Chapter 11Gender in Comparative Perspective

Chapter OutlineCultural Construction of GenderGender Crossing and Multiple Gender IdentitiesThe Sexual Division of LaborGender Stratification

Cultural Construction of GenderSex is biologically determined.Gender is culturally determined.Different cultures have distinctive ideas about males and females.These ideas define manhood/masculinity and womanhood/femininity.

Hua of Papua New GuineaPatrilineal, horticultural people who live in villages of 100 to 300 people. Gender is constructed based on female-male differences that are not recognized by people outside of Papua, New Guinea.The Hua believe that later in life each gender can become like the other in certain respects.

Hua of Papua New GuineaBodies contain a life-giving substance, nu. Females have an excess of nu - grow faster, age more slowly and are unattractively moist.Men contain a smaller amount of nu - have difficulty with growth and maintenance of vitality later in life, but are attractively dry.

Hua of Papua New GuineaDuring intercourse:A woman transfers nu to her husband which pollutes and debilitates him. The man contributes his nu to a woman so she gains strength and vitality at his expense.The greater difference in nu between them, the more dangerous a woman is to a man.

Nu Gender ClassificationsIn addition to male and female: Figapa - Their bodies contain substances symbolically considered feminine.Kakora - Eligible to live in the men's houses and to obtain the secret "male" knowledge gained during initiation ceremonies.

FigapaChildren of both sexes - been in recent intimate contact with their mother.Women in their child-bearing years.Post menopausal women who have not had at least 3 children.Elderly men -female nu has been transferred to them throughout their life.

KakoraMales in their early teens through the prime years who have been imitated. Postmenopausal women with more than two children.

Multiple Gender IdentitiesMany societies have more than two gender identities.A third or fourth gender of "man-woman" or 'woman-man" or "not woman - not man.Well documented among Native American peoples.

Gender CrossingThe adoption of social roles and behaviors normatively appropriate for the opposite biological sex from one's own.

Multiple Gender IdentitiesThe recognition, present in some cultures, of more than two sexes, with the third and fourth identities often called by such terms as man-woman or woman-man.

Native Americans and Multiple Gender IdentitiesMore than 150 Native American cultures had multiple gender identities for males, females, or both sexes.Males adopted dress, tasks, family roles and other aspects of womanhood.Females took on activities associated with manhood.

Characteristics of Third- and Fourth- Gender IdentitiesA preference for the work of the opposite sex and/or work set aside for the third- or fourth- gender identity.Cross dressing, or dressing in a combination of male and female garments.

Characteristics of Third- and Fourth- Gender IdentitiesAssociations with spiritual power or a spiritual sanction.Formation of sexual and emotional bonds with members of the same sex, were not not men-women or women-men.

The Sexual Division of LaborThe patterned ways in which tasks are allocated to men and women. Division of labor on the basis of sex is found in all cultures, although the specific tasks performed vary.

Gender (or Sex) RolesThe rights, duties, and expectations one acquires by virtue of ones sex.

Factors in Sexual Division of LaborPhysical strength - Work tasks requiring greater strength are performed by males.Fertility maintenance - Prolonged physical exercise can depress female fertility, so most strenuous tasks are done by males.Child care - Women tend to perform tasks that can be combined efficiently with child care.

Gender StratificationThe degree of inequality between males and females based on culturally defined differences between the sexes. May be based on social status, and/or on access to resources, wealth, power or influence.

Componentsof Gender StratificationThe social roles men and women perform.The cultural value attached to women's and men's contributions to their families and other groups.Access to positions of power and influence.

Componentsof Gender StratificationControl over personal decision making. Female deference to males.General beliefs and ideas about the sexes.

Influences on Gender StratificationThe greater the contributions women make to the welfare of a group, the higher their status. Ownership of resources and the control women have over the distribution of products of labor influences their status. Women have higher status in matrilineal and/or matrilocal societies.

Quick Quiz

1. Gender:and sex mean different thingsrefers to the roles maleness and femaleness have in a cultureis not fixed by your chromosomesall of the above

Answer: dAll of the statements about sex are true. Gender and sex mean different things. Gender refers to the roles maleness and femaleness have in a culture. Gender is not fixed by your chromosomes.

2. Multiple gender identities, according to some anthropologists, include:man-woman and woman-man gendersbiological mutations of sex chromosomeshermaphroditesneuters

Answer: aMultiple gender identities, according to some anthropologists, include man-woman and woman-man genders.

3. The sexual division of labor:is changing in modern North Americais a cultural universalof man the breadwinner and woman the homemaker is not a cultural universalall of the above

Answer: dAll of the above statements about the sexual division of labor are true.