Gender Ii

Front 1

Gender Attribution

Back 1

“We make a gender attribution, that is we decide whether someone is male or female, every time we see a new person”

Kessler and McKenna (1985)

Front 2

"gender chromosomes"

Back 2

Kessler and McKenna (1985) use the word 'gender' when referring to everything, cultural and those physical characteristics which are usually referred to as 'sex'.

This is because, they argue, it emphasizes their position that the element of social construction is primary in ALL aspects of being female or male, ie biological, physical or social.

Front 3

Butler (1990) Gender Troube

Back 3

“structural oppositions implicitly operate to quell” gender ambiguity

Front 4

Butler on sex (Gender Trouble)

Back 4

Questions how we define Sex... “anatomical, chromosomal, or hormonal”?

Often scientific discourses which “purport to establish… ‘facts’ for us” around sex

Front 5

Ortner (1974)

Back 5

Women are universally subordinate to men due to their symbolic association with nature which is seen universally as beneath culture.

The female physiology, which means women spends more time on reproduction, domestic sphere, child rearing responsibilities and her psychological structure which is a result of her socialisation,all serve to reinforce the culturally defined position as closer to nature.

Front 6

Ortner (1974) criticisms

Back 6

* Ortner concludes by arguing that women should be allowed the same opportunities as men and should participate equally in ‘cultural’ activities in order for the universal subordination of women to be resolved

Does this devalue the natural processes of women?

Front 7

Strathern (1980)
Dichotomy not universal

Back 7

Strathern argues that by stating that a nature/culture dichotomy is universal, anthropologists such as Ortner and Lévi-Strauss are “attributing this dichotomy to the thought systems of other peoples”

Strathern carried out ethnographic research with the Hagen people of the Papua New Guinea Highlands and states that, in fact, there are no categories of ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ in Hagen thought.

Front 8

Serena Nanda’s Neither Man Nor Woman (1989)

Back 8

Many hijra describe themselves as being women, having either been born that way (p100) or become women after emasculation (p81)

Front 9

Nanda (1989), what is a hijra?

Back 9

Nanda makes it clear that being hijra is not one fixed gender identity; rather, it is a community which includes individuals whose gender identities fall outside of the male/female dichotomy in a range of differing ways.

Front 10

Nanda (1989) criticizes the approach towards sex and gender in the West by saying it is

Back 10

“dichotomous and permanent,"

and that Westerners should learn to become more accommodating to individuals who “do not fit into our traditionally prescribed categories”

Front 11

Kulik (1998) and the Travesti

Back 11

Conducted his fieldwork in Salvador, Brazil over a period of twelve months

Travestis are biologically male prostitutes who assume feminine names, clothing, body shapes (through silicone injections and hormone ingestion) and linguistic pronouns, yet crucially do not categorise themselves as women

This “specific combination of female physical attributes and male homosexual subjectivity makes travestis almost unique in the world” (Kulick 1998: 6).

Front 12

Kulik (1998)

Back 12

Due to the heterodominant nature of society, when children were discovered to be homosexual they were expelled from their homes when parents discovered them.

From this moment on children as young as ten ingest female hormones and seek industrial silicone injections to form their rounded buttocks in order to feminize their bodies.

One becomes a prostitute from the age of thirteen and from then on is subject to a life of violence and hatred despite the legalisation of prostitution.

Front 13

Kulik (1998)

Back 13

So Kulik (1998) is saying that in Brazil, gender is linked with sexuality, as the Travesti turn to this specific lifestyle after being rejected for being homosexual

Front 14

How are the Travesti's depicted by Kulik (1998) similar to the African-american and Latino gay and trans people involved in New York ball culture, depicted in Paris Is Burning by Livingson (1990)?

Back 14

Travesti are often rejected from their birth families and enter into micro communities of travesti due to their less desirable status in wider society.

This is similar to the "Houses" in New York ball culture, such as House Xtravaganza or House Labeija, where 'children' find new families

Front 15

Kulik (1998) and homophobia in Brazilian society

Back 15

Brazilian travestis live in a highly homophobic and “rigidly heterosexual” society, as Kulick successfully shows through his analysis of newspaper discourse and linguistics. Homophobia is so embedded in Brazilian life that the travestis are even prejudiced against themselves.

For example, when propositioned with the possibility of undergoing a full sex change an informant named Banana said: “It’s already enough, this sin that I have of being a viado (homosexual)” (Kulick 1998: 85).

Front 16

How do Travestis gain their female gender, if not by sex changes (which never occur)?

Back 16

Travestis gain gender through sexual acts / through their relationships with heterosexual boyfriends.

It is imperative for boyfriends to pay no attention to the travestis penis, if they do, the relationship is instantly ended - “a good boyfriend helps to define and display how feminine a travesti is

Front 17

How do Travestis gain their female gender? II

Back 17

Kulik vitally dedicates a large chapter to the importance of boyfriends in order to fully understand that gender is created through masculinity and relationships to others, rather than through physiological differences.

Front 18

Haraway (1985)

Back 18

In Haraway’s 1985 text, A manifesto for cyborgs, she argues that the category of nature has begun to shift and change with the advent of new technologies.

While ‘nature’ used to be seen as a fixed category distinct from the man-made, in the late twentieth century “machines have made thoroughly ambiguous the difference between natural and artificial” (Haraway 1985 p69).

Front 19

Haraway's theory of a cyborg myth (1985)

Back 19

Haraway argues that the human race can now be rightly viewed as cyborgs, such is our dependency on technology to communicate, and the integration of technology into our lives.

She cites the example of new reproductive technologies, leading to a world where “sexual reproduction is one kind of reproductive strategy amongst many” (Haraway 1985 p81).