lady love

mocosyamores: qbits: thepeoplesrecord: Going beyond the...

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:39:47 -0400

qbits:

thepeoplesrecord:

Going beyond the Western gender binary - unlearning our backward cultural conditioning

In Western colonial society (which dominates many aspects of the globalized, capitalist world today) we operate under the presumption that there are only two genders, male and female. But gender is a social construction. One’s options for what gender they identify with are shaped by the culture they are born into. Biological factors are most-often the primary driving forces that choose among the available socially-constructed gender categories.

Cultures around the world have different ways of talking about, thinking about, and identifying gender. It’s often a challenge for (particularly cis-sexual) Westerns to think about other ways gender can be socially constructed. Westerns have the false equivalency of gender and sex drilled into their eternal psyche from the time they are very young, and re-enforced through examples in popular culture. There is no biological reality to gender. Many Westerners have the bizarre belief that one’s XY-sex-determination should also inform one’s gender identity, a socially constructed role in society.

In some cultures, there is no distinction made between gender and sexual orientation and the same can be said for sexual orientation - our culture socially-constructs the options and our biology helps us identify which socially-constructed option feels most ‘right’ and best resonates with us.

I’ve attached some photos to offer some examples of non-colonial, non-Western construction of gender. They’ve all been uploaded onto our Facebook page photostream in case you’d like to ‘like’ or ‘share’ them there. There are literally hundreds of ‘third-gender’ identifying peoples around the world. The eight I’ve chosen are mostly examples I remember from some of my anthropology courses but if you google ‘third genders’ you can find many lists and examples.

Who cares? Why it matters.

The most obvious reason to care about the way our culture has constructed gender and sexual orientation is to deepen one’s capacity for solidarity with people who identify as transgender, transsexual, and others whose gender or sexual identity exists outside of binary Western culture.

But there are other reasons as well. Western culture’s binary nature often creates non-sensical, problematic binary identity constructions that are inherently problematic. For example, I believe that Western masculinity (dominance, aggression, lack of communication, lack of emotional expression, etc) is inherently problematic. I believe that to be the reason why most acts of large-scale-violence and terror are committed by men (see: 100% of the mass school shootings in the United States), and I believe it fosters a degree of internal misery within people who heavily adopt these particular ‘masculine’ traits.

In the age of information, and the age of global connectivity, there is no longer any reason (particularly for young people) to feel isolated or restricted to Western definitions of gender, sexual orientation and identity in general. I think the social ramifications of a generation where more and more people begin to identify outside of the gender binary would be tremendous, and I think we should all consider how we can unlearn our cultural conditioning to embrace other, perhaps less exploitative and dominating identities.

Background information on the identities depicted in the above images:

Hijras
Hijras are male-body-born, feminine-gender-identifying people who live in South Asia (mostly in India & Nepal). Many Hijras live in well-defined, organized, all-Hijra communities, led by a guru.

Although many Hijras identify as Muslim, many practice a form of syncretism that draws on multiple religions; seeing themselves to be neither men nor women, Hijras practice rituals for both men and women.

Hijras belong to a special caste. They are usually devotees of the mother goddess Bahuchara Mata, Lord Shiva, or both.

Nandi female husbands
Among the Nandi in Western Kenya, one social identity option for women is to become a female husband, and thus a man in society’s eyes. Female husbands are expected to become men and take on all of the social and cultural responsibilities of a man, including finding a wife to marry and passing on property to the next generation through marriage. Female husbands may have lived their lives as women and may even be married to a man, but once she becomes a female-husband, she is expected to be a man. Women married to female-husbands may have sex with single men uninterested in commitment in order to become pregnant, but the female-husband (who is often an older woman, often a widow) will father the child of said pregnancy and treat the child like her own.

Two-spirited people
Two-Spirit is an umbrella term sometimes used for what was once commonly known as ‘berdaches’, Indigenous North Americans who fulfill one of many mixed gender roles found traditionally among many Native Americans and Canadian First Nations communities. The term usually indicates a person whose body simultaneously manifests both a masculine and a feminine spirit. Male and female two-spirits have been “documented in over 130 tribes, in every region of North America.”

Travesti
In South America (with a large presence in Brazil), a travesti is a person who was assigned male at birth who has a feminine gender identity and is primarily sexually attracted to masculine men. Therefore, sometimes the distinction between gender identity and sexual orientation is not made. Travestis have been described as a third gender, but not all see themselves this way.Travestis often will begin taking female hormones and injecting silicone to enlargen their backsides as boys and continue the process into womanhood.

The work of cultural Anthropologist Don Kulick (a gay male by Western definitions) in Brazil demonstrated that gender construction in Brazil is binary (like Western gender construction), but unlike Western gender construction, instead of having a male-female binary, there is a male-notmale.

In this particular construction of gender:

Males include: men who have sex with women, men who have sex with Travestis but are never on the receiving end of anal sex, men who have sex with men but are never on the receiving end of anal sex.

Not-males include: women, men who receive anal sex from ‘male’ gay men or from Travestis.

Fa’afafine
Fa’afafine are the gender liminal, or third-gendered people of Samoa. A recognized and integral part of traditional Samoan culture, fa’afafine, born biologically male, embody both male and female gender traits. Their gendered behavior typically ranges from extravagantly feminine to mundanely masculine

Waria
Waria is a traditional third general role found in modern Indonesia. Additionally, the Bugis culture of Sulawesi (one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia) has been described as having three sexes (male, female and intersex) as well as five genders with distinct social roles.

Six Genders of old Israel
In the old Kingdom of Israel (1020–931 BCE) there were six officially recognized genders:

Zachar: male

Nekeveh: female

Androgynos: both male and female

Tumtum: gender neutral/without definite gender

Aylonit: female-to-male transgender people

Saris: male-to-female transgender people (often inaccurately translated as “eunuch”)

Kathoey (often called ‘ladyboys’)
Australian scholar of sexual politics in Thailand Peter Jackson’s work indicates that the term “kathoey” was used in pre-modern times to refer to intersexual people, and that the usage changed in the middle of the twentieth century to cover cross-dressing males, to create what is now a gender identity unique to Thailand. Thailand also has three identities related to female-bodied people: Tom, Dee, and heterosexual woman.

-Robert

Excellent overview of non-binary gender categories. Sadly, Western imperialism has all but extirpated many traditional concepts of non-dualistic sex and gender categories through residential schools and religious indoctrination. -Q

This gives me all kinds of gender life and power.

awesome awesome awesome. i still need to read the whole post.

Why aren't more people freaking out about the new Venezuelan labor law?

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:26:01 -0400

bluandorange:

monetizeyourcat:

dancepunksnotdead:

You know, the one that gives housewives/full-time mothers a pension— wages for housework?

It’s ONLY A HUGE VICTORY FOR FEMINISM, SOCIALISM, AND WOMEN OF COLOR. Not a big deal or anything. Tumblr is mysteriously silent about this.

http://rabble.ca/columnists/2013/05/venezuelas-new-labour-law-best-mothers-day-gift

holy shit!

fucking COOL

Three guesses why…. but AWESOMEEEE

amberguessa: I got dressed in my traditional Indian regalia,...

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:24:40 -0400

amberguessa:

I got dressed in my traditional Indian regalia, but there was a man, he was the producer of the whole show. He took that speech away from me and he warned me very sternly. “I’ll give you 60 seconds or less. And if you go over that 60 seconds, I’ll have you arrested. I’ll have you put in handcuffs.”

- Sacheen Littlefeather in Reel Injun (2009), dir. Neil Diamond.

This is awesome

I’ve heard the “She wasn’t actually an Indian” thing a lot, so this is really great

thebluthcompany: cinematicshit: I love Arrested Development but I have no love for its crazy fans...

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:11:40 -0400

thebluthcompany:

cinematicshit:

I love Arrested Development but I have no love for its crazy fans who quote everything even the lines that are not that funny and talk about it all the time and make all their Facebook cover photos into screenshots from the show.

apihtawikosisan: sincerelysarita: Nineteen-year-old Tarikuwa...

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:06:01 -0400

apihtawikosisan:

sincerelysarita:

Nineteen-year-old Tarikuwa Lemma is a survivor, of an international adoption scandal. When she was 13, she was effectively sold from her native Ethiopia to an American family. The corrupt “adoption agency” convinced her father, who was a widow, that Tarikuwa and her younger sisters were headed to the U.S. as part of an educational exchange program, and that they would return home every summer and on holiday breaks. Little did he know, his daughters had been placed with adoptive couples in the U.S., never to return. Tarikuwa’s name was changed against her will, and she was forbidden by her American “family” from speaking her native language. The issue of transnational adoption, its evangelical Christian component, and the exploitation of communities that sometimes results, is the subject of the book, The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking and the New Gospel of Adoption by Kathryn Joyce, who appeared, along with Tarikuwa, on last Sunday’s “Melissa Harris Perry” show on MSNBC. Below is Tarikuwa’s satirical look at the “rescue” of children from her home country, to “better lives” in America.

clutchmag:

Stop ‘Rescuing’ African Children Through Corrupt Adoptions

Tarikuwa Lemma appearing on Melissa Harris Perry Show April 28, 2013.

From The Grio — Nineteen-year…

View Post

Doesn’t seem to matter the background of the child, the methods of colonialism and assimilation haven’t changed.

stoya: Dear US Government: Once again, please kindly consider...

Tue, 21 May 2013 13:04:29 -0400

stoya:

Dear US Government: Once again, please kindly consider backing the fuck off of what goes in and comes out of my vaginal canal. Thank you, Stoya

Both/and

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:25:45 -0400

shitmystudentswrite:

I strongly agree and disagree with that statement to some extent.

"In some ways it was easier for my generation. Racism was blatant and obvious. The “Whites Only”..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 16:49:02 -0400

“In some ways it was easier for my generation. Racism was blatant and obvious. The “Whites Only” signs let us know clearly, what we were up against. Not much has changed, but the system of lies and trickology is much more sophisticated. Today young people have to be highly informed and acutely analytical, or they will be swept up into a whirlpool of lies and deception.”

- Assata Shakur, Honey Magazine debut issue (1998)

My friend shared this quote with me today and I instantly remembered another great quote from Assata Shakur that I feel is crucial to be absorbed when reading the quote above “No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free”.

(via angryasiangirlsunited)

"Grace Lee Boggs, the 97-year-old feminist, activist, and philosopher, was born in the United Stated..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:54:13 -0400

“

Grace Lee Boggs, the 97-year-old feminist, activist, and philosopher, was born in the United Stated in 1915 to Chinese immigrant parents. Boggs earned her PhD in 1940; these credentials were no shield against discrimination based on her Chinese ancestry. When Boggs married African American activist James Boggs, over a decade before the Supreme Court of the United States invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage, she made the choice to add his name to her own. Their marriage would last until James Boggs’ death 40 years later.

In observing debates around the politics of naming, especially when it comes to gender, I often think of Boggs. Someone who knows little of her life and politics, or of intersectionality, might judge Boggs’ last name as an acceptance of a patriarchal naming tradition that privileges men. But is it?

The argument could also be made that by adding the last name of her black husband to her own Chinese name Boggs was putting into personal action the political solidarity between people of color traditionally pitted against one another by white supremacy. Perhaps her acceptance of the name was even a revolutionary act that flew in the face of the laws of a country that said race must determine whom you choose to love?

Or maybe, in 1953, a deeply political Chinese American woman marrying a black man simply had bigger fish to fry than worrying about her last name? Of course, these arguments are just as much speculation as the first. Still, I’d argue it is Boggs’ life-long record as a thought leader in the labor, civil rights, women’s rights, and environmental justice movements that actually defines her identity.

Boggs put into action hooks’ concept of ideas over identity long before the rest of us even started talking about it. That’s an example that could do us all some good.

”

- —In all of the recent controversy about what women should and shouldn’t be doing with our last names, I think Dr. Sarah Jackson echoes my sentiment. Check out what she said on the R today! (via racialicious)

I LOOOOOOVE grace lee boggs. she is such an idol. i have her latest book but i havent opened it yet -_-

(via dick-squaaaad)

chibbbles: I want this to be us someday.

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:51:27 -0400

chibbbles:

I want this to be us someday.

Evolution Of A Queen: black inventors and their inventions. We invented more than fucking peanut butter.

Thu, 16 May 2013 02:59:12 -0400

Evolution Of A Queen: black inventors and their inventions. We invented more than fucking peanut butter.:

mpr1m3:

air conditioning unit Frederick M. Jones July 12, 1949

almanac Benjamin Banneker Approx 1791

auto cut-off switch Granville T. Woods January 1, 1839

auto fishing devise G. Cook May 30, 1899

automatic gear shift Richard Spikes February 28, 1932

baby buggy                    W.H. Richardson         June 18, 1899

bicycle frame                 L.R. Johnson            October 10, 1899

biscuit cutter                A.P. Ashbourne          November 30, 1875

blood plasma bag              Charles Drew            Approx. 1945

cellular phone                Henry T. Sampson        July 6, 1971

chamber commode               T. Elkins               January 3, 1897

clothes dryer                 G. T. Sampson           June 6, 1862

curtain rod                   S. R. Scratton          November 30, 1889

curtain rod support           William S. Grant        August 4, 1896

door knob                     O. Dorsey               December 10, 1878

door stop                     O. Dorsey               December 10, 1878

dust pan                      Lawrence P. Ray         August 3, 1897

egg beater                    Willie Johnson          February 5, 1884

electric lampbulb             Lewis Latimer           March 21, 1882

elevator                      Alexander Miles         October 11, 1867

eye protector                 P. Johnson              November 2, 1880

fire escape ladder            J. W. Winters           May 7, 1878

fire extinguisher             T. Marshall             October 26, 1872

folding bed                   L. C. Bailey            July 18, 1899

folding chair                 Brody & Surgwar         June 11, 1889

fountain pen                  W. B. Purvis            January 7, 1890

furniture caster              O. A. Fisher            1878

gas mask                      Garrett Morgan          October 13, 1914

golf tee                      T. Grant                December 12, 1899

guitar                        Robert F. Flemming, Jr. March 3, 1886

hair brush                    Lydia O. Newman         November 15, 18—

hand stamp                    Walter B. Purvis        February 27 1883

horse shoe                    J. Ricks                March 30, 1885

ice cream scooper             A. L. Cralle            February 2, 1897

improv. sugar making          Norbet Rillieux         December 10, 1846

insect-destroyer gun          A. C. Richard           February 28, 1899

ironing board                 Sarah Boone             December 30, 1887

key chain                     F. J. Loudin            January 9, 1894

lantern                       Michael C. Harvey       August 19, 1884

lawn mower                    L. A. Burr              May 19, 1889

lawn sprinkler                J. W. Smith             May 4, 1897

lemon squeezer                J. Thomas White         December 8, 1893

lock                          W. A. Martin            July 23, 18—

lubricating cup               Ellijah McCoy           November 15, 1895

lunch pail                    James Robinson          1887

mail box                      Paul L. Downing         October 27, 1891

mop                           Thomas W. Stewart       June 11, 1893

motor                         Frederick M. Jones      June 27, 1939

peanut butter                 George Washington Carver    1896

pencil sharpener              J. L. Love              November 23, 1897

phone transmitter             Granville T. Woods      December 2, 1884

record player arm             Joseph Hunger Dickenson January 8, 1819

refrigerator                  J. Standard             June 14, 1891

riding saddles                W. D. Davis             October 6, 1895

rolling pin                   John W. Reed            1864

shampoo headrest              C. O. Bailiff           October 11, 1898

spark plug                    Edmond Berger           February 2, 1839

stethoscope                   Imhotep                 Ancient Egypt

stove                         T. A. Carrington        July 25, 1876

straightening comb            Madam C. J. Walker      Approx 1905

street sweeper                Charles B. Brooks       March 17, 1890

thermostat control            Frederick M. Jones      February 23, 1960

traffic light                 Garrett Morgan          November 20, 1923

tricycle                      M. A. Cherry            May 6, 1886

typewriter                    Burridge & Marshman     April 7, 1885

feministdisney: ookay I know I’ve posted it before but I...

Thu, 16 May 2013 02:49:09 -0400

feministdisney:

ookay I know I’ve posted it before but I really, really recommend this video and I don’t recommend a lot of videos! I also reference this video like once a month so you might as well know what I’m talking about

“What this demonstrates, I think, is how impressionable and vulnerable we are in the face of a story, particularly as children.”

Chimamanda Adichi: The Danger of a Single Story

Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her authentic cultural voice — and warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding.

yes

tushbutt: heart of a possum

Thu, 16 May 2013 02:22:27 -0400

tushbutt:

~~heart of a possum~~

girljanitor: innocent-bystanders-inc: nudiemuse: princeless...

Thu, 16 May 2013 02:01:00 -0400

girljanitor:

innocent-bystanders-inc:

nudiemuse:

princelesscomic:

girljanitor:

Self Evident Truths

S. Ross Browne

Ummm…I am so VERY into this right now!

But Black people in period or fantasy settings totally makes the stories unreal.

Also holy shit I love these.

How come I don’t run across this stuff regularly?

Because of racism and the retroactive erasure of POC in Medieval Europe. Pretty much the same reason you almost never see these works of art either unless you’re already looking for them:

file under more things that are really really really awesome.

gabifresh: AHHHHH! My swim collection is AVAILABLE NOW! BUY IT...

Thu, 16 May 2013 01:56:06 -0400

gabifresh:

AHHHHH! My swim collection is AVAILABLE NOW! BUY IT HERE!
go to gabifresh.com for more pics and important info about sizing/fit before buying!

awesome awesome awwwwesssommmmmemmemem

rubyetc: yeah yeah

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:47:17 -0400

rubyetc:

yeah yeah

theanti90smovement: straight white guy voice how is that offensive?

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:34:05 -0400

theanti90smovement:

*straight white guy voice* how is that offensive?

the-absolute-funniest-posts: My lovely followers, please follow...

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:33:44 -0400

the-absolute-funniest-posts:

My lovely followers, please follow this blog immediately!

best post ever in the history of bunnies

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:28:09 -0400

best post ever in the history of bunnies

fatsexybitch: deanarrindell: I share concern for the...

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:26:42 -0400

fatsexybitch:

deanarrindell:

I share concern for the emasculation of black men in our country today. But I don’t see it happening in instances of creative men stepping outside of the box and expressing themselves through fashion—to me, those are defiant acts of freedom. Instead, I see emasculation through the outlandish prison rates of black men in America or oppressive policies like stop-and-frisk that target young black men and turn them into statistics.

From “Black Man in a Dress” by Wilbert Cooper in VICE.

Fantastic article (the picture clicks thru)

really really fantastic article. you should read.