Neither Man Nor Woman: The Hijras of India

by Serena Nanda

This ethnography is a cultural study of the Hijras of India, a religious community of men who dress and act like women. It focuses on how Hijras can be used in the study of gender categories and human sexual variation.

Genres: Anthropology, Nonfiction, India, Ethnography, Gender, LGBT, School

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tender and evocative anecdotes, but the book purveys a host of subtle inaccuracies. It paves over vast lacunae, as though they weren't, and condenses huge diversities in an attempt to appear comprehensive. That's an anthropological no-no. For one of the more striking examples of this, in the region where I did my own research on the subject, the title of this book would be every bit as offensive as saying: Neither Man Nor Woman: The Tranny Fags of India. (That is to say, the very name they are called by in this book, and in the literature at large, is insulting, at least in Gujarat. There, they prefer "Masiba," meaning roughly, auntie.) Naming a given social category by a disparaging outgroup epithet: also an anthropological no-no. But read it anyway. This is the single most fascinating social group I have ever encountered. The Masiba is a revered and loathed entity, a strange and liminal identity that coalesces within it and permutes, elements of intersexuality, drag performance, mobsters, various trans identities, prostitutes, priestesses, burlesque dancers, eunuchs, ascetics, and witches. And this book, for all its flaws, was the least reprehensible one in print, at least up to the date it was published. The Masiba are simply highly secretive and largely impenetrable, especially if you are a bio woman as Nanda is. And unless you are queer and/or a bio male (ahem, preferably one that lets them think they will get to fuck you) they are not going to divulge much. [This review written in 2008-ish]

[Anastasia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very light and informative read.
Explores every aspects of hijras and their roles within their community, as well as their role in the Indian community as well.
A bit contradictory at times, but definitely easy to understand.
Presents an alternative to Western ideas of gender identity.
The text is very easy to follow and the author does a good job at making sure you're aware of what is going on at any point of the book.

[Allyson Goose · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was fascinating to learn about the hijras, a group of people in India who are quite effeminate yet are mostly born with male genitalia. I learned about how they made their own family structures, how they physically altered their bodies and how they earned money. It was a bit dry at times, as academic books can be, but I found myself in awe of so much of what Nanda describes.

[Whitney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never heard of the Hijras before I took a class in college that required me to read this book. It was really interesting to see how people with an alternative gender are treated in India in contrast to Western society.

[Pancha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somehow I had the idea that hijras were always prostitutes, so it was interesting to find out where that assumption came from. The book also includes a final chapter about other cultures with third sexes, like Oman, various Native American tribes, Polynesia, and Thailand.

[Jakub Štefan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The summary:
The most widely used English translations of the word hijra, which is of Urdu origin, is either "eunuch" or "hermaphrodite" (intersexed). Both terms, as used in India, connote impotence—an inability to function in the male sexual role—and the word hijra primarily implies a physical defect impairing the male sexual function. Historically in North India, a linguistic distinction was made between "born hijras" (hermaphrodites) and "made hijras" (eunuchs). The view of hijras as an "in-between" gender begins with their being men who are impotent, therefore not men - the term itself is a masculine noun suggesting, as does the word eunuch, a man that is less than a perfect man. Hijra performances are most often burlesques of female behavior, and much of the fun of the performance derives from the incongruities between their behavior and that of women of the larger society whom they pretend to imitate.
The idea that gender is culturally constructed is now a dominant viewpoint in cultural anthropology. The increasing acceptance of the cultural construction of gender draws significantly on anthropological and historical work on alternative gender roles in a wide range of cultures, past and present, of which the hijras are a significant example.
One of the difficulties in writing clearly and accurately about the hijras is the disjunctions that exist between the cultural definition of the hijra role and the variety of individually experienced social roles, gender identities, sexual orientations, and life histories of the people who become hijras.
- One important disjunction has to do with the fact that although hijras are culturally defined in terms of their traditional occupation as performers on auspicious occasions, many, if not most, hijras do not earn their living solely in this manner; indeed, many hijras do not perform at all.
- A second disjunction has to do with the cultural definition of hijras as neither men nor women and the experienced gender identity of many hijras as women.
- A third disjunction has to do with the definition of the hijra role as based on sexual impotence due to an ascribed physical condition of intersexuality, and the reality that most hijras are not hermaphrodites.
The hijra role and identity appear to be adopted by people whose sexual impotence has a psychological rather than an organic basis.
The hijra emasculation operation is both illegal and life-threatening. Emasculation is the major source of the ritual power of the hijras. It is the source of their uniqueness and the most authentic way of identifying oneself as a hijra and of being so identified by the larger society. The hijras call the emasculation operation nirvan. Nirvan is a condition of calm and absence of desire; it is liberation from the finite human consciousness and the dawn of higher consciousness. The Hindu scriptures call the beginning of this experience the second birth, or the opening of the eye of wisdom.
Although the core of the cultural meaning of the hijra role and the basis of the hijras' claim to power rest on their renunciation of male sexuality and their identification with "other-worldly" religious ascetics many hijras have sexual relations with men and earn their living through prostitution. The faith in the powers of the hijras rests on the Hindu belief in shakti—the potency of the dynamic female forces of creation that the hijras, as vehicles of the Mother Goddess, represent. As such hijras are also identified with the creative power of ascetics, particularly with Shiva, who simultaneously, and paradoxically, contains the power of both the erotic and the ascetic.
The most important and best-known traditional role for the hijras in Indian society is that of performing at homes where a male child has been born. It is on this happy and auspicious occasion that the hijras bless the child and the family and provide entertainment for relatives.
There is no question that at least some hijras—perhaps even the majority—are homosexual prostitutes. Sinha's (1967) study of hijras in Lucknow, in North India, acknowledges the hijra's role as performers but views the major motivation for recruitment to the hijra community as the satisfaction of the individual's homosexual urges, satisfaction related to their engaging in prostitution.
But there is a point raised by the hijra narratives regarding gender identity/role is that it may be more subject to change than has generally
been acknowledged in Western social science - as they suggest that gender identity/role may be subject to transformations later
in life. Specifically, the connection of homosexual activity with the hijra role suggests that the development of gender identity may be a more
gradual process than is generally believed. It appears that most hijras join the community in their youth, either out of a desire to more fully express their feminine gender identity, under the pressure of poverty, because of ill-treatment by parents and peers for feminine behavior, after a period of homosexual prostitution, or for a combination of these reasons. Because not all effeminate homosexuals become hijras, this activity by itself cannot be viewed as the sole cause of the making of a hijra.

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this book by accident and I'm so glad that I did. It was really interesting to learn how transgender issues are treated in a different culture.

[Betsy McGee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a great book for people interested in Indian culture and/or gender studies. It's no fairy-tale or Bollywood romance, but a gritty and honest insight to India's third gender.

[A J]

Very interesting, but some of the language used and how the author talks about Western trans people were out of date to the point of offensiveness.

[Kim Shively · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, straightforward ethnography of hijra culture in India. Great for undergrad students

[Helen Stout · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to be interesting and an eye opening cultural read.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A first rate ethnographic exploration carried out in two Indian cities during the mid-late 1980s of the life/lives of hijras—“a religious community of men who dress and act like women [or rather, who are neither men nor women—whether by birth or by way of a ritual castration] and whose culture centers on the worship of Bahuchara Mata, one of the many versions of the Mother Goddess worshipped throughout India” (ix).

[Rachel Remer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting subject matter and the book was a really easy read for non-fiction. I has a lo o say about gender and it's place in different societies. It was written very early in the growing western awareness of the alternatives to a strong binary gender assignment and some of the conclusions show this. But other questions and hypotheses have rung true.

[Amita N · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very helpful and informative book for class. Plus the author has a great last name

[ابو الامين · Rating 5 out of 5]

i want this book

[Jecilyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written well, I just know that there are inconsistencies. Overall though, a good introduction to the topic.

[Charlotte · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book and it's consequences have been nothing short of a disaster for hijra women.

[Kevin McAvoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

After seeing hijras on a few documentaries about India I made a mental note to learn more about them.
This book is a good education not just of the hijras but the complicated topic of gender identity.
The last time I checked google there were 107 genders.
This book convincingly demonstrates that gender is very much a cultural construction that has Western culture views allowing 2 genders only based on physical genitals ....and a global culture where multiple genders and cross-genders exist based on personal self-recoginition and leaning.
A eye-opener for me and I'm grateful to understand more about my fellow humans.
The sale of religious approval is at the core of the hijras occupation.
To shame and extort Hindus into hiring them for their supposed abilities which are clearly a sham is deplorable. In India people cut off limbs in order to be a succesful beggars so cutting off genitals is just another method of having an income where there are no jobs.

[Rajalaxmi Behera · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those of you who may not have heard of them, the hijras are a group of people in India who constitute a third gender category, considered by themselves and by others to be neither men nor women. The term "hijra" is often translated as "eunuch" and the archetypal hijra is raised as a man and undergoes ritual removal of the genitals to become a hijra. However, as Nanda shows, many hijras come from other sexually ambiguous backgrounds: they may be born intersexed, be born male or female and fail to develop fully at puberty, or be males who choose to live as hijras without ever undergoing the castration procedure. The cultural category "hijra" appears to be a magnet for a variety of sexual and gender conditions: ambiguous sexual anatomy, impotence, infertility, homosexuality, and others which may not have an analogue in Western cultures.
The traditional role of hijras in Indian society is to sing and dance at weddings and ceremonies surrounding the birth of a boy. They dress as women and their performances include comic parodies of the manners and body language of women. They are believed to have special powers to ward off or expose impotence and infertility. Hijras constitute a sect within Hinduism, worshipping Bahuchara, an aspect of the Hindu mother goddess, but many hijras come from Muslim backgrounds and/or consider themselves Muslims. Their status in Hindu society is ambivalent: although they are revered for their special powers, they are also feared, in part because they may use extortion-like methods the exercise their right to perform and earn their fees. The typical threat is to cause a scandal at a public function by exposing their altered genitals. They have the reputation of recruiting new hijras by kidnapping and emasculating boys, although Nanda found no evidence that this is true.
Not all hijras also earn their living as performers. Other common hijra occupations include begging and prostitution. The sexuality of hijras is another area of seeming paradox: hijras claim the religious status of sannyasis or ascetics, having taken the extreme step of removing their genitalia. Nevertheless many hijras work as prostitutes, many have non-hijra men as husbands, and many seem to be attracted to hijra life after becoming homosexually active in adolescence.
Nanda's book is a very readable anthropological monograph. After background chapters on the culture, religion and biological status of hijras, she treats us to four separate portraits of individual hijras. Then she sums up with an intercultural comparison of hijras with other alternative gender roles including the berdache of native North America and the transsexuals of modern Western societies. One intriguing point is that although many societies accept the ambiguity of gender by institutionalizing a third gender role, Western society seems quite fixated on the concept that every human being is either male or female. Even homosexuals and transsexuals in Western society are considered to be firmly of one gender or the other, transsexuals in particular being required to assert their complete identification with their non-birth gender before being considered for surgery. The idea that individuals could have mixed or alternative gender identities, although common in many cultures, is quite foreign to the West.
I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in sexuality, anthropology or India.

[Courtney Shore · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to read this book for my anthropology/gender studies class and it was a shallow overview of the hijra community. While it was adequately written I felt a continual bias from Nanda throughout the text. I recommend if you need a quick read and surface level overview on this very specific group of people in India.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Neither Man Nor Woman mixes a socio-anthropological look at the Hijra communities India, while sharing stories of Hijra life. For a better understanding of Hijra life, this is a good place to start.

[Jaina Bee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though this is very dated material, there is still much worthwhile information and insight here. Perhaps the second edition contains updated language and info? I guess i'll check it out.