The question: “To what extent might the sex/gender discussion seen in our readings be dependent on a Western notion of autonomous identity? What about cultures in which identity is defined more widely than the individual, as encompassing family or community? (And is there then something "male" about that?)" got me thinking about grammatical genders.
Latin gender (*shudder* oh how I try to forget this stuff): if it is a group of more than one person and there is at least one male in said group the gender will always be masculine plural. Maybe this grammatical rule could explain in some way the Bible quote in Boyarin from Genesis 5: 1-2 “and He blessed them, and called their name Adam” (119). This could be evident of gender ambiguity or duality as is discussed throughout Boyarin’s article, but it also kinda seems to me that because Adam and “Eve”(?) are a couple they are seen as one unit. And by default that unit becomes masculine and is referred to by the male’s name. Similar to the practice of referring to a couple as Mr. and Mrs. John Smith on postage etc..
Latin gender (*shudder* oh how I try to forget this stuff): if it is a group of more than one person and there is at least one male in said group the gender will always be masculine plural. Maybe this grammatical rule could explain in some way the Bible quote in Boyarin from Genesis 5: 1-2 “and He blessed them, and called their name Adam” (119). This could be evident of gender ambiguity or duality as is discussed throughout Boyarin’s article, but it also kinda seems to me that because Adam and “Eve”(?) are a couple they are seen as one unit. And by default that unit becomes masculine and is referred to by the male’s name. Similar to the practice of referring to a couple as Mr. and Mrs. John Smith on postage etc..
Now I can’t seem to remember off the top of my head f there is a set rule in Sanskrit... but I DO know off hand that if there is a compound (oh and how Sanskrit loves its compounds!!!) if the last word is feminine, no matter what the other words in the compound are, or what the relationship to each other is, the entire compound will be feminine. (Now that is girl power! haha)
Fascinatingly Brahman, the “ultimate” often worshipped in a kind of monotheistic way (henotheism), is grammatically a neuter word! Therefore “god” is an “it”... and can easily (and often is) worshipped in the feminine. Before reading the articles I was wondering if this can be found in biblical traditions, so I went to Chris: In Greek the word for god of the bible is always masculine. Yet notably in Proverbs “wisdom” is personified in the feminine and possibly present at creation (thanks Chris!). I was also wondering about how in the Christian trinity tradition god = father, son, and holy spirit... father/son are both very masculine nouns... could the holy spirit be feminine ever...?(Chris was busy so I couldn’t ask him!!)
After reading Daniel Boyarin’s article, it became clear that gender ambiguity is found in the Judea-Christina tradition as well. The “spirit” is often neither male nor female. This discussion was interesting for me as I found lots of parallels with the traditions I am more familiar with. It seems that often, when the divine is in the most unidentifiable abstract from (as in Brahman, the holy spirit, the Sikh god) gender is ambiguous, dual, or does not exist.
In many societies more than the two most straight forward genders are accepted. In North American traditional culture there are two-spirited people. In many parts of Asia (at least at one time. *Read: before colonization*) five genders are understood. This is still evident in Thailand (a country that had never been colonized) I spent just over 17 hours in Thailand, and I saw quite a lot of lady boys!
Gender is very flexible in Hindu mythology. Many of my favourite myths involve gender ambiguity. Siva’s consort (Parvati, Devi, Uma, Durga, Sakti, etc) is a very powerful force (sakti means power/energy in Sanskrit... it was brought up last class by the twins). Without her Siva is really nothing, as is illustrated in his form as Ardhanarishvara “the lord who is half woman”. As Ardhanarisvara, Siva is depicted literally as being split vertically into half man and half woman!! Yet this is not to say that male/female can be argued to be perfectly equal in the Hindu tradition, far from it. Ardhanarisva remains the LORD who is half woman... he retains his masculinity even though half of his body has boobs and stuff. “The “manipulation of conventional gender categories” seems to produce an androgyne who is always gendered male” (Boyarin 125).
Yet the “goddess” in Hinduism is not always the consort of a god. There are many Devi/Sakti /Durga cults who worship her as a completely separate, and very powerful, unit. Although these are often referred to as Saivite movements because the “goddess” is usually an avatar of Siva’s consort. I don’t know if this is a category imposed by the practitioners, but it may be the result of what Kinsley discusses in his article, how the goddesses “were discussed primarily, if not exclusively, as adjuncts to males, according to their relationships with males: as mothers, wives, consorts, daughters, and sisters.” (pg 3). All the points made in this section of Kinsley’s article are definitely true for most scholarship involving goddesses in Hinduism. They are mothers and wives. Yet in reality they are entities separate from the gods in their family, the destructive Kali chops heads off while trampling her husband Siva under her feet... she’s hard-core!
Back to gender ambiguity in characters in mythology:
gender ambiguity can be seen in the Mahabharata epic in the character of Arjuna. Arjuna is arguably the hero of the epic he is uber masculine, strong, powerful, sexy, virile... quite the ladies man. yet while in disguise in his last year of exile, Arjuna dresses up as a eunuch dance teacher... and in the sanskrit there are many plays on word suggesting that he in fact a full blown eunuch/hermaphrodite for this year (there are like 5 different myths explaining why this is so... wont go into that!) this is similar to “the dominant rabbinic interpretation [that] insisted that the first male-female human [Adam] was a physical hermaphrodite” (Boyarin 128)
In Kerala, most of the people are devotees of a god called Ayyappa. He is the son of Visnu and Siva... yup, Visnu took his feminine form of Mohini (her name translates as “temptress” and she is uber feminine) in order to become impregnated by Siva! Then Visnu gave birth to Ayyappa. It’s quite ironic that this is how he was created because the cult of Ayyappa has become quite the “boy’s club”. Again he is an uber masculine god, and only men and non-menstruating (read little girls and old women) are allowed to go on pilgrimage to his main temple. The pilgrimage takes several days, is hard work , and generally turns into a male bonding session... although I doubt they impregnate each other in the form of the temptress! (well....it IS India...).
Aahhh I knew I would have too much random stuff to talk about in this week (I could go on)... why do my blogs always turn out so random ? (and long... sorry guys!)... I’m done
Ardhanarisvara "the Lord who is half woman"
6 comments:
I always like the visual touch at the end of your posts. (Sorry. My comments are running reverse through the blog content.)
It's interesting to hear about gender or gender roles in other religions, but I kept wondering how the examples you mentioned fit with the readings. You must have some speculative ideas about the history or phenomenology of 'the Lord who is half-woman.' It doesn't matter how far-fetched they are, I'd like to hear them.
Like Arjuna: Was he a eunuch or a hermaphrodite? Was he androgynous b/c he was a eunuch? How did this affect his gender role, especially given that he was masquerading as a eunuch? Come on, share some juicy, outrageously speculative ideas.
India really can be fascinating.
You are on the right track with the Latin bit... Adam is actually a word that refers to human beings (man/mankind) and has become a name. It is an example of, as you suspect, the masculine plural as gender non-specific (rather than neutral). ;) Sophia (wisdom)can be found to be the feminine aspect of God in Judaism and, I believe, Gnosticism. The spirit is, of course without gender, and as Boyarin points out refers to breath, though linguistically it is masculine. (though linguistic gender is not always that significant)
I have always understood the Ayyappan pilgrimage to be a hyper-masculine event... I wonder how what seems like the "homosexuality" of the gods is understood by followers... and if the gods can be said to be gendered... Man, gender's confusing!!
Leah: I have a lot of Malayalam friends as I spent a fair time in Kerala, most of them are devotees of Ayyappan and they are all males (I found Indian girls do not want to be my friend, unfortunetly) I tried to figure out from them how they feel about how their god was conceived, but I never got a straight answer out of them!
Ryan: yeah my examples are random... somehow they make sense in my brain!
your questions about Arjuna: its unclear exactly how far his "castration" went. HIs name is brhandada, a feminine name which means "one with the large reed"... quite cheeky! as always there are a whole bunch of background myths as to why things are the way they are... one is he was cursed by a nymph to become a eunuch because he refused to have sex with her (she was his aunt or something) then his father Indra intervened and changed the curse to only last for one year and at his choosing. Another more boring reason why is because his flowy costumes would hide his bow scars that would identify him as Arjuna. A Freudian explanation would be that all the character’s desguises reveal their innermost desires! My favourite reason is because he is an embodiment of Siva as Ardhanarisvara, and later in the cosmic dancer form as Nataraja.
Hmm the history behind Ardhanaisvara: you can look at it many ways. If you want to get philosophical it may relate to Samkhya philosophy with the interplay of Prakrti and Purusa. It is the realization that completeness is only achieved by combining polarities which by themselves are only half of the whole. Dualism is also very prominant in Tantric traditions...
ahh look what you made me do!
Thank you for indulging me, Jackie. I enjoyed it.
That was very interesting! (both the post and the subsequent "juicy, speculative ideas"). I was also interested in your discussion of language in relation to your studies, of course it is difficult to make substantive changes in how we think and look at the world when our very language limits us to certain words and ways of defining things.
I read a really good book about a boy who had a botched circumsision and was raised as a girl, the thing was, he had an identical twin, so it was the perfect study for researchers. Anyways, it became so apparent that for situations like this, it would be useful to have another category, so that a child could decide later... this guy eventually went back to being a guy.
Or for my little brother, who likes to dance and wear dresses and play dolls and says that he wishes he could be a girl, there is no room in our society at least (though maybe in Thailand there is!) for anything in between male and female. But I am digressing.
Good post!
I think bringing up literary gender makes a great point... and in many ways speaks to Goux's idea of the male gender neutral that Boyarin cites... Definitely in Hebrew the default is male and you can see how this informs Boyarin's analysis...
i think your references to the multiple gender systems of other cultures is really informative. I was wondering to what extent they may be also seen as part of the apparatus to naturalize sex and either way if this brings into question the application or relevance of such an analysis in a cross cultural context.
Post a Comment