How does biology, culture, and identity intersect?. Anthropology

• Developmental systems theory (DST): focuses on genetic as well as environmental contributions to an organisms development

• this theory recognizes that social constructed environments (along with their so­cial, economic, and political resources) get passed on to subsequent generations as faithfully as genes
• influences how individuals develop
• explains how biological and cultural processes are intertwined, and how they can shape our lives in decisive ways
• Hijras: a masculine noun, when translated into English it means intersexed

• Biological and Social aspects:

• 1. sexually impotent men who lack desire for women, a physical defect impairing sexual function
• 2. Instead of having the explicit sex-typed determinants of external genitalia or the phenotype expression of facial-hair, voice, and breast the hijras do have the modified physical body
• 3. often identified with eunuchs, homosexuals, transsexuals, and transvestites

• Although hijras are phenotype men they perform many aspects of a female:

• 1. thinks of themselves as females and want to have what every good Indian woman is supposed to want
• 2. they wear women's clothing and jewellery and walk and sit like women
• 3. adopt female names and feminized language
• 4. smoke in public
• How are sexual practices organized:

• Marriage and sexual practices

• Heterosexual practices associated with marriage (in most societies)
• Pre-marriage heterosexual practice (Oceanic Tikopia people)
• Same sex-marriage and homosexuality (gay and lesbian culture in North America or Kenya)

 

• Postpartum sex taboo

• Dani parents (New Guinea) do not have sexual intercourse with each other for 5 years after the birth of a child
• Postpartum sex taboo is practiced in every culture, but in most societies it lasts for a few weeks or months

• High rank and financial independence and female's sexual practices in Mombasa (Kenya)

• women are allowed to choose other women as sexual partners only after they have been married
• high rank and financial independence for a women as sexual partners only after they have been married
• social and economic power enables the wealthy women to create a circle of de­pendents to manage more lesbian partners