Gender and Culture

Question 1

What is the Biological Model of Gender?

Answer 1

Assumes that sex determines gender: innate biological differences leads to behavioural differences which further leads to social arrangements

Question 2

What is the Psychological Model of Gender?

Answer 2

Assume that gender identity is the result of childhood development, which proceeds universally

Question 3

Why do the Biological and Psychological Models of Gender fail?

Answer 3

Fail to account for the differences in gendered definitions around the world and their varying levels of gender inequality

Question 4

What are the gendered consistencies across almost all cultures?

Answer 4

Gendered division of labour, Differences between men and women, and some form of male dominance

Question 5

Who was Margaret Mead and what where her thoughts on gender?

Answer 5

An anthropologist who thought sex differences are learned. She exposed American gendered ethnocentrism

Question 6

Where in the South Seas did Margaret Mead study?

Answer 6

Samoa, Polynesia, and Indonesia

Question 7

What 3 cultures did Mead study in Sex and Temperament (New Guinea)?

Answer 7

Arapesh, Mundugamor, and Tchambuli

Question 8

What are/were the Arapesh views on gender?

Answer 8

-Gentle, passive, and emotionally warm regardless of gender
-Lack of individualism, both men and women working in child rearing
-Female child Infanticide and polygamy not unknown, but overall marriage was content

Question 9

What are/were the Mundugamor views on gender?

Answer 9

-Women and men as equally aggressive
-Women show little maternal instinct
-Violence between men and their sons
-A violent, competitive culture prone to jealousy, ready to see and avenge insult

Question 10

What are/were the Tchambuli views on gender?

Answer 10

-Women and men are extremely different
-Polygyny
-Men as nurturing, dressed up, and gossipy consumers, while women were dominant, energetic and economic providers

Question 11

What is Polygamy

Answer 11

Marriage to more than one spouse

Question 12

What is Polyandry?

Answer 12

Women have more than one spouse

Question 13

What is Polygyny?

Answer 13

Men have more that one spouse

Question 14

What were some critiques of Mead’s work at the time?

Answer 14

-She relied on Cultural determinism (valid, she never really said why gender varies so much)
-She was tricked by the cultures she studies

Question 15

What is Functionalism?

Answer 15

A school of thought which believes that as groups became larger and more complex, activities like hunting and gathering were divided between sexes. This division was natural and functionally necessary

Question 16

How does the emergence of Plough Agriculture relate to Functionalism?

Answer 16

Some scholars believe it exacerbated it, since ploughing required upper body strength, which made it incompatible with women and child rearing

Question 17

What are some major critiques of Functionalism?

Answer 17

Ignores the role of power in gendered society/culture and does not have solid scholarly agreement on why/if various groups adopted various divisions of labour

Question 18

What are the origins of Gendered Conflict Theory?

Answer 18

1884, Friedrich Engels work “The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State”, based on the works of Karl Marx

Question 19

What are the main points of conflict theory?

Answer 19

-Capitalism created the need for the nuclear family so men could work and women could take care of children
-Profit and Private Property needed to be passed down, and ended up being passed patrilineally

Question 20

What was Eleanor Leacock and Karen Sack’s view on Conflict Theory regarding gender?

Answer 20

-The introduction of commercial economy to the Innu turned powerful women into homebound wives in Labrador, Canada
-Similar patterns happened in different African societies, turning egalitarian societies into dominant, market exchange ones.

Question 21

Who was Marvin Harris as what did he study?

Answer 21

Anthropologists who studied Male domination and warfare. Societies rewarded most men with the services of women, which upped their solidarity

Question 22

What do Descent Theorists believe?

Answer 22

Theorists like Lionel Tiger and Robin Fox believe that the mother-child bond is fixed, while men lack the connection to their children due the lack of biological patrilineality. To strengthen this connection requires Male Bonding between fathers, sons, and other men in the community. All this leads to male domination and centrality

Question 23

What do Alliance Theorists believe?

Answer 23

Theorists like Claude Levi-Strauss are less concerned with the next generation as the ways relationships among men organize social life. Men turn women into sex objects whose exchange as wives cements their solidarity

Question 24

What do Descent and Alliance theorists have in common?

Answer 24

They believe that the relationships between men and the way they subjugate women are natural, rather than the outcome of rapidly changing and varying historical relations

Question 25

What role does Male circumcision play in gender inequality?

Answer 25

Rituals are important to upholding gender inequality. Circumcision creates a visible scar that binds men to each other and serves as a right of passage

Question 26

What are the similarities and differences between male and female “circumcision”?

Answer 26

While both are prevalent where men’s status is highest, Female Genital Mutilation is done for “cleanliness” and to prevent promiscuity

Question 27

What are the key determinants of women’s status (5)?

Answer 27

The division of labour around childcare and involvement of the father in children’s lives, women’s control over property after marriage as opposed to men, sex segregation, equal contribution and gendered rituals

Question 28

What are the failings of an anthropological view on gender?

Answer 28

It fails to explain why male domination is so pervasive, so it requires a sociological perspective