2. Gender
• How are biology and culture expressed in
human sex/gender systems?
• How do gender, gender roles,
and gender stratification
correlate with other social,
economic, and political variables?
• What is sexual orientation, and how do
sexual practices vary cross-culturally?
4. Sex and Gender
• Because of that anthropologists study biology,
society and culture, they are in a unique
position to comment on nature (biological
predispositions) and nurture (environment) as
determinants of human behavior.
• Women and men differ genetically : they
are different not just in reproductive organs and
secondary characteristics as voice, breasts or
hair distribution, but also in average weight,
height, strength and longevity.
5. The predominant anthropological
position on sex-gender roles and
biology
• The biological nature of men and women
(should be seen) not as a narrow
enclosure limiting the human organism,
but rather as a broad base upon which a
variety of structures can be built. (Friedl
1975)
6. Sex and Gender
• Gender refers to the cultural
construction of whether one is
female, male or something else.
• Gender roles differ with
environment, economy, adaptive
strategy and type of political system.
7. Sex and Gender
• Gender roles: tasks and activities
that a culture assigns to the sexes
• Gender stereotypes:
oversimplified, strongly held ideas
of characteristics of men and women
• Gender stratification: unequal
distribution of rewards between men and
women, reflecting their different positions
in a social hierarchy
8. Recurrent Gender Patterns
• The subsistence contributions of men and
women are roughly equal cross-culturally.
– In domestic activities, female labor dominates.
– In extradomestic activities, male labor dominates.
– Women are the primary caregivers, but men often
play a role.
– Men are less restricted in mating.
– Double standards restrict women more than men
and illustrate gender stratification.
• Gender stratification is lower when men
and women make roughly equal
contributions to subsistence.
9. Gender Among Foragers
• The Domestic–Public Dichotomy
– The strong differentiation between home
and the outside world is called the
domestic–public dichotomy,
or the private–public contrast.
• Activities of the domestic sphere
tend to be performed by women.
• Activities of the public sphere
tend to be restricted to men.
–Gender stratification is less
developed among foragers.
10. Gender Roles
• Men are the usual
hunters and warriors.
When you give such
tools and weapons to
men, they make
better hunters and
fighters because they
are bigger and
stronger on the
average then are
women in the same
population.
11. • Warfare and trade are two public arenas that
can contribute to status inequality of males
and females among food producers.
• In foragers, the public and private spheres are
least separate, hierarchy is least marked,
aggression and competition are most
discouraged and the rights, activities and
spheres of influence of men and women
overlap the most.
• Our ancestors lived entirely by foraging until
10.000 years ago. If there is any most natural
form of human society, it is best, represented
by foragers.
12. Gender Among Horticulturalists
• What is descent?
Hereditary derivation.
• What is a descent group?
A group of people whose social unity and
solidarity are based on a belief in common
ancestry.
– Matrilineal descent: people
join mother’s group at birth
– Patrilineal descent: people have
membership in the father’s group
13. • Patrilocality: couple lives in husband’s
community
• Matrilocality: couple lives in wife’s community
Among societies with matrilineal descent and
matrilocality, female status tend to be high.
Matrilineal and matrilocal systems tend to
occur in societies where population pressure
on strategic resources is minimal and warfare
is infrequent.
In matrilineal societies, women are the basis
of the entire social structure.
14. Example to Matrilineal Societies
• Iroquois society, a confederation of tribes in
aboriginal New York.
• For example, the Iroquois (women manage
production and distribution, control alliances,
make political decisions)
15. Gender Among Horticulturalists
• Increased Gender Stratification—
Patrilineal-Patrifocal Societies
– Patrilineal-patrifocal complex:
male supremacy is based on
patrilineality, patrilocality, and warfare
–Martin and Voorhies: The decline of
matrilineality and spread of the
patrilineal- patrifocal can be linked to
pressure on resources.
16. Gender Among Horticulturalists
• The patrilineal-patrilocal tends to have a
sharp domestic-public dichotomy; men
tend to dominate the prestige hierarchy.
–Women do most of the cultivation,
cooking, and raising children, but
are isolated from the public domain.
–Males dominate the public domain:
politics, feasts, warfare
17. Gender Among Agriculturalists
• Women typically lose roles as primary
cultivators in an agriculture economy.
– The advent of agriculture cut women off from
production.
– Belief systems started contrasting
men’s valuable extradomestic (outside the
home) with women’s domestic role.
– Descent groups and polygny declined with
agriculture and the nuclear family became
more common.
18. Patriarchy and Violence
• Patriarchy: a political system ruled by men in
which women have inferior social and political
status, including basic human rights.
– Societies that feature a full-fledged patriarchy,
with warfare and intervillage raiding. Such
practices as dowry murders, female infanticide,
and clitoridectomy exemplify patriarchy which
extends from tribal societies to state societies
such as India and Pakistan.
– Isolated families and patrilineal social forms
spread at expense of matrilineality
19. Patriarchy and Violence
• With the spread of the women’s rights and
human rights movements, attention to
domestic violence and the abuse of women
increased.
• Laws have been passed and mediating
institutions established.
• Still domestic violence is a big social
problem.
20. Gender and Industrialism
• The domestic–public dichotomy has
affected gender stratification in industrial
societies.
• Gender roles are changing rapidly in North
America.
– The traditional idea that a woman’s place
is in the home developed among middle- and
upper-class Americans as industrialism
spread after 1900.
21. Gender and Industrialism
• With industrialism, attitudes about gendered
work and beliefs have varied with class and region
in response to economic needs.
• After 1900, European immigration produced a
male labor force willing to work for wages lower
than those of American born men.
• Those immigrant men moved into factory jobs that
previously had gone to women.
• As machine tools and mass production further
reduced the need for female labor, the notion that
women were biologically unfit for factory work
began to gain ground.
22. Gender and Industrialism
• Development and change of women’s status in
business world:
Wartime shortages of men promoted the idea
that work outside the home is women’s patriotic
duty.
Inflation and the culture of consumption have
also spurred female employment
The steady increase in female paid employment
since WWII, also reflects the baby boom and
industrial expansion.
In 1960s, feminist movements.
23. Sexual Orientation
• Sexual orientation: a person’s
habitual sexual attraction to,
and sexual activities with
– Persons of opposite sex (heterosexuality)
– Persons of same sex (homosexuality)
– Both sexes (bisexuality)
– Asexuality: indifference toward
or lack of attraction to members of either sex
24. Sexual Orientation
• Recently in U.S., the tendency has
been to see sexual orientation
as fixed and biologically based. (genes
and hormones)
• Experiences during growth and
development effects sexual orientation.
• Culture always plays a role in molding
individual sexual urges to a collective
norm.