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Gender Rituals
In some sense all ritual is gender ritual. As long as
people live gendered lives, their experience of the
world, and thus of ritual, will be gender dependent,
whether or not the rituals they perform explicitly
relate to gender. Religious rituals often make gender
distinctions in their actions, and many rituals can only
be performed by men or by women. However, this
article defines gender rituals as those rituals whose
major purpose is to establish, reaffirm, or problematize gender.
Defining and Theorizing Gender
Before examining gender rituals it is important to
understand what is meant by “gender.” Until recently
it was agreed that gender could be defined vis-à-vis
sex, sex being biologically determined, while gender
was culturally acquired. Similarly, many cultures
viewed “male” as closer to culture and “female” as
closer to nature, with the result that nature was considered inferior to culture, and women inferior to men.
This gender-versus-sex dichotomy was eventually
critiqued by feminists as too simplistic and beside the
point. Most famously, perhaps, Judith Butler has
argued:
Gender ought not to be conceived merely as the cultural inscription of meaning upon a pregiven sex (a
juridicial conception); gender must also designate the
very apparatus of production whereby the sexes
themselves are established. As a result, gender is not
to culture as sex is to nature; gender is also the
discursive/cultural means by which “sexed nature”
or “a natural sex” is produced and established as
“prediscursive,” prior to culture, a politically neutral
surface on which culture acts. (Butler 1990, 7).
Thus Butler would contend that the widespread belief
that sex differences are natural indicates the very success of such a system. In understanding Butler it is
important to realize that for her nothing exists before
culture. There can be no natural sex because sex could
not have been conceived or spoken of before the existence of cultural constructs.
So how does one study gender if it is always a
result of culture? According to Daniel Boyarin, when
studying gender one is “investigating the praxis and
process by which people are interpellated into a two(or for some cultures more) sex system that is made to
seem as if it were nature, that is, something that has
always existed” (Boyarin 1998, 117). Studying ritual is
an intriguing way to understand how this cultural
conscription of gender occurs, as many rituals play an
important role in establishing, reaffirming, and problematizing gender and provide an outlet for participants to discuss and internalize the meaning of
gender differences in society.
Establishing Gender through Ritual
Religious rituals that establish gender usually occur
early in life. While many religious traditions treat
young children as somewhat androgynous beings,
there are traditions in which gendered existence
begins at birth. An example of this is seen in Judaism.
The first event after the birth of a baby boy is a bris, or
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GENDER RITUALS AND GENDER ROLE AND STATUS
How gender rituals are carried out—and whether they occur at all—reflect often-complicated gender relations in the society. The following example concerning the role of Hopi mothers in their son’s lives and initiation ritual and other life event rituals suggests the complexity of gender relations in Hopi society where
women exercise considerable power and influence.
Whereas the division of labor tends to force a son very close to his father it serves to pull him somewhat apart
from his mother. This does not mean that there is a weakening of affection, but it does imply that a mother’s influence over her son is greatest in the early years of his life.
Hopi mothers are notoriously over-indulgent towards their children. I have often seen them deny themselves
even a taste of some particular dainty at meals in order that a child may have more for himself; and I have seen
little boys, old enough to know better, strike their mothers viciously while their parents assumed an air of indifference in order that those present might not note how badly they were hurt physically and mentally. Mothers often
scold and threaten punishment, but only rarely do they make good their threats.
As a boy outgrows his childish fits of temper he begins more and more to appreciate his mother’s position in
the household and to rely on her advice. At this stage she generally encourages him not to be lazy, to go with his
father and uncles into the fields, and to comport himself in a manner befitting a good Hopi.
When the time comes for a son’s initiation into the Katcina cult, the mother helps choose his ceremonial father,
and after the ceremony she brings food to the home of her child’s sponsor. When a boy is old enough to go into his
Tribal Initiation, the mother makes special cakes for his ceremonial father.
A mother’s word counts heavily but is not necessarily final in a man’s choice of a bride. During the actual wedding ritual a mother plays a very active part, and when a son goes into housekeeping she gives him various useful
gifts and helps carry water to his new residence.
Even after marriage, when a man has left his mother’s household and has gone from a subordinate position in
his family of orientation to a more dominant one in his family of procreation, he does not feel that he has severed
his ties with his natal home. He is always welcome to drop into his mother’s house for meals, to bring friends there
for entertainment, and to leave harness, tools, or other equipment in the mother’s house if it happens to be more
conveniently located than his wife’s. Furthermore, if a mother becomes a widow her sons are expected to raise
crops for her even if they happen to be married and primarily occupied in working their wives’ farms. It is regarded as highly disgraceful for married sons to neglect a widowed mother.
The birth of children to a married son again brings his mother into prominence, for it is she who first washes
and cares for the tiny infant, and it is she who conducts the ceremonies that lead up to the naming rites on the
twentieth day. On that occasion she takes charge of the proceedings and is the first of many eligible women to
bestow a name referring to her clan on the baby.
Source : Titiev, Mischa. (1971).
Old Oraibi; a study of the Hopi Indians of Third Mesa.
New York, Kraus Reprint Co., p. 19. (Originally published 1944).
ritual circumcision, which traditionally occurs eight
days after birth. The purpose of the bris is to remember and re-enact the covenant made between God and
Abraham (Genesis 17:1–14). It is through circumcision
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that boys are welcomed into the covenant and inherit
the promises of abundance and land. Traditionally,
this covenant was made between God and the male
descendants of Abraham, and because the action of
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Indian sadhus perform a ritual to ensure health and prosperity
for clients by worshipping the Divine Female Principle in the
form of young virgins. Himalayas, India, 1988. COURTESY OF
RICHARD J. CASTILLO.
the ritual involves marking the male body, there was
historically no parallel ceremony for girls. Although
the overt purpose of the bris may be to commemorate
Abraham’s promise to God, it also serves to segregate
boys and girls at an early age by indicating that being
male is a prerequisite for full participation in Jewish
rituals.
In many cultures, puberty, or coming-of-age, ceremonies have almost always been explicitly rituals of
gender. These rituals, which Arnold van Gennep
would label “rites of passage,” welcome the initiates
into the world of adults. While some cultures have
celebrated parallel puberty ceremonies for boys and
girls, most have emphasized either the male or the
female in coming-of-age ceremonies. However, it is
not just this division that marks these ceremonies as
gender rituals. The very point of these rituals is to celebrate differences. Children become adults and begin
living as distinctly gendered when their differentiated
sex organs develop into their mature form at puberty.
This explains why many of these rituals occur around
puberty, although social and biological adulthood are
not always considered synonymous.
Although some would assume that in a traditionally patriarchal world coming-of-age ceremonies
would be more common for boys than for girls, there
are a surprising number of such ceremonies for girls.
Among the best-known girls’ puberty ceremonies is
the Kinaaldá ceremony that the Navajo traditionally
perform for girls at each of their first two periods.
According to Bruce Lincoln, the Navajo celebrate a
girl’s menarche “because it indicates that she is ready
to bring forth new life” (Lincoln 1981, 17). It is a girl’s
becoming a woman and thus her ability to bear
children that is celebrated in such rituals. Thus, these
rituals help establish her as a gendered being and
emphasize those traits considered properly feminine
in her culture—in this case fertility.
In the Kinaaldá ritual the girl becomes the
Changing Woman (a fertility goddess) through songs,
dress, and action. Her transformative power can especially be seen in the action of the initiated girl as she
places her hands on younger girls, lifting them up to
help them grow. Just as the Changing Woman is concerned with growth and the life cycle, so the initiand
(new initiate) develops these concerns in part through
this ceremony. Once the girl has undergone the
Kinaaldá ceremony she is expected to be ready to
marry and have children: at this point she is a woman,
as the ceremony has affirmed the physical status she
has already reached.
Reaffirming Gender through Ritual
Many religious rituals serve to reaffirm adults’ gendered existence. Whether or not these rituals indicate
equality or oppression, they do affirm differences
between men and women. These differences do not
necessarily relate to physical characteristics, as some
puberty ceremonies do, but often re-establish the
characteristics that the religious tradition considers
properly masculine or feminine. To be socially accepted a man must often behave in masculine ways and a
woman in feminine ways, and this is learned through
ritual.
One common reaffirming ritual is the wedding
ceremony. In many religious traditions men and
women (both the wedding couple and their guests)
play slightly different roles during the ceremony, roles
that specifically relate to the ways in which men and
women should behave in marriage. In a traditional
Iraqi Muslim wedding, the actual ceremony takes
place between the bride’s father and the bridegroom.
The father gives his daughter to the groom and asks
whether the groom accepts the daughter according to
the law of God and the prophet Muhammad. Once
the groom has accepted her, the father gives his blessing, and those assembled recite the first chapter of the
Qur’an. On the wedding night, usually after a day of
festivities, the bride is delivered by her family to the
groom, who greets her by washing her feet and praying. The wedding ceremony is a microcosm of the traditional marital relationship where the major public
decisions are made by the men. Women are respected
and loved by their husbands, but that affection is
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shown only in private. Finally, as the recitation of the
Qur’an and the prayer indicate, the relationship
between husband and wife will be guided by devotion to God and the example of the Qur’an. Thus, the
very ritual of the wedding reinforces the cultural
notions of masculinity and femininity and the relationship between men and women.
Some theorists suggest that our daily lives include
cultural rituals not commonly regarded as religious
that reaffirm gender. For instance, James McBride has
argued that football games can serve as religious rituals that reaffirm gender for men who play or watch
them, by tapping into anxieties associated with masculine gender in American society. According to
McBride, “Football is a masculine ritual that symbolically plays out men’s unresolved separation anxiety—
the desire for and hostility toward the mother in every
woman and the woman in every mother…. The basic
structure of the game, pitting opposite teams against
each other, mimes the binary opposition of father/
mother, phallus/not-phallus” (McBride 2001, 135). In
this theory, it is the relationship between the mother
and son, and the very definition of masculinity that is
being replayed on the football field. While few people
would consider football a traditional religious ritual,
McBride contends that its collective nature defines it
as religious ritual.
Problematizing Gender Through Ritual
Religious ritual can also work to problematize traditional beliefs about gender or the relationship
between sex and gender. One of the most basic ways
in which ritual problematizes gender is through
inversion: When men perform typically feminine
actions or women exhibit masculine traits gender
roles are questioned.
An example of gender-inversion ritual is “male
menstruation,” or sympathetic menstruation. Although men do not literally menstruate, in some cultures men ritually cause themselves to bleed or vomit
so as to replicate the natural processes of women. In
some cultures this only happens during initiation or
puberty rituals, but some men perform such bleeding
throughout their lives. Male menstruation can be
accompanied by transvestism and doing traditionally
female work, as in the case of the Northern Mejbrats
in Western New Guinea. Ashley Montagu’s description of the Australian Aborigines indicates that in
some cultures it is even common for ritual surgery
involving subincision of the penis to be performed
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upon boys so that they can imitate the female genitalia.
Why do these men ritually imitate women, and
what does this gender-bending mean? First, according to Matthea Cremers, ritual inversion can serve “as
an affirmation of masculinity and a way for men to
rid themselves of contamination by females”
(Cremers 1989, 85). By showing that they can imitate
what is naturally unique to women, men negate any
of women’s potential superiority. Second, imitation of
women may also indicate men’s envy of the power
they believe women naturally possess through their
sexual organs.
Roman Catholic ordination rites accomplish such
gender-bending, although not through strict ritual
inversion. Although only men are permitted to
become Catholic priests, the gendered language associated with the priesthood emphasizes the traditionally feminine characteristics that priests should
exemplify, including submission and compassion.
Even more explicitly, priests are considered to be
“brides” of Christ. Clearly physical womanhood is
not necessary in order to portray the ideal of femininity; however, physical manhood does seem necessary
in order to portray the Priest’s relation to Christ. One
major Roman Catholic argument against ordaining
women is that the priest must be an icon of Christ
when performing the sacraments Christ instituted,
and as an icon the priest must resemble Christ physically, maleness being an important component of this
resemblance. As it is never argued that priests should
be Hebrew or circumcised so as physically to resemble Christ, it is clear that gender is an important issue
in the priesthood. It may be that the traditional feminine ideal of being submissive brides of Christ is balanced by physical masculinity, indicating that Roman
Catholic priests are regarded as somewhat gender
neutral, a notion reinforced by their vow of celibacy.
In this example ritual thus problematizes gender so
that the ritual participant may transcend it.
The Future of Gender Rituals
Particularly as a result of the women’s movement of
the 1960s and 1970s, there have been several changes
in the acceptance of gender rituals throughout
the world. In the West, reform movements within
major religious traditions, especially Judaism and
Christianity, have sought to de-emphasize the importance of gender in religious ceremony. This shift is
especially clear in the case of Judaism, where
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ceremonies for girls have often been created to parallel the bris and bar mitzvah rituals for boys. Several
Christian denominations have begun to ordain
women, thus largely negating (or possibly complicating) the gendered distinctions formerly present in
ordination rituals.
Another consequence of the women’s movement
has been the Western feminist critique of gender rituals throughout the world. Many American and
European women have decried the practice of genital
mutilation performed during some female initiation
ceremonies. In addition, Western feminists have
argued that unequal marriage and divorce ceremonies, female infanticide, suti (widow burning), and
other religious or cultural practices oppress women
and should be stopped. While many such rituals have
been banned, at least in some areas, some women
defend these practices theologically and do not find
them oppressive.
Many feminist efforts have gone toward establishing strict equality for women in religious matters, but
some religious feminists have worked to create rituals
that celebrate gender differences, instead of sameness.
Women in the women’s spirituality movement have
especially concentrated on empowering women
through religious ritual. This empowerment may
begin early, as many spiritual feminists have created
menarche rituals for their daughters. These rituals
emphasize the girls’ feminine characteristics and
introduction into womanhood. Spiritual feminists do
not limit their celebration of womanhood to adolescence. In the feminist spirituality worldview all rites
of passage are gender rituals, as womanhood is celebrated in all of them, including birth ceremonies,
weddings, and menopause rituals. Women are
empowered in these rituals through symbolism,
chanting, gifts, and ritual activities such as dancing,
which emphasize a connection to the Goddess and the
creative abilities of women.
Not just the women’s movement has complicated
gender rituals. Same-sex wedding rituals have toppled many preconceived notions of gender relations
within marriage, and transgender individuals have
forced a rethinking of the very definition of gender
and its relation to religious ritual. There are also
men’s spirituality groups that have focused on
empowering men through religious rituals. While
gender rituals will continue to shift in meaning and
shape, clearly they will always be an important aspect
of religious ritual.
Kelly Therese Pollock
See also Birth Rituals; Body and Ritual; Hair Cutting
Rituals; Identity Rituals; Marriage Rituals; Passage,
Rites of; Puberty Rites; Purity and Pollution; Ritual as
Communication; Scatological Rituals; Witchcraft
Further Reading
Bourdieu, P. (2001). Masculine domination (R. Nice,
Trans.). Stanford, CT: Stanford University Press.
Boyarin, D. (1998). Gender. In M. C. Taylor (Ed.), Critical
terms in religious studies (pp. 117–135). Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press.
Brooks, G. (1995). Nine parts of desire: The hidden world of
Islamic women. New York: Anchor Books.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. London: Routledge.
Chaves, M. (1997). Ordaining women. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Cremers, M. (1989). Two rivers of blood: Female and
male menstruation. Anthropology UCLA, 16(2),
72–94.
Elmberg, J. (1959). Further Notes of the Northern
Mejbrats (Vogelkop, Western New Guinea). Ethnos,
35(1–2), 70–80.
Fuss, D. (1989). Essentially speaking: Feminism, nature, and
difference. New York: Routledge.
Lincoln, B. (1981). Emerging from the chrysalis: Studies in
rituals of women’s initiation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
McBride, J. (2001). Symptomatic expression of male
neuroses: Collective effervescence, male gender
performance, and the ritual of football. In E. M.
Mazur, & K. McCarthy (Eds.), God in the details:
American religion in popular culture. New York:
Routledge.
Montagu, A. (1970). The natural superiority of women. New
York: Collier Books.
Ortner, S. (1974). Is female to male as nature is to culture?
In M. Rosaldo, & L. Lamphere (Eds.), Woman, culture,
and society (pp. 67–87). Stanford, CT: Stanford
University Press.
Plaskow, J. (1990). Standing again at Sinai: Judaism from a
feminist perspective. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.
Sutcliffe, S., & Bowman, M. (Eds.). (2000). Beyond New
Age: Exploring alternative spirituality. Edinburgh, UK:
Edinburgh University Press.
van Gennep, A. (1960). The rites of passage (M. B. Vizedom
& G. L. Caffee, Trans.). Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
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