Gender, Ethnicity, and Social Stratification

Gender and Anthropology

interest in hierarchical relations between men and women has been a feature of anthropology since its earliest days anthropology of gender has been key in establishing that sexual inequality is not a biological fact but instead and cultural and historical one the body is "simultaneously a physical and symbolic artifact, both naturally and culturally produced, anchored in a particular historical moment" (Scheper-Hughes & Lock)

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

SEX, SEXUALITY, GENDER

not the same thing all societies distinguish between males and females a very few societies recognize a third, sexually intermediate category

SEX
differences in biology Socially & culturally marked/constructed

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

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

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

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 womens roles, statuses, power, and value differ tremendously by culture

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

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

a long running controversy in anthropology

Sherry Ortners 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

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

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

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

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.

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)

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

Social difference
Basis for recognition of difference within and between social groups Relationship to political power and inequality

Beyond the face to face community

Status & Social Difference

status - ascribed & achieved ascribed status - social positions that people hold by virtue of birth
sex, age, family relationships, birth into class or caste

achieved status - social positions attained as a result of individual action shift from homogeneous kin based societies (mechanic) to heterogeneous societies of associations (organic) involves growth in importance of achieved

Social Stratification
inequality in society the unequal distribution of goods and services, rights and obligations, power and prestige all attributes of positions in society, not attributes of individuals Stratified society is:
when a society exhibits stratification it means that there are significant breaks in the distribution of goods services, rights obligations power prestige

as a result of which are formed collectivities or groups we call strata

race
There are no biological human races up until 14th cent. in Europe cultural & social evolution based on the idea of progress from kin-based societies to civil society through governance & law after 16th cent. in Europe ideas of blood were used to characterize difference

race and social difference

Race as social grouping based on perceived physical differences and cloaked in the language of biology social races groups assumed to have a biological basis but social constructed Racism systematic social and political bias based on idea of race
Operates as a form of class

Social races
Race exists as a cultural construct Racism builds upon idea that personality is linked with hereditary characteristics which differ between races Race is important for academics studying local discourses on ethnicity Race relations as a special case of ethnicity Race as the categorization of people Operates as an ASCRIBED status of personhood

American Anthropological Assoc. statement on race

Evidence from the analysis of genetics (e.g., DNA) indicates that most physical variation, about 94%, lies within so-called racial groups. Conventional geographic racial groupings differ from one another only in about 6% of their genes. Race thus evolved as a world view, a body of prejudgments that distorts our ideas about human differences and group behavior. The racial world view was invented to assign some groups to perpetual low status, while others were permitted access to privilege, power, and wealth

from race to ethnicity

ethnicity forged in the process of historical time subject to shifts in meaning
shifts in referents or markers of ethnic identity

subject to political manipulations ethnic identity is not a function of primordial ties, although it may be described as such always the genesis of specific historical forces that are simultaneously structural & cultural

building blocks of ethnicity/ethnic identity

associated with distinctions between language, religion, historical experience, geographic isolation, kinship, notions of race (phenotype)

may include collective name, belief in common descent, sense of solidarity, association with a specific territory, clothing, house types, personal adornment, food, technology, economic activities, general lifestyle

cultural markers of difference must be visible to members and nonmembers

valued markers of difference by insiders may become comic or derided by outsiders caricature and exaggeration frequently mark outsider depictions of boundary mechanisms
stereotype is one form

ethnicity and boundaries

where there is a group there is some sort of boundary where there are boundaries there are mechanisms for maintaining boundaries
cultural markers of difference that must be visible to members and non-members

Code switching Marked and unmarked categories

Boundary maintenance
Social boundaries that may have territorial counterparts The ethnic boundary canalizes social life complex organization of behavior and social relations playing the same game Distinctions between us and them criteria for judgement of value and performance and restrictions on interactions
Allows for the persistence of cultural differences Identities are signaled as well as embraced

All ethnic groups in a poly-ethnic society act to maintain dichotomies and differences

ethnogenesis
fluidity of ethnic identity ethnic groups vanish, people move between ethnic groups, new ethnic groups come into existence ethnogenesis
emergence of new ethnic group, part of existing group splits & forms new ethnic group, members of two or more groups fuse

political organization and ethnicity

ethnicity is founded upon structural inequities among dissimilar groups into a single political entity based on cultural differences & similarities perceived as shared

Ethnicity as identity formation and political organization

Ethnic groups those human groups that entertain a SUBJECTIVE belief in their common descent because of similarities of physical type or of customs or of both, or because of memories of colonization and migration Belief in group affinity can have important consequences for the formation of a political community feelings of ethnicity & associated behavior vary in intensity within groups (& persons) over time & space