Download The Cultural Construction of Gender and Sexuality

Seeing Anthropology
Cultural Anthropology through Film
4th edition (abridged)
by Karl G. Heider
Chapter 12
The Cultural Construction of Gender and
Sexuality
DIFFERENTIATING SEXUALITY AND GENDER
The terms sex, sexuality, and gender have been used in so many different ways that we must be very explicit about
what we mean by them. Using the biocultural model helps to sort things out. As a biological term, gender refers to the
fact that humans are overwhelmingly either male or female. Culturally, however, gender is constructed in a bewildering
variety of ways. Not only is there tremendous variation in what it means to be "male" or "female," but, as we shall see,
there may be more than two cultural genders. The organization of cultural activity by gender is pervasive. Not only do all
cultures use gender in this way, going far beyond the obvious biological facts of conception, childbearing, and breastfeeding, but gender differences show up in most aspects of life. Practically every subject that we touch on in cultural
anthropology shows the workings of the cultural construction of gender, and gender is an issue in nearly every chapter of
this book.
Sexuality is closely linked to gender. Again, in the terms of our biocultural model, we begin with the biological fact that
Homo sapiens reproduces through sexual intercourse between male and female. Then there are the culture-specific
elaborations on that act of sex: sexual behavior and the meaning of sex as well as all the culture-specific elaborations of
eroticisms and other sexual pleasures. However, sex is so embedded in issues of power, gender, social structure, and the
person that we must go far beyond just the ideas of pleasure and procreation to understand it.
HOW MANY GENDERS? HOW MANY SEXUALITIES? THE PUZZLE OF HOMOSEXUALITY
Homosexuality is, for most 21st-century Americans, a particular puzzle. Is it biological? Is it learned at an early age? Is
it an adult choice? Just how our biocultural model fits (what is innate, and what is learned?) is the subject of much
scientific research and increasingly acrimonious political debate. Sometimes the line between science and politics is quite
unclear. Another part of the debate takes place on moral grounds, where the biological facts are considered irrelevant to
whether homosexual behavior is condemned or accepted.
Anthropology contributes to this debate in two ways: by examining the cultural assumptions of the Western model of
gender and sexuality and by exploring the ideas of other cultures. Of course, the West recognizes the existence of
alternative genders and pleasurable sexuality beyond reproduction, but people and governments have had an uneasy
time with both. The ethnographic data will take us to a more complete view of how Homo sapiens constructs both gender
and sexuality.
Alternative genders from other cultures have often been described in the anthropological literature. Commonly, such
people were thought of as transvestites or cross-dressers—that is, members of one gender who simply switched genders
symbolically. As long as the dimorphism model was used, there was little inclination to credit the possibility of a third (or
fourth) gender in other cultures.
Among North American Indian tribes, there have been many variations on gender behavior that go far beyond a simple
male-female dichotomy. In The Zuni Man-Woman (1991), Will Roscoe summed up the current understanding of these
patterns in North American Indian culture, saying that the most important attributes of this gender were their economic
activities (males did woman's tasks, females were active in "warfare, hunting and leadership") and their special
supernatural powers. Their attire and even their sexual activity were generally less important. They were usually full,
respected members of their groups and often outstanding figures (Roscoe, 1994:33210.
A new term, two-spirit, has been proposed (Jacobs, 1994). For example, the Northern Athapascan, of northern
Canada, believe in reincarnation, and when the spirit of one person is reincarnated in the body of a person of the opposite
gender there can be, at least temporarily, doubt about real gender identity (Goulet, 1996). We can formulate a general
principle for Native North America: Although male and female are the basic genders, the various cultures in different ways
provide socially acceptable alternative gender roles for some individuals.
Serena Nanda has written about the hijras of India. Even though Hindu culture has a strongly dualistic concept of
male and female, there is room for alternative genders:
In Hinduism, the complementary opposition of male and female, man and woman, represents the most important sex and gender roles in
society but by no means the only ones. The interchange of male and female qualities, transformations of sex and gender and alternative sex
and gender roles, both among deities and humans, are meaningful and positive themes in Hindu mythology, ritual and art. (Nanda, 1994:375)
Men become hijra by having an operation that removes their maleness—their genitals. They have two main social
roles simultaneously and (apparently) in contradiction: as sacred ritual specialists and as prostitutes for men.
There are many other culturally constructed "extra" genders: mahu in Tahiti, Hawaii, and elsewhere in Polynesia
(Besnier, 1994); a pattern of women "becoming" men in the Balkans, which may or may not represent a real third gender
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(Gremaux, 1994); the kwolu-aatmwol of the New Guinea Sambia culture, who are biologically hermaphroditic and a
culturally constructed third gender (Herdt, 1994); and alternative genders such as banci and waria in Indonesia (Oetomo,
1991).
THE ROLE OF GENDER IN SOCIETY
Once again, folk wisdom plays a large role in our thinking about gender. We swing from thoroughgoing biological
determinism ("the biological differences between men and women shape vast behavioral differences") to complete
relativism ("it is only culture that makes male and female different"). The issue is complicated by strongly held political
views at either extreme.
Much basic biological research on male/female differences is going on now, and as the preliminary research reported
in the popular press is either supported or modified, our understanding of the biocultural model deepens. Watch the news
magazines and the New York Times Tuesday science section for constant reports of new findings. For example, gender
differences have been found (for both humans and rats) in cravings: Males desire protein and fat-rich red meat, and
females desire chocolate. Also, males and females use different parts of their brains to solve the same sorts of problems.
Gender in Politics and Economics
Politics is the study of power relations in a society: who has it, how they get it, how they exercise it, how they lose it.
One of the most striking regularities is that human societies are patriarchal: Men hold the major positions of power, and
women do not have access to power over men. There are matrilineal societies, of course, in which descent is reckoned
through the female line and one is a member of one's mother's descent group. There are societies such as the Iroquois,
where women had much influence (Wallace, 1969), or the Minangkabau of West Sumatra, who express "matrifocality
both as an ideology and as a lived reality" (Sanday, 1990:141). There are instances of exceptional or accidental women
who became rulers (Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth I of England, Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher). But we know of no
societies in which women normally rule—that is, matriarchial societies.
MANIFESTATIONS OF SEXUALITY
Sexuality as Biological Procreation
The biological essence of sexuality is sexual intercourse for the purpose of creating a child. It would be hard to
imagine a culture in which sexuality began and ended with the procreative act. Even the Roman Catholic Church, which
considers sexuality as being primarily for procreation and proclaims any act that is designed to thwart procreation to be
"intrinsically evil," states that within marriage for the sake of procreation, "sexuality is a source of joy and pleasure"
(Catholic Church, 1995:sec. 2370 and 2362, respectively).
Sexuality in Art
A major theme in much art, both visual and verbal, is sexuality. Such art is not necessarily about the act of sex itself,
but rather hints at or recounts the desires, pleasures, and disappointments of sex, the quests for or escapes from it, and
the imaginings about it. Sexuality is particularly evident in literature, theater, and dance but less obvious in architecture or
music. Although the religious arts of the Judaeo-Christian tradition are virtually devoid of overt sexuality (the Song of
Solomon is a famous exception), Hindu art and literature are strongly sexual. There are even Hindu temples in India and
Nepal that are covered with depictions of many varieties of sexual intercourse, reflecting the importance of sexuality in
Hindu theology.
One of the interesting implications of the culturally patterned depictions of sexuality is that there are limits on what can
legitimately be depicted. When these limits are breached, we call the depiction pornography. In cultures such as those of
Europe and North America during the last century or two, in which the limits have been relatively restrictive, there have
been tremendous production and consumption of pornography along with intense social interest in defining and
combating pornography. In theory, there should be limits to the depiction of sexuality in every culture, but the identification
and repression of pornography do not seem to be important everywhere.
Sexuality in Attire
Clothing may function in a utilitarian way to protect the body from the elements, but it is also a means of nonverbal
communication, conveying a wide range of messages about gender, age, status, and often sexuality (Barnes and Eicher,
1993).
GENDER-SPECIFIC ALTERATIONS OF THE BODY
At the intersection of gender and sexuality, where cultural symbol meets the human body, we find a great variety of
things that are done to permanently transform the human body. These acts go beyond temporary alterations of clothing
and unclothing, of painting the skin, and of hair length and arrangement.
Explicitly or implicitly, most of these transformations either enhance or diminish sexuality. It is often difficult to discover
a single reason, especially for the more widespread practices. People justify them in a variety of ways simultaneously,
mixing symbolic readings, gender identity, and sexuality.
Genital Alterations
Male Circumcision. The removal of the foreskin covering the penis, circumcision, is perhaps the most common of all
genital alterations. It is explained in the Old Testament as a symbol of God's covenant with Abraham (Genesis 17:9-14)
and is still done by Jews on the eighth day after birth, in a ceremony called, in Yiddish, bris. Celebrating the same event,
Muslims carry out circumcision in a ceremony called sunnat, which usually takes place around the tenth year of a boy's
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life. In the first century C.E., Paul (Galatians 6:11-16) declared that circumcision was irrelevant to Christians. But in the
late 19th century, many Western countries reintroduced circumcision, mainly for supposed physical and mental health
reasons, although at the end of the 20th century only the United States and Australia still maintain the custom for these
reasons. Many other cultures practice circumcision as part of the boy's initiation ceremony. This procedure may be either
the full removal of the foreskin or, as among the Wana of Sulawesi, Indonesia (Atkinson, 1989), merely a small cut in the
foreskin.
Female Genital Mutilation: Clitoridectomy and Infibulation. Various sorts of female genital mutilation are
practiced widely on girls, especially in Africa but also elsewhere in the world. The most drastic forms of female genital
mutilation involve the excision of all or parts of the clitoris (clitoridectomy), the labia minora, and the labia majora, and
infibulation, in which, after much or all of the labia majora is excised, the vulva is pinned shut with thorns or sewn with
thread and grows scar tissue, in effect closing the vulva except for a small opening to allow urine and menstrual blood to
pass. Sexual intercourse and childbirth necessitate breaking open the scar tissue, which is subsequently reinfibulated, or
closed. Clitoridectomy was widely practiced by mid-19th-century English and American physicians (apparently all males)
as a recommended cure for masturbation and other mental problems (Sheehan, 1997).
Female genital mutilation is carried out by women on their own kin, and although the reasons for it differ in detail, the
common rationale has to do with reducing women's sexuality to an absolute minimum on the grounds that it is polluting or
otherwise dangerous to men. Female genital mutilation is particularly common in non-Arab sub-Saharan Muslim cultures
but is also practiced by Christians and others (Lightfoot-Klein, 1989; Dorkenoo, 1994).
Exaggerations of Women's Bodies
Chinese Footbinding. Over a period of centuries, lasting well into the 20th century, upper-class Chinese women's
feet were transformed into small, useless, but—for Chinese men—extremely erotic stubs. The process of footbinding
began at age six or eight. By the mid-teens, the bones of the foot had grown permanently distorted into the desired
position. The feet caused the women constant pain, and normal walking was out of the question.
Corseting. During the second half of the 19th century, in a similar practice designed to reshape a woman's body,
English and American women of the middle and upper classes were subjected to extreme corseting. Their waists were
constricted to a diameter of some twelve inches or so by an undergarment that was laced tight and shaped by stays of
steel or whalebone. Corseting began before puberty, and sometimes the girl's lower ribs were surgically removed to allow
the waist to be molded. The internal organs were displaced, and general health, not to mention the progress of pregnancy,
was greatly hindered. It has been estimated (Davies, 1982) that corseting so disrupted the anatomy that it was
responsible for a significant drop in the birthrate of middle- and upper-class America and England. The goal was to create
an hourglass figure, which was the cultural ideal of the time.
Breast Implants. In the late 20th century, some 4 million American women had sacks of jelly surgically implanted in
their breasts to better match a particular cultural image of female sexuality. Since the late 1980s, there have been many
claims of medical complications resulting from leaky implants.
Taken as a whole, these alterations testify to the extraordinary lengths to which cultures have gone to proclaim and
exaggerate gender and sexuality. Making distorted feet, waists, or breasts a focus of eroticism is culture at work. Many of
these instances speak to gender power—namely, to men's control over women. Cultures that practice clitoridectomy and
infibulation are very specific about their intent to control women through their sexuality. Footbinding and corseting, which
significantly are limited to upper-class women, not only satisfy cultural ideals of beauty but also physically limit the activity
and indeed the health of the elite women who submit to them. The feminist reading of these practices as symbolizing and
actualizing male power over women is surely accurate. This concept was pointed out long ago by the economist Thorstein
Veblen, in his famous book The Theory of the Leisure Class, in which he cited both corseting and footbinding as prime
examples of "conspicuous consumption" or, more particularly, "conspicuous waste" by which wealthy men could
proclaim their high status (1899:115). Thinking along these lines, though, makes the Borneo penis pin more remarkable,
for it is apparently the only one that puts males at discomfort, even risk, for the pleasure of females.
SEXUAL ETHOS
It is possible to go beyond the ethnographic particulars of sexuality and make broader generalizations, characterizing
the ethos of sexuality of a culture as a whole. The dangers of this approach are similar to those of the national character
approach (in Chapter 5): overgeneralizing and ignoring variations.
Sexually Permissive Cultures: Polynesia
The first European sailors—all men—who visited the islands of Polynesia had no doubt that they were no longer in
England or France. By the late 18th century, after the first tentative contacts had been made and ships were making
return voyages to islands, the chroniclers told of encountering a sexuality that was very different from what they were
used to. Between the sailors, who praised Polynesian sexuality, and the later Christian missionaries, who abhorred it,
there was fair agreement about its openness.
Sexually Restrictive Cultures: Inis Beag
In contrast to Eastern Polynesia, a pattern of restricted, obsessive sexuality is exemplified by John Messenger's
description of a traditional Gaelic-speaking island community of western Ireland, which he studied intensively for 19
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months between 1958 and 1966 and which he called Inis Beag (Messenger, 1969, 1971).
In some respects, Inis Beag resembled a small Polynesian island: a few hundred islanders farming and fishing with
little involvement from a central government. In terms of sexuality, however, the cultures are very different. The people of
Inis Beag are devout Roman Catholics but strongly anticlerical, and they secretly have many pre-Christian beliefs and
practices.
Marriage is late, on the average: age 36 for men and 25 for women. People are profoundly ignorant and misinformed
about sex. Messenger calls them "one of the most sexually naive of the world's societies" (1971:14,15). The slightest
degree of nudity is shunned, and even bared feet are considered embarrassing. Although men go fishing at sea in canoes,
none knows how to swim, for that would involve unacceptable nudity.
The "sexual puritanism" is taught to the children early and is reinforced by the conservative priests and monitored by
private gossip and public ridicule. Certainly, Inis Beag is an extreme case, and not even typical of Ireland as a whole. In
the early 1930s, Conrad M. Arenberg and Solon T. Kimball (1940) studied a rural community in County Clare, not far from
Inis Beag, where the people were not quite so puritanical or ignorant of sexual matters.
Sexually Indifferent Cultures: The Dani
Polynesia and Ireland provide two extreme examples of sexual ethos, and the Grand Valley Dani represent a third
extreme, one of relative indifference to sexuality in word or deed. They practice postpartum sexual abstinence, a period
of about five years after the birth of a child when the parents do not have sexual intercourse with each other. Also, the
Dani have virtually no premarital or extramarital intercourse, nor do they have homosexual sex or other outlets.
In fact, this extraordinarily long postpartum sexual abstinence is consistent with other aspects of Dani culture that
suggest a generally low intensity of intellectual elaboration, low intensity of ritual, and low intensity of emotional
involvement. In terms of our biocultural model, the Dani do, of course, have sex, but the cultural construction of sex, the
intensity with which they act or think about sex, is extraordinarily low.
SEEING ANTHROPOLOGY
Sexuality and Change in the Life of a Ju/'hoan Woman: N!ai: The Story of a !Kling Woman
Filmmaker: John Marshall
N!ai: The Story of a !Kung Woman is about one woman named N!ai, and how she has survived change. It is a
powerful statement about both gender and sexuality. The filmmaker, John Marshall, uses footage that he shot of N!ai and
her people beginning in 1951 and continuing intermittently over 27 years. As N!ai tells her story, the film moves back and
forth in time.
The earlier scenes, shot in the 1950s, show a time when "our hearts were free." The people then still lived primarily
from foraging and were relatively independent and unconcerned with either their Bantu neighbors or national politics.
These scenes give us a sense of prototypical foragers living in a timeless world. Later in the film, Marshall takes us
forward to the late 1970s, when the South African government was recruiting Ju/'hoansi to fight against the Southwest
Africa Peoples' Organization (SWAPO) independence movement. When independence was gained in 1989, the country
became known as Namibia.
The film was released in 1980, and the following year Marjorie Shostak's book on Nisa was published. Both film and
book address the question "What is it like to be a woman in Ju/'hoan culture?" Both N!ai in the film and Nisa in the book
tell us quite frankly about their own sexuality.
There is a fascinating sequence in N!ai in which John Marshall films a commercial film crew shooting a feature film in
which N!ai plays the wife, Xixo. That film turned out to be The Gods Must Be Crazy, which became a great international
hit and was a top grossing foreign film in the U.S. market. Many anthropologists who know Ju/'hoansi have criticized this
film for its simplistic and inaccurate view of Ju/'hoan life. John Marshall was referring to this film when he condemned
"films that portray Ju/'hoansi as creatures of nature living in a Kalahari lala land" when in fact Ju/'hoansi are now
struggling with enormous social, economic, and political issues as poor citizens of Namibia and Botswana.
The film N!ai shows how after N!ai's band moved to Tsumkwe (Tjum!kui) and were incorporated, however
disadvantageously, into the Southwest African economy, the old gender equality gave way to more gender inequality than
existed when they were primarily foragers. Considerable discussion of the effect of settlement on gender equality among
foragers has appeared in the anthropological literature (see Draper, 1975). There does seem to be variation among
different forager groups, and some who became more sedentary have managed to retain a fair degree of gender equality.
Thus sedentary life cannot be the only causal factor influencing the degree of gender equality (see Kent, 1995).
The short clip begins in 1978 on a reservation that the South African government established for 800 Ju/'hoansi in
Namibia. N!ai is bent over picking up her ration of corn meal from the food distribution site. As she begins to tell her story
we cut back to life as she and her band lived it in 1952. N!ai describes gathering food with her mother and tells of a giraffe
hunt involving her father. She also tells of her arranged marriage at age 8 to /Gunda, who was 13 years old, problems that
occurred between them for years, and their eventual reconciliation as they grew in their relationship, with the guidance of
Ju/'hoansi close to them.
The final part of the short clip presents a remarkable case of cross-cultural miscommunication. The Afrikaansspeaking pastor has just delivered a sermon about Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. The pastor explains his
intent to communicate that Christianity offers the gift of a different water, that is, new life. N!ai dismisses this story as
absurd, and emphasizes how improper it would be for a Ju/'hoan woman to be alone at a water source with any strange
man (as is true in other African cultures), let alone a man "calling himself God's son."
The complete film further examines N!ai's family difficulties including angry and jealous accusations that N!ai is not
sharing her earnings and that she allowed her daughter to prostitute herself. The film also provides a wider view of social
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disintegration and decline in interaction with outsiders: territorial administrators, a doctor, South African soldiers, alcoholselling shopkeepers, and a South African film team.
Setup Questions
1. What is N!ai's view of the past in a foraging band? Do you think that she is exaggerating or romanticizing?
2. What does N!ai tell us about her marriage?
3. What does N!ai tell us about sexuality?
4. What was N!ai's perception of her husband /Gunda when he began to trance? How did that perception
change and why?
5. N!ai and the Afrikaans-speaking pastor have vastly different interpretations of his sermon. How does N!ai's
view of proper and improper male and female behavior influence her interpretation?
CHAPTER SUMMARY
 Both sexuality and gender are examples of the biocultural model, showing greatly varying culture
constructions based on a common Homo sapiens biology.
 Gender refers to maleness and femaleness and the elaborations thereof; sexuality refers to sexual
intercourse and elaborations thereof.
 Homosexuality and lesbianism are also cultural constructions in many cultures, apparently based on the
biological fact that the male—female distinction in Homo sapiens is to some degree a bimodal continuum
rather than an absolute dichotomy.
 The cultural construction of sexuality includes culture-specific ideas and practices involving beauty, love,
eroticism, and the like.
 Cultures usually adorn or decorate the body to enhance gender ideals. Some cultures carry out drastic
body alterations. Examples are Chinese footbinding, Western corseting, male circumcision and female
genital mutilation, and breast implants.
 The degree to which sexual activity (especially intercourse) is allowable outside marriage varies greatly
from sexually permissive cultures to sexually restrictive cultures to sexually indifferent cultures.
KEY TERMS
circumcision
clitoridectomy
conspicuous consumption
female genital mutilation
footbinding
gender
hijra
infibulation
matriarchal
patriarchal
postpartum sexual abstinence
sex(uality)
sexual dimorphism
two-spirit
QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT
1. Is it conceivable that there could be a culture with total gender equality? Why?
2. To what extent does the practice of female genital mutilation challenge cultural relativity? Should the West
support the moves to end it in Africa? Should the West outlaw it among immigrants? Does it change matters
to call the practice "female circumcision"?
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