petate-based activities.
There are any number of sayings about the petate, including the use of the verb ‘petatear’–to die. Why that? Because, again in the olden times and among the very poor, people could not afford caskets for burial. When they died, they were simply rolled up in their petates (sleeping mats) and buried. Ask about someone one hasn’t seen for a while? “Se petateó” S/he died and was buried.
Thanks for this comment, Cristina. I’m not sure we are in disagreement. Yes, that was the original meaning of the phrase. But here it is attached to the leering cartoon, your description and a very apt one. It triggered my response because so many of the depictions of women grinding from the colonial period on seem to me to verge on the pornographic: breasts, usually naked, emphasized, hair flowing rather than tied back in braids, etc. And given that being on your knees grinding looks like a submissive state, I do think there is a long, lurking history of sexuality etc. associated with the metate. It is, need I say, in stark contrast to the physical power and mental agility of many of the women who did and do grind. But I think it’s there and needs to be called out when one sees calls for women to identify with their role as grinders. And I’m not normally one to go on about gender relations . . .
The cartoon is perhaps in poor taste and inappropriate for one’s mother-in-law, but does everything between men and women have to be about male predation? Maybe the relationship between men and women has been more complex and not as one-sided as that? For one thing, can we at least credit the women who preceded our own allegedly enlightened and liberated age as stronger and holding their own vis a vis men far better than implied? To do otherwise is to slight them as weak and powerless. It also makes men more powerful than they were in reality. I just don’t think women have ever been weak or powerless as a general proposition. Having said this, I have no desire to return to the past. But, can we acknowledge the obvious and recognize that men and women are different and that the relationship is supposed to be complimentary, not adversarial? Could it be that in fact that we need each each other?
Thanks for this comment. As someone who has been happily married for fifty years as well as pursuing a successful career I completely agree with your point that the relationship between men and women is not one-sided, that women in the past as well as in the present have been more than capable of holding their own, and that men and women need each other.
On the other hand, all the evidence is that in all the societies I know of grinding has been relegated to the least powerful. Sometimes that was male slaves, most often women slaves, or in more recent times, poorer women. Grinding is hot work on your knees and depictions of it, in my experience, tend to emphasize the sexual aspect. Well-to-do women did not in general grind. They spun and wove, activities that garnered much more respect.
I would like to have one so I can get that exercise while I cook. Thank you so much for all the interesting research and entertaining and informative comments!
A LOT of exercise! Thanks for your interest.