Abstract:
In 2003, Minh Lai, manager of the South Pacific Business Development Foundation (SPBD), a nonprofit microfinance institution providing financial services to women in Samoa, made a decision to lend to fa'afafines after several asked whether SPBD would lend to them. Fa'afafines are biologically men, but dress and behave like women. How boys become fa'afafines varies. It may be a matter of choice by a boy to take on a female role or it may be a role that they are raised to play by a family that has no or few daughters and needs someone to carry out female tasks within the household: cooking, cleaning, and washing.
Learning Objective:
The case provides the basis for a discussion of the social construction of gender. This can be approached from a number of different angles, including the biological and social bases for gender distinctions or how gender roles define gender distinctions. The case also raises questions about why microfinance institutions often target women only. How does the subordinate status of women play into this decision?
