Third Gender

A while ago there was a pastoral support team visiting Ukarumpa and they put on a session for single ladies. This was a bold move by a married couple, so I went along to encourage them to continue to recognise the different needs of singles working cross-culturally. So often if feels like everything is focussed on families and we singles are sidelined as if somehow incomplete.

The session was a good time, as it was basically a safe space in which to share our challenges and joys with a compassionate audience, which was both a group of singles and the wife of the pastoral couple. Along the way, one of our singles who has been here decades made a comment that rang true: When working as a single woman in a traditional PNG village, you are effectively a third gender. We do not fit the culturally defined role of women, yet clearly we are not men, so we must be something else.

Women cutting and raking grass to clean up the village.

Women in my village spend their time gardening, fishing, cooking and looking after children. Few have good English and many did not make it past grade three. Meanwhile, I do not live off my garden, do not fish for my supper and have no children. I have a collection of university degrees and spend my day working with words and books.

Men in my village also garden and fish, with hunting and house building also being their responsibilities. They are more likely to have gone further in school and had reason to travel outside the village. They have much more access to, and therefore understanding of, life outside the village. One man has a Masters degree and has travelled the world before retiring to the village. Another man from our village is one of the Prime Minister’s body guards and has travelled to many more countries than me.

I dare not speak for all of PNG with its hundreds of tribes and cultural variations, but for there to be distinct roles for men and women would be fairly normal. For me to not fit into these roles is also normal. Instead, I find myself in a ‘third gender’ role, where my education, livelihood, life experience and lack of children set me apart.

One time my position as a third gender was clear was the day the village was preparing for visitors. The young men were building shelters for people to sit in during the meeting. The women where cutting, raking and burning grass so that the village looked tidy. The older men were sitting under a house, chewing betel nut and supervising proceedings.  I was invited to join the men under the house. The conversation covered local, national and international politics as well as development issues, and I was included with the respected men.

 The shelters being built by men for the visitors to sit in.

On the same day, some re-fencing happened at my house that included me with the women. When I arrived in the village a week prior, there had been a welcome gate put outside my house. I was enjoying having my own gate. That day, the gate was removed and a fence put in its place, with the very clear message that I would come and go through the neighbours’ gate, as I came under his protection and was part of his household.

Most of the time I am thankful for my unique third gender role, as it gives me freedoms not given to village women in a patriarchal society. It leaves me room to be different and to do my work in Bible translation. I am allowed to teach and work in a way that local women are not able. Some days being an outsider is a burden. It is difficult to connect with the women around me when our everyday lives and experiences are so different.

Being the outsider (in so many ways!) in the village is one of the reasons I enjoy time back in our organisational base. There I can be normal… whatever that is! There are other single women who work in villages like I do that I can connect with and we can share our stories and challenges. There I am in a community where education and experience are something we all have and where I can be with my own kind. Being a third gender in the village is mostly a good thing, but so is belonging.