SOCIAL GROUPS AND GENDER ROLES

SOCIAL GROUPS AND GENDER ROLES

Not all human groups are equal to one another in terms of wealth, prestige or power. Forms of social inequality based on gender, class, caste, ethnicity and nationalism. Ways societies attempt to justify forms of inequality by making them appear unchangeable and eternal, rather than the result of historical practices

SOCIAL GROUPS AND GENDER ROLES

Some patterns of inequality e.g. gender, class, caste reach back thousands of years into human history Others e.g. race, ethnicity and nationality are more recent in origin and closely associated with changes happening in Europe

SOCIAL GROUPS AND GENDER ROLES

The spread of capitalism and colonialism reshaped forms of stratification that predated their arrival
Introduced new forms of stratification into formerly independent egalitarian societies

SOCIAL GROUPS AND GENDER ROLES

Prior to the 1970s male dominance was thought to be a feature of all societies Feminist anthropologists such as Collier, Rosaldo able to show that the roles of men and women within families varied enormously, cross-culturally and historically

SOCIAL GROUPS AND GENDER ROLES

The nuclear family far from universal

SOCIAL GROUPS AND GENDER ROLES

Developed as a historical consequence of industrial capitalism Marxist-feminist anthropologists such as Leacock womens subordination could be connected to the rise of private property and the emergence of the state

SOCIAL GROUPS AND GENDER ROLES

Used ethnographic and historical evidence from North and South America, Melanesia, Africa to show how Western capitalist colonization had transformed egalitarian precolonial indigenous gender relations into unequal, male dominated gender relations

SOCIAL GROUPS AND GENDER ROLES

Recently, a recognition that gender needs to be discussed beyond the phenotypic male and female
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BwleH5n5eY There are social roles that are recognized as female but performed by males What is Gender?

SOCIAL GROUPS AND GENDER ROLES

How do we account for the different status of women among these societies? Previously, a male bias until 1970s when women entered the field Image of man the hunter became balanced with woman the gatherer

SOCIAL GROUPS AND GENDER ROLES

Most people cannot see the forest for the trees Anthropology makes us look at the forest the whole package of economic and environmental factors that produced a given culture and its customs Are women exploited?

SOCIAL GROUPS AND GENDER ROLES

Marxist model preindustrial societies e.g. hunter-gatherers people kill or produce just what they need Egalitarian no group exploits another Capitalism brought class structure emergence of an exploiting group that grew rich on the labours of others

SOCIAL GROUPS AND GENDER ROLES

Inevitably, there would arise conflict between owners and workers Result would be a classless socialist system Marx not overly concerned with gender and status differences

SOCIAL GROUPS AND GENDER ROLES

Friedrich Engels added sex to Marxist economies He believed wealth increased mans position in the family causing the woman to be subjugated Engels believed that a return to classless societies would reunite the sexes

WORKING WITHIN CONSTRAINTS

Hausa women Northern Nigeria Women live within the seclusion of purdah once they marry Yet somehow they remain active in the marketplace They cannot move in the public markets themselves

WORKING WITHIN CONSTRAINTS

They employ their children buying and selling goods E.g. Binta 11 years old goes to market sell bean cakes, porridge etc. made by her mother Also runs errands for raw materials Money that is collected supplements the family income Her mother is able to maintain an income

WORKING WITHIN CONSTRAINTS

Children also establish a trade network that will be used in later years as adults
http://hausaonline.wordpr ess.com/2010/08/05/bbchausa-childrens-life-inniger/

CONTROL OF RESOURCES

Ernestine Friedl asserts that control of scarce resources is the key to power and dominance Four kinds of hunting/gathering societies: a) cooperative male and female labour in foraging sexual equality b) men and women forage separately for individual needs.

CONTROL OF RESOURCES

c) men hunt and control distribution of meat; women gather only for family needs
d) men provision all the food (meat) e.g. Inuit
Women

are used, abused and traded

CONTROL OF RESOURCES
Agricultural based societies men control most of the food that is exchanged womens status correspondingly low Industrial societies women limiting number of children Gaining control of goods for distribution beyond the family

PRODUCTION WHO CONTROLS IT?

Is a woman limited by pregnancy and childbirth? Maybe societys subsistence needs and its ecology that set limits on how many children a woman can have In societies that require considerable female labour, an adaptive strategy would be to generate taboos and sexual customs that would insure a greater spacing of children e.g. !Kung people nurse each child for four years and this makes ovulation very irregular

PRODUCTION WHO CONTROLS IT?

Childbearing perfectly compatible with hunting small game and fishing near home Not compatible with long distance hunting Most important consequence male control of meat, a valuable resource. Will result in a difference in equality Males acquired a society-wide network of mutual exchanges and obligations (trade networks), while womens influence was limited to the family

HORTICULTURALISTS

Nature of subsistence changed need of a warrior class to defend property

Fighting like long-distance hunting incompatible with gathering and childcare

HORTICULTURALISTS

High status requires the control of scarce resources Imagine that you control only 10% of a Bedouin tribes resources but that the 10 percent is their water and you will have an inkling of why male control of protein originally gave them such power

GENDER

Refers to the cultural construction of sexual difference. Gender roles are the activities a culture assigns to each sex Gender roles vary with environment, economy, adaptive strategy and type of political system

GENDER

Gender stereotypes oversimplified but strongly held ideas about the characteristics of males and females
Gender stratification an unequal distribution of rewards between men and women

GENDER STRATIFICATION

In stateless societies gender stratification identified as prestige E.g. Ilongots of northern Luzon in the Philippines Gender differences related to the _____________ cultural value placed on adventure, travel and knowledge of the external world

GENDER STRATIFICATION

Ilongot men as headhunters visited distant places Acquired knowledge of the external world, amassed experiences there and returned to talk about it in public oratory Received acclaim as a result Ilongot women had inferior prestige because they lacked external experiences

SOCIAL GROUPS AND GENDER ROLES

http://www.africanholocaust.net/peopleofaf rica.htm