Paper short abstract:

The paper aims to describe the meaning of ‘othered’ gender in Ukrainian belief narratives and to look at the meaning of gender from the perspective of social or corporeal deviation. The research is based on Ukrainian folkloric and ethnographic collections of the 19th-early 20th century.

Paper long abstract:

Traditional societies, like Ukrainian society of the 19th-early 20th century, tend to have a strict socially accepted structure that entails gendered behaviour. The structure is closely intertwined with job segregation, working capacity, and fertility. Deviations, although those that are not big in common sense, evoke marginalization and, as a result, beliefs that surround one’s status in the community. As a result, one’s gender lies beyond the common understanding of femininity or masculinity, ‘wrong’ performance of woman- or manhood leads to beliefs.

The paper aims to describe the meaning of ‘othered’ gender in belief narratives of Ukraine in the 19th-early 20th century, as well as to look at the meaning of gender from another angle. The research concentrates on the gender that is surrounded by beliefs in traditional societies that impact its meaning, and that’s why this gender can be seen from another perspective. The paper is based on Ukrainian folkloric and ethnographic collections of the 19th-early 20th century.