Neither Man Nor Woman

Neither Man Nor Woman PDF Author: Serena Nanda
Publisher: Cengage Learning
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
This ethnography is a cultural study of the Hijras of India, a religious community of men who dress and act like women. It focuses on how Hijras can be used in the study of gender categories and human sexual variation.

The Hijras. An alternative Gender Role in India

The Hijras. An alternative Gender Role in India PDF Author: Nina Daub
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3656725454
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject Sociology - Relationships and Family, grade: 1,0, University of Trier, language: English, abstract: Still, in every culture there are people whose sex cannot be clearly identified or who do not identify with the gender that is designated for them. These individuals are in a state of liminality, which means that they are in a situation that is “ambiguous or indeterminate” (Boyd and Lassiter 218). The word liminality comes from the Latin word limen, which means “threshold”. Hence, these people cannot exactly classify themselves as belonging to one or the other sex or gender. A famous example of such people are the hijras of India who represent an alternative or mixed sex/gender role since they “are culturally conceptualized as neither man nor woman, neither male nor female” (Nanda 2008: 461). The hijras, the so called third gender in India, are usually represented by biological males who take on a feminine gender or sexual role. They are “people whom we in the West would differentiate as eunuchs, homosexuals, transsexuals, hermaphrodites, and transvestites” (Nanda 1993: 175). However, a great difference between alternative genders in India and the West can be seen especially concerning their social acceptance. Our Western culture, “where ideas about sex and gender are conflated rather than viewed separately, [is] not well socialized to the possibility of gender variation” (Boyd and Lassiter 217), whereas the hijra’s “role is so deeply rooted in Indian culture that it can accommodate a wide variety of [...] gender identities [and] cross-gender behaviors [...]” (Nanda 1993: 175). Why the hijras of India take an established role within Hindu culture, who they really are, and what their role in society actually is, will be presented in this work.

Neither Man Nor Woman

Neither Man Nor Woman PDF Author: Serena Nanda
Publisher: Cengage Learning
ISBN:
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
This ethnography is a cultural study of the Hijras of India, a religious community of men who dress and act like women. It focuses on how Hijras can be used in the study of gender categories and human sexual variation.

With Respect to Sex

With Respect to Sex PDF Author: Gayatri Reddy
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226707547
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
With Respect to Sex is an intimate ethnography that offers a provocative account of sexual and social difference in India. The subjects of this study are hijras or the "third sex" of India—individuals who occupy a unique, liminal space between male and female, sacred and profane. Hijras are men who sacrifice their genitalia to a goddess in return for the power to confer fertility on newlyweds and newborn children, a ritual role they are respected for, at the same time as they are stigmatized for their ambiguous sexuality. By focusing on the hijra community, Gayatri Reddy sheds new light on Indian society and the intricate negotiations of identity across various domains of everyday life. Further, by reframing hijra identity through the local economy of respect, this ethnography highlights the complex relationships among local and global, sexual and moral, economies. This book will be regarded as the definitive work on hijras, one that will be of enormous interest to anthropologists, students of South Asian culture, and specialists in the study of gender and sexuality.

Religion and Sexuality in Cross-Cultural Perspective

Religion and Sexuality in Cross-Cultural Perspective PDF Author: Stephen Ellingson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113537595X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Issues of sexuality and gender are hotly contested in both religious communities and national cultures around the world. In the social sciences, religious traditions are often depicted as inherently conservative or even reactionary in their commitments to powerful patriarchal and pronatalist sexual norms and gender categories. In illuminating the practices of religious traditions in various cultures, these essays expose the diversity of religious rituals and mythologies pertaining to sexuality. In the process the contributors challenge conventional notions of what is normative in our sexual lives.

Culture, Society and Sexuality

Culture, Society and Sexuality PDF Author: Richard Guy Parker
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9781857288117
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 504

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Book Description
This work offers an introduction to the central debates in sexuality research. Among the issues examined are the social and cultural dimensions of sex, human sexuality and sex research.

Third Sex, Third Gender

Third Sex, Third Gender PDF Author: Gilbert Herdt
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 194213052X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
Most modern discussions of the relationship of biological sex to gender presuppose that there are two genders, male and female, founded on the two biological sexes. But not all cultures share this essentialist assumption, and even Western societies have not always embraced it. Bringing together historical and anthropological studies, Third Sex, Third Gender challenges the usual emphasis on sexual dimorphism and reproduction, providing a unique perspective on the various forms of socialization of people who are neither “male” nor “female.” The existence of a third sex or gender enables us to understand how Byzantine palace eunuchs and Indian hijras met the criteria of special social roles that necessitated practices such as self-castration, and how intimate and forbidden desires were expressed among the Dutch Sodomites in the early modern period, the Sapphists of eighteenth-century England, or the so-called hermaphrodite-homosexuals of nineteenth-century Europe and America. By contextualizing these practices and by allowing these bodies, meanings, and desires to emerge, Third Sex, Third Gender provides a new way to think about sex and gender systems that is crucial to contemporary debates within the social sciences.

The Truth About Me

The Truth About Me PDF Author: A Revathi
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 8184752717
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
We got stared at a lot. People asked out loudly—some out of curiosity, others out of malice—whether we were men or women or ‘number nines’ or devadasis. Several men made bold to touch us, on our backs, on our shoulders. Some attempted to grab our breasts. ‘Original or duplicate?’ they shouted and hooted. At such moments I felt despair and wondered if there would ever be a way for us to live with dignity and make a decent living. Revathi was born a boy, but felt and behaved like a girl. In telling her life story, Revathi evokes marvellously the deep unease of being in the wrong body that plagued her from childhood. To be true to herself, to escape the constant violence visited upon her by her family and community, the village-born Revathi ran away to Delhi to join a house of hijras. Her life became an incredible series of dangerous physical and emotional journeys to become a woman and to find love. The Truth about Me is the unflinchingly courageous and moving autobiography of a hijra who fought ridicule, persecution and violence both within her home and outside to find a life of dignity.

Gender Diversity

Gender Diversity PDF Author: Serena Nanda
Publisher: Waveland Press
ISBN: 147861546X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
Anthropologist Serena Nanda has heralded the importance of understanding human similarities and differences throughout her writing and teaching career. This was especially evidenced in her groundbreaking work, Gender Diversity: Crosscultural Variations, a masterful, far-reaching examination of the relationships between sex, gender, and sexuality and how they are culturally constructed. Rich ethnographic examples representing nine cultures illuminate the need to analyze sex/gender roles and identities on the basis of broad cultural patterns and distinct cultural features, including social class, ethnicity, age, religion, urban or rural residence, and exposure to Western cultures. The latest edition incorporates new material on hijras in Bangladesh, three gender alternatives in Indonesia, and global changes related to migration, health, and communication. Concept-reinforcing questions have been added to each chapter. Gender Diversity, Second Edition encourages readers to think in new ways about what they consider natural, normal, or morally right. As a concise supplement with multidisciplinary appeal, the enhanced edition is sure to energize the undergraduate classroom.

Conversing on Gender

Conversing on Gender PDF Author: G. G. Bolich
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0615156703
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 462

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Book Description
Conversing on Gender is, as its subtitle indicates, a primer for entering the broad conversation on gender that can be found both inside and outside of academic circles. The book considers the relation of gender to sex and sexuality, reviews prominent theories of gender, and covers basic gender issues.

Beyond Emasculation

Beyond Emasculation PDF Author: Adnan Hossain
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316517047
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Studies hijras in Bangladesh, challenging the dominant representation of hijra as either a third sex or a form of transgender.