Gender in Anthropology

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Gender in Anthropology

• Where does Mama Lola fit in?

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• I. UNIVERSAL PATTERNS (1970s)
• II. CRITIQUES OF UNIVERSALIZING FRAMEWORKS
  (1980s)
• III. GENDER SYSTEMS (1970s-80s)
• IV. CRITIQUES OF GENDER SYSTEMS (1980s)
• V. GENDER POWER (1990s-today)

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I. UNIVERSAL PATTERNS

• Universal asymmetry across the globe
• Politics of 1970swomens movement, civil rights,
  etc.
• Anthropologists documented womens universal
  subordination to men
• Search for origins of gender inequality, male
  dominance, patriarchy (structure of male
  dominance)

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I. UNIVERSAL PATTERNS (cont.)

• Anthropology provided global answers
• female/male private/public domestic
  (children) /work (public)
• symbolic framework female/nature
• male/culture
• Marxist framework focus on universal
  inequalities

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II. CRITIQUES OF UNIVERSALIZING FRAMEWORKS

• Gender is culturally constructed, not
  biologically given
• Cultural categories are complex and multiple (ex.
  more than 2 genders!)
• EX. No nature, no culture (Strathern)men raise
  boys in New Guinea
• EX. West African Market women in public spaces
  (Frances White)
• Gender systems are diverse (place time)
• EX. Semen Transactions in Sambia Culture
  (Gilbert Herdt)

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III. GENDER SYSTEMS

• Gender is one aspect in a system of
  inequalitiesage, rank, ethnicity, class, race,
  etc.
• Focus on specificity of gender systems
• Ex. women wanted to marry up in colonial Cuba
  lighter skinned upper class man
• Gender intersects with race and class in this
  system of inequality (Verena Martinez-Alier)

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IV. CRITIQUES OF GENDER SYSTEMS

• no attention to agency and subjectivity of social
  actors
• agencywomen are active makers of history
  verses pawns of history (Mama Lola)
• social and cultural processes are heterogeneous
  and unstable (ex. changing economics and
  politics)

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IV. CRITIQUES OF GENDER SYSTEMS (cont.)

• New foci
• 1.Competing Ideas about gender
• EX. gender in black nationalist movement in US
  women have to accept their roles as wives and
  mothers or dont fit into this ideal of the
  universal Black Woman
• What other ideas might challenge this one?
• 2. Resistance to oppressive circumstances
• EX. Mama Lola resisted poverty and abusive men
• 3. Feminist movement deals with Race and Class
  women of color from all classes challenge upper
  class white women different sets of issues!

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V. GENDER POWER

• Gender is embedded in historical institutions
  shaped by power inequalities.
• negotiation Women and Men talk about and make
  up the rules over time. They challenge AND
  reproduce conventions of gender.
• EX. Mama Lola becomes a vodou priestess after
  being called BUT negotiates her identity as a
  single woman and mother in NYC