Perspectives On Rabbinic Constructions Of Gendered Bodies

This chapter explores constructions of gender, the body, and materiality in rabbinic traditions from the third through seventh centuries ce . It examines rabbinic traditions about the androginos , a person who is represented as having both male and female genitalia, and suggests that these sources support a reading of rabbinic genders and bodies as proliferating beyond a male–female binary frame. It applies the concept of gender performativity to rabbinic traditions in order to further highlight the instability and potential subversion of a rigid gender duality in rabbinic constructions of gender and the body. It also considers rabbinic traditions that reflect somatic variability and malleability – again showing how these sources complicate the notion of a fixed male–female gender binary. Finally, it suggests that rabbinic bodies are sites of ‘intra‐action’ between bodies that matter and the discourse(s) that animate them