Table of Contents
Gender roles in society are often based on our assigned sex at birth. The specific gender we are born with, gives us the basis on how we’re expected to act, speak, dress, and look. For example here in the United States, girls and women are usually expected to dress in ways that are very feminine. This includes dresses, skirts, and high heels. Women are often also seen as caring, loving, nurturing, and adapting. Men are generally expected to be the opposite of women; strong, aggressive, and dominant. Everyone comes from a different family, society, ethnic group, and culture that may have gender role expectations, but these expectations can vary from one group to another. These roles or expectations can also change in the same society over time. Traditionally here in America, pink used to be considered a masculine color in the U.S. while blue was considered feminine. So it is rather iconic that today, we see that pink is rather feminine, and blue usually represents males.
The equal participation and availability to cultural life of women and men are not only human rights as well as cultural rights. It is also an important aspect for guaranteeing that there is freedom of expression for all. Gender socialization is how people are taught to behave in relation to their assigned gender, which is given to them at birth, male or female. Often times it is difficult to break free from the assumptions that we hold about the world and gender, and what seems to be right and wrong. We often think that the differences between women and men are inherently given. The vast differences we see among humans and their different expressions of gender show that these differences are as much culture as they are biology.
In Lassiter’s book he discusses the study of Margaret Mead. Mead’s study illustrated that “culture had an enormous role in shaping the contours of the so-called sexes”(132). Margaret Mead’s article, “Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies,” describes research done to see if cultures really do contribute to the shaping of a person. The research done involves three primitive groups, the Arapesh, the Mundugumor, and the Tchambuli. In each of the groups the roles of the sexes, both males and females were based more on the type of cultural conditioning they experienced rather than what was in their genes. Even though each group was different they all had this in common, at one point in time, that a child was assigned personality traits which include both feminine and masculine and also the manners of the child are established. However, the results differ from the three groups, “for the Arapesh, the individual was mildly responsive, for the Mundugumor, both male and female were aggressive and violent, and while the Tchambuli, the women dominant and the men were emotionally dependent” The reason why the results were different for all three is that different cultures lead to different cultural conditioning.
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Let’s take a look at two radically different societies, and discover how they handle a person’s sex and gender choices. Afghanistan, a predominately Muslim country, who America became involved with shortly after 911. When we typically envision the Muslim community, often the first image that comes to mind is the women, who are dressed in traditional clothing, the hijab. The question is, is the hijab about a woman being subservient or is it about her salvation? As Americans we have possibly put a series of filters and masks that have colored our view of this group, possibly in a very skewed way. Dr. Moyra Dale, who is working with the Zwemer Center for Muslim studies, interviewed a number of Muslim women to hear their side of the story. Here are some of her observations. The women she interviewed were not so different from the women in the Western culture.
That in the Muslim community, their family, life and work is the same as the West. Muslim women also become doctors, lawyers, and teachers, they are just the same as everyone else. Muslim women also talk exactly about the same things any other women would talk about, their family, jobs, and their different religions. Many of the Muslim women wear hijabs which means “veiling”, or “screening”. Some women wear the hijab because “they believe that God has instructed them to wear it as a means of fulfilling His commandment for modesty” Even though these women have this sense of screening over their face, they tend to want to have more conversation than those in the Western culture. The women in the West, are usually always on their phones, or other electronics while the Muslim women are generally ready to engage in conversation. Even though the Muslim women’s clothing can look rather intimidating, they are usually dressing that way due to modesty.
However, Muslim women are also very fashion conscious, they enjoy wearing bright, colorful or patterned dresses and scarfs to show their individuality. They are just as conscious of style, material, and color like any other women of society. Often the most stereotypical idea about Muslim women is that they have no power, or control over their own lives, that the men dominant. “Even in very conservative societies, if women face restrictions in public areas, men also face restrictions on their entry, and movement in women’s domestic space, especially beyond their own immediate families” (Zwemer). So in reality just because it seems as if the women are being held captive, we generally do not see the situation as a whole. Along with this stereotype, many times women are viewed as not having much responsibility in family matters however; Muslim women often carry much of the responsibility for the family. Often this includes welfare, health of the family, peaceful relationships, and the success of the children. So if all the above is accurate, Muslim women may just need more understanding than saving.
Now to study gender fluidity in society takes us next to Thailand, and the Taiwanese relationship to the transgender subculture “Lady Boys”. Lady boys are transgender men who feel comfortable presenting themselves as women. Our understanding for how the lady boy segment is viewed in the Thai society in the film the Third Gender. Vivienne Chen, the producer of the short film, interviewed many lady boys, to dive deeper into their life and culture. In general the majority of the people interviewed knew they were lady boys from a very young age, they had always felt in their heart, and soul that this was who they were supposed to be.
Along with this, the majority of their families were accepting of their decision to be a lady boy and supported their career choices as well. However some people are not as open to the idea as others, “When I started to express my femininity to my family it was a bit strange for them at first, but the days passed by and they accepted me without any hesitation.” So does this general acceptance by family extend to the Thai culture in general? One interviewee expressed it this way, “Thailand is the best place for shemales to express ourselves and we’re totally accepted by society here. Bangkok is a place where Tran’s genders are free to show our personalities because it is accepted here and we are respected. For people like me, Bangkok is a paradise of happiness and enjoyment.” This acceptance goes further in Thai contemporary media.
Many lady boy roles were originally used as comic reliefs; however nowadays they are given roles in movies, and TV that express their individual talents. It is interesting to note that in another Asian culture, the Philippines, lady boys are accepted in a similar way. So we can see that in the Thai society, this transgender group has achieved a great deal of equality. So does this equate to the gay subset known as “Toms”. In Thailand, Toms are gay females who dress and appear as men in public. The film, Toms: The Complex World of Female Love in Thailand, by Watsamon Tri-yasakda gave me some insight about this topic. While Toms are highly visible in the Thai media, having TV, movie roles, and even their own magazine. They are not accepted and embraced in the same way as the Lady Boy culture. Along with this the tom culture is not accepted by all the families that they come from. Often times the families do not know or do not approve, and many of the toms are in hiding. So clearly even in the same culture, subsets of gender are looked at differently.
Conclusion
In conclusion, maybe the old adage is it nature or nurture, needs to be reworked to realize that when talking about gender, it is both the person’s nature and the society’s nurture that establishes our views on gender. On the larger scale the ideas, perspectives, and notions about sexuality are vastly changing. The catholic church, and Pope Francis has made many steps in the right direction, bringing the LGBTQ community closer to having acceptance. He stated “Who am I to judge? If they accept the Lord and have good will, who am I to judge them? They shouldn’t be marginalized.” This is in sharp contrast to his predecessor Pope Benedict’s statement which he denounced trans genders as people who strip humanity of its dignity. It is said “that your sex is what is between your legs, and your gender is what is between your ears.” So it seems reasonable to assume that the solve for gender inclusivity is between all our ears.
