Gender

Question 1

What is Gender?

Answer 1

• Sex - biology?
  
  • sexually dimorphic: The physiological differences in form between males and females.
• Gender - culture
  
  • The way the sexes are perceived, evaluated, and expected to behave.
• But science is cultural
• How does gender relate to biology?
  
  • Some anthropologists take the maximum constructivist viewpoint
  • Others think of cross-cultural variation in gender as different cultural solutions to universally-shared human variation
• Gender = an assignment into categories; part of a cultural ontology
  
  • Categories entail certain expectations and obligations
  • he way the sexes are perceived, evaluated, and expected to behave.
• Gender intersects with other forms of difference
• gender ideology:gender ideology A system of thoughts, attitudes, and values that legitimizes gender roles, statuses, and customary behaviour. A system of thoughts, attitudes, and values that legitimizes gender roles, statuses, and customary behaviour.

Question 2

Genotype and phenotype

Answer 2

• Consider the case of Belgian supermodel Hanne Gaby Odiele
• If genetics don’t always determine “sex” how useful is this biology/culture distinction anyway
• We are bio-cultural – just as language highlights this, gender does too

Question 3

Emily Martin

Answer 3

• The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles” (1991)
• Gametes are real (as are hormones, chromosomes, etc.) – but how do we understand objective reality?
• Remember, language is symbolic; science is cultural

Question 4

Three Basic Concepts

Answer 4

• Society is a group of people joined by recurrent patterns of interaction and relationship
• A person is an individual in a society (societies are made up of different kinds or categories of person)
• The categories and meanings that characterize a society make a cultural ontology (Gilbert Herdt 1994)
  
  • Gender is part of a cultural ontology

Question 5

We learn to be persons

Answer 5

• We learn the categories of persons that characterize our cultural ontology
  
  • Categories are based upon differences
• Learning the categories is an active endeavour
  
  • We enact the categories to which society conditions or places us
• The cross-cultural study of gender illustrates variability in cultural ontologies, and highlights challenges in determining to what degree we are shaped by culture or nature (or if those distinctions are the right place to start from)

Question 6

Gender Roles

Answer 6

• Cultural ontology ascribes people to particular roles as a function of gender attribution
  
  • As with other social roles, we may conform or resist
• Gender roles include types of occupation or work, familial duties, leadership positions, ritual participation
• Gender roles vary cross culturally, though we observe some general patterns

Question 7

The Gendered Division of Labour

Answer 7

• Gender roles form the building blocks for the division of labour
• Cross-cultural regularities – certain tasks are typically reserved for men and certain tasks are reserved for women – does this support biological determinism?
• fertility maintenance, physical strength, reproductive roles, and child care compatibility
• Despite these regularities, there is also cross-cultural variation that appears related to other factors (economics, kinship)
• And as changing gender roles show us, these roles are not (always) rigid – depends on several contextual factors

Question 8

Gendered Patterns in the Division of Labour

Answer 8

• Men engage in warfare, trap and kill large animals, work with hard substances (wood and stone), clear land, build houses, and fish at sea
• Women tend to crops, gather wild fruit and plants, trap and kill small animals, prepare food, collect firewood, clean house, launder clothing, and carry water
  
  • Childcare is overwhelmingly a job women perform
• Both men and women tend small domesticated animals, make utilitarian products (pottery, baskets), milk animals, plant and harvest crops, and collect shellfish

Question 9

Fertility Maintenance

Answer 9

• Theory - Recurrent physical exertion (hunting, clearing land, fighting, etc.) can compromise fertility in females
  
  • Low body fat ratio and hormonal changes impact on childbearing
  →
• Critique - Humans are cultural creatures
  
  • We create technologies that get around the physical rigours of work
  • Women work just as hard as men (i.e.,perform physically demanding tasks)

Question 10

Relative Strength

Answer 10

• Theory - Men are stronger so they do the harder tasks
  
  • This is why they hunt and do heavier farm work
  →
• Critique
  
  • Not all division of labour n=break down around strength
  • Women can perform tasks that require strength too

Question 11

Reproductive Roles

Answer 11

• Theory - Women are more important in reproductive terms
  
  • Men have lots of sperm, so few men can impregnate many women- men are expendable (which is why they’re most often fighters or perform more hazardous roles)
  →
• Critique
  
  • Men are important models for children; they are not just needed for impregnation

Question 12

Compatibility with Child Care

Answer 12

• Theory – The division of labour reflects tasks well-suited to childcare
  
  • Women’s task are compatible with pregnancy, breastfeeding and care-taking
  →
• Critique
  
  • Women sometimes prioritize economic activities over childcare
  • There are many ways to divide labour, including childcare tasks

Question 13

Cross-cultural variation

Answer 13

• The patterns are general, not universal
• We find differences in gendered role obligations
  
  • Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935) Margaret Mead
  • Comparison of Arapesh, Mundugomor, and Tchambuli
    
    • Tchambuli – roles inverted when compared to “Western societies”
    • Arapesh – both men and women cooperative, non-aggressive and responsive to needs of others
    • Mundugomor – both men and women expected to be fierce, ruthless, and aggressive
• Examples of women hunting have been documented among the:
  
  • Mbuti, Tiwi, Ojibwe, Cree and Matses
  • The Agta (foragers from the Philippines) are often touted as an example, since women hunting is common (wild pig, deer and monkey)

Question 14

Gender Stratification

Answer 14

• The hierarchical ranking of members of a society according to gender.
• Differences in gender roles are tied to differences in status
• Major factors that influence the relative status of women are:
  
  • Subsistence strategies, control over key resources, and kinship system and post-marital residence patterns
  • The text discusses education, employment, reproductive health, finance, and progress toward equality for women
• The textbook recognizes biological differences and suggest that equality is the goal (but if we’re different, how can we be equal?) – the equality sought is equality of status, not equality to, say, menstruate

Question 15

How do we observe gender gratification?

Answer 15

•  Economics
•  Politics
•  Religion
•  Legal rights
•  Education
•  Health
•  Ideology
•  Employment
•  How deferential
•  Freedom to choose marriage partner, profession, conception, etc.
•  Freedom to participate in public life
•  Note that physical attributes are not on this list!
• We can also look at the roles played by women and the value society places on those roles
• Generally, made evident through differential access to wealth, power, and prestige
• Not all societies are characterized by male dominance (that doesn’t mean women dominate)
  
  • Mbuti of Central Africa 
    
    • Mutual respect among men and women 
    • Giving birth is considered very powerful and provides women w/ high status
  • Minangkabau of Sumatra 
    
    • Women control inheritance 
    • Husband lives in wife’s residence 
    • Decision making is based on consensus
  • Haudenosaunee (Six Nations Confederacy) 
    
    • Women important to agriculture 
    • Women could not be chiefs, but choose the leaders who are largely men

Question 16

Gender Attribution

Answer 16

• Gender receives a lot of attention now in the west, and in many cases, we consider gender to be an individual identity that people align with (and that this can be fluid or even neutral)
• The west is exceptional here; other cultures have other ways of doing things – individuals do not generally get to affirm a particular identify so much as it is assigned to them

Question 17

The Hua of Papa New Guinea

Answer 17

Recognize gender distinctions based on a person’s genitals and distinctions based on the amount of nu a person has

Question 18

Figapa-Kakora Classification

Answer 18

• A spectrum of degrees of maleness or degrees of femaleness
• Women have more nu, their nu is moist, grows quickly, has more vitality, and they age more slowly
• Men have less nu, their nu is dry and hard, has less vitality and grows less
• Figapa
  
  • Children (regardless of genitals), women in childbearing years, postmenopausal women (less then 3 children), elderly males
• Kakora
  
  • Initiated males (through to prime years)
  • Postmenopausal women (3 or more children)

Question 19

Case of Two-Spirit

Answer 19

• Alternate gender category of Indigenous peoples of North America
  
  • Can include having both masculine and feminine qualities, or truly being a third or even fourth gender
• Berdache - Origins of the term and inherent biases
• But two-spirit is a newly- coined term that is pan- Indigenous – obvs not a perfect analytic option either
• George Catlin (1796-1872)
  
  • Dance to the Berdache
  • The sketch depicts a ceremonial dance to celebrate the “two-spirit person”.
  • The men tease him but vie for his recognition, which is deemed an honor.

Question 20

Third Gender: Case of the Hijra

Answer 20

• Hijra means “impotent ones” in Urdu
• Some are born intersex, most are born with a male body but with feminine qualities and undergo voluntary castration
• Neither man nor woman – a third gender
• Hinduism seems to make space for this third category
• Sex work, ritual specialization
• Hijras wear colourful women’s clothes and prefer men or other hijras as sexual partners

Question 21

Summary

Answer 21

• Gender is bio-cultural and reflects cultural ontologies
  
  • Gender roles are both assigned and adopted/performed
• Gender categories are a form of difference in all societies
  
  • Gendered division of labour
  • Gender stratification
• Huge cross-cultural variety in gender attribution or identity and number of genders