In an article Dr. Blaire suggested that until there was contact with western societies, many societies had a more fluid notion of gender roles https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/inclusive-insight/201809/has-gender-always-been-binary
I am not sure that I agree with this idea. Gender is culturally defined, and is an eidos related to sex, as I suggest in Preprint From Gender and Race to Eidos: A broader term for culturally...
But that does not mean that gender is likely to be fluid. From what I can see, it is not that gender roles were fluid, but rather that there are simply a number of cultures with ternary and quaternary gender divisions. For instance, many Native American tribes expressed the concept of “two-spirit” people. This established a quaternary gender system. But I don’t think that people easily existed outside of those four roles or that the roles were not well defined. It’s just that there were more of them.
I would like to draw attention to the work of American anthropologist Margaret Meade, who has shown in her pioneering research in Africa, That these roles are not inevitable, the majer part of these roles imposed by society ,it is not biology
You might want to check out Friesen, J. W. (2013). Racism, Colonialism, and Indigeneity in Canada: A Reader ed. by Martin J. Cannon and Lina Sunseri. "Patriarchy invaded our nations, transforming what was largely egalitarianism
into an imbalanced set of gender relations" (p. xvii).
Michela Balocchi
, I reject the notion of gender vs gender identity. A person is the gender that they express. However, there is gender affinity. But non-binary gender is not what is being commented upon here. It's true that in many cultures, there are more genders. However, that does not mean that there's greater fluidity.
Jessica Weiser, what do those papers suggest about the fluid nature, or lack thereof, in gender in other societies?
Hi Daniel Goldman , many of the papers (from first-hand accounts) point out that patriarchy and the gendered binary of M/F is a product of Western colonialism in Canada, not Indigeneity. Am not sure if you know about the history of Church-run Residential Schools here as there's a lot of evidence there (can share more if you'd like). At the same time, that's not to say gender-based violence and subjugation aren't highly prevalent; rates are more prevalent in most communities.
All that commentary does, Jessica Weiser, is show that gender norms have changed. It does nothing to answer the question of whether there was greater gender fluidity.
Mostly , the question of gender and its fluidity ;depends on the nature, traditions and heritage or habit of a specific community. It is difficult making generations to all societies and communities in this matter.
Daniel Goldman is change not fluidity? And, as I suggested, there was/is less demarcation between male/female dualism in Indigenous cultures, so I'm confused by your comment.
Michela Balocchi
, apologies for not getting back to you. I lost track of this thread. While it is true that certain factors can inhibit the ability to express the gender for which a person has affinity, the point is simply that simply believing or asserting that one is a given gender is not enough to make it so, any more than a person believing that they're a scientist automatically makes it so.
Jessica Weiser, within a given culture, sure. However, the changes are transcultural. As culture itself changed, gender roles have changed. But that doesn't mean that within a given geography and temporal period they were fluid.
Given that cultures exist/are concentrated in certain geographical places at particular times in history, am not sure what you are implying. And, patriarchy was a Western system, not a native Indigenous one.
The original claim was that gender roles are fluid. But what does that mean? All culture is fluid, in the long term, as culture is always evolving. However, gender as being fluid, in any reasonable sense, means it is fluid within a given culture, not across changing cultures.
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