Customer Rating: 
Summary: break down the barriers in your mind
Comment: this was a very readable book about the idea of gender and how it's not as black and white as some would love to make it. it basically take a look at different cultures and documents how they view gender. when we think gender, in the society we live in (that i am sometimes not that happy about being a part of) we think of only two possibilities, male and female. homosexuals are still men or women if they like someone of the same gender, they're just weird (dripping with sarcasm). however, what we fail to realize (when i say we i mean main stream society, the mob, the collective) its that the concept of gender is a mental construction. what we see as fact and set in stone, is about as whimsically held together as a kite made out of feathers, it can fall apart at any time. as nature doesn't provide only two types of human beings, society must come to see that more than two types of human beings exist. some cultures take this better than others and that is the point of this book. in some cultures there are three or four genders, in some cultures other manifestations of sexual preference are revered.
this book looks at various cultures around the world and how they deal with the issue of gender. it's a short read, but a fun one.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A breakthrough study - accessible, too!
Comment: A masterful, highly readable survey of an important and fascinating subject. This indispensable, seminal work is concise, but far-reaching. It describes the varied manifestations of gender diversity in a way that permits the reader to perceive the patterns and deeper meanings that underlie cultural differences. This may be the first cross-cultural survey of gender diversity to describe "the trees" in such a balanced and objective way that the reader may see and understand "the forest." Anyone interested in the deeper, changeable nature of human sexuality will find this book to be both provocative and illuminating. A wonderful expansion of the author's classic study of the hijras of India, Neither Man Nor Woman.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Gender Diversity: Crosscultural Variations
Comment: In this lean book, Serena Nanda uses ethnographic accounts to illustrate how diverse cultures construct their sex/gender systems. By doing so, she reveals that these systems are not always binary; male and female, man and woman. Her descriptions of masculinity and femininity in India, Brazil, Polynesia, Thailand, the Philippines, within some Native American tribes and in contemporary Euro-American cultures challenge what some believe is "natural" about gender and, by extension, sexuality. By presenting gender variations historically and as they are currently understood and displayed, Nanda reveals the social, historical and cultural forces that have created changes in these sex/gender systems.This engaging book has eight short chapters. The introductory chapter lays the foundation for Nanda's argument by defining key terms (e.g., gender diversity, sex, gender, sexual orientation, transgendered, sex/gender identity, etc.) with which readers must be familiar to understand gender variation. Chapters 1 through 5 provide ethnographic accounts of multiple genders among North American Indians, the hijra and sadhin of India, the travestÃs, bichas, and viados of Brazil, the mahu in Polynesia, the kathoey of Thailand and the bayot/bantut/bakla in the Philippines. What some readers will find most interesting and provocative are accounts of how contact with Western cultures influenced existing gender constructs in these cultures. For example, North American Indian men who dressed like women, did "women's work" and were sexually intimate with other men were called "berdache" (an Arabic term for a male prostitute) and demeaned by early Spanish explorers on religious grounds.
Chapter 6 focuses on sex and gender diversity in Euro-American cultures. While the present-day view is that there are only two sexes and two genders, Nanda reveals other models of sex/gender that are part of the Euro-American heritage. In the final chapter, Nanda summarizes important ideas from the preceding chapters and compares sex/gender variations. This further exposes the extent to which sex/gender variants challenge the binary concepts of sex, gender and sexuality in Western cultures. She rightly concludes that "the evidence argues against any one-way, cause-and-effect relationship between homosexuality and sex/gender diversity, and a specific sexuality may well emerge from a sex/gender variant role, rather than the reverse...the association between sexuality and sex/gender diversity cannot be assumed, but rather must be examined within specific cultural/historical contexts" (Nanda 2000, 101-02).
For those who want to learn more, Nanda includes a reference section that highlights materials that should be of particular interest to "students" of gender. She also provides a list of selected films, explains how each complements materials presented in a particular chapter and where to obtain the film.
Some readers may be disappointed that there is little coverage of female gender diversity in this book. However, this shortcoming is not Nanda's. As she explains, socialization, patriarchy and other factors allow male gender variance to occur more frequently than female gender variance. To her credit, where female gender variance is well documented (e.g.,among North American Indians, the s dhin of India and Euro-American variations) Nanda provides ample coverage.
In short, this book is a refreshing addition to the literature on gender, sexuality, cultural studies and gay and lesbian studies that should not be overlooked.
