Gender and Social Stratification

1. Gender and Social Stratification

2. Gender and Anthropology • interest in hierarchical relations between men and women has been a feature of anthropology since its earliest days • 19th century evolutionists and their explanations for the rise of culture • promiscuous horde gives way to socially organized marriage and kinship, for example

3. Gender and Anthropology • anthropology of gender has been key in establishing that sexual inequality is not a biological fact but instead and cultural and historical one

4. development of the study of sex, sexuality and gender in anthropology • Anthropology of Women early 1970's attention to the lack of women in standard ethnographies • Anthropology of Gender challenged the basis for understanding social roles of male and female • Feminist Anthropology challenged the biological basis of sex and sexuality • and the foundations of anthropology as it had been done

5. SEX, SEXUALITY, GENDER • not the same thing • all societies distinguish between males and females • a very few societies recognize a third, sexually intermediate category

6. SEX • differences in biology • Socially & culturally marked • the body is "simultaneously a physical and symbolic artifact, both naturally and culturally produced, anchored in a particular historical moment" (Scheper-Hughes & Lock)

7. The “Four Bodies” • Individual body • The social body • The body politic • The mindful body

8. The Individual Body • lived experience of the body-self, body, mind, matter, psyche, soul

9. The Social Body • representational uses of the body as a natural symbol with which to think about nature, society, culture

10. The Body Politic • regulation, surveillance, & control of bodies (individual & collective) in reproduction & sexuality, in work & leisure, in sickness & other forms of deviance

11. The Mindful Body • the most immediate, the proximate terrain where social truths and social contradictions are played out • a locus of personal and social resistance, creativity, and struggle • emotions form the mediatrix between the individual, social and political body, unified through the concept of the 'mindful body.'

12. SEXUALITY (reproduction) • all societies regulate sexuality • lots of variation cross-culturally • degree of restrictiveness not always consistent through life span • adolescence vs. adulthood • Varieties of “normative” sexual orientation • Heterosexual, homosexual, transexual • Sexuality in societies change over time

13. GENDER • GENDER - the cultural construction of male & female characteristics • vs. the biological nature of men & women • SEX differences are biological - GENDER differences are cultural • behavioral & attitudinal differences from social & cultural rather than biological point of view

14. GENDER ROLES, STEREOTYPES, STRATIFICATION • gender roles - tasks & activities that a culture assigns to sexes • gender stereotypes - oversimplified strongly held ideas about the characteristics of men & women & third sex-third gender • gender stratification - unequal distribution of rewards (socially valued resources, power, prestige, personal freedom) between men & women reflecting their position in the social hierarchy

15. universals versus particulars • universal subordination of women is often cited as one of the true cross-cultural universals, a pan-cultural fact • Engels called it the “world historical defeat of women” • even so the particulars of women’s roles, statuses, power, and value differ tremendously by culture

16. Friedl and Leacock argument • variation among foragers • male dominance is based on exchange, public exchange • versus that exchanged privately by women • Exchange of scarce resources in egalitarian societies, gender stratification, and universal subordination of women

17. DOMESTIC - PUBLIC DICHOTOMY (M. Rosaldo) • opposition between domestic (reproduction) & public (production) provides the basis of a framework necessary to identify and explore the place of male & female in psycho, cultural, social and economic aspects of life • degree to which the contrast between public domestic (private) sphere is drawn promotes gender stratification-rewards, prestige, power

18. domestic sphere • clearly drawn in societies where division of labor encompasses more than age & sex differentiation (complex societies) • inequality in material rewards for labor • less clearly drawn in societies where division of labor beyond age & sex is minimal (egalitarian) • rewards are highly valued social roles with prestige rather than material goods

19. Domestic : Public Spheres • mobility & gender • Domestic : public dichotomy not only distinguishes activities, but culturally encodes space

20. M. Rosaldo and the Ilongot of the Philippines • positive cultural value placed adventure, travel, knowledge of & experience with the outside world • Ilongot men as headhunters visited distant places, amassed experiences & returned to express their knowledge-receive acclaim • Ilongot women - these activities not available to them

21. Mobility, Public : Domestic (Private), and Gender Straitification • mobility not just through geographic space but social space (forms of association) • veiling & Islamic women • factory women in Malaysia • US & Canada - WW2 & factory women for war effort • 1960s, 70s, 80s - changing gender composition of economy

22. persistence of dualisms in ideologies of gender • a particular view of men and women as opposite kinds of creatures both biologically and culturally • nature/culture • domestic/public • reproduction/production

23. Reproduction and Social Roles • roles - those minimal institutions and modes of activity that are organized immediately around one or more mothers and their children • women everywhere lactate & give birth to children • likely to be associated with child rearing & responsibilities of the home

24. Production and Social Roles • roles - activities, institutions, and forms of association that link, rank, organize, or subsume particular mother-child groups

25. a long running controversy in anthropology • Sherry Ortner’s famous article “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture” • argument is that across cultures, women are more often associated with nature and the natural and are therefore denigrated • Ortner - in reality women are no further nor closer to nature than men - cultural valuations make women appear closer to nature than men

26. The “Third Gender” • essentialism of western ideas of sexual dimorphism - dichotomized into natural & then moral entities of male & female that are given to all persons, one or the other • committed western view of sex and gender as dichotomous, ascribed, unchanging • other categories - every society including our own is at some time or other faced with people who do not fit into its sex & gender categories

27. The “Third Gender” • a significant number of people are born with genitalia that is neither clearly male or female • Hermaphrodites • persons who change their biological sex • persons who exhibit behavior deemed appropriate for the opposite sex • persons who take on other gender roles other than those indicated by their genitals

28. Third Gender: Western Bias • multiple cultural & historical worlds in which people of divergent gender & sexual desire exist • margins or borders of society • may pass as normal to remain hidden in the official ideology & everyday commerce of social life • when discovered - iconic matter out of place - "monsters of the cultural imagination“ • third gender as sexual deviance a common theme in US • evolution & religious doctrine • heterosexuality the highest form, the most moral way of life, its natural

29. Third Gender Cross-Culturally • provokes us to reexamine our own assumptions regarding our gender system • emphasizes gender role alternatives as adaptations to economic and political conditions rather than as "deviant" and idiosyncratic behavior • rigid dichotomozation of genders is a means of perpetuating the domination of females by males and patriarchal institutions.

30. THEORIES OF GENDER INEQUALITY

31. F. Engels • theory of the origin of female subordination • tied to the male control of wealth • built on 19th cent. assumption of communal societies as matrilineal • men overthrew matrilineality & formed patriarchal family leading to monogamous family • differential ownership of wealth led to inequality within the family & thus between the sexes • gender differences arose from technological developments that led to changes in relations of production

32. E. Leacock - (expands on Engels) • subjugation of women due to breakdown of communal ownership of property & isolation of individual family as economic unit • transformation of relations of production • Association of female labor with domestic unit or private sphere • male production directed towards distribution outside the domestic group (public sphere) • occurs with development of private property & class society

33. K. Sacks • political power that results from the ability to give & receive goods in exchange (redistribution) • allows for sexual stratification in non-class societies

34. Sanday Reeves • female status dependent on degree to which men & women participate in activities of reproduction, warfare, subsistence

35. Friedl and Leacock • not rights & control over production but rights of distribution & control over channels of distribution critical for gender stratification

36. RETHINKING SUBORDINATION • Ardener - muted models that underlie male discourse • diversity of one life or many lives • gender roles, stereotypes, stratification • changes over time • changes with position in lifecycle • status of men & women i.e. in male dominant societies • decision making roles belong to men but as women reach menopause; change with marriage status, virgins, wives, widows (and men)

37. RETHINKING SUBORDINATION • women, like men, are social actors who work in structured ways to achieve desired ends • formal authority structure of a society may declare that women are impotent & irrelevant • but attention to women's strategies & motives, sorts of choices, relationships established, ends achieved indicates women have good deal of power • strategies appear deviant & disruptive • actual components of how social life proceeds