Metagender

The realities of "being or doing" the "differences of being either female, feminine, woman or male, masculine, man" (Coates 1998, 295-296), the socially assigned sequestered private spaces and public roles we encounter in our daily lives, are not to be confounded with metagender. There should, therefore, be concurrent dialogues, one on gender and the other on metagender, particularly in view of the “after gender” issue.

When I write of someone being a Woman or a Man, I mean to indicate the metagender assumption that they have, so to speak, all their gender building blocks incontestably in one metagender box, i.e. if you are l-, f-, p-, and j-female, then (and only then) are you a Woman. Deviation from the standards set for any of the four genders will cause your metagender to be questioned. Patriarchal metagender does not allow for any ambiguity -- Woman and Man are the only available divisions.

Gender mainstreaming is a metagender equality strategy (Krook and True forthcoming; True 2009b).

A number of critics see Shakespeare endorsing cross-gendering. Shakespeare is, what might be called, a skillful exponent of metagender beliefs.

Metagenders can have any body type, genital configuration, or chromosome type.

But note also Rhonda McDaniel, in this volume, who traces another possibility–that of a “metagender” that transcends male and female and is available to saints of both sexes who pursue virginity – in the writings of Ambrose.

She did not point this out, but I was pleased to see that a significant number of contributors are women and one identifies as metagender, as so often esoteric conversation is dominated by men’s conversation (and white men at that).