Midsummer "mayhole" revolution |
Among the most important parts of a traditional Midsummer celebration is the decoration and erection of a flower-adorned maypole, around which joyous Swedes, young and old, dance and sing merry tunes. [...]
But this year, a growing chorus of voices rising up against Sweden's traditional Midsummer celebrations, implore Swedes to break with tradition and dance around a vagina instead.Chamberland, a self-proclaimed "femme genderqueer" who has just finished his master's degree in gender studies, adds that the Midsummer celebration in general is too "heteronormative:" "The tradition of girls picking seven different flowers to put under their pillow to dream about their future man is also very heteronormative and patriarchal."
“In the future I want coming generations to say on their trips abroad that ‘In Sweden we celebrate midsummer by dancing around a vagina’,” says Alexander Alvina Chamberland, co-founder of the group Midsommarfitta ('Midsummer Cunt'). (The Local)
While some experts dispute the interpretation of the maypole as a phallic symbol, others suggest that the pole indeed represents a penis but that the earth symbolizes the woman being fertilized by the pole, meaning that both sexes are actually being represented in the traditional symbol. Learn more here.
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