ANTH 1101 Sexual Diversity 23 October Sexuality an enduring pattern of emotional romantic and or sexual attraction to men women or both sexes as well as as individual s sense of personal and social identity based on those attractions behaviors expressing them and membership in a community of others who share them Intersexual or intersexed person born with some combination of male and female sexual chromosomal or hormonal characteristics o Lack concrete evidence on the prevalence of intersex conditions estimated to be somewhere between 1 1000 births to 1 4500 o In America doctors and parents will decide a sex for the child at birth and will fix the problem many times babies are surgically altered to be unambiguously female Other genders o Some societies have institutionalized notions of a third gender acceptable and unacceptable same sex sexualities ritualized same sex marriage ritualized cross dressing and other forms of gender and sexual expression o Egypt had three genders men women and eunuchs always men homosexual or intersexed o Iraq the Mustergil of the Ma dan Clan o The Hijras of India Patriarchal society Women may declare themselves social men after first menstruation Allowed most rights of men except to marry or inherit property can testify in court carry weapons dress as men but must still pray in the back of the mosque with women Widowed women may also declare themselves social men Considered a third sex category Are religious figures Many engage in sex work to support themselves Paradoxical position marginalized in certain contexts but revered in others Seen as closer to Shiva can bless with fertility Scorned because of sex work Differences between Koti who undergo some type of surgery often castration and Xanith who use neither surgery nor hormone pills Western ideas of sexuality o 19th cent European dualist ideology Heterosexual normal and Homosexual abnormal or deviant o Effects of colonialism Transmission of western values and concepts of gender o Sexuality as identity ANTH 1101 23 October Sexual practice as identity is a European concept Many individuals do not perceive their sexual choices or behaviors as determinant of their identities The sense of permanence of sexual identity is pretty European as well due as other things to economic and cultural globalization Gender and sexuality in culture o Gender is the primary criterion for assigning social cultural roles o Influenced by Kinship structure Economics Media Political power and dominance Language o Marked v Unmarked categories Unmarked the position of power In U S white male heterosexual able bodied English speaking Marked categories that are not assumed that have to be specified In U S nonwhite female homo or bisexual disabled ESL Unmarked categories come with unstated generally unrecognized privileges Categories mask the way power operates in a society makes it harder to challenge privilege Slurs often incorporate gender as a way of regulating gender appropriate behavior Gender and language o Language reveals embodies and sustains attitudes to gender How to avoid sexist language humanity humankind v mankind head teacher v headmistress o Language users speak or write in different and distinctive ways that reflect and perform their gender A Cultural Approach to Male Female Miscommunication Girls learn to create and maintain relationships of closeness and equality to criticize others in acceptable ways and to interpret accurately the speech of other girls friendship and relationship Boys learn to asset one s position of dominance to attract and maintain an audience and to assert oneself when other speakers have the floor dominance Gender and power o The cross cultural occurrence of good old boy networks No Girls Allowed Thomas Gregor 1982 ANTH 1101 23 October Gender sex essential or constructed o The essentialist position holds that there are fundamental real differences between men and women o The constructivist position holds that gender is something you do not something you have or are o These positions are not necessarily fully incompatible o Why drag is unsettling Judith Butler the constructivist position o Doing Gender Doing Surgery Same sex policing is a particularly effective way of maintaining gender categories Are these women fundamentally different from their male colleagues It is impossible to determine But it is clear that they cannot afford not to act differently