ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how culture is embodied in its practice. It demonstrates the difference between sex and gender with reference to gender diversity across cultures. Gender, far from being simply a natural fact, is a key area in which biology and culture come together. The chapter explains the conceptual basis, power source, and cultural functions of crossover or anomalous gender roles. It characterizes the rites of passage framework to explain how social transitions are accomplished and to demonstrate how expectations for manhood and womanhood are culturally constructed. This chapter focuses on the biocultural diversity as demonstrated, and in some cases created, through gender practices. It explains the argument that culture constructs gender, and in doing so impacts the body, gains further reinforcement when rites of passage are considered. A rite of passage is simply a set of ritual acts intended to move a person or a group of people from one social status to the next.
