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Gender
Anthropology:
The Exploration of Human Diversity
11th Edition
Conrad Phillip Kottak
McGraw-Hill
© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
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Gender
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McGraw-Hill
Sex and Gender
Recurrent Gender Patterns
Gender Among Foragers
Gender Among Horticulturalists
Gender Among Agriculturalists
Patriarchy and Violence
Gender and Industrialism
© 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
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Sex and Gender
• Sex refers to biological differences
• Gender refers to cultural construction of
male and female characteristics
• Sexual dimorphism refers to marked
differences in male and female biology
besides the primary and secondary
sexual features
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Sex and Gender
• Gender roles—tasks and activities that
a culture assigns to the sexes
• Gender stereotypes—oversimplified
but strongly held ideas of characteristics
of men and women
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Sex and Gender
• Gender stratification—unequal
distribution of rewards (socially valued
resources, power, prestige, and
personal freedom) between men and
women, reflecting their different
positions in social hierarchy
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Recurrent Gender Patterns
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• Subsistence contributions of men and
women are roughly equal crossculturally
– In domestic activities, female labor
dominates
– In extradomestic activities, male labor
dominates
Women are primary caregivers, but men often
play a role
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Recurrent Gender Patterns
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• Differences exist in male and female
reproductive strategies
– Men mate, within and outside marriage,
more than women do
– Double standards that restrict women more
than men illustrate gender stratification
Gender stratification lower when domestic and
public spheres not clearly distinguished
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Gender Among Foragers
• The Public-Domestic Dichotomy
– Strong differentiation between the home
and the outside world is called the
domestic-public dichotomy, or the privatepublic contrast
– The activities of the domestic sphere tend
to be performed by women
– The activities of the public sphere tend to
be restricted to men
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Gender Among Foragers
• Public activities tend to have greater
prestige than domestic ones, which
promotes gender stratification
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Gender Among Foragers
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• Sex-Linked Activities
– All cultures have a division of labor based
on gender, but the particular tasks
assigned to men and women vary from
culture to culture.
Almost universally, the greater size, strength,
and mobility of men have led to their exclusive
service in the roles of hunters and warriors.
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Gender Among Foragers
• Lactation and pregnancy also tend to
preclude the possibility of women being
the primary hunters in foraging societies
• However, these distinctions are very
general, and there is always overlap
– Kung San
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Gender among
Horticulturalists
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• Reduced Gender Stratification—
Matrifocal Societies
– Survey of matrifocal (mother-centered,
often with no resident husband-father)
societies indicates that male travel
combined with a prominent female
economic role reduced gender stratification
The example of the Igbo (Nigeria) demonstrated that
gender roles might be filled by members of either sex
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Gender among
Horticulturalists
• Increased Gender StratificationPatrilineal-Patrilocal Societies
– The spread of patrilineal-patrilocal
societies has been associated with
pressure on resources and increased local
warfare
– As resources become scarcer, warfare
often increases
– The patrilineal-patrilocal complex
concentrates related males in villages,
which solidifies their alliances for warfare
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Gender Among
Horticulturalists
• This combination tends to enhance
male prestige opportunities and result in
relatively high gender stratification (e.g.,
highland Papua-New Guinea)
– Women do most of the cultivation, cooking,
and raising children, but are isolated from
the public domain
– Males dominate the public domain (politics,
feasts, warfare)
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Gender Among
Horticulturalists
• Women found to be main producers in
horticultural societies
• Women dominated horticulture in 64%
of the matrilineal societies and in 50%
of the patrilineal societies
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Gender among Agriculturalists
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• When economy based on agriculture,
women typically lose role as primary
cultivators
– Women were main workers in 50% of
horticultural societies but in only 15% of
agricultural societies
Gender stratification associated with plow
agriculture rather than with intensive cultivation
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Patriarchy and Violence
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• Patriarchy—political system ruled by
men in which women have inferior
social and political status
Societies that feature a full-fledged patriarchy,
replete with warfare and intervillage raiding,
adopt such practices as dowry murders, female
infanticide, and clitoridectomy
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Patriarchy and Violence
• Family violence and domestic abuse of
women worldwide problems
– With spread of women’s rights movement
and human rights movement, attention to
domestic violence and abuse of women
increased
– Patriarchal institutions persist in what
should be a more enlightened world
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Gender and Industrialism
• Gender roles changing rapidly in North
America
– “Traditional” idea that “a woman’s place is
in the home” developed among middleand upper-class Americans as
industrialism spread after 1900
• Attitudes about gendered work varied with
class and region
• Woman’s role in the home stressed during
periods of high unemployment
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Gender and Industrialism
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• Gender roles changing rapidly in North
America
Now cash employment of American married
men falling while that of American married
women rising
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Gender and Industrialism
• Cash Employment of American
Mothers, Wives, and Husbands
– Insert Table 20.9
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Gender and Industrialism
• Earnings in the United States by
Gender and Job Type for Year-Round
Full-Time
– Insert Table 20.10
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Gender and Industrialism
• Median Annual Income of U.S.
Households by Household Type, 2001
– Insert Table 20.11
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Gender and Industrialism
• Both men and women constrained by
their cultural training, stereotypes, and
expectations
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Gender and Industrialism
• The Feminization of Poverty
– Increasing representation of women and
their children among America’s poorest
people
• Consequences in regard to living standards
and health are widespread even among wage
earners
• Married couples more secure economically
than single mothers are
• Percentage of female-headed households
increasing worldwide
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Gender and Industrialism
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• The Feminization of Poverty
– Male migration, civil strife, divorce,
abandonment, widowhood, and unwed
adolescent parenthood contribute to
problem
Widely believed that one way to improve
situation of poor women is encourage them to
organize
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Sexual Orientation
• Person’s habitual sexual attraction to,
and sexual activities with
– Persons of the opposite sex,
heterosexuality
– Persons of the same sex, homosexuality
– Both sexes, bisexuality
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Sexual Orientation
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• Recently in U.S., tendency has been to
see sexual orientation as fixed and
biologically based
Culture always plays a role in molding
individual sexual urges to a collective norm
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Sexual Orientation
• Sex acts involving people of the same
sex were absent, rare, or secret in only
37% of 76 societies studied by Ford and
Beach (1051)
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Sexual Orientation
– Various forms of same-sex sexual activity
considered normal and acceptable
• Sudanese Azande males had no difficulty
shifting from sex with older men (as male
brides), to sex with younger men (as warriors),
to sex with women (as husbands)
• Etoro in Papua New Guinea believed men had
limited lifetime supply of semen, and that boys
had to acquire semen orally from older men
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Sexual Orientation
• Flexibility in sexual expression seems to
be an aspect of our primitive heritage
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Sexual Orientation
• The Location of the Etoro, Kaluli and
Sambia in Papua New Guinea
– Insert Figure 20.4
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