Tales of the Waria: Inside Indonesia's Third-Gender Community

[C C]

I vaguely remember a bygone documentary that emphasized some older, traditional sub-cultures in Indonesia as having featured not much distinction between the roles of women and the roles of men. To avoid an identity crisis, the males of such communities would seek out the dancing and hostessy of the Waria (lady-boys) to help bolster their legitimacy: "If I am not a Waria, then I must be a man". An underlying but unverifiable implication seemed to be that this might have contributed to the survival of Waria after the incursion of Islam.

There was also a segment in a travel show -- focusing on Indonesia in that episode -- which detoured into common anecdotes about how henpecked or subdued the men were by their stern wives. That such husbands would seek out the Waria so as to experience their fanciful / mythical, idealized version of women.

None of that seems brought up in this account of making a documentary about the Waria (if the above ever had any basis in fact).

Tales of the Waria: Inside Indonesia's Third-Gender Community
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-hua...46629.html

EXCERPT: [...] In Indonesia biological men who believe that they are born with the souls of women are known as "warias." The term is a melding of two Indonesian words: "wanita" ("woman") and "pria" ("man"). [...] I knew about the "ladyboys" of Thailand, but I had no idea that transgender people could live so openly in Indonesia, a country with the world's largest Muslim population. [...] How could a community of warias possibly exist? [...] I quickly discovered that warias in Indonesia are different from transgender women in the United States. For religious reasons, many are not interested in sex-reassignment surgeries. As one waria explained to me, "We believe we were born as men and must return to God as men." Warias also hold notions of womanhood that would dismay modern feminists; for many warias, the height of happiness is to find a "laki-laki asli," a manly man, and to spend their days looking after him. Perhaps the most striking feature about transgender women in Indonesia is their visibility in daily life, particularly in the beauty and entertainment industries....

ALSO: Third Gender (Wikipedia)

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[RainbowUnicorn]

I vaguely remember a bygone documentary that emphasized some older, traditional sub-cultures in Indonesia as having featured not much distinction between the roles of women and the roles of men. To avoid an identity crisis, the males of such communities would seek out the dancing and hostessy of the Waria (lady-boys) to help bolster their legitimacy: "If I am not a Waria, then I must be a man". An underlying but unverifiable implication seemed to be that this might have contributed to the survival of Waria after the incursion of Islam.

There was also a segment in a travel show -- focusing on Indonesia in that episode -- which detoured into common anecdotes about how henpecked or subdued the men were by their stern wives. That such husbands would seek out the Waria so as to experience their fanciful / mythical, idealized version of women.

None of that seems brought up in this account of making a documentary about the Waria (if the above ever had any basis in fact).

Tales of the Waria: Inside Indonesia's Third-Gender Community
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-hua...46629.html

EXCERPT: [...] In Indonesia biological men who believe that they are born with the souls of women are known as "warias." The term is a melding of two Indonesian words: "wanita" ("woman") and "pria" ("man"). [...] I knew about the "ladyboys" of Thailand, but I had no idea that transgender people could live so openly in Indonesia, a country with the world's largest Muslim population. [...] How could a community of warias possibly exist? [...] I quickly discovered that warias in Indonesia are different from transgender women in the United States. For religious reasons, many are not interested in sex-reassignment surgeries. As one waria explained to me, "We believe we were born as men and must return to God as men." Warias also hold notions of womanhood that would dismay modern feminists; for many warias, the height of happiness is to find a "laki-laki asli," a manly man, and to spend their days looking after him. Perhaps the most striking feature about transgender women in Indonesia is their visibility in daily life, particularly in the beauty and entertainment industries....

ALSO: Third Gender (Wikipedia)

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pondering western ignorance seeking to simplify other cultures as being inherantly inferior...

treating a man as a woman in western culture has culturally been an outright insult and one worthy of violent retribution up until the last 20 years or soo.
still in today in various western cultures referring to a man as a woman is an insult percieved to be seeking a violent response.

culture does not change in 1 generation[generic time span reference](50 years or soo).

the attachment of manly ego to various material aspects however, is adopted fairly quickly.
probably has some inherant anthrapological associations for material control and possibly attached to mating behaviours which are inherantly & culturally attached to self identification.

while i do not wish to throw a spanner in the happiness of new parents and overtly self indulgent hyper sensatised gender stereo typed people..
the continuing emphasis on a new born baby being male or female surely is worthy of some study to see why there is such a dogmatic labelling process by others to acknoledge the gender type.
obviousely gender has historically been a clear indicator of survival chances with the preference on male children to do hard labour and defend the tribe.

all modern foibles asside it wouold be nice(ideally) to think in this day modern society is equally glad to have a child of either gender.

generically it appears the higher the stress level the more adoption of stereo typed old world ideology as a sense of stability and self assurance(in a potentially larger majority of people).