~ First in a series of articles ~

"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." (Simone de Beauvoir)

Have you ever looked through an old family album and come across a baby picture of your grandfather wearing a dress? Among the many things our dress signifies are our age, religious beliefs, cultural beliefs, social status...even musical tastes. It also signifies our gender. In many parts of the U.S. for example, the traditional dress for young girls is pink, for young boys, blue. This is an interesting concept since it indicates that from birth, some cultures attach gender to their children. The pink/blue concept is a fairly new one, however, even in the U.S. According to Antonia Young, "'only after World War II [...] did the present alignment of the two genders with pink and blue come into being.'" But are there only two genders?

Gender and Language

In the English language, there are only two gendered pronouns: he and she. The fact that we only have two pronouns for gender in our language indicates that, at least historically, we believed that only two genders existed. This is not the case for many cultures outside mainstream Euro-American culture, however. Navajo have at least three gender categories, for example, as do Zunis and Samoans. Furthermore, each of these cultures has words to describe different genders. So do other languages, such as German and Serbo-Croatian, particularly in reference to children. The German noun, das Kind (child), for instance, has no gender—it's neuter.

Rites of Passage

In many cultures, gender is not innate, but acquired. It is a social construct, not a biological one. Puberty is often the point at which individuals "acquire" their gender. The Kota men of Congo, for example, paint their faces a bright blue, signaling the transformation from child to man. They believe that in order to become a man, the child must die. Thus the ghost-like blue paint is a reference to the death of their childhood. Among Rashayda bedouins, clothing also indicates a gendered rite of passage. In an excellent book called Veil: Modesty, Privacy and Resistance, Fadwa El Guindi explains:

Rashayda divide the life-span into phases, each marked by specific clothing. 'Infants (bizran, literally, seedlings) are dressed in a loose, gown-like garment called thawb for as long as they are unable to speak and walk properly and are not toilet-trained[.] After toilet training, they wear longer clothes that cover their legs more and are tied at the waist - girls wear a long skirt (tichcha), boys a shirt and a pair of long, loose pants (sirwal)'[.]

The next phase [...] consists of adding head coverings - girls wear a large black or colored cloth (gargush) over their heads and shoulders, with the edges fastened by a pin. This goes over their heads down their shoulder and chests. In the case of boys the head covering is a knitted cap (tagiya). As individuals advance along the scale of maturity more clothing items are added. [...] 'Girls first add a 'virgin's veil' (mungab) [...] to their wardrobe and then a black gown (thawb) that covers them from neck to ankle. Boys add a white thawb to their costume first then follow it with a long white turban ('immaama), that they wrap around their knit caps'[.] Note that thawb is the Rashidi Arabic word used for both genders. (108.)

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