Chapter 7 - Sex And Gender

Question 1

Belief about genders?

Answer 1

Boys and Girls are born with different natures

Question 2

Gender stratification?

Answer 2

• The degree of unequal access by the different genders to prestige, authority, power, rights
  and economic resources.
• Societies differ in the degree and type of gender stratification.
• Differences between females and males appear to reflect cultural expectations and experiences

Question 3

Gender differences?

Answer 3

Differences between females and males appear to reflect cultural expectations and experiences.

Question 4

Sex differences?

Answer 4

Differences between females and males appear to reflect cultural expectations and experiences.

Question 5

What are some examples of varying gender concepts?

Answer 5

• US/ Western societies: only two genders - not universal
• transgender (people who do not feel that their assigned gender fits them well)
• “two spirits”: third gender, usually biological males, for example: isolation in the wildness: he has the visions being two spirits, wearing women’s clothes and take on many of the activities of women, takes on the role of a women/men.
• xanith (Oman): Anatomically men speak of themselves as women, wear clothes that are neither male nor female but somewhere in between, may change gender role.

Question 6

Sexually dimorphic?

Answer 6

The two sexes of our species are generally different size and appearance.

Question 7

How might gender differences result from both culture and genes?
Identify differences in physique and physiology between males and females…

Answer 7

Females usually: wider pelvises, larger proportion of their body weight in fat

Male usually: taller and have heavier skeletons, larger proportion of their body weight in muscle, greater grip strength, larger hearts and lungs, greater aerobic capacity.

Cultural:

• When it comes to female and male physique and physiology, what we see may be the result of both culture and genes.
• North American culture tends to view taller and more muscled as better, which may reflect a bias toward males.
• Native selection may have favored these traits in males but selected against them in females.
• nutritional needs
• greater reproductive success

Question 8

Gender roles?

Answer 8

Roles that are culturally assigned to genders

Question 9

What are some of the near-universals and differences in gender roles cross-culturally? Discuss domestic, productive and political roles

Answer 9

• Males almost always hunt and trap animals, and females usually gather wild plants.

Four theories:
1. Strength Theory
The idea that males generally possess greater strength and a superior capacity to mobilize their
strength in quick bursts of energy because of greater aerobic work capacity

2. Compatibility-with-child-care Theory
   Suggests that for much of human history it would have been maladaptive to have women take on
   roles that interfere with their ability to feed their children regularly or put their child in danger while
   taking care of them.
3. Economy-of-Effort Theory
   May help explain task patterns that the strength and compatibility theories do not readily address.
   Suggests that it would be adventurous for one gender to perform tasks that are located near each
   other. Men: making wooden musical instruments because they generally lumber.
4. Expendability Theory
   The idea that men, rather than women, will tend to do the dangerous work in a society because
   the loss of men is not as great a disadvantage reproductively as the loss of women is called the
   expendability theory

= each theory has weaknesses, theories about the way societies divide up their work can be little more than guesses.

Question 10

How does Labor and Gender Roles change?

Answer 10

• adopting new technologies to help them perform certain tasks -> task and who performs
  them are bound to change,
• machines replace human strength,
• when women have fewer children,
• child care can be delegated
  -> the division of labor changes, as do the tasks that need to be performed.

Question 11

Primary subsistence activities?

Answer 11

The food-getting activities: gathering, hunting, fishing, herding and agriculture

Question 12

Secondary subsistence activities?

Answer 12

Activities that involve the preparation and processing of food either to make it edible or to store it

Question 13

What might explain why men and women do relatively more work?

Answer 13

• women typically work more total hours per day (studies of horticultural and intensive
  agricultural societies. + job, household and child care
• varies across cultures
• We estimate how much each gender contributes to the diet in terms of caloric intake from primary
  subsistence activities.
• Some societies, women have traditionally contributed more to the economy than men (New.
  Guinea)
• Men all the primary subsistence work among Toda of India.

= Usually both women and men contribute a good deal toward primary food-getting activities, but
men usually contribute more in most societies.
Because women are almost always occupied with infant- and child care responsibilities, it is not
surprising that men usually perform most of the primary subsistence work, which generally has to
be done away from home.

! Societies that depend on hunting, fishing, and herding - generally male activities- for most of their
calories, men usually contribute more than women. Example: Inuit - hunting and fishing.

! Societies that depend on gathering, primarily women’s work, women tend to do most of the food
getting. Example: !Kung

Question 14

What is a kin group?

Answer 14

A group of people related by blood or marriage.

Question 15

Matrilineal? (Society)

Answer 15

Of or based on kinship with the mother or the female line. The descent of a kin group is passed down through the mother and the female ancestor.

Question 16

What theories might support the findings about gender differences in political leadership and warfare?

Answer 16

• Most men are political leaders and warfare,
• War affects survival and it occurs regularly in most societies,
• People who know the most about warfare make these decisions,
• greater height of men (taller people are more likely to be leaders)
• men dominate politics because they spend more time in the outside world than do women,
• Involvement in child care
• One factor that predicts the exclusion of women from politics is the organization of communities
  around male kin. When they marry, women usually have to leave their communities and move to
  their husband’s household

Question 17

How might the relative status of women and men be measured? What are some of the findings on cross-cultural variations in status by gender?

Answer 17

• few signs of inequality: women are somewhat more restricted than men with respect to
  extramarital sex.
• status of women varies from one society to another,
• status can have different meanings for people = How much value society confers on females.
  versus males, authority, rights. = slightly different

1. women’s status will be high when they contribute substantially to primary subsistence activities
   (Low status if society depends on hunting, herding, or intensive agriculture.)
2. where warfare is important (men = higher status)
3. centralized political hierarchies (men = higher status = dominant role in politics)
4. Women will have higher status where kin groups and couple’s places of residence after marriage
   are organized around women.

• In pre-industrial societies, women have generally lower status in societies with more political hierarchy
• Education increases status

Question 18

What are some of the cross-cultural findings about gender differences in personality?

Answer 18

BOYS

• female/male differences in aggressiveness (hormone androgen partly responsible)
• Boys try to hurt others more frequently than girls do,
• More often to exert dominance over others to get their own way,
• seem to play in larger groups
• boys seem to maintain more personal distance between each other than girls do.
• seek attention and approval

GIRLS

• tendency for girls to exhibit more responsible behavior
• nurturance (trying to help others)
• more likely to conform to adult wishes and commands
• seem to play in smaller groups,
• more often seek help and contact

BOTH
- In play, boys and girls show a preference for their own gender
- rooted in the biological differences between the two sexes.
- alternative argument: societies bring up boys and girls up differently - require adult males and
females to perform different types of roles.
- Parents might turn a slight biological difference into a large gender difference by maximizing that
difference in the way they socialize boys versus girls. Girls and boys infants are treated differently.

SOCIETIES
- societies where children were asked to do a great deal of work, they generally showed more
responsible and nurturant behavior.
- social conditioning may be as important as - if not more important than - testosterone in predicting
Aggression in males.

Question 19

What may explain variability in sexual behavior and attitudes between different cultures?

Answer 19

• varies from society to society: cross cultural variations
• attitudes an practices can change over time
• Premarital Sex: approved and encouraged in some societies/ disapproved
• Sex in Marriage: privacy, outdoors, night preferred - not everywhere)
• Extramarital Sex: not uncommon in many societies, cross-culturally most societies also have a
  double standard with regard to men and women with restrictions on women being considerably
  greater, universally inappropriate)
• Homosexuality: Perhaps because many societies deny that homosexuality exists, little is known
  about homosexual practices in the restrictiveness societies.