ANT 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Dowry, Mother Goddess
14 May 2019
School
Department
Course
Professor
10/2 Sexuality and Gender
• Difference between sex and gender
o As a society we are preoccupied with instilling gender awareness
• Hijras
o Gender construction
• What is sexuality?
• Looking outside of personal attractions, identifications, etc.
o Looking outside of our core values
o Identifying social politics, values associated with religion, economics
impact changes
The Hijras: An Alternative Gender in India
• Early perceptions
o Used to revered and accepted by Indian society
o Hindu festivals and practices
▪ Respect male transgenders/cross dressers
▪ Mother goddess cult
• Now we have a binary gender system
o Enforced by Abrahamic faiths
o Colonization of India
▪ Christian missionaries
▪ British being there for hundreds of years
• Introduced values that made gender more rigid
▪ Muslim missionaries
o Loss of flexibility to have a third gender
• Secularization, globalization, modernization
o Don’t believe in their powers anymore
• Loss of economic niches since Hijras have less roles
• Hijras are spiritual
o Western transgenderism
▪ Not the same thing or related
o Only M to F Hijras
• India is a communal society
o When pushed away from their families; they engage in community
living
• Superstition that if they ask for money and you don’t give it you will be
cursed
• No one in India feels comfortable talking about them
• Target for sexual and physical violence
o A lot of them
• Paris is Burning connection
o Drag families
o Protection, family setting
