Global Genders and Boundaries of Transgression

Abstract

Gender crossing, the transgression of hegemonic gender stereotypes and especially the violation of each attributed social, erotic and physiological gender role, is the subject of this worthwhile and concise study of the Frankfurt ethnologist Susanne Schröter. The author’s study not only spans from antiquity to the present, but also around the globe. The diverse methods of (de)constructivist gender research and feminist identity politics are also addressed. Against the notion of alternative gender models in non-European cultures, she hereby illustrates that the construction of gender as a binary category is evidently universal. At the same time, Schröter asserts that in all cultures the possibility exists “within the framework of an outsider position to disregard established gender roles” (p. 219).