ABSTRACT
Depicting gender role development, whether in pictures, film, or literature, poses problems for the artist and the observer or reader of such works. For the artist, decisions about gender presentation reflect values, beliefs, and social norms about gender, usually derived from the sociocultural context within which the artist is operating. Gender roles are neither universal nor static even within a culture (Ringrose, 1993). Although most Western cultures present only two gender roles, other cultures have for a variety of reasons found the need for a third gender that falls somewhere between the two biological sexes (Herdt, 1993). The Berdache in the Navajo, Hijras in India, and the Sworn Virgins in the Balkans are examples (Bem, 1993; Grémaux, 1993; Nanda, 1993; Roscoe, 1993).
