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Neck Shaping by Kayan Women

Neck shaping is the custom where women as young as two years in Kayan wear brass

neck coils or rings in their necks. According to the Kayan Lawhi tradition, wearing of very long

and brass coil neck rings is mandatory throughout their lives, interpreting beauty and elegance

(Stone P.42). This may seem wrong to the outsiders. Approaching it from an etic perspective,

most outsiders question why these women have to endure all these procedures of fitting brass

coils, which is painful and sometimes very heavy on their necks. The outsiders do not understand

the need to give young girls pressure into activities that limit their freedom as a rite of passage

and the pressure to bear this burden throughout their lives in the name of remaining true to one of

their most ancient customs.

Approaching it from a cultural relativism perspective, body shaping by fitting in brass

coils in the neck was a necessary practice in the Kayan culture. Women with long necks were

considered beautiful and were a symbol of status to the entire community. Even though to the

outsiders, neck shaping may be regarded torturous to the Kayan culture, it symbolizes cultural

identity associated with beauty. From a personal perspective, I believe that some objections are

well-founded. The practice's ability to cause disability, especially to the necks of the very young

girls under the age of 5 years, should be a significant concern. Although it is conducted for

beauty purposes, this practice can change a person's life adversely.

 Surname 2

Work Cited

Stone, P. K. (2020). Bound to Please: The Shaping of Female Beauty, Gender Theory, Structural

Violence, and Bioarchaeological Investigations. In Purposeful Pain (pp. 39-62). Springer,

Cham.