Social Stratification and Other Forms of Social Differentiation

1. Social Stratification and Other Forms of Social Differentiation

2. social stratification • the unequal distribution of goods and services, rights and obligations, power and prestige • all attributes of positions in society, not attributes of individuals • universality of stratification

3. STRATIFICATION & STATUS • status - ascribed & achieved • ascribed status - social positions that people hold by virtue of birth • achieved status - social positions attained as a result of individual action • shift from kin based societies to modern society involves growth in importance of achieved status

4. Roles, Stereotypes, Stratification • Roles -- tasks & activities that a culture assigns to people • Stereotypes -- oversimplified strongly held ideas about the characteristics of people • Stratification -- unequal distribution of rewards (socially valued resources, power, prestige, personal freedom) between people reflecting their position in the social hierarchy

5. Stratified Society • stratification means • there are significant breaks in the distribution of goods services, rights, obligations, power prestige • as a result of which are formed collectivities or groups we call strata

6. 3 TYPES OF SOCIETIES • egalitarian societies • rank societies • Class/caste societies

7. Egalitarian Societies • no social groups having greater access to economic resources, power, or prestige • usually foragers • Morton Fried - "there are as many positions of prestige in any age-sex grade as there are people capable of filling them“ • differences in prestige not related to economic differences - reciprocity; hunter & ability & sharing of catch • the culture works to separate the status achieved from actual possession of wealth

8. Rank Societies • do not have unequal access to economic resources or to power, but they do contain social groups having unequal access to prestige • generally practice agriculture & herding • unequal access to prestige often reflected in position of chief to which only some members of a specified group in the society can succeed • position of chief partly hereditary, treated with deference

9. Kwakiutl & the potlatch - the drive for prestige • Kwakiutl chiefs never content with status & prestige, always insecure • claims to hereditary position fragile • make claims to family titles (totem poles) but others can claim descent lines too • justify position as chief - the potlatch • return potlatches, rival feasts • ceaseless flow of prestige & valuables moving in opposite directions

10. The Potlatch and Chiefly Rank • potlatch not the result of maniacal whims of megalomaniac chiefs in the quest for prestige • status rivalry through competitive feasts of the potlatch • assures the production & redistribution of wealth among peoples who have not fully acquired a ruling class

11. Versus Egalitarian Societies • in egalitarian societies competitive displays & conspicuous consumption by individuals disappears • anyone foolish enough to boast how great he/she is gets accused of witchcraft • reciprocity predominates, not redistribution • remember “Eating XMAS in the Kalahari”

12. class societies • Unequal access to all 3 advantages, economic resources, power, prestige • Open & closed class systems • the extent to which mobility occurs allowing people to pass through inequalities • Closed system • No mobility • tend to persist across generations • Open system • ease of social mobility permitted

13. caste, slavery, and class systems • caste systems • closed, hereditary systems of stratification often dictated by religion • hierarchical social status is ascribed at birth, people locked into their parents social position • legal & religious sanctions, occupation, commensality applied against people who seek to cross them • apartheid - caste like system, legally maintained hierarchy based on skin color (the color bar)

14. caste, slavery, and class systems • slavery – closed class system • people treated as property • the most extreme & coercive form of legalized inequality

15. Open Class System • facilitates mobility • individual achievement & personal merit determining social rank • hierarchical social status is achieved on the basis of people's efforts • ascribed status (family background, ethnicity, gender, religion, skin color) less important • blurred class lines & wide range of status positions

16. Gender and Social Stratification

17. Gender and Anthropology • interest in hierarchical relations between men and women has been a feature of anthropology since its earliest days • 19th century evolutionists and their explanations for the rise of culture • promiscuous horde gives way to socially organized marriage and kinship, for example

18. Gender and Anthropology • anthropology of gender has been key in establishing that sexual inequality is not a biological fact but instead and cultural and historical one

19. development of the study of sex, sexuality and gender in anthropology • Anthropology of Women early 1970's attention to the lack of women in standard ethnographies • Anthropology of Gender challenged the basis for understanding social roles of male and female • Feminist Anthropology challenged the biological basis of sex and sexuality • and the foundations of anthropology as it had been done

20. SEX, SEXUALITY, GENDER • not the same thing • all societies distinguish between males and females • a very few societies recognize a third, sexually intermediate category

21. SEX (sexual dimorphism) • marked differences in male & female biology • contrasts in: • primary sex characteristics • genitalia & reproductive organs • secondary sex characteristics • breasts, voice, hair, also average weight, height, & strength

22. SEXUALITY (reproduction) • all societies regulate sexuality • lots of variation cross-culturally • degree of restrictiveness not always consistent through life span • adolescence vs. adulthood • Normative sexual orientation • Heterosexual, homosexual, transexual • Sexuality in societies change over time

23. GENDER • GENDER - the cultural construction of male & female characteristics • vs. the biological nature of men & women • SEX differences are biological - GENDER differences are cultural • behavioral & attitudinal differences between the sexes emerge from culture rather than biology

24. GENDER ROLES, STEREOTYPES, STRATIFICATION • gender roles - tasks & activities that a culture assigns to sexes • gender stereotypes - oversimplified strongly held ideas about the characteristics of men & women • gender stratification - unequal distribution of rewards (socially valued resources, power, prestige, personal freedom) between men & women reflecting their position in the social hierarchy

25. universals versus particulars • universal subordination of women is often cited as one of the true cross-cultural universals, a pan-cultural fact • Engels called it the “world historical defeat of women” • even so the particulars of women’s roles, statuses, power, and value differ tremendously by culture

26. EXPLAINING WOMEN’S STATUS CROSS-CULTURALLY • Biological hypotheses about the cross-cultural differences in men and women • effects of having children on division of labor • fertility maintenance hypothesis • differences in strength • expendability theory of males as soldiers • sociobiological premises for complex gendered behavior

27. Friedl and Leacock argument • variation among foragers • male dominance is based on exchange, public exchange • versus that exchanged privately by women • Exchange of scarce resources in egalitarian societies, gender stratification, and universal subordination of women

28. DOMESTIC - PUBLIC DICHOTOMY (M. Rosaldo) • opposition between domestic (reproduction) & public (production) provides the basis of a framework necessary to identify and explore the place of male & female in psycho, cultural, social and economic aspects of life • degree to which the contrast between public domestic (private) sphere is drawn promotes gender stratification-rewards, prestige, power

29. domestic sphere • clearly drawn in societies where division of labor encompasses more than age & sex differentiation (complex societies) • inequality in material rewards for labor • less clearly drawn in societies where division of labor beyond age & sex is minimal (egalitarian) • rewards are highly valued social roles with prestige rather than material goods

30. Domestic : Public Spheres • mobility & gender • Domestic : public dichotomy not only distinguishes activities, but culturally encodes space

31. M. Rosaldo and the Ilongot of the Philippines • positive cultural value placed adventure, travel, knowledge of & experience with the outside world • Ilongot men as headhunters visited distant places, amassed experiences & returned to express their knowledge-receive acclaim • Ilongot women - these activities not available to them

32. Mobility, Public : Domestic (Private), and Gender Straitification • mobility not just through geographic space but social space (associations • veiling & Islamic women • factory women in Malaysia • US - WW2 & factory women for war effort • 1960s, 70s, 80s - changing gender composition of economy

33. persistence of dualisms in ideologies of gender • a particular view of men and women as opposite kinds of creatures both biologically and culturally • nature/culture • domestic/public • reproduction/production

34. Reproduction and Social Roles • roles - those minimal institutions and modes of activity that are organized immediately around one or more mothers and their children • women everywhere lactate & give birth to children • likely to be associated with child rearing & responsibilities of the home

35. Production and Social Roles • roles - activities, institutions, and forms of association that link, rank, organize, or subsume particular mother-child groups

36. a long running controversy in anthropology • Sherry Ortner’s famous article “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture” • argument is that across cultures, women are more often associated with nature and the natural and are therefore denigrated • Ortner - in reality women are no further nor closer to nature than men - cultural valuations make women appear closer to nature than men

37. The “Third Gender” • essentialism of western ideas of sexual dimorphism - dichotomized into natural & then moral entities of male & female that are given to all persons, one or the other • committed western view of sex and gender as dichotomous, ascribed, unchanging • other categories - every society including our own is at some time or other faced with people who do not fit into its sex & gender categories

38. The “Third Gender” • a significant number of people are born with genitalia that is neither clearly male or female • Hermaphrodites • persons who change their biological sex • persons who exhibit behavior deemed appropriate for the opposite sex • persons who take on other gender roles other than those indicated by their genitals

39. Third Gender: Western Bias • multiple cultural & historical worlds in which people of divergent gender & sexual desire exist • margins or borders of society • may pass as normal to remain hidden in the official ideology & everyday commerce of social life • when discovered - iconic matter out of place - "monsters of the cultural imagination“ • third gender as sexual deviance a common theme in US • evolution & religious doctrine • heterosexuality the highest form, the most moral way of life, its natural

40. Third Gender Cross-Culturally • various cultures deals with these persons differently • some cultures conceive of more than two genders • both sex and gender can change within an individual's lifetime • provokes us to reexamine our own assumptions regarding our gender system • emphasizes gender role alternatives as adaptations to economic and political conditions rather than as "deviant" and idiosyncratic behavior • rigid dichotomozation of genders is a means of perpetuating the domination of females by males and patriarchal institutions.

41. Berdache or Two Spirits among plains Indians • men who take on many female gender roles & stereotypes, stratification, become another wife • warrior role, stereotype for men • man compelled by supernatural spirits • sexual & social functions (as another wife) • condition is not stigmatized, role not reduced to sex act, not illegal or immoral, only atypical • role is legitimized by spiritual power • influential in own communities as curer, artist, matchmaker, companion to warriors

42. Xanith in Oman • an effeminate man, a feminine but not castrated male • Like Two Spirits • not static, not permanent during a person's lifetime or during the history of society • in Oman; if the man (women) has sex particularly with a virgin becomes male again

43. THEORIES OF GENDER INEQUALITY

44. Engels • theory of the origin of female subordination • tied to the male control of wealth • built on 19th cent. assumption of communal societies as matrilineal • men overthrew matrilineality & formed patriarchal family leading to monogamous family • differential ownership of wealth led to inequality within the family & thus between the sexes • gender differences arose from technological developments that led to changes in relations of production

45. Leacock - (expands on Engels) • subjugation of women due to breakdown of communal ownership of property & isolation of individual family as econ. Unit • transformation of relations of production with female labor continuing to be for domestic unit or private sphere • male production directed towards distribution outside the domestic group (public sphere) • occurs with development of private property & class society

46. Sacks • political power that results from the ability to give & receive goods in exchange (redistribution) • allows for sexual stratification in non-class societies

47. Sanday Reeves • female status dependent on degree to which men & women participate in activities of reproduction, warfare, subsistence

48. Friedl and Leacock • not rights & control over production but rights of distribution & control over channels of distribution critical for gender stratification

49. RETHINKING SUBORDINATION • Ardener - muted models that underlie male discourse • diversity of one life or many lives • gender roles, stereotypes, stratification • changes over time • changes with position in lifecycle • status of men & women i.e. in male dominant societies • decision making roles belong to men but as women reach menopause; change with marriage status, virgins, wives, widows (and men)

50. RETHINKING SUBORDINATION • women, like men, are social actors who work in structured ways to achieve desired ends • formal authority structure of a society may declare that women are impotent & irrelevant • but attention to women's strategies & motives, sorts of choices, relationships established, ends achieved indicates women have good deal of power • strategies appear deviant & disruptive • actual components of how social life proceeds