1. Chapter 8
Sex and Gender

2. Chapter Outline Neither Man nor Woman: The Hijras of India
Sex and Gender as Cultural Constructions
Cultural Variation in Sexual Behavior
Male and Female Rites of Passage

3. Chapter Outline Power and Prestige: Gender Stratification
Gender Relations: Complex and Variable
Bringing it Back Home: Female Genital Operations and International Human Rights

4. The Hijras of India 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.

5. The Hijras of India
Hijras consider the operation a rebirth carried out as an act of devotion to the Hindu Mother Goddess.
After the operation, hijras are believed to incorporate the goddess’ powers of procreation.
Their presence is required at weddings and at the birth of a child.

6. The Hijras of India
Hijras identify with an ambiguous gender role and figure in Hindu mythology and Indian culture.
Male deities who change into females temporarily
Deities with both male and female characteristics
Male religious devotees who dress and act as women in religious ceremonies

7. The Hijras of India
How do the hijras differ from the stereotypical gender roles in the U.S.?

8. Beyond Male and Female
India is one of many societies where cultural support is given to individuals who bridge the differences between male and female.
Other societies include:
Mahu of Polynesia
Xanith of Oman on the Saudi Arabian peninsula
Some Native American tribes
Kathoey of Thailand

9. Sex and Gender
Sex refers to the biological differences between male and female.
Gender refers to the social classification of masculine and feminine.
Gender is culturally constructed and extraordinarily diverse, as are the relationships between sex and gender.

10. 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.”

11. Cultural Construction of Gender
The idea that gender characteristics are not inborn but constructed within each culture
A society’s 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.

12. Bullfighting in Spain
From an emic point of view, bullfighting is an aesthetic ritual expressing male gender value.
The ritualized violence is carried out with grace, skill, and courage.
The male matador is the central element; he should be able to kill the bull quickly with elegance and poise and distinguish himself as a “man of honor.”

13. Frida Kahlo
Frida Kahlo incorporated themes of female sexuality, gender identity, and pain in her work. What examples of “gendered” art do you know?

14. Cultural Sexual Behaviors
Cultures vary in what is considered erotic.
Before the Tahitians learned to kiss from the Europeans, they began sexual intimacy by sniffing.
The Trobriand Islanders inspected each other for lice if they felt fond of each other.

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. Ireland: Inis Beag Society
Described as “one of the most sexually naïve of the world’s societies.”
Women are expected to endure sex.
Refusing intercourse is a mortal sin.

18. Ireland: Inis Beag Society
Culturally patterned sexual repression
Absence of sexual foreplay
Belief that sexual activity weakens men
Absence of premarital sex
High percentage of celibate males
Extraordinarily late age of marriage

19. Polynesia: Mangaia
Adolescent boys are given sexual instruction and an experience with a woman in the village.
Practically every girl and boy has had intercourse before marriage.
Female frigidity, male celibacy, and homosexuality are practically unknown.

20. Male Initiation Rites Culturally validate male dominance.
Legitimate a change of status from child to adult.
Involve an extended period of separation, during which the initiates learn the beliefs, skills, and knowledge necessary to participate as a functioning adult in society.

21. Manhood Puzzle
Anthropologist David Gilmore calls the widespread male need to publicly test and prove one’s manhood the manhood puzzle.
Gilmore suggests that cultural patterns of “proving manhood” help ensure men will fulfill roles as procreators, providers, and protectors.
This, he argues, is at the heart of the “macho” masculine role and accounts for its intensity, near universality, and persistence.

22. Female Initiation Rites
Generally performed at menarche (first menstruation)
Occur in more societies than male initiation rites

23. Female Initiation Rites
Research indicates much cross-cultural variability.
Sometimes the initiate is isolated from society; sometimes she is the center of attention.
Some rituals are elaborate and take years to perform; others are performed with little ceremony.

24. 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.?

25. Gender Stratification
The ways gendered activities and attributes are related to the distribution of resources, prestige, and power in a society

26. Private/Public Dichotomy
Gender system
Women’s status is lowered by their cultural identification with the home and children (private).
Men are identified with prestigious economic and political roles (public).

27. Private/Public Dichotomy
Emphasizes the degree to which women control the distribution and exchange of goods and services outside the domestic unit
In foraging societies, male control over meat distribution is a source of their greater power.
In horticultural societies, men clear the forest for new gardens; they thus exercise control over the allocation of land.

28. Gender Relations: Complex and Variable
In earlier gender studies, there was intense debate over which gender dominated a society.
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.

29. Tlingit of the Northwest Coast
Gender relations were egalitarian.
Women and men could achieve prestige through their own efforts.
Sexual division of labor was not rigid.
Women often acted as negotiators and handled the money for long-distance trade.

30. Tlingit of the Northwest Coast
Some women were heads of clans or tribes.
Ideal marriage was between a man and woman of equal rank.
Roles were structured based on ability, training, and personality rather than gender.

31. Gender Relations in Horticultural Societies
High degree of segregation between the sexes
Myths “explain” why women are socially inferior to men and why men and women have different roles.

32. Gender Relations in Pastoral and Agricultural Societies
Pastoral and agricultural societies tend to be male dominated, though there is some variation.
In pastoral societies women’s status depends on the degree to which the society combines herding with cultivation, its specific historical situation, and the diffusion of cultural ideas.

33. Gender Relations in the Global Economy
Women’s status in modern societies varies and is affected by economic development, political ideology, and globalization.
In Mata Chico, Peru, in the 1930s, the only way for women to get access to land was to marry.
By the 1980s, Peru was urbanized and many occupations were available to men and women.
Since women could support themselves and their children they remained single longer, and, in some cases chose not to marry.

34. Gender Relations in the Global Economy
In the United States, the view that women should be excluded from all but domestic and childrearing roles has been culturally dominant, and remains so among many Americans.
More women than men may go to medical school, but they tend to take on less prestigious specializations after graduation.
Domestic violence and sexual harassment are significant problems based on a cultural pattern that values control over women.

35. 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.

36. 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 girl’s 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 woman’s death in childbirth.

37. 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 woman’s value and enhancing cultural cohesion, others speak out against it.

38. Bringing It Back Home: Female Genital Operations
You decide:
Should female circumcision be outlawed globally as a violation of women’s and children’s 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 Constitution’s freedom of religion clause?

39. 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?

40. Quick Quiz

41. 1. Which of the following does not describe anthropologists' involvement in studies of gender?
examination of evolutionary and historical changes in gender relations
an exclusive focus on women, children, and issues specific to women's lives
examination of how gender relations interrelate with other aspects of a society and culture

42. Answer: b
The following does not describe anthropologists' involvement in studies of gender:
an exclusive focus on women, children, and issues specific to women's lives

43. 2. Anthropologists refer to the observation that in nearly all world cultures men test and prove their manhood as
the androgyny complex.
the "manhood puzzle.”
androcentrism.
initiation.
the public/private dichotomy.

44. Answer: b
Anthropologists refer to the observation that in nearly all world cultures men test and prove their manhood as the "manhood puzzle.”

45. 3. Women's role in the economy of a society
may be improved by the introduction of new technology.
often changes, so they have more leisure time to spend with their children.
is often underestimated, so their status declines if machine technology is added.
improves with technology and with being paid in cash for their hard work.
diminishes as men take wage-labor jobs.

46. Answer : c
Women's role in the economy of a society is often underestimated, so that their status declines if machine technology is added.

47. 4. To say gender is "constructed" means:
most cultures have few expectations about behavior as it relates to gender.
masculine and feminine have different meanings (and associated behaviors) in different cultures.
gender differences are actually superficial, given other concerns of people's lifeways.
societies have developed ideas of two or more genders in planning their way of life.

48. Answer: b
To say that gender is "constructed" is to say that masculine and feminine have different meanings (and associated behaviors) in different cultures.