Readings 405

NOTES ON GENDER IN PERSPECTIVE

I. Biology, Gender, and Human Evolution (both editions)
Don’t forget to read the excellent introduction to this section.

- basic subject is how to use biology in general and animal models in particular to inform studies of gender in humans
- discussion of Darwin 1871 work natural selection related to secondary sexual characteristics (differences not required by reproduction): utility (e.g., male competition) and attractiveness (e.g., female choice) arguments – this one especially controversial until Trivers’ modern work
- philandering male and coy female models probably over-generalized – lots of exceptions and variation
- issue of maternal instinct – discussion of Harlows’ famous experiment showing socially deprived monkeys fail to exhibit normal parental behavior, leading to idea of variable mothering
- sex role stereotypes challenged by research on extra-pair mating
- conclusion that some researchers view animal behavior through anthropomorphic lens and gender stereotyping – evolution and biology are important, but we don’t always know how to interpret them

Questions:

Some of the readings in Section I give us views of different versions of parenthood than we are used to in our society. What seem to be the main factors that lead to these variations? In other words, how do they work well for the societies in which we find them?

People often talk very casually of 'human nature', as though it were a well-known thing. They also have ideas or assumptions about the nature of men and women, the roles of the sexes in pre-history, and what constitutes 'normal' behavior for the genders. What information and analyses in particular readings in Section I challenge or expand upon these notions?

The claim that male dominance is universal because it is based on greater strength and aggressiveness is to some degree called into question by Smuts, Ehrenberg, Peach, and to some extent Hewlett in Section I. What arguments do they make, and what do you think about them?

It might make sense to argue that biology is a more powerful influence than culture on gender roles, child-rearing arrangements such as the family, and child survival and development. Some of the authors in Section I seem to be saying something else, however. What exactly are they saying is the relationship between biology and culture in determining these things, and what are they basing their claims on?

Section II
Don’t forget the Introduction, which provides an overview of articles.
Conkey – Men and Women in Prehistory
- Challenges: recognizing bias in gender reconstruction, developing theory of gender that is useful in archaeology, making inferences from archaeological data that are valid for that society
- Concept of androcentrism and claim that most accounts of prehistoric society have been androcentric
- Shows how present assumptions about gender roles creep into archaeological interpretation; simplistic portrayal of man the hunter, woman at home
- Problem of relying on modern hunter-gatherers and ethnographies of them for information about pre-historic hunter-gatherers
- Difficulty of identifying not only gender itself, but relations, identity, roles, ideologies, and their interactions with social structure
- Economic analysis often limited (studies of Aztecs and Incas show importance of women’s role in expanding empire
- Anthropology and related fields learning more and more about variability of gender – probably true of our ancestors, too

Conkey – Archaeology of Gender Today
- Interesting quotation at beginning showing how even anthropologists failed to ‘see’ women of a society, leading to how they are depicted (or not)
- History of how gender became important in archaeology, especially in last 15 years
- Gyne-centrism also occurs
- Idea of how gender is a process, always being ‘performed’ in people’s lives
- Micro-scale analysis should look at age categories, too
- ‘practice theory’ focuses on how activities constitute social formations and culture
- A single notion of gender cannot be sustained for all human societies; look at inequality and difference to answer broad questions
- New archaeological challenges include sexuality, lives of children, parenting behavior, relationship with environment

Galloway – Menstrual Huts
- Menstrual practices and taboos not widely studied
- Examples of seclusion given for Native groups, often not connected to culture or social organization, so actual function obscured
- May have served women in connecting with each other, establishing matrilineality, passing on information – some correlation with matrilineality and matrilocality
- Issue of ‘pollution’ beliefs – are they being imposed on archaeological evidence from our culture?
- Avoidance of menstrual references even in modern society; menstrual blood still a major taboo
- Excellent analysis of specific sites in order to design a better archaeological model to study this tricky subject

Nelson – Venus Figurines
- Discussion of descriptions of figurines in the literature – some of these make huge assumptions that “do some violence to the facts”; this has led to the usual conclusions about fertility and eroticism, and also the presence of a goddess cult; assumption that males made the figurines
- Even enigmatic carvings said to represent female body parts (even though some of them look like male genitalia)
- Cultural constructions of sex and gender presumably existed in pre-history, too

Freidel and Schele – Maya Royal Women
- Lowland Maya texts distinguish them from some other groups; show that women in general and royal women in particular had important role in society, through their central participation in reproducing the class and family structures
- Great examples of how specific royal women engineered alliances, battles, so that their sons could become king

Adovasio et al. – Fashioning of Women
- Imagined camp 26,000 years ago in eastern Europe, shows women making clay animals which they explode for ritual protection, men making weapons and pendants, young woman cooking, girls and mothers collect nettles to make fibers for fabric, powerful Old Woman teacher/leader, some men go out to hunt, others remain behind to help get ready for feast, net-hunting by family units, feast afterward with dancing, chanting, and ritual with figures
- Discussion of evidence for this portrayal
- Importance of fiber artifacts, compared with more durable materials
- Social implications of net hunting – communal, more successful for some animals yielding high calories, fiber-making not prerogative of one sex usually
- Some Venuses partly clad; very fine weaving indicated – were they carved or supervised by the weavers who might well have been women?

Guenter and Freidel – Warriors and Rulers
- Sources of information texts sculpted, painted, incised on bone, shell, jade – tell of women healers, midwives, diviners, religious specialists, despite male dominance through kinship and patriarchy
- Royal women had great participation in court
- Case studies of lady warlords; queens could be viceroys
- Competition between co-wives in polygamous households

Questions on Section II
Has archaeology often been a method of projecting modern views of gender onto the past, according to the several authors who write on pre-history in this section?
Why is the division of labor so important to understand in interpreting evidence of pre-historic societies?
The Venus figurines are well-known as examples of early ‘fertility cults’ in popular literature. How have some archaeologists and anthropologists begun to look at these carved figures differently?
What are some examples of ‘new’ information or models of pre-historic social life that have arisen from an examination of gender in archaeology?

Section III. Domestic and Public Worlds

Lamphere – Domestic sphere of women, public world of men
- Generalization about men association with public world, women with private/domestic
- In some cases, descriptively accurate, but often merely stereotypical – many exceptions cited, even in archetypically parallel gender world of Middle East
- Sometimes definition of concepts ‘public’ and ‘domestic’ is problematic (e.g., Yoruba)
- The generalization may be true in some sense, but not explanatory
- Important to examine ethnographic details of every society (e.g., Cheyenne and Kiowa relationship between equal vs. unequal bridewealth and gender politics)
- “civilized-native” dichotomy in colonial/post-colonial society
- Female networks linking workplace and family

Murcott – Pleasure to cook for him
- Cooking still part of domestic labor of women and marital role
- South Wales example of link between domestic and economic structure in general
- Concept of proper meal, home-made meal signifies marital relationship and homecoming
- Conventional requirement that women cook for others, that men are breadwinners and incompetent cooks
- Division of decision-making authority

Townsend – Fatherhood and mediating role of women
- Discrepancy between claim that men want to be involved fathers, but failure to do so
- Women mediate marriage decision, timing and number of children, division of child care labor, divorce, etc.
- Interviews of U.S. men in their 30s
- Birth control factor
- Gendered parenting arises from both female and male choices and areas of control

Weismantel – Cities of women
- Latin American women in public spaces – produce market study in Andes – contrary to belief that they are invisible in urban settings
- Physical space of plaza represents masculine power, even buildings (despite women’s penetration of business and government opportunity structure)
- Market space dominated by women – age, wealth also enter into hierarchy
- Domesticity pulls women towards men
- Market also provides directly to household

Brenner – Javanese ideologies of gender
- Home and market also sources of women power and identity
- Ideology of spiritual potency emphasizes importance of high class males; elite values spread through society
- Ethnography presents conflicting versions of gender
- Self-control and refinement important in interactions; women associated with lack thereof
- Alternative view of human nature says men lose control because of desire, even to the extent of losing money, gambling, etc.
- Women’s economic activities outside the household are extension of female superiority with money, though outside home they are sexually dangerous

Questions for Section III
A. Some of the articles discuss the broad idea of men being in control of the public sphere, women more associated with the private or domestic. What problems do the authors see with this approach to understanding gender differences?
B. Is domestic labor a job like any other? Give some examples from the reading.
C. In what ways is the ideology of gender in particular cultures at odds with the realities of gender roles?
D. Many different cultures make claims that the man of the house is in charge of it, but it seems that there are lots of cases in which this isn’t the case. How does this come about?

Section IV. (3rd ed.) V. (5th ed.) Cultural construction of gender and personhood

Herdt – Male initiation in Papua New Guinea
- Sambia of New Guinea, cultivators who raise a few pigs and do some hunting
- Nuclear family residential unit until boys removed to men’s clubhouse at 7 – 10 years old, after first-stage initiation, until marriage much later
- Ritual warfare formerly common; masculine virtue of strength
- Men’s secret society orchestrates three-stage initiation of boys for regional groups of age-mates; further three stages individually centered and related to marriage and birth of children
- Women believed to be polluting and inferior; gender identity must be acquired and cultivated, especially in boys, who must be inseminated orally to achieve masculinity, whereas girls’ reproductive potential unfolds naturally

Watson – Gender and person in Chinese society
- Hong Kong rural villages – men have many names, but women known by kinship terms, age grade labels, etc.
- Personal names of great social importance, so does this imply that adult women are nobody?
- Patrilineal values, patrilocal residence
- All children receive baby names, but girls’ may be generic rather than individual
- Astrological/spiritual value of names
- Importance of appearance of characters, in relation to Confucian classics; men get a marriage name, public nicknames, ‘style’ name, posthumous names – men have control over their names until old age
- Few significant life cycle rituals for women, hence no names added to mark them, except for shift from named to unnamed at marriage
- Naming enters into philosophical tension between person as individual and person as tied to society

Buckley and Gottlieb – Menstrual symbolism
- Menstrual taboos tied to notion of pollution
- Symbolic theory defines pollution as anything anomalous, but can be positive or negative
- Social/functional theory relates pollution beliefs to ambiguity in women’s place, attitudes to nature, negative relationships with neighbors
- Issues with pollution theory include limited idea that there is one symbolic system, emphasis on men as informants, and actual accounts of positive ritual uses of menstrual blood
- Possibility that menstrual blood considered polluting in societies that associate it with formation of fetus

Gilmore – Machismo in Spain
- Analysis of guys talking informally in Andalusia, Spain - eroticized
- Main components of manhood are virility, valor, and virtue – way of distinguishing themselves from foreigners, non-Spaniards
- Piropo – public compliment to a woman to show virility
- Fighting not part of machismo in Andalusia; many versions of machismo – fearlessness without fighting, not toughness
- Honor of men connected with purity of ‘their’ women (throughout Mediterranean)
- Definition of courtesy for men very extensive: hospitality, generosity, respectfulness, trustworthiness, etc.

McElhinny – Stories Pittsburgh police officers tell
- How gender structures policing by male, female, black and white officers, producing difference and inequality
- Attitude of war on crime, officers act crazy to frighten people, permits violent action; but afterward male police apologizes to female police
- Acting crazy associated with masculine behavior, so women police who do it are perceived as masculine; women officers use of force linked to class and ethnic persona
- Denial of responsibility or agency (in danger, reaction to situation) also excuses use of force

Lamb – Northeast India
- Concept of person or self in Asia may be ‘dividual’, not individual, thus people in relation to others and to categories
- Bengali Indians view women more open and fluid in nature than men
- Through exchanges and acts of contact people establish networks/bonds that constitute them as a person
- Caste-related concept of touching as contamination, women more vulnerable, and also more exudative of impurities; intercourse a kind of contamination of women – menstruation and childbirth create impurity
- Thus women must practice more discipline of body and openness
- Women’s kinship and other emotional ties must be made and remade throughout life, owing to discontinuity of residence; male children have many connection-making ceremonies, girls few, because “daughters belong to others”
- Widows seen as half-alive, not desirable to remarry, even if young, because of permanent bond to husband
- Old age makes women more pure, closed, “like men”

Section IV. (5th ed.) /VI. (3rd ed.) – Sexual division of labor and gender stratification

Introduction – underlying assumption of division of labor that men’s contribution to well-being of family more significant (bread-winners), thus explaining male dominance
Purpose of chapter to examine women’s contribution to subsistence.

Estioko-Griffin and Griffin – Agta
- Luzon Philippines Negritos, hunter-gatherers among whom women do some hunting and fishing, along with bartering for produce – participate in all subsistence activities, but some semi-gendered tasks
- nuclear family focus of decision-making
- two forms of marriage: elopement by young lovers (less common), and arranged marriage involving negotiations and exchange of goods
- men and women have similar sexual freedoms; polygamy rare

Lepowsky – Vanatinai (Pacific Island)
- women considered “owner of the garden” – do most daily gardening, while men in charge of sago (but do gardening, too)
- both care for pigs, dive for clams
- men hunt with spears, but women do some hunting
- women care for children
- participation in kula ring; concept of big man and big woman based on exchange

Rasmussen – Tuareg
- pastoral nomads of Niger
- women interact with men, and are defined by age, social origins, occupation, kinship roles, and other features, not just gender
- sedentarization affects them, but still pastoralist ideology in which female contribution considered small
- women’s status variable, many factors influence gender reality in particular society, so need for examining local cultures and histories
- though Muslims, no veiling (men veil) or sequestering, have much social and economic independence, some sexual freedom; nuptial tent is women’s property as part of dowry – switch to mud houses now makes men owners
- some emphasis on matrilineal descent, maternal kinship
- more inheritance rights than allowed by Koran

Babb – Nicaragua
- low-income urban women affected by political change of past 15 years: structural adjustment policies in development programs
- tendency toward male bias in the development process, despite contribution of women to household survival, whether through paid or unpaid work
- under Sandinistas severe economic crisis, and post-Sandinista government, emphasis on privatization, cuts in social spending, free trade even more difficult, especially after agreement with IMF – not a gender-neutral policy
- small-scale producers organized into urban cooperatives, e.g., textile producers (sew at home and run store), bakers, welders – not very successful
- informal sector – selling goods and services out of home – declining business
- half of households headed by women; severe human cost of current market-driven economy

O’Hara – Irish family farms
- women responsible for farmyard economy, childcare and household work
- animal care and heavy field work were men’s – higher status and importance
- patriarchal, male ownership and succession, but organization of farm work premised on input of farm woman’s labor; superordinate-subordinate relationship of spouses
- distinction between inside (including yard) and outside work; women often do financial management, despite limited legal and financial personal interest and lack of decision-making power
- only women owning land are widows

V. (3rd ed.) /VI. (5th ed.) – Culture and sexuality

Abu-Lughod – Egyptian Bedouin weddings
- conflicting discourses on Arab Muslim sexuality during colonial period
- sexual marital behavior considered as marker of cultural identity among rural Bedouins, distinguishing them from other Egyptians; Bedouin weddings different from other groups in daytime defloration practice; whether it involves sexual intercourse; whether it is a contest
- public display involves kin groups, blood-stained cloth of wedding bed, behavior of bride and groom; women ritual singing; ritual cross-dressing – gender and sexual mixing
- Sexuality and sexual identity not stable, coherent categories
- practices changing as assimilation continues, has changed gender relations to detriment of women’s position; professionalization of weddings to spectacles
- specific constructions of sexuality mean impossible to have a generalized Muslim Arab sexuality

Gilmore – Manhood puzzle
- all societies provide institutionalized sex-appropriate roles for adult men and women; a few have intermediary categories (berdache, xanith, mahu … ), but some cross-cultural regularities in roles and notion of manhood
- survey of different cultures (Truk, Greek, East African cattle-herders, Amhara, New Guinea Highlands) striking similarities in idea of manliness
- tests of male courage, strength, etc., common even in non-warlike cultures
- why culture uses biological potentials in specific ways; sociobiological argument
- Freudian castration theory; post-Freudian identity theory of separation from parents

Yelvington – Flirting
- Trinidad factory – indirect behavior indicating possible sexual interest
- Gender relations and public display of sexuality pervasive in Caribbean life – gendered speech and flirtatious terminology
- Carnival overturns established order, allowing women more freedom
- Sexuality implies exchange of money and power in kinship context
- In factory, supervisor/worker relations can be used to both advantage or disadvantage; age and respectability also create pressure
- Flirting represents potentially or symbolically violent, aggressive male sexuality – an enactment of actual social subjugation of women

Blackwood – Intimate friendships
- Lesotho female same-sex sexuality – intimate friendship (‘mummy-baby’), erotic ritual practice, adolescent sex play
- Not exclusive for mummy; relationship seen as way of developing and managing sexual feelings, even among adult married women
- Homoerotic ritual in Australian aboriginal culture, initiation of youth
- Marriage resistance in 19th century China because of oppressive marriage custom, leading to intimate sisterhoods
- Gender ideologies create different sexual roles, behaviors, meanings and desires for women and men, in different cultural settings; example of mati work (Suriname) and tomboi and other gender transgressions (West Sumatra)

Gottlieb – Anthropology of menstruation
- Use of menstrual blood in love magic, menstrual huts, taboos – to understand, must have complete context
- Historical and social change occurring in all these institutions – no taboo universal or since time immemorial, e.g., colonial impact
- Beliefs about menstruation may be locus of power, gender, and representation of self

Reddy and Nanda – Hijras
- Alternative sex-gender, third sex, man/woman – hijras typically male, but undergo eunuch operation and adopt feminine clothing and ways
- Not considered homosexual, neither male nor female
- Also other categories of ‘not-men’, defined in terms of sexual desire or its absence, religious practice, kinship relations and appearance
- Basis in Hindu mythology, also some identification with Islam – ritual roles for both
- Political success in modern context, despite marginalization and criminalization under British rule and continuing under modern law

Urla and Swedlund – Barbie: feminine ideal
- Female bodies never feminine enough? Is Barbie good or bad role model for girls?
- Barbie exemplifies way in which gender has become a commodity
- Marketing strategies reflect sensitivity to social climate
- History of body study very male-centric, Eurocentric, youthful
- Barbie measurements unlike any natural women, more anorectic with impossible proportions
- What is source of long-lasting and cross-cultural appeal?
- Her body may signify pleasure of control and mastery, highly valued traits in American society, though associated with masculinity

VII (5th ed.) – Gender, Property, and the State

Rapp – Women and the State
- importance of kinship for resistance to state formation; also within kinship domain that women’s subordination established
- interesting questions about women’s position in highly ranked kinship systems
- female status also related to religious beliefs
- warfare doesn’t necessarily degrade women’s status or political role
- women active in trade and markets contribute to expansion of power
- political organization prior to colonial penetration generally more equal, then women’s roles reduced and into modern era

Stone and James – Dowry, Bride-Burning and Female Power
- new forms of violence against women in modernizing sectors
- dowry in India related to class and control of property (not female wealth), accompanied by status-seeking by individuals
- dowry murders in northwest India Hindus mostly
- inflationary dowries and lack of high-status grooms owing to hypergamy
- bride’s sexual reputation used as excuse; called suicide
- sati and bride-burning show unacceptability of unmarried adult women, also lower rank of bride’s family
- changing fertility values may also lead to murders- lower status of women in a male-labor-dominant economy; women are primarily vehicles of property transmission

Ryan – Women’s Political Experience
- Kenya property rights case where woman used legal system to fight for rights (and won), versus dual legal system of some countries where customary law that demotes women used to trump statutory law that gives them equal rights
- women’s interaction with the state highly variable, political engagement different from men’s
- increase of women office-holders globally, though still unequal
- rise of religious fundamentalism did not necessarily remove women from public positions, but led to revival of some customary practices that had been outlawed, such as sati (widow-burning)
- complexity and diversity of national forms shape women’s participation
- impact of global capitalism in some cases made women more important economically, in others increased their burdens and decreased power
- many international women’s movements; importance of Beijing conference; story of Mukhtaran Bibi in Pakistan - inspirational

Allison – Japanese Mothers and Obentos
- boxed lunches that are highly crafted – invested with a gendered state ideology
- mother and child under surveillance by nursery school
- Althusser concept of ideological state apparatus – a structure of power different from force; food is coded culturally and aesthetically
- obento is worrisome for mothers because food is not just food – presentation is critical; food represents national identity, social order, and gender role
- socialization of children into gender roles desired and directed by the state
- obento eases child’s transition from home to ‘real world’ (school) – filled with meaning of mother; then must consume it entirely, quickly – introduction to rigor of education
- group life is what is taught in nursery school
- female-centered home represented by exclusively-female-produced obentos