Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism Online

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Gender
(12,866 words)

Hindu tradition, like many others, has constituted itself as having a vested interest in defining gender and classifying every human being, deity, and animal, and even many plants in accordance with it. Gender is a key marker, predominantly imagined as a binary between female and male, with which society bar codes members of its expansive worldview. At the same time, Hinduism has also generated alternatives to the familia…

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Pechilis, Karen, “Gender”, in: Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism Online, Editor-in-Chief Associate Editors Knut A. Jacobsen, Helene Basu, Angelika Malinar, Vasudha Narayanan. Consulted online on 10 June 2023 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2212-5019_BEH_COM_000317>
First published online: 2018



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