From Greek anêr/andros "man, male," and gyne "woman". Used by contemporary feminists "to refer to the state of a single individual, male or female, who possesses both traditionally masculine and tradtitionally feminine virtues. By virtues they mean morally - and generally also personally - desirable character traits, such as honesty, loyalty and compassion. Androgyny is thus a psychological condition or characteristic, not to be confused with physical hermaphroditism - the anomalous biological condition in which an indivdual has primary and secondary sexual characteristics of both the masculine or feminine sort (or lacks them to an equal extend). (.......) There is a paradox inherent in the ideal of androgyny, namely that, while it calls for the elimination of the sexual stereotyping of human virtues, it is itself formulated in terms of the discredited concepts of masculinity and feminity which it ultimately rejects." (Marry Anne Warren 1980)
"..... It may not be the most felicitous choice of term, since it has connotations of the hermaphrodite (physiologically half male and half female) and of the hormone androgen, which is secreted in males in greater quantities than in females." (Norma Grieve 1981)
"Not sexual hermaphroditism but spiritual bisexuality." (Cheryl Walker 1974, letter to 'Off Our Backs')
"Gender-merged androgyny is a tempting vision. It breathes justice and reconciliation; it demands no wrenching changes in society; there is an easy plausibility about it. The trouble with it ... is that the very constructs 'masculine' and 'feminine' are intrinsic to patriarchal ideology ... they are not, in short, two cleanly split halves of a whole person waiting to be reunited .... Merger does not correct the distortion." (Isabel Knight 1981)
"As a concept, it .... raise[s] anxiety levels by conjuring up a conformist, unisex vision, the very opposite of the individuality and uniqueness that feminism actually has in mind." (Gloria Steinem 1983)
"Not and was not meant to be the answer to sexual politics. Freedom from repression and dominance is. Freedom of choice is. Freedom of contact with and expression of our feelings and needs was not meant to be construed as riding shod over others or an exchange of roles." (Suzanne Harris 1980)
ANDROGYNOUS FUCKING
The one relationship possible between 'men' and 'women' in the face of the increasing impossibility of heterosexuality. "Requires the destruction of all conventional role-playing, of genital sexuality as the primary focus and value, of couple formations, and of the personality structures dominant-active ('male') and submissive-passive ('female')." (Andrea Dworkin 1974, 184-5)
[uuuuh - a highlight in 'the bizarre world of Dworkinthink']
all quotes including (*) from
"Amazons, Bluestockings and Crones - a feminist dictionary"
Cheris Kramarae & Paula A. Treichler, Pandora 1985/1992
The book is out of print-- copies are still available through the University of Illinois Press.
http://www.press.uillinois.edu/
Androgynie [gr.-nlat.] die; .... (wohl bei allen Menschen anzutreffende) körperlich-seelische Mischung beider Geschlechter in einer Person .....
[Duden Fremdwörterbuch, 1990]
"Aphrodites Sohn Hermaphroditos war ein Jüngling mit weiblichen Brüsten und langem Haar. Natürlich fand er in Androgyne, der bärtigen Frau, sein abnormes Gegenstück in der Natur, haben doch beide ihren Ursprung als religiöse Begriffe im Übergang vom Matriachat zum Patriachat. Hermaphroditos ist der Heilige König, der die Stelle der Königin vertritt und der künstliche Brüste trägt. Androgyne ist die Mutterkönigin einer prä-hellenischen Sippe, die, im Zeitalter des Übergangs zum Patriachat, ihre ritterliche Gewalt behalten wollte. Vielleicht trug sie auch einen falschen Bart, um die Kinder, die ihr von einem Sklaven geboren waren, zu adeln, wie es zu Argos Sitte war. Bärtige Göttinnen, wie die kyprische Aphrodite, und weibische Götter, wie Dyonysos, entsprechen den verschiedenen Übergangstufen der Gesellschaft."
[Robert von Ranke-Graves, Griechische Mythologie, rowohlt 1995, 18.8, S 62]
by Elicia David.
"The one that shows you on a graph how you compare to everyone else."
"The Bem Sex-Role Invetory (BSRI) - [named after inventrix Sandra Bem] - overturned traditional scales for testing so-called sex differences by allowing for two separate dimensions of Masculine and Feminine, thus enabling respondents to be categorized as strong in both masculine and feminine attributes or low on both, thus introducing the concept of androgyny."(*)
http://www.kind.com/elicia/exp/
The Androgyny RAQ (Rarely Asked Questions)
by Raphael Carter.
"When I wrote the first version of this RAQ, I thought androgyne was the right term to describe my gender. Later, when I updated the Angel's Dictionary, I was listing toward epicene. Nowadays I make a point of surrounding my gender with a chaos of terms, like a journalist searching for synonyms: androgyne, epicene, transgender, neuter........"
http://www.chaparraltree.com/raq/
Gender-Neutral Pronoun FAQ
a thoughtfull compilation of alternatives for the she/he dichotomy
http://www.lumina.net/gnp/
The Iconography of Androgyny: A Bibliography of Illustrated Books
by Lanier Graham, Art Information Center, 1976. Revised 1991 & 1996.
http://www.humboldt.edu/~lg8/andro.bib1.html
image by clitoressa from <details of the female body>