14: Lecture Gender Most Ann Arborites assume that sex and gender are the same thing. A man is basically a person of male sex. A woman is a person of female sex. But anthropologists discovered long ago that ways of being a man or woman differed radically in time and space, whereas the physical characteristics that defined a person as male or female were always present. Clearly, gender and sex are not the same thing. Ann Arborites (and most people around the world) determine the sex of a child by scrutinizing its genitalia. A baby boy has a penis. A girl has a clitoris and vagina. How this boy and girl learn to express their masculinity and femininity, however, will vary across and within cultures. Gender is a set of roles, assumptions, practices, and stereotypes we use to give shape to male and female characteristics, both social and biological. Gender is like a costume we all must wear, and the importance of gender differences is apparent in the consistency with which men and women dress and adorn themselves differently. Humans often produce social worlds in which there are two (or more) genders, even when there are members of only one sex in these social worlds. Examples: marriages between senior and junior warriors among the Azande; genderized marriages and couplings among prisoners, soldiers, etc. in total institutions populated with members of the same sex] Also, people can wear gender wardrobes that run counter to their anatomical sex. [Examples: the berdaches of North America, the hijras in India, transvestite sex symbols in Brazil] [Examples from readings and from MLB 3; Barbie and GI Joe] Our discussion of gender, in Ann Arbor in the year 2009, will be filtered through popular assumptions about equality of the sexes. What is this equality, given our insistence on stressing the differences between males and females from birth till death? How should we be equal? Where should we be equal? Our concern with equality is related to changes now occurring in our political economy, where, in the last two generations, middle class women have entered the job market and public life (lower and uppers class women were already engaged in those spheres, in various ways). Women have not yet attained parity with men, either in pay or prestige. This movement is measured against the backdrop of the public-domestic dichotomy. N!ai, the Eleshadda, Ann Arborites, East Harlem, and the public-domestic dichotomy.
Among the !Kung, there is little distinction between public and domestic. Among villagers in al-Nahra, there is a marked distinction between the two. Among Ann Arborites, there is a distinction, it is marked, but its meaning is increasingly negotiable. Male dominance, and greater male prestige, are associated with the masculinization of the public sphere, the feminization of the domestic sphere. This engendering process corresponds to modes of production and division of labor in all human economies. The Kottak model: among foragers, little gender stratification, simple division of labor, status of men is noticeably higher only when contribution their to subsistence is greater among horticulturalists, more gender distinction, more complex division of labor, status of men is higher when women contribute much more or much less to subsistence; if there is local warfare and economic scarcity, male dominance is likely; if there is external or no warfare or economic scarcity, matrilocality and matrilineality are more common, and both work against male dominance. [Examples: Iroqouis, Etoro] Among agriculturalists, more gender stratification, more complex division of labor and political control, status of men is higher when they contribute more to the overall and the household economy, public-domestic distinction is pronounced, women are considered a drain (economically) or a risk (politically), hence they are controlled and their access to important resources is limited. Among advanced industrial societies, gender stratification persists, division of labor is complex but not inherently dependent on gender differences, so it is more flexible, the status of men and women is higher when they contribute more to the household and general economies, the public-domestic dichotomy persists, though neither space is associated exclusively with males or females, women are less likely to be considered a drain (economically) or a risk (politically), hence women are less controlled by men and their access to important resources is not as limited as in pre-industrial, agricultural societies. Kinks and consequences of the model In advanced capitalist societies, the public sphere becomes a sphere of nominal equality, but is it a masculinized or feminized sphere, or something else? If a person is to succeed
in the public sphere, today, must he/she be more like a man, or must men be less like traditional men in relation to women who enter the public sphere? And what about the domestic sphere? How is it affected by changes in the public sphere? Who will perform the roles once associated with males and females in this sphere? Is the feminization of poverty related to the collapse of the domestic sphere? How do wealthy, successful, publically-engaged women handle domestic life and its demands? Gender dimorphism Defanging and Refanging. Reduction of male dominance and patriarchal values: 1. Changing attitudes toward homosexuality and gender transgression: gender ambiguity, (re)negotiation of gender symbols, mainstreaming of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered identities. 2. Changing attitudes toward male sexuality/violence: public campaigns against sexual harassment, date rape, domestic violence, gay bashing, etc. 3. Changing attitudes toward female sexuality/passivity: pop divas, tough femininity, explicit rejection of offensive male sexuality, more explicitly sexualized toys (e.g., Bratz!), etc. 4. Use of new gender models as forms of postcolonial social control and ethnocentric cultural critique of non-Western populations: foreign aid related campaigns against honor killings, female circumcision, female infanticide, dowry killings, etc. Anti-hijab campaigns in Europe.