Gender norms on Jute

Gender norms on Jute are very varied and differ significantly depending on whether a community is Coastal or River Jutean, Klambari or Samwati.

Coastal and River Jutean gender norms

Three different culture-specific genders exist in Coastal and River Jutean communities. These are never assigned at birth, instead they are chosen, with biology playing no role whatsoever, by the parents in the first years of a child's life based on characteristics, behavior and preferences, though other members in a community might suggest or even urge the parents in a particular direction.

With society having grown more open and less socially conservative in recent years, it has become common for children to challenge this decision and for this to be accepted socially. While not all parents already pay heed to it when it happens when the child is still young, almost all but the strictest parents allow their children to select the label they identify with the most either after puberty has started or at the very least after that.

As with male and female genders, each of the three genders in Coastal and River Jutean society has their own norms assigned to it. A family traditionally consists of a netumo and a sehukumo raising children together, with vamejo expected to live either a solitary life or in a group with other vamejo, dedicating themselves to their community. However, in more recent times many communities allow for same-gender marriages or marriages including vamejo.

Netumo

Netumo are traditionally the defenders of the family, children and the home against any outside threats. Aside from that, they are also historically the protectors of the village. These required them often to stay at or near home, though, when on watch duty near the edge of the rainforest, they would also usually gather food or fish in a river (hunting was largely unknown) while keeping an eye out for any predators or other dangers that might be lurking in the wilderness. They were also responsible for repairs at the house and other manual tasks, and often also where the people who worked in the forest gardens. In times of trouble, the netumo of a community would usually first consult their spouse and then come together and discuss how to deal with the problem.

Sehukumo

Sehukumo were, as the name implies, expected to be the ones nursing, raising and educating (aside from some of the more practical things, which were taught by netumo) the children. When they lacked the capability to breastfeed for biological reasons, they would either have the children be nursed by a relative, friend or leave that task to the other parent. They usually were also responsible for housekeeping and food preparation. Work in gardens, including forest gardens, was seen as a typical task for sehukumos as well.

Vamejo

Vamejo originally is a shortening of vamejotimo, meaning 'sorcerer', 'magician' or 'seer', which refers to the fact that, largely barred from forming a family on their own, they tended to group together in smaller clubs or societies. Many of them had ties, or alleged ties, to magical practices, which is why they also came to be called this.

Tasks the community expected them to take over usually included things that required staying alone for a longer time, such as fishing in the ocean, exploring the island for e.g. new food sources, threats or other resources, spiritual guides, mathematicians/astronomers. Mathematicians and astronomers were akin to priests in traditional Saandism, and often also worked as judges.

Being a judge was and remains a very unpopular profession in particular, due to the difficulty of coming up with judgments that satisfy all parties involved. An older alternative term for vamejo was kove ('inbetween'), but it is generally seen as somewhat demeaning and therefore avoided.

Klambari gender norms

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Samwati gender norms

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International recognition and treatment

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