Details

Subject(s)

• Cross-dressing [Browse]
• Cross-dressing—Psychological aspects [Browse]
• Cross-dressers—Brazil [Browse]
• Cross-dressers—Great Britain [Browse]
• Cross-dressing—Cross-cultural studies [Browse]

Series

Dress, body, culture. [More in this series]

Summary note

How does culture shape notions of sexuality and gender? Why are transvestites in the West so often seen as deviant or perverse, while they are accepted in other societies? What are the implications for the categories of male and female when consideri ng transvestism? Transvestism, and its cultural practice, is a useful lens through which we can view and thus debate models of sex, gender and sexuality. Drawing on primary fieldwork, Unzipping Gender offers a cross-cultural study of transvestism thr ough an examination of transvestites in Britain and the Hijras of India. The author tackles the cr.

Notes

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references (pages 199-208) and index.

Source of description

Print version record.

Language note

English

Contents

• The doctrines of gender. The prevalence of transvestism. Clothing as gender landscape
• Clothing sex, sexing clothes : transvestism, material culture and the sex and gender debate. The importance of sex and gender. Dress and identity : transvestism and material culture. 'Is gender to culture as sex is to nature?' : transvestism and the discourses of sex and gender. Corporeality and the politics of sex. Clothing the brain
• Transvestites in the UK : the dream of fair women. Are those women's clothes? Fieldwork in the UK. Becoming extraordinary : the experience of the transvestite in Western societies. Becoming 'the other.' UK transvestites : interviews with Anthony/Suzanne, John/Joy, Dan/Shelly, Gavin/Gina and Simon/Sandra. The range of possibilities. Clothing choices. Some conclusions about UK transvestites
• Disorder within the pattern : the hijras of India. Fieldwork in India. Hijras in context : who are hijras? Why the hijras? The need to categorise : studies of the hijras. Becoming a hijra. Hijras and the principle of male and female union. Hijras and religion
• Crossing gender boundaries in cultural context : fieldwork comparisons and cultural influences. cross-dressing and clothing choices. Differences in lifestyle. Transvestism within contrasting cosmological contexts
• Dressing up/dressing down : reconsidering sex and gender culture. Woman=soft, man=hard : concepts of language made material. Gendered emotions and the ceremony of naven. Masculine representation of the feminine. Jung and the inner world of opposites. sex, gender or sexuality? Crossing gender as an 'institutionalised' role. The Brazilian travestis. Binary categorisation as 'common sense.' Masculinity, femininity ; genetics and mosaics. The correlates of gender culture-transvestism as material objectification. Cross-cultural evidence and the conceptualisation of gender crossing. Marking gender
• Thinking of themselves : transvestism and concepts of the person. Transvestism as a social phenomenon. Concepts of the person, individual and society in India and England : cultural contexts of transvestites and hijras. Contrasting concepts of self within the Hindu and Western traditions. Individuality and identity. Personhood and transvestism in cross-cultural perspective. Blurring the boundaries : deconstructing theories of the self. Transvestites, constructed selves, and issues of sex and gender. A broader conceptualisation of transvestism. 'This is an absurd ordination for people to live in, in 2002'.

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Other format(s)

Also published in print.

ISBN

• 184788895X
• 9781847888952

OCLC

560213200

Doi

• 10.5040/9781847888952

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