Weeks 1 & 2
Anthropology is distinguished by five 'hallmarks': cultural relativism, subjective understanding, holism, fieldwork, and comparison. Describe how an anthropologist adhering to each of the above criteria would go about investigating some aspect of gender (gender definitions, gendered practice, gender behavior, etc.) in a culture different from his or her own.
Why is cross-cultural research useful with regard to the study of gender?
In general, how do we distinguish 'gender', 'sex', and 'sexuality'? In other words, define these 3 terms.
What is meant by 'heteronormative'?
Describe and compare the premises upon which biosocial theorists vs. social learning theorists would base their theories of male aggression.
Give one example of the way in which a particular social or political milieu might influence a theory about gender.
Give one example of how popular notions of gender differences influence behavior in the U.S. Give one example of how it influences YOUR behavior or attitudes. Give one example of how it has influenced government policy in the past or present. Give one example from another culture that shows this notion or assumption to be culture-bound.
How does the practice of initiation or rites of passage in various cultures support the idea that gender is constructed?
In "Selective Affinities", Lancaster critiques sociobiological assumptions regarding the universality of human behaviors that allegedly indicate a biological/evolutionary origin. He provides ethnographic examples to demonstrate that, "behaviors deemed 'similar' may not really be 'the same.'" In other words, that it depends upon levels of generalization. What is one ethnographic example that demonstrates this with regard to the sexual division of labor? With regard to marriage and family? With regard to gender temperament?
[Note: when a question asks for an "ethnographic example", it means describe the practice of a particular culture, e.g. Aka, Efe, Agta, Twareg, Nayar, Sambia, 'people of' Vanatinai, 'some groups in' New Guinea, India, Europe, South America, etc.]
Lancaster points to ethnographic descriptions of 'partible paternity' among some societies in lowland South America that refute sociobiological claims about the naturalness and universality of male jealousy. Explain.
With what purpose did Margaret Mead conduct her research among adolescent girls in Samoa and among men and women in New Guinea? In other words, what was she attempting to show? Give one example from her work that supports her argument.
What political movement in the 1970s led to the emergence of gender as a focus of study in the social sciences? What were two of the main issues in anthropological research on gender in the 1970s? Describe two of the new directions that gender studies have taken subsequent to these original foci.
Why is it difficult to determine whether differences in behavior between human male and female babies are biologically based?
Describe the “battle of the sexes” model developed by early sociobiologists (e.g. Trivers and Dawkins), including theories about differential parental investment, ‘coy' females, and philandering males. Provide two critiques of this model.
Marlene Zuk describes several flaws in the use of animal models in theories about the biological basis for human gendered behavior. What is the point of Zuk's argument about the wide variation in reproductive strategies found among animals? What is wrong with theories that use descriptions of animal behavior in terms of “promiscuity,” “illegitimate,” “rape”, and “wife-sharing”? Describe Zuk's critique of the idea that "natural is good."
According to Zuk, what does the research with rhesus monkeys carried out by the Harlows suggest about gender roles?
According to the filmmakers of Brain Sex: Sugar and Spice, there are physiological differences between human male and female brains. Describe two behavioral differences between human male and female babies and/or children that some scientists speculate may be the result of these biological differences in the brain. Describe two behavioral differences in adult males and females that some have speculated could be related to these physiological differences. Provide an alternative, cultural constructionist explanation for these behavioral differences between female and male adults.
According to the filmmakers of Brain Sex: Sugar and Spice , Turner's syndrome girls (one X chromosome, no ovaries, no testosterone) exhibit "ultra-feminine" behavior, defined by an "exaggerated sense of caring, home, and motherhood," interest in "sedantive activities," quieter things, cooking, housework, jewelry, and a lack of interest in "rough and tumble play", tree-climbing, etc. From a sociocultural anthropological perspective, how would you qualify or critique this interpretation of the Turner girl's "ultra-feminine" behavior?
In American popular culture a debate persists about whether homosexuality is a "choice" or is biologically based. These two opposing views have social consequences in terms of rights and how homosexual individuals are treated in society. According to the film, Brain Sex: Sugar and Spice, how should this debate and subsequent legal and social attitudes be affected by evidence that the hypothalamus in homosexual males, like those of women, is smaller and has fewer neurons than those of heterosexual males?
According to the filmmakers of Brain Sex, how does prenatal testosterone possibly affect development of gendered behavioral characteristics?
According to the makers of Brain Sex, how is it possible that a human male might have a "female" brain, or vice-versa?
With regard to perceptions of gender, what is implied in the statement in Brain Sex that females that were exposed to "too much" testosterone in the womb were more self-assured, individualistic, independent, aggressive, and self-sufficient, while those exposed to too much estrogen were more group-oriented and group-dependent than their siblings? In other words, how might these statements be value-laden and culturally specific?
Provide a critique of the statement by sociobiologist, Helen Fisher, in Brain Sex that testosterone is linked to aggressiveness in animals and is vital to survival of the species, including humans, because, "Back in the grasslands of Africa, if a male didn't put down a tuber he was eating and rush to fight off a charging rhinoceros, he'd die out." What assumptions underlie this statement?
Describe the “Man the Hunter” model developed by Washburn and Lancaster, including the development of tools, language, and the family.
Describe the “Woman the Gatherer” model developed by Sally Slocum and elaborated by Margaret Ehrenberg, including alternative explanations for development of tools, language, and the family. What are two kinds of evidence that support this theory?
Why do feminist social scientists object to many biological/evolutionary explanations for behavioral or psychological gender differences? In other words, what do they fear are the social implications of biological explanations?
Describe Ortner's theory regarding the universal subordination/devaluation of women in terms of their association with nature vs. men's association with culture. Why, according to Ortner, do these associations exist, and why does this lead to devaluation of women? How was she influenced by Claude Lévi-Strauss's theory of binary opposition? Provide two critiques of Ortner's theory regarding women's subordination.
Describe gender roles and relations among the Aka of central Africa. What does Hewlett's ethnography of the Aka tell us about gender roles?
Hewlett delineates several differences between Aka and American fathers' relationships with their infants. Describe two of them.
According to Kimmel in Spanning the World, why, in today's world, are sex-based divisions of labor 'anachronistic'? Why do they nonetheless persist?
What are five of Kimmel's 14 correlations with regard to the degree of gender asymmetry (equality/inequality) that are applicable to the Aka? (For the exam, I will provide Kimmel's list, so you don't have to memorize all 14).
Kimmel discusses male circumcision and female circumcision in various cultures and its relationship to gender differentiation and inequality. Explain briefly how each of these two practices may be related to men's higher status.
According to Kimmel, what evidence refutes the notion that homosexuality is a biological 'aberration.' Provide one ethnographic example.
Describe two ethnographic examples that show our notions of the naturalness of our own sexual behavior to be ethnocentric.
Describe Friedrich Engels's historical materialist narrative with regard to women's changing status through time. Include in your discussion changes in property, family, production (use vs. exchange, community vs. household, etc.), domestic/public divide, and division of labor.
Rayna Rapp describes the emergence of hypergamy in state-organized systems of marriage. What is hypergamy? Describe two ways that it may affect women in society.
According to Rapp, religious ideology may have been changed as a result of the rise of the state. Explain.
Rapp describes several ways in which the advent of trade may have affected women. What is one of them?
According to Rapp, what are two possible (opposite) effects of warfare in terms of women's status? Explain.
According to Rapp, how has the penetration of states into the developing world and indigenous cultures in the form of colonialism and capitalist development often affected women? How does Eleanor Leacock's work in Labrador regarding changes in women's status with the advent of the fur trade support Rapp's argument?
Week 3
Among the explanations for what was believed in the 1970s to be universal male dominance and female subordination, was the domestic/public divide. Explain this theory. Provide one critique of this theory. Give one ethnographic example that supports this critique.
Why, according to lecture, should we qualify the term, 'patriarchy' when describing a culture? Give one example of something that women in a particular culture do that supports this qualification.
In terms of subsistence strategies, in what kind(s) of societies does one find the least distinction between domestic and public spheres, and why? Name one culture where this is the case (little or no separate spheres). In what kind(s) of societies (in terms of subsistence) does one find the greatest domestic/public divide? Name one example.
According to Lamphere, how and why did the industrial revolution affect conceptions of dichotomous gendered spaces?
Describe Nancy Chodorow's psychoanalytic theory of gender personality differences based upon early childhood experience with parents.
Based upon their subsistence strategies and division of labor, why is the status of women higher among foraging groups such as the Tiwi, Aka, and Agta who live in temperate and tropical environments, compared with the Inuit who live in the arctic?
Describe the gender division of labor and women's status among the Agta hunter-gatherers of the Philippines. What are two of Kimmel's correlations that this group's gender relations support? Which theory of biological determinism do they refute?
What is the status of women relative to men on the Pacific island of Vanatinai? What aspects of their culture and women's activities are indicative of this status? With regard to the division of labor, what do they have in common with the Aka and the Agta? What aspect of their kinship (descent) system contributes to women's status?
Why do Yanomamö women sometimes kill, or let their girl babies die? Include in your answer an aspect of Yanomamö and some other Amazonian cultures that affects the status of females.
Among the Mundurucú in Amazonia, even though women's roles in production put them on a par with men, they were still not accorded equal status with men. Why? In what way do the authors speculate this imbalance will be affected by the rubber trade, and how does this relate to what Lamphere, Leacock, and others have theorized about capitalist penetration?
Rayna Rapp points out that warfare can have different effects on gender relations in different societies. Explain how Rapp's point is illustrated by comparing the Mundurucú or Yanomamö of Amazonia with the Tuareg of northwestern Africa.
Esther Boserup and others have noted that women's status often declines with the shift to intensive agriculture from other forms of subsistence. Why does this occur? Why does it not invariably occur? In other words, what seems to be a major factor in the equation? Explain how the importance of this factor is illustrated by the difference between the northern wheat-growing and the southern rice-growing regions of India.
Researchers have found that participation in production is a necessary, but not sufficient precondition for enhancing the social position of women. Explain and give one example that illustrates this. What are three additional elements that affect women's status?
In what ways are gender relations among the pastoralist Tuareg of northwestern Africa different from those in many other Muslim and pastoralist cultures? Describe the social and cultural factors that contribute to Tuareg women's status.
What effect has the sedentarization of the Tuareg had on gender equality? Provide two possible reasons for this.
Describe the division of labor and space for the typical Japanese urban middle-class family. How is this related to what Kimmel says about the domestic and public spheres in capitalist culture? Who benefits from this arrangement and why? Who loses and why?
Allison describes a 'transitional sphere,' the mizu shobai, between the home and work for Japanese middle-class men. What is this sphere, and how does it affect the domestic sphere and men's and women's roles in it?
Given the relative lack of husbands' involvement in the home, in the husband-wife relationship, and with their children, why do Japanese women marry according to Allison?
Explain how Gita Sen uses Engels's theory regarding the development of the patriarchal family in order to explain men's sexual control of women in India and their “policing” of the public sphere. What form does this policing take?
According to Sen, why does Engels's materialist theory not totally apply to the situation in India? In other words, what does class have to do with it? What is Sen's theory regarding why even poor men in India seek to control women? Why do these women submit to domination by husbands?
According to Sen, why are older women often the strictest enforcers of restrictive patriarchal customs with regard to younger women in India?
Kimmel delineates 14 factors that correlate with gender equality and inequality cross-culturally:
1) Need for physical strength
2) Family size
3) Childcare
4) Father and son relationship
5) Control of fertility
6) Control over property
7) Spatial and/or ritual segregation
8) Perception of the environment
9) Contribution to the food supply
10) Work segregation
11) Control of political & ideological resources
12) Capitalism and industrialization
13) Demographic imbalance
14) Circumcision
Choose three cultures from the readings that have different subsistence strategies. Compare their gender relations in terms of at least 5 of Kimmel's correlations. Include in your answer what these correlations mean in terms of the degrees of gender equality or inequality in each culture. For example do the women in the culture have control of their fertility, and if so, or if not, how does it affect their status in that culture.
Week 4
Americans think of kinship in biologically based ways, but anthropologists point to the variety of kinship structures around the world to show that kinship is inherently cultural. Give one ethnographic example that demonstrates that kinship categorizations or definitions (e.g. marriage, parenthood, gender roles, etc.) are culturally constructed. In other words, describe some aspect of kinship in another culture that is different from how Americans think about kinship categories, definitions, roles, or relationships.
There are several reasons and ways in which women in matrilineal, matrilocal societies generally enjoy a better position than women in patrilineal, patrilocal societies. Compare the situation of women in these two systems with regard to inheritance, economic dependence, post-marital residence, sexual control, children, and relationships with natal families, and how these factors affect women's status. Name one patrilineal society and one matrilineal society.
Why is chastity more of an issue for women in patrilineal societies as opposed to matrilineal ones? How does this concern affect gender relations in terms of women's autonomy?
Although 70% of the world's societies practice polygyny, few people in these societies actually practice it. Why? What is one advantage of polygyny, and what circumstances makes it a more likely choice?
What is polyandry, and what is one reason that it occurs?
Societies in many parts of Asia, the Middle East, and Africa are structured on the basis of hierarchically organized corporate descent groups such as lineages, clans, or castes. Why are men and women in these cultures usually not free to choose their own marriage partners? Compare the focus and purpose of marriage in these kinds of cultures with those in cultures with bilateral decent systems. Name one example of each of these kinds of societies (one society with corporate descent groups, one with a bilateral system).
What is the difference between bride price and dowry?
According to Stone and James (and lecture), why did caste/class endogamy come about in India? How does this fit with Engels's theory?
Two social values that Stone and James found as recurring themes in dowry murders were social status and female chastity. Explain how these two values reinforce, and are perpetuated by, the dowry system in India.
How has capitalism transformed the practice of dowry in India? (According to lecture, what was the alleged traditional, original purpose of dowry, how has this changed, and why?) Why has it become worse in recent years? What effect can this change have on young brides?
Why are there 37 million fewer females than males in India? In other words, describe the ramifications of the dowry system.
Compare patrilineal, matrilineal, and bilateral descent systems with regard to women's relationships with their natal families and kin as described by Dube among Muslim communities in South and Southeast Asia. How do these systems affect gender symmetry or asymmetry after marriage? How do they affect divorce?
According to Dube, what does the Quran say regarding the rights and duties of husbands and wives in marriage? How is divorce different for men vs. women among Muslims of upper and middle socioeconomic levels in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India?
Compare 3 aspects of typical Indian vs. American marriage. Compare 3 aspects of these societies that make divorce easier in the U.S. than in India. What does this difference have to do with their respective descent systems?
Lindholm and Lindholm explain aspects of marriage and family among the Pakhtuns of Swat in Pakistan in the context of their social structure determined by kinship, tribal customs and ideology. Describe this context and how it affects intra- and inter-family relations. In other words, describe the kinship system (descent, residence, preferential marriage, economic exchange at marriage, family type and household, inheritance), and ideology (with regard to family, lineage, gender, sexuality), and how these affect relations between husbands, wives, in-laws, and children (e.g. loyalties, hostilities, expectations, etc.).
Among the Pakhtuns of Swat, how does the balance of power between husbands and wives change with age, and why? Why do men live longer than women?
From the film, Dadi's Family, describe where (geographically) this family lives, how they make a living, and the gender division of labor and space. Who lives in the household? What do you call this family type? What type of descent, and post-marital residence do they practice? Who is the head of the family?
Compare the differences among the 3 sons and daughters-in-law in Dadi's family with regard to advantages and disadvantages of the extended family.
Dadi expresses ambivalence with regard to educating women. Explain why she might feel this way.
How do Dadi and her daughters-in-law compare women's lives now with previous generations in terms of the dynamics of the relationship between the men, their wives, and the mother-in-law?
In the film, Dadi's Family, what is the difference in how daughters and daughters-in-law are regarded in Dadi's village? How is this related to village exogamy?
According to the narrator in Dadi's Family, upon what does a woman's security depend? How does this cause tension between the mother-in-law and her daughters-in-law with regard to the son/husband? In terms of descent and residence patterns, in what type of societies do you find this kind of conflict? Name one other culture from the readings where this is also the case.
What threatens the coherence of Dadi's extended household?
Dadi's third son, Rajinder, has a different kind of marriage than his brothers. How is it different?
Week 5
Why can matrilineal, matrilocal systems NOT be referred to as matriarchal? How does Menon's description of the matrilineal Nayar of southern India illustrate this point?
Patrilocal residence may have very negative effects on women's status, but matrilocal residence does not have as many negative effects on men. Explain.
Briefly describe the traditional Nayar kinship and marriage system in Kerala, India. Who lived in the taravad (traditional household)? Who had ultimate authority? According to Menon, how did class position affect women's autonomy in this system? In what way did colonial intervention change the traditional kinship system?
Kinship systems in many cultures are structured in ways that disadvantage women. Several authors (e.g., Menon on the Nayar, Johnson on Chinese) describe the ways that women reproduce oppressive systems by not challenging them directly, yet these authors stress that we should not regard women in these systems as passive victims. Give one ethnographic example from the readings or films that illustrates these three points: 1) how a certain kinship system disadvantages women (describe the system with appropriate terminology), 2) that women nonetheless have agency in affecting their situation, 3) yet at the same time perpetuate the status quo.
What is a 'uterine family'? Describe why it exists in traditional Chinese and to some extent in most traditional Indian kinship systems. What do these two systems have in common in terms of kinship (descent, marriage, residence, family organization), how it places women and men in different positions, and how women carve out as much influence and security as they can. Older women are often the strictest or harshest oppressors of younger women in these systems. Why is this so? (In other words, why do these systems create antagonism between the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law?)
How does a woman's status change over her life course in patrilineal, patrilocal systems such as those in traditional China and South Asia? What are the key events?
Johnson, Menon, and others have drawn attention to the difference between the ideal and the actual on-the-ground kinship and gender systems with regard to the division of labor (roles in production), and the domestic/public divide (degree of female seclusion and freedom). How does class or caste status influence this difference?
Describe the Awlad 'Ali Bedouins in terms of their kinship system (descent, post-marital residence), traditional subsistence, religion, and geographical location.
What relationships take precedence in terms of loyalty and identity for both Pakhtuns and Awlad 'Ali Bedouins? How does this create a contradiction for women when they marry? How is this conflict resolved in terms of preferred marriage partners?
What is meant by the term, "honor killing"? Who is killed, who performs it and why? In terms of descent systems, in what kinds of societies do these occur? Whose honor is being preserved?
Do Awlad 'Ali Bedouin women form uterine families? Why or why not?
Among the Awlad 'Ali Bedouins, the ideals of the honor code that legitimate class and gender hierarchies include virtues such as independence, assertiveness, and emotional and physical strength. But there are different paths to honor depending upon one's position in the hierarchy that involve autonomy and dependency. Hasham is the honor of the weak. How do women express hasham (tahashsham)? How does tahashsham both bring women honor, and reinforce Bedouin social hierarchy?
Describe the Awlad 'Ali Bedouin's concept of women's sexuality and the rationale behind women's 'naturally' lower status relative to men in terms of the ideal of self-mastery. How is it related to Ortner's nature/culture theory? How are women supposed to behave in order mitigate it? How does it change over the life course, and why?
What reason does Johnson give for the practice of foot binding in traditional China? (Hint: what is it that men feared?) How does she relate this fear to patrilineal, patrilocal systems cross-culturally? How would you compare the practice of foot binding to some practices of western women in modern times?
In describing women in the traditional Chinese system, Johnson argues against widely-held psychological, "false consciousness" explanations of women's seemingly universal conservatism. What is this "false consciousness" explanation, and what alternative explanation does Johnson give? In other words, Johnson locates the source of this conservatism not in economics or psychology, but in social structure. Explain.
Friedrich Engels’s historical materialist paradigm describes the decline in women’s status with changes in property, family structure, domestic/public divide, division of labor, and production (use vs. exchange, community vs. household, etc.). Use this paradigm, including each element listed above, to compare and explain the difference in gender relations between the Aka foragers of central Africa and one of the other cultures described in the course.
Shanti Parikh describes married men's infidelities and gender relations in Uganda and the influence of various discourses on how these are perceived and handled by married women. How does the domestic/public divide facilitate these extramarital liaisons? What motivates men to engage in them?
Parikh describes how class and status enters the picture in the ways that middle-class women in Uganda deal with their husband's extramarital relationships with lower-class women. How have most middle-class women dealt with these infidelities? Explain how discourses, such as 'modern monogamous marriage' and being a 'rational actor,' create a paradox for these middle-class married women. Who gets blamed?
Kinship Glossary
affinal - related through marriage.
agnatic - see patrilineal
ambilineal - involving claims to group membership, property, and status through only one parent, although the choice between the paternal or maternal bond is open to choice.
ambilocal - a residential arrangement in which a married couple can choose to live with either set of parents.
avunculocal - residence form determined by a rule that, upon adulthood, a man moves to his mother's brother's household.
bilateral - related through relatives of either sex.
bride wealth - an payment from the groom to the bride's family as a requirement of the marriage agreement. Also known as bride price.
clan - a unilineal descent group whose members do not trace genealogical links to a known founding ancestor.
cognatic - related through linking relatives of any sex, non- unilineal .
collateral relatives - kin other than the direct ancestors or descendants of a particular Ego.
consanguineal - related through birth/blood.
corporate group - a group which stands as a legal entity in itself and is assigned collective rights on behalf of its members and their estates.
cross cousins - children of opposite sexed siblings (of a brother and sister).
dowry - a quantity of wealth allocated to a bride (and her husband and children) from her natal family.
Ego - the individual who forms the central reference point in a kinship diagram.
Egocentric - a network defined by the relationship of participants to a single individual at its center.
endogamy - inmarriage , marriage to an individual within a defined social group, category, or range.
exogamy - outmarriage , marriage to an individual outside of a defined social group, category, or range.
fictive kinship -the assignment of kinship status to someone who is not related by descent or marriage.
kin term - a category the groups together a set of unique kinship relationships, or kin types.
kindred - an individual's extended bilateral network of relatives traced through both parents and their kin of either sex.
kinship - principle of organizing individuals into social groups, roles, and categories based on parentage and marriage.
levirate - a rule requiring the marriage between a man's widow and his surviving brother.
lineage - a unilineal descent group whose members trace their descent from a common ancestor through an acknowledged sequence of known linking antecedents.
lineal relatives - either the direct ancestors or descendants of a particular Ego.
matrifocal - a residential arrangement in which a woman lives with and her children and sometimes her daughter's children, without coresident husbands.
matrilateral - related through a mother, mother's side.
matrilineal (uterine) - related by tracing common descent exclusively through females from a founding female ancestor.
matrilocal - residence form determined by a rule that, upon marriage a woman remains in her mother's household while her husband leaves his family to move in with her.
neolocal - residence form determined by a rule that each spouse leaves his or her family of origin and jointly forms a new household.
nuclear family - a family consisting of two parents and their unmarried children.
parallel cousins - children of same sexed siblings (of two brothers or two sisters).
patrilateral - related through a father, father's side.
patrilineal (agnatic) - related by tracing common descent exclusively through males from a founding male ancestor.
patrilocal - residence form determined by a rule that, upon marriage, a man remains in his father's household while his wife leaves her family to move in with him.
polyandry - marriage of a woman to more than one man.
polygamy - marriage of a person to more than one spouse.
polygyny - marriage of a man to more than one woman.
primogeniture - a system of inheritance in which a persons property passes exclusively to the eldest (or otherwise most senior) son.
segmentation- the division of a descent group or household into two or more independent units.
social structure - the system of formal rules, societal roles, and behavioral norms that constitutes an essential aspect of social organization.
social organization - the regularly anticipated and repeated patterns of behavior that are widely observable in social interactions.
unilineal - related exclusively through relatives of one sex, beginning with a father or mother.
uxorilocal - residence rule that, upon marriage a man moves to his his wife's household.
virilocal - residence rule that, upon marriage a women moves to her husband's household.