Gender and Anthropology

1. Gender and Anthropology • interest in social relations between human sexual differences (men and women?) has been a feature of anthropology since its earliest days • 19th century evolutionists and their explanations for the rise of society & culture • promiscuous horde gives way to socially organized marriage and kinship, for example • Mother right

2. Margaret Mead & 20th cent. Cultural/Social Anthropology • Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935) • Male and Female (1949). • temperamental differences between the sexes were culturally determined rather than innate biological • different patterns of male and female behavior in each of the cultures she studied

3. The gentle mountain-dwelling Arapesh • Arapesh child-rearing responsibilities evenly divided among men and women The fierce cannibalistic Mundugumor • a natural hostility exists between all members of the same sex”. Mundugumor fathers and sons, and mothers and daughters were adversaries. The graceful headhunters of Tchambuli • While men were preoccupied with art the women had the real power, controlling fishing and manufacturing

4. Divisions of Labor & Society • Social differentiation (sex based differences) & social integration = society • Anthropology • Sex differences not only a biological fact • A universal social fact • At the same time -- culturally specific and historical anchored • Universal & particulars/the general & the specific

5. development of the study of gender in anthropology • Anthropology of Women • early 1970's attention to the lack of women in standard ethnographies • Anthropology of Gender • more thorough examinations of gender in social structure • challenged the basis for understanding social roles of male and female • Feminist Anthropology challenged the biological basis of sex and sexuality • Patriarchy; universal subordination of women • and the foundations of anthropology as it had been done

6. Society-culture • Culture – meaningful (action) • Society – bundle of institutions • Institution -- institutions in society work together to produce social order • behavior patterns important to a society • structures and mechanisms of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of a set of individuals • transcending individual human lives and intentions • Culture presupposes society -- something shared & supra-individual • Society presupposes persons -- assemblage of individuals

7. Social structure • Social relationships – ongoing network of social relations • Relationships among and between definite entities or groups to each other • enduring patterns of behaviour by participants in a social system in relation to each other • institutionalised norms or cognitive frameworks that structure the actions in the social system • systems of relationships, organization, forms of associations - standardized modes of behavior

8. Social stratification • inequality in society • the unequal distribution of goods and services, rights and obligations, power and prestige • all attributes of positions in society, not attributes of individuals • Stratified society is: • when a society exhibits stratification it means that 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

9. Status & Social Difference • status - ascribed & achieved • ascribed status - social positions that people hold by virtue of birth • sex, age, family relationships, birth into class or caste • achieved status - social positions attained as a result of individual action • shift from homogeneous kin based societies (mechanic) to heterogeneous societies of associations (organic) involves growth in importance of achieved

10. 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 & third sex-third gender • gender stratification - unequal distribution of rewards (socially valued resources, power, prestige, personal freedom) between men & women reflecting their position in the social hierarchy

11. Gender Stratification • unequal distribution of wealth, power and privilege between men and women • unequal distribution of wealth, power and privilege between any embodied orientation • cultures everywhere give man, as a category opposed to women, higher social value and moral worth. • Is the secondary status of women one of the true cultural universals?

12. How does one measure gender stratification? • economic power • prestige • Autonomy • ideology • Legal rights • Freedom to choose marriage partner, profession, and conception. Etc. • look at the roles played by women and the value society places on those roles

14. Structure & Agency • Agency = action • Agency as praxis/practice • Praxis – activity/action oriented towards a historically relevant change • Practice -- Practical sense (practice) -- adjustment (anticipatory) to demands of structure

15. SEX, SEXUALITY, GENDER • not the same thing • all societies distinguish between males and females • a very few societies recognize a third, sexually intermediate category • Gender-sexuality – fixed and fluid identities • Embodiments of history – human bodily experience • Corporeal experience and social structure/organization

16. GENDER • GENDER - the cultural construction of male & female characteristics • vs. the biological nature of men & women • SEX differences are biological - GENDER differences are cultural/historical • behavioral & attitudinal differences from social & cultural rather than biological point of view

17. Sex Versus Gender • Sex refers to biological differences • Gender refers to the ways members of the two sexes are perceived, evaluated and expected to behave. • The cultural construction of male and female characteristics. • what different cultures make of sex.

18. SEX • differences in biology • Socially & culturally marked • the body is "simultaneously a physical and symbolic artifact, both naturally and culturally produced, anchored in a particular historical moment" (Scheper-Hughes & Lock)

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

20. The “Four Bodies” • Individual body • The social body • The body politic • The mindful body

21. The Individual Body • lived experience of the body-self, body, mind, matter, psyche, soul

22. The Social Body • representational uses of the body as a natural symbol with which to think about nature, society, culture

23. The Body Politic • regulation, surveillance, & control of bodies (individual & collective) in reproduction & sexuality, in work & leisure, in sickness & other forms of deviance

24. The Mindful Body • the most immediate, the proximate terrain where social truths and social contradictions are played out • a locus of personal and social resistance, creativity, and struggle • emotions form the mediatrix between the individual, social and political body, unified through the concept of the 'mindful body.'

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. 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

27. 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

28. 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

29. Production, 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

30. 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

31. We (North Americans in general) demand that the categories of male and female be discrete • since gender is culturally constructed the boundaries are conceptual rather than physical • Boundaries require markers to indicate gender • the boundaries are dynamic, eg. now it is acceptable for men to wear earrings. Gender Boundaries Is this a man or a woman? How do you know? • Voice • Physique • Dress • Behaviour • Hair style • Kinetics • Language use

32. 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

33. 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

34. Third Genders • transsexual – gender/ sex incongruent, “trapped in wrong body” but with the gender identity of their organs/sex change operation • transvestite – dressing as other gender, biological sex (cross-dresser) • homosexual • bisexual • eunuch – castrated male • hermaphrodite – both sets of biological organs • Virgin? • Boy/Girl?

35. 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

36. Third Gender Cross-Culturally • 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.

37. THEORIES OF GENDER INEQUALITY

38. F. 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

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

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

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

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

43. 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)

44. 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