Segueing on from eunuchs and the notion of them guarding harems, let's talk about contexts in which people tend to get separated on the basis of sex. Or gender -- but in the types of contexts were this segregation happens, the concern is often very specifically about bodies, and what they're carrying downstairs. When biological sex and social gender do not align, the dynamics get more complicated, as we're seeing in the present day.

Some kinds of sex segregation are situational, being focused on a specific event. Rites of passage in certain types of society are often focused on initiating boys into the company of men and girls into the company of women; it therefore makes sense that the other group shouldn't be present. Childbirth is another event that may be restricted only to women, with men having their own traditions to perform elsewhere. Even a girls' slumber party may be off-limits to boys, any such intruders being driven away with shrieks of outrage and maybe some thrown pillows. But once that event is over, the space opens up again; the living room where the slumber party was held is not forbidden to men forevermore.

Where the separation is more about the space than a specific event, it's most likely to happen in contexts that are both bodily and communal. Locker rooms and bathing facilities, for example, involve individuals stripping down in the company of other people, so we tend to have separate ones for men and women. The communal part is particularly important here: nobody thinks twice about the fact that toilets at home or on airplanes are all-gender by default, because they're also single-occupancy. It's only when the space is shared that hackles rise over a lack of segregation -- though proponents point out that all-gender communal restrooms tend to be built in a way that offers more privacy to everybody, and that's a good thing.

For many of us, it probably makes sense that anything which involves baring intimate parts of the body should be veiled from the opposite sex, outside special circumstances. But the "bodily" part of the above equation also extends in directions that may be less obvious to my average reader . . . like eating. We think nothing of men and women eating together, even in public! But in other places and times, women have taken their meals separately from men, even within the walls of their own homes -- and a restaurant is right out. Regency England considered it barely acceptable for a woman of quality to dine in a private room at a commercial establishment, especially if she was traveling, but out in public? That was scandalous. (The French, ever risqué, thought it was just fine.)

The other broad category in which segregation may rear its head is religious contexts. Mosques very commonly have separate sections for men and women, for the very practical reason than Muslim prayer involves kneeling and bowing one's head to the ground, which leads to a lot of time with the rear end of the person ahead of you being right in front of your face. In mixed contexts, it's easy to see how this can get socially awkward and may distract people from the religious matters that should be their focus. Orthodox and some Conservative Jewish synagogues likewise maintain separate sections for men and women, again for reasons of modesty and improved attention to God.

Depending on the place in question, this division can be accomplished in a number of ways. The different sections can be marked by anything from segregated doors to a rope to a low wall to a curtain, depending on the degree of privacy required. This may run laterally through the space, so that the women are (usually) behind the men, or it may run axially, placing them side-by-side -- the latter carrying a great symbolic connotation of equality, as it allows both sexes to be equally close to the front. Or the separation may be greater, with women in a balcony (echoed by the Women's Gallery that used to allow English ladies to observe the doings of a wholly masculine Parliament), in a different room, or even in another building entirely, one constructed for their sole use.

Of course, when we think of sex segregation, we think above all of purdah -- using that as a generalized term for the seclusion of women from public view, via clothing, architecture, and behavior, in all contexts rather than only specific ones. On the sartorial end, veils can hide a woman's hair, face, or even eyes from view, while long skirts, long sleeves, and perhaps gloves conceal everything else, depending on the degree of concealment required. On the architectural end, pierced wooden screens serve a dual purpose: environmentally, they permit some air circulation while blocking most light, and socially, they prevent outsiders from easily seeing into the house, where the women are.

In English we tend to equate the word "harem" with a man's collection of wives and concubines, but properly speaking, it's the private part of the house, which by the principle of metonymy came to also indicate the women there. Male outsiders and servants may not enter; even male relatives may be restricted, with only the closest or those under the age of puberty allowed across the threshold. Meanwhile, the women themselves often face restrictions on their ability to leave -- which, in extreme cases (like the wives and concubines of a ruler), might extend as far as prohibiting that entirely.

To be clear, although we associate this with the Muslim world, and perhaps with India, that's not its only context. Noble and royal women in East Asian countries, for example, might only converse with men from behind a screen, because it was improper for them to be viewed directly. Early modern Spanish writings are full of the idea that women should stay within their houses and not go out, only grudgingly allowing for things like church attendance -- indeed, Europe more broadly agreed that women should not be out in public any more than strictly necessary. Where there is patriarchy, there will be a desire to control the visibility, movements, and activities of women.

At least for elite women. Because let's be clear: this kind of segregation is ultimately a luxury, and therefore not equally affordable by all classes. Somebody has to go out for food, water, and other necessities, and that work can't all be done by men, because they're busy with their own jobs. The private seclusion of upper-class women relies on the public activities of slaves or paid servants, many of whom will be female. Meanwhile, households living closer to the poverty line can't afford that kind of help; their women might have to work at agricultural or commercial tasks just to make ends meet. They may still be barred from certain contexts, forbidden to attend the theatre or take a meal in a tavern, and they may be required to observe strict forms of modesty while they're out and about, but they can't be hidden away entirely.

Ultimately, then, while limited and context-dependent forms of sex segregation can be very commonplace, the blanket sort indicated by the term purdah is an expression not only of gender ideology but of economics. It can only occur where there is the wealth to support it, along with the will to enforce it.



(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://is.gd/ZQlmSn)

As you can imagine, this essay will continue with a frank discussion of genitalia and modifications to same.

A eunuch is generally understood to mean a man who has been castrated, i.e. whose testicles have been cut off. Sometimes, though, he has been fully emasculated -- meaning removal of the penis as well; this was usually the case with Chinese eunuchs -- while on other occasions, the term refers to any man who is unable to procreate (e.g. because of impotence or chemical castration), even if he is intact. Unsurprisingly, it can also be slung as an insult against a man, questioning his virility.

We probably got the idea of eunuchs from animal husbandry, where castration of males is common enough that we often have separate terms for the two types: steers vs. bulls, geldings vs. stallions. Among livestock, it brings a number of benefits to their human owners; castrated beasts are less likely to attack people or other males and less likely to break down fences to try and get at females, while the small number of reproductively capable individuals makes it easier to control the population size and arrange for advantageous breeding matches. Neutered animals, female as well as male, also tend to live noticeably longer.

Among humans, the physical effects are similar. The removal of the testicles generally reduces sexual desire and its associated behaviors, while preventing reproduction. If performed before puberty -- as it usually is with animals -- the subject's voice will remain high, he won't grow facial hair or develop male pattern baldness, he'll put on less muscle and retain more fat, and he may wind up tall and long-limbed, as castration interferes with the hormonal changes that stop bone growth. He also stands a good chance of living longer. Males castrated after puberty, by contrast, will generally keep the changes already experienced, though they too will not progress to baldness.

The social effects, though . . . those get very complicated.

Castration or emasculation can be a punishment, not only for the individual, but for the lineage they're no longer able to perpetuate. As such, in a society where a crime taints the whole family, a male criminal might be executed and his sons castrated, stopping the line in its tracks. We've also often seen it as a fitting consequence for sexual crimes -- a category that at times has unfortunately included being gay. Of course, reduction in sexual desire doesn't necessarily mean its elimination entirely, not all sexual crimes are driven by desire in the first place, and there are ways to rape people without functioning testicles (or even a penis). And while there's some evidence that castrated men are less likely to re-offend, it's too scant for us to be sure of a firm causal relationship. Still, in some jurisdictions, convicts are offered a choice between castration (surgical or chemical) followed by release from prison, and serving a longer sentence while keeping their bodies intact . . . and some of them do indeed choose the former.

On the other hand, castration has sometimes been a thing people voluntarily seek out. Transgender women, of course, may pursue it in the interests of bringing their bodies in line with their self-image. Historically, boys with particularly pure singing voices might either be castrated or undergo a procedure that made their testicles atrophy, so they would retain their childhood range into adulthood; where women were forbidden to sing, these castrati took their place in music. And then in certain places and times, becoming a eunuch could actually be a route to opportunity, wealth, and power.

Though our modern democratic societies tend not to think this way, in cultures more organized around lineages and inheritance, a man who can't procreate is seen as lacking the motivations that drive people to amass power for themselves, their heirs, and their broader kin groups -- meaning that he can be relied upon to serve the interests of his lord instead. In East Asia, eunuch officials were often seen as extensions of the king's or emperor's will, in contrast with scholar-officials who might oppose it. How true this was in reality, of course, depended on the rulers and the officials in question!

That's one kind of trustworthiness; another involves women. Unsurprisingly, eunuchs have also been trusted among sheltered female populations in ways that intact males were not. Probably the most common image of them in the West is as harem guards, because they were less likely to engage in sexual behavior with the women there, and incapable of siring children on them even if such transgressions happened. That's not inaccurate, but it's incomplete, as eunuchs served in a variety of domestic and bureaucratic roles related to such environments. They were the point of contact between male and female worlds, their own liminal status allowing them to cross over into both.

Liminal -- and in many cases, lowly. Eunuchs were commonly servants or even slaves (with castrated slaves sometimes fetching a higher price), and as many of us know from other contexts, high-ranking people easily fall into the trap of forgetting just how much the servants around them are overhearing. Assumed loyalty plus invisible ubiquity makes for a great combination: is it any wonder that eunuchs sometimes doubled as spies? Of course this was not without its dangers; a servant or slave can easily be executed if caught snooping, and that loyalty may not extend in both directions. Still, knowing everyone's secrets and passing them on to the right ears can be a route to power.

Eunuchs didn't only wield power from the shadows, though. In both the Muslim and Chinese worlds, they could also rise to incredibly high rank -- including military rank! The advantage of a eunuch general is that there's not much point in him staging a coup to overthrow the ruler: what's he going to do, start a dynasty that ends when he dies? Few people will flock to that usurper's banner, given that they want stability, not a new civil war a few years or decades down the line. (I do wonder how many of those eunuch military officials were castrated as adults instead of as boys. I suspect more of the former, as they would have the benefits of puberty-induced changes to their bodies -- useful if they're expected to fight personally, instead of just directing the soldiers -- but I don't know for sure.)

In speculative fiction, eunuchs have tended to serve precisely one role: to code a society as a certain kind of "decadent" court, usually modeled on something like Muslim caliphates or the Ottoman Empire. They guard harems, and that's it. But that's been changing a little of late, with characters like the spymaster Varys in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire or the general Ouyang in Shelley Parker-Chan's Radiant Emperor duology, which is historical fantasy set in the transition between the Chinese Yuan and Ming dynasties. Both of those characters are singular, rather than belonging to extensive traditions of eunuch service, but they both reflect genuine dynamics around the roles castrated men can fill that aren't guarding harems. I doubt we'll see a flood of eunuch characters in Anglophone fiction any time soon -- if only because it's a topic that tends to make a lot of male readers uncomfortable -- but it would be interesting to get some continued variety!



(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://is.gd/3vKXuV)