Variations in Masculinity from a Cross-Cultural Perspective

Abstract

Most well-known conceptualizations of sex, gender and sexuality privilege one version or another of a Western European or North American bi-polar paradigm. However, such a focus ignores the ethnographic evidence for a larger range of sex–gender–sexuality constructs. This paper outlines parameters for known variations in cultural constructs of sex–gender–sexuality systems, and raises questions about contemporary trends in understanding sex, gender and sexuality. As a first step, and because the data are more plentiful, I focus on variations in cultural constructions of sex, gender and sexuality relevant to physiological males, leaving a thorough exploration of constructions relevant to physiological females for another paper. The contemporary spread of Western cultural hegemony, as well as some opposition to that model, has categorized many indigenous, multi-polar sex–gender–sexuality systems as either in need of modernization or simply not quite civilized. The result is a loss, not only of knowledge about human plasticity in this area, but also a loss of cultural flexibility in organizing and dealing with human biocultural variation.

Citation

Segal, E.S. (2006), "Variations in Masculinity from a Cross-Cultural Perspective", Demos, V. and Texler Segal, M. (Ed.) Gender and the Local-Global Nexus: Theory, Research, and Action (Advances in Gender Research, Vol. 10), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 25-43. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1529-2126(06)10002-8