Today, you don’t have to be a princess or a multi millionaire to be able to dress up nicely. Cecilia Busby’s analyse of South India and Melanesia found that, despite their similarities, there were many intrinsic differences in how they defined and categorised people. In South India gender is fixed, based on obvious bodily differences between men and women. While in Melanesian the definition of gender is not purely concerned with physical differences, rather, definitions depend on how people act and what they do. All parts of life therefore contribute to gender definitions such as ‘appearance, attributes and work’ (Busby. 1997; 267). In South India men are defined as being able only to act in a male way while women can only act in a female way. Men and women though do need each other to help define themselves as they ‘most effectively demonstrate and enact this gender difference in … Read the rest
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Fashion designers have brought about a storm in this glamour world with their commendably fabulous variety. Churches are fleecing their parishioners; the much touted and oft abused concept of Ubuntu is no more existent in our divided and shattered African collectives; our children do not even know our part of African history, customs, cultures, traditions languages and other sacred rites and their practices; and we, the present elderly, are not even helping them, nor we ourselves are functionally capable of capturing our culture, customs, traditions and the whole bit. It is incumbent on us that whenever we begin a yarn about our history, we should make do with what we have and are experiencing, than try too hard to become irrelevant even to our intended audience: The African masses. At the same time, we need to take a hard and critical look at the present conditions of the masses and … Read the rest