How useful is it to distinguish between sex and gender?
I. Introduction
As a conceptual dialectic, sex and gender respectively defined as the physical genitalia of a person and the sociocultural constructions of this division (Astuti 1998: 32), has entered the Euro-American mainstream public colloquiality as of 2021. The prevalence of this distinction speaks to how widely accepted amongst this particular public who finds this division not only useful but also liberating in some cases. For many, to separate sex from gender and claim no direct relations between them is to say that one may behave, dress, speak, and live life in general in ways that does not have to be defined by their physical attribute. However, this is only one analytic in one (albeit large) society. In others, analogous conceptions of sex and gender can be conceived very differently.
For example, in 1970s Oman, the sexual act in a sense defines the gender more than the genital while the sex binary remains distinct even with a ubiquitous third gender category as the xanīth (Wikan 1977). For the Huaorani Indians of Amazonian Ecuador, the reproductive process is implied with "androgynous agency" observed in the couvade before and after the birth of a child (Rival 1998). In the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, the Hua maintains a gender spectrum that one moves through in life regardless of rigid sex divisions (Meigs 1990). Similarly, for the Vezos of Madagascar, gender is performative where sex is rigid, as demonstrated by the lives of sarin'ampelas (Astuti 1998).
In all these examples, sex and gender remain distinct; however, where the analytical value resides is in the sheer diversity of these constructions. It is important not to overtly emphasize and draw universalizing conclusion on how sex and gender exist as a distinctive pair in all these examples, but rather we should be focusing our attention on the highly variant ways people negotiate the tension between sex and gender in their respective sociocultural contexts. I argue that the distinction between sex and gender is prevalent in many societies and thus an important structure to explore; however, in this exploration we should strive to understand the emic terms on which this distinction and its various implications are negotiated. I will attempt to do so using some of the aforementioned case studies in the following paragraphs.
In several of the case studies, a contrasting tension between the rigidity of sexes and the fluidity of genders stands out prominently, although the textures of this tension are different for every case. In particular, I wish to discuss the xanīth of Omanis and the sarin'ampelas of the Vezos together because of their qualitative similarities, but also how they differ from each other. Examining similar practices or existences in societies with drastically different environments may reveal insights that aid in further understanding the constructedness of what we often take for granted.
II. Omani xanīths and gender shifts
In Oman, at the time of Wikan's research, there exists a rather visible group of minorities designated the xanīths (described as transsexuals by Wikan), who seems to also be a category between women and men. For example, Wikan observes:
His clothes are intermediate between male and female: he wears the ankle-length tunic of the male, but with the tight waist of the female dress. Male clothing is white, females wear patterned cloth in bright colours, and transsexuals wear unpattern coloured clothes. Men cut their hair short, women wear theirs long, the transsexuals medium long. Men comb their hair backward away from the face, women comb theirs diagonally forward from a central parting, transsexuals comb theirs forward from a sideparting, and they oil it heavily in the style of women. (Wikan 1977: 307)
All these descriptions point toward the various ways a xanīths would perform their gender as in between or a mix of the two genders. They also have distinct social roles available to only them, such as being a domestic servant or prostitute (ibid). It appears that in the societal structure of Oman, xanīths are accepted as a flawed existence but no more flawed than any other person. Thus, one may conclude that a significant degree of flexibility in gender performances is allowed if not societally accepted for a certain group of people.
However, examined from another perspective, the xanīths and their various situations can also demonstrate the rigidity of gender roles in Oman. Instead of being able to freely move from one gendered realm to another at their whim, they are "socially classified and treated as [women] in situations where sex differences are important" (ibid: 308). There is also the significant fact that a xanīth can revert his[1] position back into a man through marriage to a woman (ibid). Once married, his past as a xanīth is no longer spoken about or judged by the community around him. In this process, he sheds his identity and rejoins the ranks of men. By behaving like a quintessential man (through marriage and documenting his sexual potency in the post-marriage ritual, essentially proving his sex organs can perform the tasks it is "supposed to") and adhering to the societal expectations for a man, a xanīth becomes a man again.
The contradictory existence of the xanīth rather saliently demonstrates the monolithic statuses of the two sexes in Omani culture. The fact that xanīths can publicly exist as male prostitutes while women cannot, Wikan claims in a functionalist way, serves a social purpose that defines women against prostitution and thus affirming Islamic understandings of women's purity. At the same time, the various ways their gender can shift and morph also demonstrate a certain degree of publicly permitted gender fluidity. In this case, the gender of the xanīth is defined against both the female and the male sexes, through sexual intercourse. Wikan further clarifies:
It is the sexual act, not the sexual organs, which is fundamentally constitutive of gender. A man who acts as a woman sexually, is a woman, socially. And there is no confusion possible in this culture between the male and female role in intercourse. The man 'enters' (yidaxil), the women receives, the man is active, the woman is passive. Behaviour, and not anatomy, is the basis for the Omani conceptualisation of gender identity. (ibid: 309)
Wikan's observation that the sexual act defines the gender in Oman also holds in the situation when a xanīth marries a woman; his manhood is restored through the act of proving intercourse and the implied reproductive activity was "successful" with his newly wedded bride. Thus gender is performed through the act (divided along the lines of active and passive roles) of sexual intercourse, while the physical sexes remain unchanged and upheld as a standard to measure one's gender against.
III. Vezo sarin'ampelas and life processes
Similar to the xanīths, the sarin'ampelas of the Vezos are those who were born male but are "'like' women in the sense that they would prefer to be women" (Astuti 1998: 20). Although for the Vezos, societal gender roles are not as clearly defined as they are in Oman, there are still distinctions between how women and men do the same things. For example, women carry a heavy load on their heads while men carry it on their shoulders. (ibid: 21). Sarin'ampelas, which means "a 'man' who is 'an image of a woman'" (ibid: 20), do things the way women do and thus "[create] their gender against their sex" (ibid: 22). Whereas Omani xanīths and their gender are defined by how they perform sexual intercourse, sarin'ampelas are defined how they tie their sarongs, how they chat and gossip with women (mitohake), and how they perform "unambiguous" and "recognizable 'women's jobs'." (ibid: 21–22) If the ethnographic evidence end here, we may conclude that the sarin'ampelas demonstrate a societal recognition for a third gender that lies outside of the women/men dichotomy, although the definition of this third category still cannot escape the binary terms of women and men (e.g. women tasks performed by men, men who are images of women, and etc.) However, just like how the xanīths have a key event that may give them an opportunity to alter their gender, which also simultaneously reveals the basis of which the Omani society constructs their conceptions of gender, the sarin'ampela does as well.
For the sarin'ampelas, this turning point and the revealing moment is death. In death, "sarin'ampela will never be treated as women when they die" and that "no living woman would dare handle the corpse of a sarin'ampela as if it were 'really' that of a woman, 'for there is a penis down there' (ka misy latake io)." (ibid: 23) What this means is that amongst the Vezos, there is a fundamental distinction between "the image" of a gendered person, created through performance, and the unchangeable physical attributes of the genital, which dictates which sexed section of the tomb within which they will be buried. Interestingly, this is consistent with their performative theory of gender: for those who are no longer alive, they will no longer be able to perform tasks and dress themselves to create the gendered image, so all there is left is reduced to the physical attributes of the biological body. Astuti observes this is similar to how the Vezos conceptualize infants as well. Because they have yet started to perform tasks that will gradually gender them into full adult beings, all they can says about the infant (besides its health), is the exclamation of "it's a girl!" or "it's a boy!" (ibid: 12–13). Thus, in birthing and dying, both situations where the performance of daily tasks becomes impossible, the understanding of the person is reduced to physicality—the genitals, to be specific.
It would then appear that both the Omanis and the Vezos are negotiating with two sets of ideologies that are to a degree independent of but still related to each other: the physical sex and the socioculturally constructed gender. Sex is something that stays constant for both the xanīths and the sarin'ampelas, while gender is somewhat fluid and in circumstances can both go along with or against the grain of sex, so to speak. The similarities between these examples are tantamount to recognizing the sociocultural-constructedness of gender. But what about the sociocultural-constructedness of sex?
IV. Sociocultural-constructedness of sex
The issues of distinguishing sex from gender, however, become more complicated upon examining other situations. Feminist scholars like Butler (1990) have argued "gender is the effect of discourse, and sex the effect gender", and thus "as sex is no more an essential property than gender is, it is no longer useful to differentiate sex from gender", summarized succinctly by Rival (1998) who wishes to focus the attention of such discussion on procreation. These debates remind us that the biological sex, which I may have to seem to take for granted in analyzing the xanīths and the sarin'ampelas, can be just as socioculturally constructed as gender. Martin's (1987) work on a close reading of medical textbook contents and research projects descriptions reveal how they perpetuate culturally specific stereotypes about gender when they are supposed to present a neutral and scientific picture of physical mechanisms. Martin analyzes deliberate word choices that reveal the author's adamant intention in describing the sperm as an active agent on an arduous journey and the egg as a passive entity in need of rescue by the sperm from fatal conditions. However preposterous this personification of cells it may seem, the fact that this has been done and still is being committed reveal that our conceptions about the physical sex may carry sociocultural significance as much as performative gender. Rival's point that procreation is an important aspect of studying issues regarding sex and gender (1998) should not to be discounted, but neither should the points argued by feminist scholars like Butler about the biological sex as a construction.
Meigs's work on the Hua of Papua New Guinea (1990) reveals the importance of thinking about the biological body on emic and indigenous terms. For the Hua, the physical body of the male sex and the female sex have distinct properties: the men are dry and hard (kakora), while the women are wet and soft (figapa). However, depending on the age or the life stage of an individual, his or her dryness, wetness, softness, and hardness change. By ingesting food or substances are associated with these qualities (food made by women, men's semen, etc.) the biological composition of the person can be altered. In terms of life stages, after a woman has two or three children, she is considered to have let out all of her wetness and softness through childbirth, and thus she becomes harder and dryer like a man. A young boy who is to become an initiate (therefore a warrior) will have to purge all the wetness he had as a baby from his mother to become the "prototype" of kakora. (Meigs 1990: 111) A fertile young woman who has yet to give birth is the figapa counterpart prototype of the young initiate. This model demonstrates in the understanding of the Hua, the biological sex is not only restricted to one's genital but also other biological attributes of the body. This version of biology differs significantly from what is taught in our textbooks; but as Martin demonstrates, neither one is more socioculturally constructed than the other.
V. Conclusion
Conclusively, while it is common if not expected to draw the distinguishment of sex and gender along the lines dividing the biological and the social, it is crucial to challenge the authority of biology itself. As Meigs' work (1990) demonstrates, not all lines of biological division of the sexes are drawn by the genitals. Although it may hold true for certain societies like that of the Omani and the Vezo, but it can vary greatly for another society like the Hua. How Martin critically examines medical textbooks, which holds significant epistemological authority in its society of origin, shows us that what we often take for granted can and should be challenged because the insights it reveals aide us in understanding both our societies and others. Sex and gender can stand for different constructions with different qualities (rigid, fluid), but in others they blend together to form a new paradigm that pushes at the edges of the authority we have given to dominant ideologies like biological sciences. Therefore, distinguishing sex and gender can be useful in general, but it is just as useful to examine situations and contexts where this distinguishment diminishes.
Bibliography
Astuti, R. "It’s a boy! It’s a girl!: Reflections on sex and gender in Madagascar and beyond", Bodies and persons: comparative perspectives from Africa and Melanesia, Lambek and Strathern eds. 1998.
Butler, J. Gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity. 1990.
Martin, E. "The egg and the sperm: How science has constructed a romance based
on stereotypical male-female roles." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society,
16(3), pp. 485–501. 1991.
Meigs, A. "Multiple Gender Ideologies and Statuses" in Beyond the Second Sex: New Directions in the Anthropology of Gender. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1990.
Rival, L. "Androgynous parents and guest children: the Huaorani couvade." Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4(4): 619-642. 1998.
Wikan, U. "Man becomes woman: trans-sexualism in Oman as a key to gender roles", Man 12, 304-19. 1977.
[1] I use he/him pronouns here for the xanīths, following Wikan's usage in the literature.