War and Sexism

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War and Sexism

• By Jerri Dennis

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War

• To have war one must have teams of armed
  combatants.
• Killings carried out during raids by combat teams
  are considered acts of war.

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War and Sexism

• The absence of raiding or any other warlike
  manifestation goes hand in hand with primarily
  egalitarian gender roles.

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According to Harris

• In this chapter Harris gives examples of
  societies with varying patterns of warfare and
  the affect those patterns have on male dominance
  within the society

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Characteristics of Warlike Societies

• The more severe forms of war in a society, the
  greater the chances of male dominance
• Polygyny is a common practice in societies with
  warlike interests
• Women have fewer rights in societies with more
  pronounced forms of war

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Harris describes three societies with varying
patterns of warfare

• Societies with an absence of war
• Band-level societies with moderate amounts of
  warfare
• Village-organized societies who carry warfare to
  great extremes

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The !Kung

• This society seldom resorted to organized armed
  conflict
• Due to the virtual absence of warfare there were
  primarily egalitarian gender roles

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The Aborigines of Queensland

• Band-level society organized into bands of 40 to
  50 people
• Regularly dispatched teams of warriors to avenge
  wrongdoings of enemy bands
• Possessed a well-developed but far from extreme
  form of male supremacy

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Treatment of Aborigine Women

• Men discriminated against women in the
  distribution of food
• Division of labor was not equally distributed
  between men and women. Women did far more work
  than men.

• Men beat or killed their wives for adultery, but
  wives did not have similar recourse
• Polygyny was practiced and some men took as many
  as four wives

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The Yanomami

• Village-organized society that derived their
  subsistence from rudimentary forms of agriculture
• Practiced extreme forms of warfare

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War Habits of the Yanomami

• Boys began to train for war at an early age and
  learned cruelty by practicing on animals
• Engaged in surprise raids at dawn, where the
  members of the tribe, under cover of darkness,
  would sneak into an enemy village and kill as
  many men as possible and take the women as
  captives
• Practiced ambush tactics
• Tortured captives by lacerating them with arrows,
  shoving sticks through their cheeks, and gouging
  their eyes

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Relations Between Yanomami Men and Women

• Husbands beat their wives for disobedience by
  using cruel forms of punishment such as beating
  them with firewood, swinging axes at them,
  burning them with firebrands, and shooting them
  with arrows

• Relationships are hierarchical and androcentric
• Polygyny was practiced, and successful men had as
  many as six wives
• Women were forced to take second husbands

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The Nama

• Central institution of certain village societies
  found throughout Papua New Guinea
• Male initiation cult that trained men to be
  fierce warriors and to dominate women

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Characteristics of the Nama

• Men could never be seen to be weak or soft in
  dealing with women.
• Men had complete control over women.
• Women were severely punished for adultery by
  having burning sticks thrust into their vaginas,
  or they were killed by their husbands.
• Women were whipped with canes if they spoke out
  of turn.
• Mistreating women was part of the normal course
  of events and it is portrayed as the essential
  order of things.

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More Characteristics of the Nama

• Men had such an intense fear of womens breath
  and vaginal odors that they partitioned the whole
  village into mens and womens areas
• Men treated women as worthless inferiors

• Men did not need any specific incident in order
  to abuse their women
• For many women, suicide was the only way out

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Harris Opinion

• Warfare is the key variable for predicting and
  understanding variations in gender hierarchies-at
  least among band-and-village societies.

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Societal Evidence Support Harris Argument

• In the examples used throughout the chapter, male
  dominance increased as levels of warfare
  increased
• This fully supports Harris theory
• After reading the chapter it is hard not to agree
  with Harris opinion

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Cultural Materialism

• The information in this chapter is consistent
  with Cultural Materialism in that males
  survival, in societies with intense warfare,
  depend upon being able to fight off the enemy.
  Males must be dominant in order to survive.
• The Structure component of CM states that
  maintaining orderly and secure relationships is
  necessary for survival.
• Males who defend their villages in warlike
  societies, must be dominant in order to feel
  secure. This maintains order within the society.