Gender Reversals and Gender Cultures: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives

This text comprises a collection of commissioned essays taking a cross-cultural and cross-historical perspective on the subject. It documents the universality of gender reversals, with chapters ranging from early Christianity up to the present. It examines how gender reversals are bound up with taboo, and how this underlies various religious and ritual activities. The book also shows how attitudes to gender reversal can reveal much about a particular culture.