Androgyny is the possession of both masculine and feminine characteristics.
When androgyny refers to mixed biological sex characteristics in humans, it often refers to conditions in which characteristics of both sexes are expressed in a single individual. These are known as intersex people, or those who are born with congenital variations that complicate assigning their sex at birth, as they do not correspond entirely to the male or female sexes. Both intersex and non-intersex people can exhibit a mixture of male and female sex traits such as hormone levels, type of internal and external genitalia, and the appearance of secondary sex characteristics.
On the other hand, when androgyny is used to refer to physical traits, it often refers to a person whose biological sex may be ambiguous at a glance because of their mixture of male and female characteristics. Because androgyny encompasses additional meanings related to gender identity and gender expression that are distinct from biological sex, today the word androgynous is rarely used to formally describe mixed biological sex characteristics in humans.
Etymology The term derives from , from , stem - (anér, andro-, meaning man) and (gunē, gyné, meaning woman) through the .
History
Androgyny is attested from earliest history and across world cultures. In ancient Sumer, androgynous men were heavily involved in the cult of Inanna. A set of priests known as gala worked in Inanna's temples, where they performed elegies and lamentations. Gala took female names, spoke in the eme-sal dialect, which was traditionally reserved for women, and appear to have engaged in sexual acts with men.
In later Mesopotamian cultures, kurgarrū and assinnu were servants of the goddess Ishtar, Inanna's East Semitic equivalent, who dressed in female clothing and performed war dances in Ishtar's temples. Several Akkadian proverbs seem to suggest that they may have also engaged in sexual activity with men. Gwendolyn Leick, an anthropologist known for her writings on Mesopotamia, has compared these individuals to the contemporary Indian hijra. In one Akkadian hymn, Ishtar is described as transforming men into women.
The ancient Greek myth of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis, two divinities who fused into a single immortal, provided a frame of reference used in Western culture for centuries. Androgyny and homosexuality are also seen in Plato's Symposium, in a myth where, according to Aristophanes, humanity started as three sexes: male-male people that descended from the sun, female-female people who descended from Earth, and male-female people who came from the Moon. The androgynous humans were spherical and had four legs, four hands and two heads. They were also extremely powerful and dared rebel against the Greek pantheon. "Plato cites the ancient tale of Otus and Ephialtes who rebelled against the gods and drove them from Mount Olympus. Not satisfied with this, they tried to set Mount Ossa atop Mount Olympus, and Mount Pelion atop of Ossa, that they might attack the gods in heaven itself."
The gods, angered, divided the primordial humans in two and scattered them across the Earth. The divided searched for their other halves. The women who sought another woman and the men who sought another man were homosexuals.
The Mishnah, a foundational text of Rabbinic Judaism from 2nd century Syria Palaestina, uses the term androgynos 32 times. It also recounts the creation of humanity in the Genesis creation narrative in Platonic terms. Genesis Rabbah, a midrashic text written some time after the Mishnah, explains, "Adam, who was created alone and thus embodies all of mankind, was androgynous, i.e. a bi-sexual being, male and female bound together in a single male-female body: 'He created him androgynous . . . He created him double-faced.'" It is one of four additional legal categories of transgressively sexed individuals in the text, alongside the ayelonit, tumtum, and saris. In one mention, Rabbi Meir describes the androgynos as "a creation of its own type, which the sages could not decide whether is male or female".
Philosophers such as Philo of Alexandria, and early Christian leaders such as Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, continued to promote the idea of androgyny as humans' original and perfect state during late antiquity."van der Lugt, Maaike, "Sex Difference in Medieval Theology and Canon Law," Medieval Feminist Forum (University of Iowa) vol. 46 no. 1 (2010): 101–121 In medieval Europe, the concept of androgyny played an essential role in both Christian theological debate and alchemical theory. Influential theologians such as John of Damascus and John Scotus Eriugena continued to promote the pre-fall androgyny proposed by the early Church Fathers, Other clergy expounded and debated the proper view and treatment of contemporary hermaphrodites.
Aristophanes' and Plato's conception are found in theosophy of Neoplatonism and Neo-Pythagoreanism, and Gnosticism. In particular, it was important to Islamic and Jewish philosophy, Kabbalah, and alchemy through the Renaissance and Romanticism.
The figure of the Androgyne as an archaic formulation of the coexistence of all attributes, thus including sexual attributes, in the divine unity and perfect man of originsJ.Chevalier, A. Gheerbrant Dizionario dei simboli Milano 1986 according to Mircea Eliade depicts the coincidentia oppositorum or unity of opposites: in a variety of creation myths, the unique androgynous being appears before the separation of things.Mircea Eliade, Mefistofele e l'androgino Rome 1971, page 74..
Modern history Western esotericism's embrace of androgyny continued into the modern era. A 1550 anthology of alchemical thought, De Alchemia, included the influential Rosary of the Philosophers, which depicts the sacred marriage of the masculine principle (Sol) with the feminine principle (Luna), producing the "Divine Androgyne," a representation of alchemical Hermetic beliefs in dualism, transformation, and the transcendental perfection of the union of opposites.
The symbolism and meaning of androgyny was a central preoccupation of the German mystic Jakob Böhme and the Swedish philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg. The philosophical concept of the "Universal Androgyne" (or "Universal Hermaphrodite") – a perfect merging of the sexes that predated the current corrupted world or was the utopia of the next – is also important in some strains of Rosicrucianism and in philosophical traditions such as Swedenborgianism and Theosophy. Twentieth century architect Claude Fayette Bragdon expressed the concept mathematically as a magic square, using it as building block in many of his most noted buildings.Ellis, Eugenia Victoria (June 2004). "Geomantic Mathematical (re)Creation: Magic Squares and Claude Bragdon's Theosophic Architecture". Nexus V: Architecture and Mathematics: 79-92.
In the mid-18th century, the macaronis of the Georgian era of England were a wealthy subculture of young men, known for androgynous gender expression. Their unusually large wigs, lavish fashion, and sentimental behavior prompted backlash from conservative generations of the time. In 1770, the Oxford Dictionary declared, "There is indeed a kind of animal, neither male nor female, a thing of the neuter gender, lately started up among us. It is called a macaroni." An example is portrait artist Richard Cosway, referred to as "the Macaroni artist."
Psychological
In psychological study, various measures have been used to characterize gender, such as the Bem Sex Role Inventory and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire.
Masculine traits are categorized as agentic and instrumental, dealing with assertiveness and analytical skill. Feminine traits are categorized as communal and expressive, dealing with empathy and subjectivity. Androgynous individuals exhibit behavior that extends beyond what is normally associated with their given sex. Due to the possession of both masculine and feminine characteristics, androgynous individuals have access to a wider array of psychological competencies in regards to emotional regulation, communication styles, and situational adaptability. Androgynous individuals have also been associated with higher levels of creativity and mental health.
Bem Sex-Role Inventory The Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) was constructed by the early leading proponent of androgyny, Sandra Bem (1977).Santrock, J. W. (2008). A Topical Approach to Life-Span Development. New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies. 007760637X The BSRI is one of the most widely used gender measures. Based on an individual's responses to the items in the BSRI, they are classified as having one of four gender role orientations: masculine, feminine, androgynous, or undifferentiated. Bem understood that both masculine and feminine characteristics could be expressed by anyone and it would determine those gender role orientations.
An androgynous person is an individual who has a high degree of both feminine (expressive) and masculine (instrumental) traits. A feminine individual is ranked high on feminine (expressive) traits and ranked low on masculine (instrumental) traits. A masculine individual is ranked high on instrumental traits and ranked low on expressive traits. An undifferentiated person is low on both feminine and masculine traits.
According to Sandra Bem, androgynous individuals are more flexible and more mentally healthy than either masculine or feminine individuals; undifferentiated individuals are less competent. More recent research has debunked this idea, at least to some extent, and Bem herself has found weaknesses in her original pioneering work. She preferred to work with gender schema theory.
One study found that masculine and androgynous individuals had higher expectations for being able to control the outcomes of their academic efforts than feminine or undifferentiated individuals.Choi, N. (2004). Sex role group differences in specific, academic, and general self-efficacy. Journal of Psychology, 138, 149–159.
Facial impressions In 2021, Neil Hester, Eric Hehman, and Benedict C. Jones tested feminine-masculine facial perceptions as a single bipolar dimension A single bipolar dimension within gender impression would mean that if one has more feminine facial features, they will be perceived as less masculine, and vice versa. They found that these measures of facial impressions were oversimplified, and that perceived femininity and masculinity contribute to a variety of social judgements - individuals' faces can have high femininity and masculinity, in which some features were successfully used to predict impressions of trust, dominance, threat, and attractiveness.
21st Century Neo-Androgyny The 21st Century Neo-Androgyny model was developed in 2022 by Bobbi M. Woodhill and Curtis A. Samuels. The model detailed a novel, de-gendered theory of androgyny within psychology and offered it as a replacement for flawed or outdated theories and models. Woodhill and Samuels used the factors of social efficacy, creativity, capability, eminence, and determination to detach emotional traits from gender, and state that these five factors can be used in the expression of traits, goals, interests, occupational skills, and hobbies. The literature from Woodhill and Samuels also mentioned the Bem Sex Role Theory, and stated that even though the 1970 theory built a robust theoretical foundation for the study of gender and androgyny, it lacked significant cultural nuance and flexibility, and is now outdated.
Personal Attributes Questionnaire