Sex and Gender

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Chapter 8

• Sex and Gender

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Sex and Gender

• Sex refers to the biological differences between
  male and female.
• Gender refers to the social classification of
  masculinity and femininity.

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But are human understandings of sex and
gender universal?

• The hijras are an ambiguous gender role in India.
• Though born male, they are considered neither man
  nor woman.
• Hijras undergo an operation in which their
  genitals are surgically removed.

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Margaret Mead

• Developed the central anthropological principle
  that gender is a cultural construction
• Key findings in three New Guinean societies
• Arapesh Both sexes acted in ways Americans
  consider feminine.
• Mundugamor Both sexes acted in ways Americans
  consider masculine.
• Tchambuli Men acted in ways Americans consider
  feminine and women acted in ways Americans
  consider masculine.

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Cultural Construction of Gender

• The idea that gender characteristics are not
  inborn but constructed within each culture
• Native Americans
• Afghan girl/boys
• A societys gender ideology is its totality of
  ideas about sex, gender and the natures of men
  and women, including their sexuality, and the
  relations between the genders.

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Homosexuality and Culture

• Adolescent boys in Sambia have homosexual
  relations as part of initiation but enter
  heterosexual marriages as adults.
• In the United States, consistent heterosexuality
  is considered essential to masculine identity.

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Sexuality and Culture

• Sexual norms affect sexual behavior.
• Cultures differ in
• age that sexuality begins and ends.
• ways people make themselves attractive.
• importance of sexual activity.

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Gender Stratification

• The ways gendered activities and attributes are
  related to the distribution of resources,
  prestige, and power in a society

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Gender Relations Complex and Variable

• Male dominance, called patriarchy, was considered
  almost universal.
• Matriarchy, or female dominance, has not been
  found to be equal to that of male dominance in
  any society.
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Female Initiation Among the Kikuyu, Kenya
How does a woman social role change as a result
of circumcision? Do we have anything comparable
in the U.S.?
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Bringing It Back Home Female Genital Operations

• Approximately 100 million females in the world,
  mainly in Africa and the Middle East, undergo
  some form of female genital operations.
• The practices vary from a ritualized drawing of
  blood to the removal of almost all of the
  genitals, stitching together the wound, and
  leaving only a small opening for urine and
  menstrual flow, sometimes called female genital
  mutilation.

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Bringing It Back Home Female Genital Operations

• Where traditionally practiced, female genital
  operations are viewed as essential gender rites.
  
• They are intended to preserve a girls virginity
  before marriage, to symbolize her role as a
  marriageable member of society, and to emphasize
  her moral and economic value to her patrilineage.
• Scientific evidence demonstrates that female
  genital cutting raises the likelihood of a
  womans death in childbirth.

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Bringing It Back Home Female Genital Operations

• A view held by some anthropologists and some
  members of cultures that practice this ritual,
  urges that the practice be examined in its
  cultural context.
• While some women from societies that practice
  female genital operations defend it as affirming
  a womans value and enhancing cultural cohesion,
  others speak out against it.

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Bringing It Back Home Female Genital Operations

• You decide
• Should female circumcision be outlawed globally
  as a violation of womens and childrens rights,
  even if it is a valued cultural tradition in many
  societies?
• Since female circumcision is often associated
  with religious belief, does outlawing the
  practice violate our Constitutions freedom of
  religion clause?

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Bringing It Back Home Female Genital Operations

• You decide
• What can anthropologists contribute to the debate
  over female genital operations and other debates
  which pit universal human rights against local
  cultural patterns?
• What does the example of female genital
  operations suggest about the possible limits of
  the anthropological principle of cultural
  relativism?