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Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Gender Dynamics

Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Gender Dynamics. GENDER. Know the difference between sex and gender and why gender is a cultural construction ( gender roles vs. gender stereotypes The nature of gender relations in different societies

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Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Gender Dynamics

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  1. Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Gender Dynamics

  2. GENDER • Know the difference between sex and gender and why gender is a cultural construction (gender roles vs. gender stereotypes • The nature of gender relations in different societies • How homosexual intercourse functions and is sanctioned in particular local social contexts. • How sexualities and gender vary across cultures. • Understand the relationship between patriarchy and violence against women • How industrialism has affected gender

  3. The cultural /social construction of gender • Sex refers to biological differences (ex. penis, vagina, breasts, etc) • Gender refers to the cultural construction of male and female characteristics.

  4. Bororo Male Dancers

  5. Key Terms • Gender roles: the tasks and activities that a culture assigns to the sexes (ex. “man the hunter and woman the gatherer”) • Gender stereotypes： oversimplified but strongly held ideas of the characteristics of men and women. “Frailty, thy name is woman!” (Hamlet) • Gender stratification describes an unequal distribution of rewards (socially valued resources, power, prestige, and personal freedom) between men and women, reflecting their different positions in social hierarchy.

  6. Recurrent Gender Patterns • Cross-culturally the subsistence contributions of men and women are roughly equal. • In domestic activities, female labor dominates, while in extradomestic activities, male labor dominates. • Women are the primary caregivers, but men often play a role.

  7. Sexual Orientation and GENDER All human activities, including sexual preferences, are to some extent learned and malleable. Sexual orientation refers to a person’s habitual sexual attractions and activities: Heterosexuality refers to the sexual preference for members of the opposite sex. Homosexuality refers to the sexual preference for members of the same sex. Bisexuality refers to the sexual preference for members of both sexes. Asexuality refers to indifference toward or lack of attraction to either sex.

  8. Cultural Variation of Sexual Norms • There tends to be greater cross-cultural acceptance of homosexuality than of masturbation. • Flexibility in human sexual expression is part of our primate heritage. Masturbation exists among chimpanzee and other primates. Homosexual behavior exists among chimpanzee and other primates. • Sexuality is a matter that culture and environment determine and limit.

  9. Patriarchy and Violence • Patriarchal Societies - The male role in warfare is highly valued. Violent acts against women are common and include dowry murders (India), female infanticide, etc. - Domestic Violence Family violence is a worldwide problem. Abuse of women is more common in societies where women are separated from their supportive kin ties (e.g., patrilineal, patrifocal, and patrilocal societies).

  10. Gender and Industrialism - Early American Industrialism The public-domestic dichotomy as it is manifested in America ("a woman’s place...") is a relatively recent development. Initially, women and children worked in factories, but were supplanted by immigrant men who were willing to work for low wages. This shift coincided with associated beliefs about the unfitness of women for labor. Since World War II, the number of women in the work force has increased dramatically, driven in large part by industry’s search for cheap, educated labor, in combination with technology mitigating the effect of notions about appropriate work for women.

  11. Analyzing Gender Inequality Functionalist vs. Feminist approaches Biological determinism vs. cultural/social constructivism * Feminist Approaches

  12. foot-binding “Namelessness” and propertylessness (Rubie Watson 1986) - arrange marriage *commodifcation of women women’s role as MOTHER (of a male heir) “uterine family” (Margery Wolf) Women in pre-revolutionary (traditional) China

  13. Studies of Chinese society commonly emphasizze men's roles and functions, a not unreasonable approach to a society with patrilineal kinship structure. But this emphasis has left many important gaps in our knowledge of Chinese life. This study seeks to fill some of these gaps by examining the ways rural Taiwanese women manipulate men and each other in the pursuit of their personal goals. The source of a woman's power, her home in a social structure dominated by men, is what the author calls the uterine family, a de facto social unity consisting of a mother and her children.

  14. The Named and the Nameless: Gender and Personhood • What is in a name? • The cultural significance of naming practices in China (and the rest of the world)? • What does this have to do with gender difference? • How relevant is the story for understanding naming practices in the Chinese-speaking world? *The social construction of womanhood

  15. Despite a patrilineal ideology that extols the virtues of brotherhood and equality, Dr Watson shows that the lineage has in fact played a central role in the formation, development and maintenance of an élite class of landlords and merchants, who, even though their economic importance has now declined, continue to exert political control. Dr Watson examines the dynamics of interclass relations within a single lineage and shows how these relations have been transformed as a consequence of the growth of wage labor. Inequality among Brothers (R. Watson 1985)

  16. Descendants of Man lineage 文氏宗族 are gathered at tomb of their ancestor. Roast pigs are presented at the tomb. The local school master is reading a annual report to the ancestor (in classical Chinese) detailing the accounts of the founder’s estate (land and property 祖产) Ancestor Worship in Hong Kong (research by Harvard anthropologist Watson in the 1970s)

  17. Pork division 分猪肉 Major lineages in the HK New Territories share pork among the male descendants of key ancestors. Elders of the Man lineage carefully weigh and divide shares of meat “paid for” by the ancestor himself (who was “alive” socially through the mechanism of his ancestral estate).

  18. Ancestor Worship Among the Man • The (Chinese) lineage model implies clear and unambiguous rules of membership, collective rituals to celebrate illustrious ancestors, and the construction of elaborate ancestral halls that hold the carved wooden tablets of individual (male) ancestors. Strict rules of membership are necessary because the Man （文）, like their counterparts in the New Territories, enjoy the economic benefits conferred by the collective ownership of property – in San Tin’s case former paddy fields that have enormous development potential (hence the secrecy regarding the exact number of recognized members).

  19. Women’s Emancipation / Liberation • May 4th Movement (May 1919) • women’s education • abolishing footbinding • resisting arrange marriage • Experiment under Nationalist Rule (“New Life Movement”) • Communist Experiment with Gender Equality in Jiangxi Soviet (1927-34)

  20. Male Sun (yang) culture public (hunter) rational Female Moon (yin) nature domestic (gatherer) irrational Symbolic Roots of Gender Inequality

  21. “Moving the Mountains Supressing the Chinese Women” • For Chinese before 1949: Imperialism, Capitalism, Feudalism • For Chinese women in pre-revolutionary China: The power of the state, lineage/family, deity, and the power of the husband

  22. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State ( Engles 1884) • The emancipation of women will only be possible when woman can take part in production on a large, social scale, and domestic work no longer claims but an insignificant amount of her time. And now only now has become possible through modern large-scale industry, which does not merely permit the employment of female labor…but positively demand it, while it also tends toward ending private domestic labor by changing it … into a public industry.

  23. “Woman Holding Up Half the Sky” or Revolution Postponed? The unintended consequences of “the Single Child Family Policy” Empowerment of “Chinese daughters” (Fong 2002)

  24. Revolution Postponed? Women’s liberation in post-1949 China: Discrepancies between ideals of gender equality and local practices • 1950 Marriage Law • Family Planning

  25. The Mosuo of SW China are strongly matrilineal. The women in the family are blood relatives of one another, and the men are their brothers. Husbands live apart from their wives in the households of their sisters. The Mosuo: A Matrilineal Society

  26. Affinal kin Bride price Conjugal family Consanguine family Descent group Dowry Endogamy Exogamy Extended family Family (vs. household) Gender (vs. sex) Incest taboo Lineage Marriage Matrilineal (vs. Patrilineal) descent Matrilocal, patrilocal, and neolocal residence patterns Nuclear family Monogamy Polygyny & polyandry Kinship terms and concepts

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