What I find interesting about this article is the belief that it was the duty and responsibility of Esparragosa, a man of science, steeped in the European tradition of the day, to scientifically determine and define Juana’s gendered identity for her.  Few makes the point that Juana’s own words, her opinions and emotions, are absent from the historical record, perhaps never recorded or considered at all, so that only Esparragosa, with his condescending and dehumanizing nicknames like “Juana La Larga” or simply “La Juana,” have authority in defining her body officially.  The exact power dynamics of the situation with regards to race and ethnicity are difficult to determine because Juana’s is not known and while we know that Narciso moved from Venezuala to Guatemala I am not sure we know his ethnicity or how closely he was connected to the colonial power structure.  Nevertheless, I feel that this is a prime example of the Western colonizers imposition of his (and I think its safe to say “his” here) own values and interpretations of the world onto the colonized people, in this case Juana.

In assuming a link between an enlarged clitoris and the deviant behavior of sodomy, the so-called scientific man unscientifically constructs a connection between a occurrance of the natural world, i.e. ambiguous genitalia, and a certain set of cultural behaviors, i.e. sodomy, deviance, etc.  This natural occurrence could be culturally interpreted any number of ways, yet Esparragosa and the culture from which he originates has chosen to connect hermaphroditism with a sense of abomination or deviance from nature, despite the fact that intersexuality is a natural occurence.

This episode can also be seen as cultural tyranny in the fact that he likens her “abnormal” condition to that commonly seen in Egyptian and other Eastern women.  Esparragosa’s definition of normal is clearly slanted to favor the West as the yardstick by which the rest of the world is to be measured.  His treatment of Juana, particularly his repeated attempts at creating an erection in her clitoris to see if she could perform sexually as a man, but also his appropriation of her rights to self-definition and voice, are despicable, humiliating, and ultimately dehumanizing.  Some Enlightenment, huh?

With the spread of capitalism in the late 17th and on through the 18th and 19th centuries, Seed traces a paradigmatic shift in view of these three concepts, which over time changed public opinion surrounding parental authority and marriage, thus affecting the Church’s stance on such issues.  Fist of all, as money gained importance in society Honor as Status began to eclipse Honor as Virtue, and in situations in which these interests collided, such as a man of higher status’s promise to marry a lower status girl, the side of Status, often reflected in the parents’ wishes for a marriage took precedence.  Also the view of Will as divine ordinance began to diminish as the capacity for fickleness of Will became increasingly apparent, and so the importance attributed to Love was diminished as well.  Essentially, as these concepts became devalued in the public eye, they took a backseat to Interest, a blanket term used to refer to any motive focused on personal gain.  The shift to capitalism was combined with philosophic views which stressed “rational self-interest” and utilitarian gain over a religious conception of the world, in which a person’s will was the manifestation of God’s will.  While it is common practice in the Western world today to see this shift in values as progress, seeing the Church’s rule as dogmatic and overbearing, it is important also to realize that in making this shift, the West has swapped a value-system centered around virtue for one centered around money and its “rational” acquisition.  In the case of marriage choice, however, as the Church began o change with the culture to incorporate these views into its own doctrine, it in fact became more dogmatic and overbearing.

On the flip-side of this, femininity is not valued in men, and therefore men must only display that which is masculine in order to be seen as successful. This mirrors the situation in early Spain, in which it was considered a positive thing, a social promotion if you will, for a woman to be regarded as a man, but if a man does not measure up to the expectations of masculinity, he is robbed of his manhood, essentially receiving an incredibly humiliating social demotion. I think it is interesting that this same structure of gender fluidity, in which only movement in one direction, towards the masculine, is considered favorable, still can be seen in today’s presumably gender-liberated society.

Throughout her monologue, one can trace many contradictions that are probably fairly representative of the condition faced by indigenous Mexicans during this time.  She refers to the indigenous gods as “demons” and “false,” describing that period as a “time of darkness,” yet her recollection of pre-contact life seems imbued with a sense of order, whereas her life now is overcast by doom.  This brings up an important question about the nature of indigenous adoption of the Catholic faith: did people like this old woman truly adapt the Catholic vision to their own lives, or were they merely trying to stay out of trouble with the new order?  Did adoption of these new religions allow for the old traditions to be kept alive by merely changing the names of the idols?  Or, did the nobles of Tetzcoco who penned this document over-emphasize the Christian influence as their own means of pleasing the new order?  These are important things to think about when examining the first-hand documents of the past.

Another important point I took away from this episode was the way in which the contest between members of the show’s staff to see who had the highest testosterone-levels between the men and the women, respectively, illuminated the relationship that men and women have to their own gender and identity within that gender.  While the men expressly hoped to have the highest levels among their group, which would affirm their masculinity (something I’d be willing to bet every male wants, whether or not they’d be willing to admit it), the women had much more mixed feelings.  This illustrated to me the point that, while it is clearly desirable for a man to be more masculine, it is difficult for a woman to determine whether it is better to be more masculine or more feminine.  While men can go full-steam-ahead in one gendered direction, women are put into the position of having to synthesize both their masculinity and their femininity in order to excel at the expectations placed on their sex.

I hope this makes sense, because these are difficult concepts to fully articulate.  At any rate, I would highly recommend following this link if you have an hour to kill and don’t mind nasally voices.