Topic 4: Gender

Diversity

Sheilalaine G. Romulo, Ed.D.

Lecturer/Trainer
If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in
contrasting values, we must recognize the
whole gamut of human potentialities . . . one
in which each diverse human gift will find a
fitting place.

— Margaret Mead
Objectives
• To examine gender diversity through the cross-cultural lens
• To be familiar how transgender becomes an emerging subject of
interest
• To understand why gender diversity matters
Coverage
• Definition: sex, gender, and transgenderism
• A cross-cultural perspective on gender
• Gender diversity: transgenderism
• Why gender diversity matters
Definition
• Sex refers to the biologically differentiated status of male or female. It
includes anatomic sex, particularly the genitals, and also secondary
and invisible characteristics such as genes and hormones.
• Gender refers to the social, cultural, and psychological constructions
that are imposed on the biological differences of sex.
• Transgenderism is a term that includes a wide continuum of options,
from individuals who wish to undergo sex reassignment surgery to
those who wish to live their lives androgynously
(Nanda, 2014)
• There are many different ways that societies organize their thinking
about sex, gender, and sexuality.
• In contemporary Euro-American cultures binary opposites—male and
female, man and woman, homosexual and heterosexual, indeed the
binary opposition of sex and gender itself—are central to the dominant
gender ideology.
• The male/female binary appears as a basic, perhaps even universal,
pattern in human society (see Quinn and Luttrell 2004).
• At the same time many societies contain sex/gender roles that transcend
this binary opposition, making it clear that both sex and gender are
culturally constructed (e.g. the alyha and hwame of Mohave Indians and
the hijras and sādhins of Hindu India)
A Mohave alyha, a male-bodied person living as a
woman A Mohave hwame, a female-bodied person living as a male hunter and warrior.
The Hijra of India
A Cross-cultural Perspective on Gender (Nanda, 2014)

• The distinction between sex and gender as developed by social

scientists has been useful in challenging the view that biological sex
determines the roles and attributes of men and women in society.
Social scientists viewed biological sex (the opposition of male and
female) as “natural” and universal, and gender (the opposition of
man and woman) as culturally constructed and variable. Thus, this
differentiation between sex and gender made an important
contribution in undermining biological determinism, especially in
the study of women’s roles.
• Nevertheless, the dichotomy is now being challenged on the basis
that biological sex is also an idea constructed only through culture
(see especially Butler 1990:6; Karkazis 2008).
• The ethnographic record makes clear that there is no simple,
universal, inevitable, or “correct” correspondence between sex and
gender and that the Euro-American privileging of biological sex
(anatomy) is not universal; many cultures do not even make the
distinction between the natural and the cultural or between sex and
gender. In many societies anatomical sex is not the dominant factor
in constructing gender roles and gender identity.
“If anthropology is about difference, however, it is also about bridging
difference. In the classical anthropological tradition of looking at
“other cultures” from the inside, and one’s own culture from the
outside, we are enabled to cross the barriers of cultural difference to
a recognition of a greater shared humanity. This is the heart of
cultural anthropology as a humanistic as well as a scientific discipline”
(p. 10).
Multiple Genders Among Native Americans
The early encounters between Europeans and Native Americans in the 15th
through the 17th centuries brought together cultures with very different
sex/gender systems. The Spanish explorers, coming from a Catholic society where
sodomy was a heinous crime, were filled with contempt and outrage when they
recorded the presence of men in Native North American societies who
performed the work of women, dressed like women, and had sexual relations
with men (Lang 1996; Roscoe 1995).
Europeans labeled these men berdache, a term originally meaning male
prostitute. The term was both insulting and inaccurate, derived from the
European view that these roles centered on the “unnatural” and sinful practice of
sodomy as defined in their own societies. This European ethnocentrism also
caused early observers to overlook the specialized and spiritual functions of
many of these roles and the positive value attached to them in many Native
American societies.
 two-spirit (Jacobs et al. 1997; Lang 1998), a term coined
in 1990 by urban Native American gays and lesbians.
Two-spirit has the advantage of conveying the spiritual
nature of gender variance in both traditional and
contemporary Native American societies, although it
emphasizes the Euro-American binary sex/gender
construction of male and female/man and woman,
which did not characterize all Native American groups.

The Berdache (later named as two-spirit)

Multiple Genders Among Native Americans
Late 19th to early 20th centuries, some anthropologists studied
(ethnographies) attempting to explain the contributions alternative
sex/gender roles made to social structure or culture. These accounts,
though less contemptuous than earlier ones, nevertheless largely retained
the ethnocentric emphasis on berdache sexuality, defining it as a form of
“institutionalized homosexuality.” Influenced by functionalist theory,
anthropologists viewed these sex/gender roles as functional because they
provided a social niche for male individuals whose personality and sexual
orientation did not match the definition of masculinity in the
anthropologists’ societies, or because the roles provided a “way out” of
the masculine or warrior role for “cowardly” or “failed” men (see Callender
and Kochems 1983).
Multiple Genders Among Native Americans
Increasingly, however, anthropological accounts paid more attention
to the association of Native American sex/gender diversity with
shamanism and spiritual powers; they also noted that mixed gender
roles were often central and highly valued, rather than marginal and
deviant within some Native American societies. Still, the
identification of Native American sex/gender diversity with European
concepts of homosexuality (erotic feelings for a person of the same
sex), transvestism (cross-dressing), or hermaphroditism (the presence
of both male and female sexual organs in an individual) continued to
distort their indigenous meanings.
Multiple Genders Among Native Americans
Given the great variation in Native North American societies, it is
perhaps most useful to define their nonnormative sex/gender roles
as referring to people who partly or completely adopted aspects of
the culturally defined role of the other sex or gender and who were
classified as neither woman nor man but as mixed, alternative
genders; these roles did not involve a complete crossing over to an
opposite sex/gender role (see Callender and Kochems 1983:443).
Multiple Genders Among Native Americans
Most current research rejects institutionalized homosexuality as an
adequate explanation of Native American sex/gender diversity: It
emphasizes occupation rather than sexuality as its central feature;
considers multiple sex/gender roles as normal, indeed often
integrated into and highly valued in Native American sex/gender
systems.
Finds Them and Kills Them, a Crow Indian
gender variant, widely known as a superior
warrior. (National Anthropological Archives,
Smithsonian Institution, NAA IV 00476200.)
Gender Diversity: Transgenderism
• ‘Transgender’ has emerged as a subject of growing social, cultural and
social-scientific interest in recent years. Alongside an ever-increasing
cultural focus on transgender, for example, in the media and popular
culture, shifting attitudes towards transgender people are evident
through recent legislative changes across many countries in Europe, and
in the UK.
• These social, cultural and legislative developments reflect the ways in
which gender diversity is acquiring visibility in contemporary society and
mark transgender as an important and timely area of study.
• Transgender is thus an arena in which questions of gendered, sexual,
intimate and embodied identity and citizenship are being debated,
contested and reconfigured.
Gender Diversity: Transgenderism
• Transgenderism has its foundation in the ancient tradition of
androgyny*, a view that has made the cross-cultural data from
anthropology—with its descriptions of the positive value of
androgyny in some other cultures—particularly relevant to the
transgender community (Bolin 1996b:39; Connor 1993; Feinberg
1996).

• *the uniting of male and female

 Why Gender Diversity Matters
Gender Diversity Leads to Better Science (Nielsen, et al, 2017)

• Gender diversity enhances knowledge outcomes.

• Under the right conditions, teams may benefit from various types of
diversity, including scientific discipline, work experience, gender,
ethnicity, and nationality.
• Experimental research points to positive links between gender
diversity and collective problem solving. Women exhibit higher
levels of social perceptiveness and teams with more women achieve
greater equality in participation.
Gender Diversity Leads to Better Science (Nielsen, et al, 2017)

• Neither all-men nor all women teams are the most effective in
problem solving. Hence, given the persistent gender gap in science,
women represent an untapped potential for boosting the collective
intelligence in scientific team work.
Gender Diversity Leads to Better Science (Nielsen, et al, 2017)
• Recent discoveries in team science also highlight the importance of
gender diversity for effectively using the expertise of each team
member.
• Women more often than men accurately recognize the expertise of
fellow team members. Women are more likely to emphasize
educational qualifications when evaluating expertise, whereas men
tend to be distracted by irrelevant cues, such as gender.
• By cultivating gender diversity, teams can overcome such biases and
reap the full rewards of team expertise.
Gender Diversity Leads to Better Science (Nielsen, et al, 2017)
• Gender diversity may also spark new discoveries by broadening the
viewpoints, questions, and areas addressed by researchers.
• Articles with women authors are, for example, more likely to adopt
critical and employee-centered perspectives on management,
whereas men-dominated studies tend to be more prescriptive and
operational in their focus.
Gender Diversity Leads to Better Science (Nielsen, et al, 2017)
• Gender diversity relates to how we deploy analytics to study the
human condition.
• In medicine, for example, one analysis found that 8 of 10 drugs
withdrawn from the United States market between 1997 and 2000
posed “greater health risks for women than for men,” risks that
could have been avoided if more attention had been devoted to
gender and sex variation.
Gender Diversity Leads to Better Science (Nielsen, et al, 2017)
• By analyzing gender and sex in all stages of the research process,
from the initial considerations of problem choice to the
development of methodological design and data analysis, scientists
may add important new dimensions to research.
• The growing emphasis on teams in knowledge production, combined
with women’s educational gains in science and engineering, propel
gender diversity to the forefront of promising new opportunities for
scientific discovery.
Why Gender Matters: Gender Diversity Leads to Better Science

Important Takeaway!

Recruiting women is not enough: Carefully designed policies and

dedicated leadership allow scientific organizations to harness the
power of gender diversity for collective innovations and discoveries.
Why (Gender) Diversity Matters?
Suggested Teaching Learning Activities (TLA)
• Oral Presentation
• Short documentary/film
• Movie/film review/reflection
• Facilitated dialogue (breakout rooms)
• Small-group sharing (breakout rooms)
Summary
1. There is no simple, universal, inevitable, or “correct” way to define sex
and gender as evidences vary across cultures. Many cultures do not
even make the distinction between the natural and the cultural or
between sex and gender. Thus, in presenting these varying cultural
realities, a cross-cultural perspective is necessary.
2. Gender diversity has two themes: one is the inclusion of women in a
usually men-dominated positions and the other is transgenderism.
3. In the language of cross-cultural perspective and third wave feminism,
gender is nonbinary. It is fluid.
4. Studies show that gender diversity leads to better science, and thus,
promoting development and innovation.
References
Nanda, S. (2014). Gender diversity: Crosscultural variations. Waveland
Press.
Nielsen, M. W., Alegria, S., Börjeson, L., Etzkowitz, H., Falk-Krzesinski,
H. J., Joshi, A., ... & Schiebinger, L. (2017). Opinion: Gender diversity
leads to better science. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, 114(8), 1740-1742. URL
https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/114/8/1740.full.pdf
Video:
Blind spots – Broaden perspectives 3:24
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbBTM8bJt8Q