This reading was extremely fascinating. Growing up with Western ideals, the "traditional" roles in society have always seemed qualitative to me, in that the male role was valued and respected more than the female one. This sort of belief has also seemed to a universal thing, although I didn't really believe it. Reading this article showed me how much sexuality can be influenced by a variety of social, cultural, and other factors.
The "berdache institution" seemed to hold a practical use in the Native American tribes, and this practicality allowed a sort of egalitarian relationship between men and women gender roles to develop. It was interesting to read that men and women took on each other's characteristics, had equal say in important matters, and a sort of casual attitude toward sexuality--all things that seemed to have been derived from those egalitarian notions. The article really emphasized, for me, the fluidity of gender and sexuality, concepts that don't necessarily have to be based on sex.
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I agree that the Western world has subtly implied male superiority, the Western world has also acknowledged the necessity of the female role. During the early decades of America, there came the concept of the Republican motherhood. This idea was that the females most important role was to raise kids that would grow up and support the nation. This sort of acknowledgment, even if it was a backwards one, shows that society recognized that males alone could not make society continue.
I agree that the Native American tribes described in Blackwood's article had the most amazing fluidity that a society could have. The subsistence living that these tribes practiced truly made this fluidity possible.
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