Throughout history, many cultures have recognized gender identities other than male and female. Nonbinary people have often occupied unique positions in their societies, serving as priests, artists, and ceremonial leaders. Here are some nonbinary genders recognized by cultures around the world. Hindu society features the gender hijra, the most common nonbinary identity recognized in India today. Hijras are found in Hindu religious texts and throughout South Asian history. Many hijras are born with male sexual characteristics, though the hijra community also includes intersex people. A unique culture underlies the hijra identity: hijras often leave home to join groups that educate new initiates in spirituality. Hijras assume a religious role in Hindu culture, celebrating rituals like weddings and births. Many believe hijras possess the power to bless or curse others. In recent centuries a stigma arose against hijras, prompted by British colonialism; in fact, an 1871 British law categorized all hijras as criminals. Anti-hijra sentiment continued to build after that, despite Bangladesh, India, and Nepal all having recognized the rights of nonbinary people by 2014. The Bugis ethnic group of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, recognizes three genders beyond the binary. Calalai refers to people who have female sexual characteristics but present in traditionally masculine ways, often cutting their hair short and dressing in men’s fashions. They also take on a social position similar to men’s, transcending some restrictions placed on women. Calabai are people who have male sexual characteristics but occupy a role like that traditionally occupied by women. Yet calabai don’t identify as women, reject the restrictions that women experience, and do not have their sexual characteristics altered. Calabai often oversee weddings and manage each aspect of the ceremonies. Bissu, another gender, embodies the totality of masculinity and femininity. Bugis people believe that bissu surpasses other genders, encapsulating a spiritual role. Bissu people often wear flowers and carry sacred daggers to symbolize their expansive identity. They perform spiritual rites and are thought to bridge the worldly and the divine. Muxes constitute a community of people in Mexico who typically have male sexual characteristics but embrace a feminine identity. The word muxe bears a similarity to the Spanish word for “woman,” mujer. Muxes often take on household roles that typically belong to women, such as sewing, cooking, and family care. But the community is not a monolith: muxes express their gender identities in a variety of ways, all united under the umbrella term muxes. The muxe identity is embedded within the culture of the Indigenous Zapotec people, who live mainly in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Though Zapotec culture respects muxe people, muxes still endure certain restrictions: they are usually prohibited from living with their intimate partners or leaving their family homes. Each year, muxes celebrate La Vela de las Auténticas Intrépidas Buscadoras del Peligro, or the Festival of the Authentic and Intrepid Danger-Seekers, a day of energetic merriment to honor muxes.
The weapon of choice for these historical women wasn’t beauty, grace, or charm. Instead, they choose to wield cold, hard steel. As in an axe. Or hatchet. Or tomahawk. Thanks in part to such unladylike weapons, these women captured the public’s imagination, inspiring films, books, plays, poems, ballets, bobbleheads, and, in this case, a list. Frankie Silver was Lizzie Borden before there was a Lizzie Borden, though she was never immortalized in a catchy children’s rhyme. In 1831 Frankie allegedly murdered her husband, Charlie Silver, with an axe, dismembered his body, and hid the various parts in and around their North Carolina home; the pieces were buried as they were found, resulting in three different cemetery plots for poor Charlie. While there were questions about her motive—self-defense against an abusive husband or jealousy over an affair—and no solid evidence, Frankie was found guilty in 1832 and sentenced to death. She briefly escaped in 1833, but shortly after her capture, she was hung. American temperance activist Carry Nation once described herself as “a bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn’t like.” At some point, however, she must have decided that a hatchet was more effective than barking. Alone or accompanied by hymn-singing women, the nearly-six-foot tall Nation would march into a saloon and proceed to sing, pray, and hurl biblical-sounding vituperations while smashing the bar with a hatchet. Although she brought much publicity to the temperance movement, prohibition wasn’t enacted until 1919, eight years after her death. In 1472 troops of Charles the Bold of Burgundy were driving across France, leaving destruction and death in their wake. The same fate seemed to await the small town of Beauvais. That is, until a teenaged girl named Jeanne decided to take action. Grabbing a hatchet, she attacked the enemy’s standard bearer and seized the flag. Her actions spurred on the locals, who repelled the invaders. Jeanne Hachette’s bravery is commemorated each year with the “Procession of the Assault” in Beauvais. One of the best-known murder suspects in U.S. history, Lizzie Borden was a popular 32-year-old churchgoer when her father and stepmother were brutally killed in 1892, victims of an axe-wielding assailant. Lizzie soon emerged as the main suspect—she allegedly had tried to buy poison the day before the murders—and her trial created a national sensation, garnering more newspaper coverage than the World’s Fair in Chicago. Given the circumstantial evidence, Borden was acquitted, and she lived a relatively quiet life until her death in 1927. Her story, however, has lived on, thanks in large part to that poem.
On July 28, 2016, at the Democratic National Convention, Hillary Clinton became the first female presidential candidate of a major U.S. political party. Although Clinton was unsuccessful in gaining the presidency that November, her nomination was regarded as another crack in the ultimate “glass ceiling” for women in the United States, following the dozens formed by those who came before her. Below are seven milestones that led to that historic moment. Fifty years before women throughout the United States achieved the right to vote, Victoria Woodhull—stockbroker, newspaper publisher, and champion of social reform—declared her candidacy for president. Despite the fact that she had a reputation as an eccentric (she was once a traveling fortune teller), Woodhull’s outspoken support of female suffrage earned her national attention and the 1872 presidential nomination of the short-lived Equal Rights Party. She did not, however, receive any electoral votes; the contest was won by the incumbent, Ulysses S. Grant. Notable women who followed Woodhull as presidential candidates include Belva Lockwood, Margaret Chase Smith, and Shirley Chisholm. As legislative secretary of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Jeannette Rankin helped gain women in her native Montana the right to vote in 1914 (well before the Nineteenth Amendment). Her efforts were rewarded two years later when Montanans elected her to the U.S. House of Representatives. Although Rankin’s tenure was brief—she served only two terms (1917–19 and 1941–43)—her congressional legacy isn’t defined solely by her role as a pioneer for women. A lifelong pacifist, she also holds the distinction of being the only member of Congress to have voted against U.S. involvement in both World War I and World War II. After Rankin, the number of women in Congress steadily increased, and in 2007 Nancy Pelosi became the House’s first female speaker. Strictly speaking, the first woman to serve in the U.S. Senate was Rebecca Felton of Georgia, who was appointed in 1922 to fill her husband’s seat after he died. It was a largely symbolic gesture, in honor of the 87-year-old Felton’s commitment to women’s rights (and also a political move by Georgia’s governor to win the sympathies of newly enfranchised women voters). She served for only two days. The first woman elected to the Senate was Hattie Caraway of Arkansas. Like Felton, Caraway was the wife of a senator and was appointed to his seat upon his death, in 1931. But she subsequently won a special election to carry out her husband’s term, and, as a reliable supporter of New Deal legislation, she was reelected to the office twice. Only a few followed immediately in Caraway’s footsteps. The election of four female senators (Barbara Boxer, Carol Moseley Braun, Dianne Feinstein, and Patty Murray) in 1992—the so-called Year of the Woman—at once tripled the number of women in the chamber.
The earliest surviving written literature is from ancient Mesopotamia. The Epic of Gilgamesh is often cited as the first great composition, although some shorter compositions have survived that are even earlier (notably the “Kesh Temple Hymn” and “The Instructions of Shuruppak”). Apart from its length, the Epic of Gilgamesh may be considered the earliest significant composition because of its enduring impact on literature through the ages. It is believed to have influenced other ancient literary works, including the Iliad, the Odyssey, Alexander romance literature, and the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), all of which continue to have significant literary impact in their own right.
Druid, member of the learned class among the ancient Celts. They acted as priests, teachers, and judges. The earliest known records of the Druids come from the 3rd century bce. Their name may have come from a Celtic word meaning “knower of the oak tree.” Very little is known for certain about the Druids, who kept no records of their own. According to Julius Caesar, who is the principal source of information about the Druids, there were two groups of men in Gaul that were held in honour, the Druids and the noblemen (equites). Caesar related that the Druids took charge of public and private sacrifices, and many young men went to them for instruction. They judged all public and private quarrels and decreed penalties. If anyone disobeyed their decree, he was barred from sacrifice, which was considered the gravest of punishments. One Druid was made the chief; upon his death, another was appointed. If, however, several were equal in merit, the Druids voted, although they sometimes resorted to armed violence. Once a year the Druids assembled at a sacred place in the territory of the Carnutes, which was believed to be the centre of all Gaul, and all legal disputes were there submitted to the judgment of the Druids. Caesar also recorded that the Druids abstained from warfare and paid no tribute. Attracted by those privileges, many joined the order voluntarily or were sent by their families. They studied ancient verse, natural philosophy, astronomy, and the lore of the gods, some spending as much as 20 years in training. The Druids were said to believe that the soul was immortal and passed at death from one person into another. Roman writers also stated that the Druids offered human sacrifices for those who were gravely sick or in danger of death in battle. Huge wickerwork images were filled with living men and then burned; although the Druids preferred to sacrifice criminals, they would choose innocent victims if necessary. Caesar is the chief authority, but he may have received some of his facts from the Stoic philosopher Poseidonius, whose account is often confirmed by early medieval Irish sagas. Caesar’s description of the annual assembly of the Druids and their election of an arch-Druid is also confirmed by an Irish saga.
Achaemenian Dynasty, (559–330 bce), ancient Iranian dynasty whose kings founded and ruled the Achaemenian Empire. Achaemenes (Persian Hakhamanish), the Achaemenians’ eponymous ancestor, is presumed to have lived early in the 7th century bce, but little is known of his life. From his son Teispes two lines of kings descended. The kings of the older line were Cyrus I, Cambyses I, Cyrus II (the Great), and Cambyses II. After the death of Cambyses II (522 bce) the junior line came to the throne with Darius I. The dynasty became extinct with the death of Darius III, following his defeat (330 bce) by Alexander the Great. Probably the greatest of the Achaemenian rulers were Cyrus II (reigned 559–c. 529 bce), who actually established the empire and from whose reign it is dated; Darius I (522–486), who excelled as an administrator and secured the borders from external threats; and Xerxes I (486–465), who completed many of the buildings begun by Darius. During the time of Darius I and Xerxes I, the empire extended as far west as Macedonia and Libya and as far east as the Hyphasis (Beās) River; it stretched to the Caucasus Mountains and the Aral Sea in the north and to the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Desert in the south. The Achaemenian rule of conquered peoples was generally liberal; the empire itself was divided into provinces (satrapies), each administered by a satrap who underwent frequent inspections by officials reporting directly to the king. Royal inscriptions were usually trilingual, in Old Persian, Elamite, and Akkadian; Aramaic, however, was employed for imperial administration and diplomatic correspondence. Building activity was extensive during the height of the empire, and of the several Achaemenian capitals, the ruins at Pasargadae and at Persepolis are probably the most outstanding. Achaemenian sculptured reliefs and a great number of smaller art objects present a remarkably unified style for the period. Metalwork, especially in gold, was highly developed, and a variety of carefully executed examples survive.