Gender Inhibits Embodiment for Intersexuality and in Te Ao Māori

Abstract

An important worldview in traditional cultures, especially within te ao Māori (the Māori worldview), is that embodiment concerns personhood and relationality, as persons are bodily situated within the environment including in all things between the earth and the heavens. However, the social theories and background of the 1930s–1950s have had a significant impact on the idea and foundations of embodiment. These theories relied on ideas of sexism, though were also linked with racism. Gender was established by medicine as an apparatus of power and control over bodies and beings. Intersexuality was at the heart of the establishment of gender, with its invisibility ensured as a means of maintaining the status quo of the West. Gender was appropriated by Western feminists, disguised as an ahistorical and acultural signifier, to universalise the Western liberal worldview. This article traces the history and purpose of the concept of gender and the way it has been understood and deployed as an apparatus in society. It then illustrates how the deployment of gender has affected the embodiment of intersexuality and te ao Māori (such as on wāhine (women) and takatāpui (sexual diversity)). Lastly, the article sets out the importance of decentring gender to enable a culturally accountable embodiment with a sexuality of dignity that is not limited and disembodied through gender.