Questions about nature (biological predispositions) and nurture (environment)
emerge in the discussion of human sex-gender roles and sexuality.
Sexual dimorphism refers to differences in male and female biology
besides the contrasts in breasts and genitalia.
Sex differences are biological, but gender encompasses all the traits
that a culture assigns to and inculcates in males and females; in other
words, gender refers to the cultural construction of male and female characteristics.
Definitions
Gender roles are the tasks and activities that a culture assigns
to the sexes.
Gender stereotypes are oversimplified but strongly held ideas
about the characteristics of males and females.
Gender stratification describes an unequal distribution of rewards
(socially valued resources, power, prestige, human rights, and personal
freedom) between men and women, reflecting their different positions
in a social hierarchy.
Recurrent Gender Patterns
Cross-cultural data indicate that the time and effort spent in subsistence
activities by men and women tend to be about equal.
While the subsistence contributions of men and women are roughly
equal cross-culturally, female labor predominates in domestic activities
and child care.
Adding together their subsistence activities and their domestic work,
women tend to work more hours than men do.
Women tend to be the primary child caregivers in most societies,
but men often play a role.
There are differences in male and female reproductive strategies.
Women work to ensure their progeny will survive by establishing
a close bond with each baby, and by having a reliable mate to ease
the child-rearing process and ensure the survival of her children.
Men, who have a longer reproductive period than women do, may
choose to enhance their reproductive success by impregnating several
women over a longer period of time.
Double standards (e.g., regarding premarital or extramarital sex)
that restrict women more than men illustrate gender stratification.
Gender among Foragers
Economic Roles and Gender Stratification
In foraging societies gender stratification is most marked when
men contribute much more to the diet than women do (e.g., the Inuit
and other northern hunters and fishers).
When gathering—which tends to be women's work—is
prominent (e.g., among tropical and semitropical foragers), gender
status tends to be more equal.
The Public-Domestic Dichotomy
Gender stratification is also reduced when the domestic and public
spheres are not sharply separated.
Strong differentiation between the home and the outside world
is called the domestic-public dichotomy, or the private-public contrast.
Cross-culturally, women's activities tend to be closer to
home than men's are.
Often when domestic and public spheres are clearly separated,
public activities have greater prestige than domestic ones do,
and gender stratification is promoted.
Sex-Linked Activities
Certain roles tend to be more sex-linked than others.
Hunters and warriors are usually men, because they tend to be
bigger, stronger, and more mobile than women.
Pregnancy, lactation, and child-care generally preclude women
from being the primary hunters in foraging societies.
Nevertheless, the activities and spheres of influence of men
and women may overlap among foragers (e.g., the Ju/'hoansi San).
In foraging societies, the public and domestic spheres are least
separate, hierarchy is least marked, aggression and competition are most
discouraged, and the rights, activities, and spheres of influence of men
and women overlap the most.
Given that all humans were foragers until 10,000 years ago, relative
gender equality is most likely the ancestral pattern of human society.
Gender among Horticulturalists
Martin and Voorhies (1975) studied 515 horticultural societies to
investigate how gender roles and stratification varied according to economy
and social structure.
Women were found to be the main producers in horticultural societies.
In half of the societies, women did most of the cultivating.
In a third of the societies, men and women made equal contributions
to cultivation.
Men did most of the work in only 17 percent of the societies.
Women dominated horticulture in 64 percent of the matrilineal
societies and in 50 percent of the patrilineal ones.
Female status tends to be high in horticultural societies that
are matrilineal and matrilocal.
Women tend to have high status in matrilineal, matrilocal societies
because descent-group membership, succession to political positions,
allocation of land, and overall social identity all come through female
links.
The spread of the patrilineal-patrilocal complex (consisting
of patrilineality, patrilocality, warfare, and male supremacy) has
been linked to pressure on resources.
As resources become scarce, intervillage warfare often increases.
Patrilocality and patrilineality keep related men together
in the same village, where they make strong allies in battle.
The patrilineal-patrilocal complex tends to enhance male prestige
and, as a result, to increase gender stratification (e.g., societies
in highland Papua New Guinea).
Women work hard growing and processing subsistence crops,
raising and tending pigs, and doing domestic cooking, but they
are isolated from the male-controlled public domain.
Males dominate the public domain—growing and distributing
prestige crops, preparing food for feasts, arranging marriages,
and trading pigs and controlling their use in ritual.
In densely populated areas of Papua New Guinea where there is
strong pressure on resources, male-female avoidance is extreme: men
regard contact with females (including sex) as dangerous and polluting,
and they segregate themselves in men's houses and hide their precious
ritual objects from women.
In contrast, sparsely populated areas of Papua New Guinea lack
taboos on male-female contacts.
Gender among Agriculturalists
When the economy is based on agriculture, women typically lose their
role as primary cultivators.
Martin and Voorhies (1975) found women were the main workers
in 50 percent of the horticultural societies surveyed but in only
15 percent of the agricultural groups.
Male subsistence labor dominated 81 percent of the agricultural
societies but only 17 percent of the horticultural ones.
Social changes accompanying the advent of agriculture affected women
negatively.
Belief systems started contrasting men's valuable extradomestic
(public) labor with women's domestic role, now viewed as inferior.
The decline of descent groups and polygyny, and the increased
importance of the nuclear family, isolated women from their kinswomen
and cowives.
Female sexuality is carefully supervised in agricultural societies,
while men enjoy easier access to divorce and extramarital sex.
Nevertheless, female status is not inevitably low in agricultural
societies.
Gender stratification is associated with plow agriculture rather
than with intensive cultivation per se.
The Betsileo of Madagascar illustrate that intensive cultivation
does not necessarily entail sharp gender stratification.
Betsileo women contribute slightly more than 50 percent of
the labor devoted to producing and preparing rice before cooking.
Although postmarital residence is mainly patrilocal, descent
rules permit married Betsileo women to keep membership in and
a strong allegiance to their own descent groups.
Betsileo women also participate in various public activities—such
as holding political office, selling their produce and products
in markets, investing in cattle, sponsoring ceremonials, and arranging
marriages.
Patriarchy and Violence
Patriarchal Societies
Patriarchy describes a political system ruled by men in which
women have inferior social and political status, including basic human
rights.
Such practices as dowry murders, female infanticide, and clitoridectomy
exemplify patriarchy, which extends from tribal societies such as
the Yanomami to state societies such as India and Pakistan.
Domestic Violence
Family violence and domestic abuse of women are worldwide problems.
Abuse of women is more common in societies where women are separated
from supportive kin (e.g., patrilineal-patrilocal societies).
Gender and Industrialism
Early American Industrialism
The "traditional" idea that "a woman's place is in the home"
actually emerged in the United States as industrialism spread after
1900.
In the 1890s more than 1 million American women held unskilled
factory positions.
After 1900, European immigrants willing to work for wages
lower than those of American-born workers moved into factory jobs
that previously had gone to women.
As machine tools and mass production further reduced the
need for female labor, the notion that women were biologically
unfit for factory work began to emerge.
During the world wars the notion that women are unfit for hard
physical labor faded.
Increased female employment has been spurred by a number of factors—inflation,
a culture of consumption, the baby boom, and industrial expansion.
Today, almost half of all Americans who work outside the home
are women, and women fill more than half of all professional jobs.
The Feminization of Poverty
In the United States, poverty is becoming feminized—that
is, women (and their children) are increasingly represented among
America's poorest people.
The number of single-parent, female-headed households in the
United States has more than doubled since 1959.
The feminization of poverty (including an increase in female-headed
households) is evident worldwide.
The increase in female-headed households stems from a number
of factors, including male migration, civil strife (men off fighting),
divorce, abandonment, widowhood, unwed adolescent parenthood, and,
more generally, the idea that children are women's responsibility.
What Determines Gender Variation?
Gender roles and stratification have varied widely across cultures
and through history.
Gender is flexible and varies with cultural, social, political, and
economic factors.
Sexual Orientation
Sexual orientation refers to a person's habitual sexual attractions
and activities.
Heterosexuality refers to sexual preference for members of the
opposite sex.
Homosexuality refers to sexual preference for members of the
same sex.
Bisexuality refers to sexual preference for members of both sexes.
Asexuality refers to indifference toward, or lack of attraction
to, either sex.
To some extent at least, all human activities and preferences, including
erotic expression, are learned, malleable, and culturally constructed.
In any society, individuals will differ in the nature, range, and
intensity of their sexual interests and urges.
Whatever the reason for individual variation, culture always plays
a role in molding individual sexual urges toward a collective norm.
Sexual norms vary considerably both cross-culturally and through
time.
Attitudes about masturbation, bestiality (sex with animals),
and homosexuality vary widely between societies, as well as within
a single society.
In many societies (e.g., the Azande, the Etoro), various forms
of same-sex sexual activity are considered normal and acceptable.
Homosexual Behavior among the Etoro
Etoro culture, in which there was extreme tension surrounding
male-female sexual relations, illustrates the power of culture in
molding human sexuality.
Etoro men believed that semen was necessary to give life force
to a fetus.
Men were believed to have a limited supply of semen.
Sexuality was thought to deplete this supply and to sap male
virility and vitality.
Although heterosexual intercourse was necessary for reproduction,
it was deemed unpleasant because it would eventually lead to a man's
death.
Heterosexual sex was discouraged and limited to only about
100 days a year.
Heterosexual sex was removed from community life and could
only take place in the woods.
Although heterosexual sex was discouraged, sex between males
was viewed as essential.
The Etoro believed that in order for boys to grow into men
and eventually give life force to their children, they had to
acquire semen orally from older men.
From the age of 10 until adulthood, boys were inseminated
by older men.
Such homosexual acts could take place in the village.
Etoro homosexuality was governed by a code of propriety: although
sexual relations between older and younger males were considered culturally
essential, those between boys of the same age were discouraged.
Flexibility in sexual expression seems to be an aspect of our primate
heritage, for both masturbation and same-sex sexual activity exist among
chimpanzees and other primates.
Like gender roles and attitudes more generally, the sexual component
of human personality and identity—how we express our "natural" sexual
urges—is a matter that culture and environment determine and limit.
Box: Indonesia's Matriarchal Minangkabau Offer an Alternative Social
System
Most scholars who have searched for a true matriarchy—a society
in which women, rather than men, have power—have concluded that
such a society does not exist, and perhaps has never existed.
Anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday believes that this conclusion
is incorrect.
Matriarchies have never been found because researchers have been
looking for the wrong thing—a society in which women control
everyday affairs, including government.
Among the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra, Indonesia, males
and females are partners for the common good of the community, rather
than self-interested competitors for social and political power.
Minangkabau society is based on matrilineality as well as a nature-based
philosophy (known as adat) emphasizing the importance of nurturing growth
in humans, animals, and plants.
The Minangkabau matriarchy is focused on making women the center,
origin, and foundation of life and the social order.
Women control land inheritance.
Post-marital residence is matrilocal (husbands join their wives'
households).
Despite womens' significant position in Minangkabau society, this
matriarchy is not the equivalent of female rule.
Decision-making is done by consensus.
Males and females are seen are complementary, with neither sex
ruling society.
