The “Third Gender”
Saladin d’Anglure, Bernard
The “Third Gender” - 2012.
98
This paper describes the theoretical advances since the work of Margaret Mead (1930) in conceptualizing the categories of gender. It shows how, beginning in the 1970s, feminism targeted these categories for academic research and social action, leading, mainly in the English-speaking world, to the field of Gender Studies. I have drawn on my ethnographic research since 1960 among the Canadian Inuit, which has led me to reject a binary approach to the study of sex and gender. A ternary approach is needed to integrate the (all-too-numerous) exceptions that are very often ignored in conventional ethnographies. To this end, I propose a three-level cosmological model: 1) the infra-human level of the fetus, which, according to the Inuit, can change sex; 2) the human level, with the transgendering of children whose sex differs from that of the ancestors they reincarnate (or when the family’s sex ratio is unbalanced); and 3) the supra-human level, with the transgendering of shamans whose helping spirits belong to the opposite sex. The third gender thus manifests the crossing of gender boundaries at each level. I suggest we admit the existence of a third gender (which is recognized in many traditional societies) in order to rethink gender categories in contemporary societies by referring to the “family atom” concept and to social practices rather than religious, legal, or economic norms. Finally, I am baffled by social anthropology and sociology’s apparent silence in response to the way in which the California-based Queer Movement has changed the meaning of gender – by emptying it of its social content and turning it into an expression of personal desire and sexual orientation, a change that, according to Butler (2006), was inspired by French philosophers.
The “Third Gender” - 2012.
98
This paper describes the theoretical advances since the work of Margaret Mead (1930) in conceptualizing the categories of gender. It shows how, beginning in the 1970s, feminism targeted these categories for academic research and social action, leading, mainly in the English-speaking world, to the field of Gender Studies. I have drawn on my ethnographic research since 1960 among the Canadian Inuit, which has led me to reject a binary approach to the study of sex and gender. A ternary approach is needed to integrate the (all-too-numerous) exceptions that are very often ignored in conventional ethnographies. To this end, I propose a three-level cosmological model: 1) the infra-human level of the fetus, which, according to the Inuit, can change sex; 2) the human level, with the transgendering of children whose sex differs from that of the ancestors they reincarnate (or when the family’s sex ratio is unbalanced); and 3) the supra-human level, with the transgendering of shamans whose helping spirits belong to the opposite sex. The third gender thus manifests the crossing of gender boundaries at each level. I suggest we admit the existence of a third gender (which is recognized in many traditional societies) in order to rethink gender categories in contemporary societies by referring to the “family atom” concept and to social practices rather than religious, legal, or economic norms. Finally, I am baffled by social anthropology and sociology’s apparent silence in response to the way in which the California-based Queer Movement has changed the meaning of gender – by emptying it of its social content and turning it into an expression of personal desire and sexual orientation, a change that, according to Butler (2006), was inspired by French philosophers.
Réseaux sociaux