307 ANT Class Notes 8 April 2008 **April 17th Each person should turn in an interview or oral history and each team should turn in a survey or focus group** **May 13th Final Ethnography Due**
Birthing Fathers and Fixing Men Active participation of the fathers, especially during the birthing process. Power struggle in the hospital, during the labor does it matter that a man wrote it? Issues of male promiscuity vs. female promiscuity. What is okay? Is it all right for a man to have babies with more than one woman? What does these ethnographies tell us about masculinity? Especially in sexuality, reproduction and fatherhood? -FM: Men felt less masculine once they had vasectomies, based masculinity on the ability to procreate. Some afraid were that their sexual preferences would change. -BF: Men felt out of control when in the hospital, overpowered by superior forces. How were these ethnographies feminist? -FM: Positionality and made it a personal issue, set up egalitarian relationship, ignored academic status, focused on gender relations, included men's opinions on women -BF: deals with gender roles in reproduction, uncovering underlying control issues -Native anthropology? FM author had a vasectomy, and BF author was a father. Does this matter? Issues of agency and choice: -FM: Men didn't have much of a choice when it came to the operation, always the wife who initiated it -BF: It is women giving birth, do men have the same right to power and involvement?