Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the gender beliefs of the Aravanis, a transgender community in Tamil Nadu. Gender transgression and gender transformation (attempts to change gender) tasks were used to examine the essentialist notions of the Aravanis' beliefs about gender. A total of 100 Aravanis participated in the study. In the gender transgression task the Aravanis endorsed both male and female gender transgressions. In the gender transformation task the Aravanis believed in the male to female transformation but not in the female to male transformation. I argue that the asymmetry in the Aravanis' responses suggests that their beliefs about gender are consistent with Hindu patriarchal beliefs that feminine gender is essential and primordial, whereas masculine gender transformations are viewed as part of the male prerogative. The marginalized gender experience of the Aravanis influenced their judgments about gender transgressions but not their beliefs about gender transformations. I also discuss the implications of a cultural psychology of gender.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Agrawal, A. (1997). Gendered bodies: The case of the "third gender" in India. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 31, 273–297.
Bem, S. (1981). Gender schema theory: A cognitive account of sex typing. Psychological Review, 88, 354–364.
Bem, S. (1993). The lenses of gender: Transforming the debate on sexual inequality. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Bhabha, H. (1994). The location of culture. New York: Routledge.
Brown, L. S. (1989). New voices, new visions: Toward a lesbian/gay paradigm for psychology. Psychology of Women's Quarterly, 13, 445–458.
Callender, C., & Kochems, L. (1986). Men and not-men: Male gender-mixing statuses and homosexuality. Anthropology and Homosexual Behavior, 11, 165–178.
Daly, M. (1973). Beyond God the father: Toward a philosophy of women's liberation. Boston: Beacon Press.
Feinman, S. (1981). Why is cross-sex-role behavior more approved for girls than boys? A status characteristic approach. Sex Roles, 7, 289–300.
Fiske, S. T. (1993). Controlling other people: The impact of power on stereotyping. American Psychologist, 48, 621–628.
Fuss, D. (1989). Essentially speaking: Feminism, nature and difference. New York: Routledge.
Gelman, S. A., & Wellman, H. (1990). Insides and essences: Early understandings of the non-obvious. Cognition, 38, 213–244.
Grosz, E. (1994). Sexual difference and the problem of essentialism. In N. Schor & E. Weed (Eds.), The essential difference. (pp. 82–97). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Harding, S. (1991). Whose science? Whose knowledge?: Thinking from women's lives. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Hirschfeld, L. A. (1996). Race in the making. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Hirschfeld, L. (1997). The conceptual politics of race: Lessons from our children. Ethos, 25(1), 63–92.
Jaffrey, Z. (1996). The invisibles: A tale of the eunuchs of India. New York: Pantheon Books.
Mahalingam, R. (1998). Essentialism, power and theories of caste: A developmental study. Dissertation Abstracts International, 60(2–B). (UMI No. AAM9919309)
Mahalingam, R. (2001, August). Essentialism, power, and gender: A developmental study. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the European Developmental Psychology Association, Uppsala, Sweden.
Nanda, S. (1990). Neither man nor woman: Hijras of India. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Narayan, R. K. (2000). The Mahabharata: A shortened modern prose version of the Indian epic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sidanius, J., & Pratto, F. (1999). Social dominance: An intergroup theory of social hierarchy and oppression. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Signorella, M., & Liben, L. (1985). Assessing children's gender-stereotypes attitudes. Psychological Documents, 15, 7–26.
Spivak, G. (1989). In a word: Interview. Differences, 1, 128–129.
Stoler, A. (1995). Race and the education of desire: Foucault's history of sexuality and the colonial order of things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Taylor, M. (1996). The development of children's beliefs about social and biological aspects of gender differences. Child Development, 67, 1555–1571.
Trawick, M. (1990). Notes on love in a Tamil family. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Vedanthan, R. (2001). Engagement with dominant codified gender norms in (Hindu) India: Purdah and the Hijras. Unpublished masters thesis, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
Wiken, U. (1982). Behind the veil in Arabia: Women in Oman. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Mahalingam, R. Essentialism, Culture, and Beliefs About Gender Among the Aravanis of Tamil Nadu, India. Sex Roles 49, 489–496 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025828606094
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025828606094