10. Gender, Sex & Body: Diversity & Social Movements

Welcome to Section 10 of the subject "Culture, Body & Mind" at La Trobe University. This is an upper-level unit in a subfield of my discipline, known as Anthropology of Body & Mind.  In this course, we are studying what an anthropological perspective on body and mind might tell us about humanity.

Revision

The first half of this course was concerned with subject-object distinction. Taking an anthropological perspective (Section 1), we looked at the limitations of this model in understanding other cultures (Section 2 & Section 3). Then we turned to ideas derived from phenomenology, most significantly embodiment, as another frame for understanding (Sections 4-6). We finished off this excursion into the connection between culture and body by considering field theory and the idea of habitus (Section 7).

We then journeyed into another terrain in the Anthropology of Body & Mind. This was concerned with how control is exerted over bodies and minds. For this, we turned to the theories of Foucault (Section 8) and Agamben (Section 9).

This week

For the final part of this course, we turn to issues of gender, sex, and body. The starting questions include:

•  "Are bodies everywhere defined as male or female and variations on that? If so why?"
•  Either way, "how do human societies determine sex and gender?"

Studying these issues

 In studying these issues, much crossover between the disciplines can be ascertained. "Gender Studies", "Gender and Sexuality", "Queer Studies" and similar fields of study have been growing since the 1990s.  The concepts we have considered ("difference", "sexual dimorphism", "patriarchy" etc. ) have largely emerged from theses fields and have proven extremely useful for anthropologists in their studies of various societies. As a result, many anthropologists contribute to these fields of study. As might become apparent, the approach we take to gender in anthropology differs slightly from that of other disciplines, including the fields of study known as and so on.  Thus there is a large and productive interplay between these 'studies' and the discipline of anthropology.

 In this part of the unit, we also introduce ideas of social movements and activism.

Sexual dimorphism: variations on the theme

The first question posed was, "Are bodies always defined as male or female and variations on that?" The concept we'll use to describe the male-female sexual distinction is "sexual dimorphism". Many societies emphasize a distinction between men and women. But men and women are construed differently. So what kinds of variations of this theme of sexual dimorphism can we find?

Hogbin on Menstruating Men

Let us start with a society with a rigid distinction between males and females. Wogeo is an island off the northern coast of New Guinea. Local residents have produced extraordinary masks. On Wogeo, for example, men and women are separate. Women have an advantage over men, in that they menstruate naturally. 'Obviously' men need to menstruate too, but they have to go through the pain and bother of slicing their penis to release menstrual blood.

You can read the original here. 

I have also made a summary here. 

Wogeo men

The Wogeo example apparently presents us with an extreme example of sexual dimorphism. To the extent that men rule women, the term patriarchy might also be applied to Wogeo society. 

Sambia

To take another example from New Guinea, the Sambia try to maintain distance between adult males and females. They go to what would seem to be extraordinary lengths to avoid contact. However, this makes sense when the perceived 'polluting' nature of women's menstrual blood is taken into account. This is explained in a segment from an ethnographic film (n.b. anthropologists tend to call their 'documentaries' "ethnographic film"; might sound a little pretentious, but that's the phrase we use). 

This ethnographic film is called "Guardians of the Flutes". The film takes its name from the book by anthropologist Gilbert Herdt, Guardians of the Flutes. 

I think it could be said that in these two societies men are not naturally manly. Babies with penises are designated as boys, but men need to be made from boys. In fact, there is a great risk that men will be emasculated and become feminine by too much contact with women. (This could be contrasted with a perception that babies with penises are naturally more manly; will be kicking in the womb, stronger when they are born, etc)

For more information please read:
Herdt, GH 1981, Guardians of the flutes: Idioms of masculinity, McGraw-Hill, New York. (Read “Masculinity” pp. 203-253).

Required reading: Nanda, Travesti of Brazil

Until recently, at least, Western societies tended to define sexuality (ie. homo-, bi-, and hetero-sexuals; LGBTI) in terms of sexual, identity, orientation or attraction. But there are other ways to define sexuality. The Introduction and Chapter 3 (“Introduction”& “Men and Not-Men”) of Nanda S 2000, Gender Diversity: Crosscultural Variations are a great place to start studying this question from an anthropological perspective. In Brazilian culture, travestí or men who are anally penetrated by other men, are not understood in similar terms. How are they understood?  Along with women, they are considered as not-men. So, the basic gender division in lower-class Brazilian society:

• Penis people who penetrate = male
• People (whether they possess penis or vagina) who are penetrated = not male

Travesti

Tcherkezoff: Fa'afafine & Tomboys in Samoa

"Transgender in Samoa..." is a great reading Prof Helen Lee uses in her 1st-year anthropology course at La Trobe Univesity. It provides a good example of applying theory to gender variety in Samoa:

   ...fa‘afāfine are persons whose families and neighbors characterize them as boys at birth but who, later in life (usually in late childhood or early adolescence), are said to act “in the way of women” (fa‘a-fafine, the plural of the term being fa‘afāfine). However, they never introduce themselves as “fa‘afāfine,” but by their own given names. If queried about their gender, they reply that they are “girls.”
     ...another gendered category, which few in mainstream Samoan society are willing to talk about openly... is, girls or women who are said to be born as girls but who come to be viewed as acting in the way of men.... There are two differences between them and fa‘afāfine. First, they don’t claim to be of the other gender: they assert that they are girls, not boys. Second, there is no straightforward Samoan term that designates them as being “in the way of boys or men.” When Samoans refer to them, they use various circumlocutions (e.g., “exhibiting the behavior of boys or men”) or, more pithily, the English borrowing “tomboy.”...
     This contrast between fa‘afafine and tomboy is not just a matter of terminology but runs deeper, in that Samoans born as boys who act like girls have at their disposal a much broader range of identificational practices than Samoans born as girls who act like boys...this asymmetry works directly to the detriment of tomboys.

Fa'afafine

In other words, 'transgender' men are more accepted than 'transgender' women.

Similar findings from West Sumatra in Indonesia as discussed by Evelyn Blackwood in  "Tombois in West Sumatra: Constructing Masculinity and Erotic Desire".

Graham: 5 Genders of the Bugis in Sulawesi

Among the Bugis, there are male transexual priests, transgender women, transgender men, women, and men.  Graham (2001) sees these as 5 genders: 

The Bugis acknowledge three sexes (female, male, hermaphrodite), four genders (women, men, calabai, and calalai), and a fifth meta-gender group, the bissu.
     'Bissu' tends to be translated as 'transvestite priest', but this term is less than satisfactory. Transvestite implies cross-dressing, but bissu have their own distinctive clothing. Moreover, bissu do not go from one gender to another; they are a combination of all genders. To become a bissu, one must be born both female and male, or hermaphroditic. (To be precise, the Bugis believe that a bissu who appears externally male is internally female, and vice versa). This combination of sexes enables a 'meta-gender' identity to emerge.
     This brings us to calalai and calabai. Strictly speaking, calalai means 'false man' and calabai 'false woman'. However, people are not harrassed for identifying as either of these gender categories. On the contrary, calalai and calabai are seen as essential to completing the gender system. A useful analogy suggested to me by Dr Greg Acciaioli is to imagine the Bugis gender system of South Sulawesi as a pyramid, with the bissu at the apex, and men, women, calalai, and calabai located at the four base corners.
     Calalai are anatomical females who take on many of the roles and functions expected of men. For instance, Rani works alongside men as a blacksmith, shaping kris, small blades and other knives. Rani wears men's clothing and ties hir sarong in the fashion of men. Rani also lives with hir wife and their adopted child, Erna. While Rani works with men, dresses as a man, smokes cigarettes, and walks alone at night, which are all things women are not encouraged to do, Rani is female and therefore not considered a man. Nor does Rani wish to become a man. Rani is calalai. Rani's female anatomy, combined with hir occupation, behaviour, and sexuality, allows Rani to identify, and be identified, as a calalai.
     Calabai, conversely, are anatomical males who, in many respects, adhere to the expectations of women. However, calabai do not consider themselves women, are not considered women. Nor do they wish to become women, either by accepting restrictions placed on women such as not going out alone at night, or by recreating their body through surgery. However, whereas calalai tend to conform more to the norms of men, calabai have created a specific role for themselves in Bugis society. 
     Bissu, calalai, and calabai challenge the notion that individuals must conform to one of two genders, woman or man, and that one's anatomy must support one's gender. Bugis gender reveals the diverse nature of human identity.

For more of Graham's research on the 5 genders please refer to this 2001 article in Intersections or this 2001 article in the IIAS newsletter. Or,  more recently, another article on the 5 genders.

Summary on gender diversity

In this presentation, I try to revise the points from the above readings:

Sex, Gender, & Sexuality in Western countries

During my younger years, I went to school in four different countries (UK, US, Canada, & Australia). In my experience, the idea that men and women were separate and that women were somehow inferior seemed to prevail. For instance, it 1986, when I was in Year 8 my school, in its unerring wisdom, appointed a male teacher as something like "Sexual Equality Officer".  It was really just a label.  Mr. Brewer was a full-time woodwork and metalwork teacher sporting an impressive Marlboro-man mustache. He taught what in the USA is called "shop classes".  He was a popular teacher for the most part. The tough-guys liked him, but by-and-large he didn't approve of my form class as we took two languages and very little woodwork and metalwork. This made us suspicious in his eyes. In any case, after being appointed to his new position, he went around the school telling form classes about the role. He sat my form class down one day to give us a reassuring talk about 'sexual equality' and what it meant for our society. He was concerned not to alarm us. "I mean we're not going to be stupid about this," he explained, "of course we're not talking about women becoming pilots". For the preservation of Mr. Brewer's sense of dignity and assured superiority, it was lucky no budding feminists were present to prod him on this. But just to annoy him, one of the students, I think it was me, decided to press the question, "why can't women be pilots". "Well," he reasoned, "they are just too emotional. They wouldn't be able to manage in an emergency." Mr. Brewer's thinking about gender, sex, and sexuality what was called heteronormative.

Heteronormativity

A heteronormative approach holds on to gender binaries and takes heterosexual sex to be normal.  A heteronormative approach aligns biological 'sex', sexuality, gender identity, and gender roles. I don't think many people self-identify as 'heteronormative'. Rather it is term used among scholars and activists to characterize what are perceived as conservative views on sexuality. 

Male-male sex, for example, is considered 'deviant'; women are better at nurturing; men are naturally more aggressive and physical--all these are heteronormative attitudes. In another way, what he said fits into binaries of man-woman; rational-emotional; provider-nurturer.

Mr Brewer's view was classic 1980s heteronormativity. What is the current (2019) heteronormativity? Saskia Wieringa, academic activist who identifies herself as non-heteronormative, argues it's the ideal of the nuclear family: sure Mum might be working, Dad might be a stay-at-home father, but the nuclear family remains the dominant idea. It might work for Christian, Jewish, and Muslim conservatives. Gay couples probably don't fit into the current heteronormative idea.

Social Movements and Activism 

Now we need to turn to the idea of "social movements". By "social movement", I mean a conscious and organized attempt to change society.  The famous examples from anthropological literature include the Navaho Ghost Dance, which was supposed to bring the spirits of the ancestors to help Indigenous Americans of the Navaho and other nearby 'tribes'. In the Cargo Cults of Melanesia, mostly occurring in the Twentieth Century, people stopped working and producing food while trying to bring back ancestors and/or a Jesus-like figure. In both cases, a radical new plan for society was enacted by comparatively large numbers of people. In the West, 'traditional' social movements included the early followers of Christianity and Islam, the Crusades, and some of the Medieval 'heresies'. Modern 'social' movements include movements like the Bolsheviks, Suffragists, the Civil Rights Movements, and relevant to our discussion, a series of movements that began in the 1970s with the Gay and Lesbian Rights movements.

There haven't been social movements or activists associated with the other theorists studied in this unit. We have never seen Cartesian Dualists or phenomenologists demonstrating on the streets. But with gender studies, there have been attendant social movements, now commonly associated with the idea of LGBTI.

LGBTI-'normativity' or Customized Gender?

The acronym LGBTI derives from Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, and Intersex. This has been expanded in different formulations including LGBTQI (Q = Queer or Questioning) and even to "LGBTTQQIAAP", which you can look up. These terms recently emerged from what might be called 'gay and lesbian rights' activism in the West in the 1970s. This social movement has achieved a significant amount of success in reframing ideas around sex, gender, and sexuality. This received significant support on campuses in areas that evolved in the 1980s & 1990s in the form of (as I recall)  "Feminist Studies", "Gender Studies", and "Queer Studies". Which makes what is heteronormative different today than back in the 1980s.

For instance, back in the 1970s, if I had accidentally walked into a "female" washroom/toilet at an airport or restaurant I would have been mortified and the females might 'rightly' feel entitled to be indignant and offended. Now at my university and many other places formally designates washrooms as 'gender-neutral'.  So if you feel like a male you can use the male washroom, irrespective of your genetic make-up or whether you have a penis. So in certain locations, university campuses, inner-city cafes, a kind of LGBTI-normativity might be replacing heteronormativity.

Facebook, a decreasingly popular social network site at the time of writing, started off, as I recall, with male and female gender designation. By 2014, it had 71 different gender options. In early 2019, there was no 'drop-down' menu with 71 different gender options. Facebook let me simply customize my gender.

Gender & LGBTI Movements

Activism

In certain historical circumstances, rather than just accepting the world as we live in, people actively try to change it. As I write anti- and pro-LGBTI groups are engaged in a 'culture war' over the status of 'gays', 'transvestites', and other non-heteronormative categories in Indonesia.

On the other hand, in many places where people who identify as LGBTI or similar face significant persecution. Moreover, a strong counter-movement, we could label it 'social conservative', seeks to restrict what might be called 'LGBTI rights'. In the following presentation (c. 2015), I discuss actions by pro-LGBTI activism against growing intolerance in Indonesia:

It should be noted that in this presentation, I ditch using the usual anthropological relativism and rather take an activist, pro-LGBTI, stance. In other words take a prescriptive tone--describing how I think the world should) rather than simply describing the way the world is. This is typical of the field.  Often scholars within these fields of study are also activists, promoting gay rights, sexual equality and so on.

In the years since I gave this presentation, things have gotten even more violent. A large-scale, often legalized, persecution of gay and trans men and people who identify as LGBTI has emerged in Indonesia. The term "LGBTI" has been taken up as a kind rallying cry in parts of Indonesia, Russia, and Africa where Westerners like myself are seen as meddling in their business and forcing Western values and, I guess, a Western LGBTI-normativity on them. For them, it is cultural colonialism.

Take Indonesia as an example. The earthquake, tsunami, and ensuing avalanches in Sulawesi (where the people with 5 genders live) was blamed by religious conservatives on LGBT. They said LGBT in Sulawesi was  God's punishment. LGBT means Longsor (landslide) Gempa Bumi (earthquake) and Tsunami. Also words like "Lesbi", "Tomboi" and "Gay" have gained currency--partly at the instigation of gay and lesbian activists--in Indonesia. The social conservatives in Indonesia see that these terms are 'foreign', that is English sounding words.

Sexual desire, behavior, & identity

Leaving aside the above issues and challenges, the question of whether LGBTI is a useful anthropological concept emerges. Altman argues, this formulation confuses sexual desire, behavior, & identity:

 The term “LGBTI” combines sexuality (lesbian, gay, bisexual) with gender identity (trans) and gender characteristics (intersex).

So maybe LGBTI has limitations in its usefulness to analyze non-Western and even Western cultures. But what is clear from looking at other cultures, is that the 'hetero-norm' does not necessarily apply.

The 'Genderbread Person' provides more fluid definitions that allowed for by the term "LGBTI". Part of the social movements that emerged from the 'Gay Rights' movement, activists, NGOs etc. produce materials like these. 

Summary

Emerging from the "Gay Rights" movement, social movements and activism in the West have struggled against heteronormativity. In spite of the hostility from 'conservative' counter-movements, they have made significant gains such as same-sex marriage, school curriculum reforms, and various legal rights. 

Following Gramsci's terminology, we could see this as a struggle for hegemony. In other words, intellectuals and activists from both 'sides' are battling over what will be accepted as the legitimate or authentic view of gender, sex, and body.

Discussion

There's insufficient space in this short blog to discuss the complexity of issues. I haven't, for example, discussed a variety of important concepts including "queer", "gender equality", and so on. Nor have I discussed the variety of positions on both 'sides'. For instance, pro-gender equality activists who see marriage as a conservative and antiquated social bond were opposed to same-sex marriage. Anthropology with its methodological commitment to relativism and its rejection of ethnocentrism would see both sides as making culturally specific, historically constructed ideas of authentic gender and sex. This leaves little room for activism. So when taking an activist role, anthropologists are forced to put these values to the sides. 

Conclusion

Using the anthropological perspective, we have considered a tiny sample of gender diversity from different human societies. We also analyzed social movements in the West struggling over what will be the 'norm', the authentic, version of gender, sex and body. One fascinating similarity is that in the different societies we considered and in the West, gender and sex was constructed in relation, or opposition, to a binary of male and female. We will now move on (in Section 11) to consider the usefulness of this binary.