1. Politics of Ethnography: Feminism and Anthropology
The Gendered nature of our fields has been left to women anthropologists to ponder and feminist scholars to critique, and even then their work has been largely ignored. Neither the burgeoning body of ethnographic literature by women writers nor feminist theorising about the difference gender makes have set the discipline agenda (Bell 1993: 1).

2. What is the relationship between feminism and anthropology?
Ignorance of contribution of women in the discipline
Anthropological genealogies(male oriented))
Their contribution to reflexivity (ignored or appropriated)

3. Women and reflexivity Powdermaker (1966) Mead (1977)
Personal experience (autobiography)

4. The Challenges from without
Minorities
Women
Decentred authority
Forced to become reflexive

5. The reflexive turn Crack in the Mirror by Myerhoff and Ruby 1982)
to examine a field problem
to examine anthropology itself
to look at anthropology as a tool for gathering data
to publicly examine the anthropologist's response to the field situation

6. On Australian Aboriginal Women
Male ethnographer…
Profane
Economically unimportant
Excluded
Marginal
Female ethnography…
Central role
Important in ritual
Respected
Non-marginal

7. Three layers Bias imported by the male ethnographer
The bias inherent in the society studied
The bias inherent in Western culture

8. Deconstruction of gender symbolism and sexual stereotypes
Men associated with culture and women with nature; physiology
Women social roles; domestic domains
Concept of pollution

9. Deconstructing the structure of male bias by
Focusing on women
Building data: about women by women
Reworking and redefining anthropological theory

10. Ardener (1975) and the theory of “Muted Groups”
control over modes of expression
Male dominated structures
--ways of communicating (linguistic concepts)
--ways of writing (mankind for humankind)
--dominant ideology
--different world views

11. Problems with the assumption of a privileged status (women studying women)
Ghettoization of feminist anthropology
--too specialized --image problem
The assumption of a universal category of “women”
--not the same in all cultures
Perception of ethnocentrism
--a bias in favor of one culture ( that of the woman anthrop)

12. Discussion Question
What are the advantages and disadvantages of a feminist anthropology in ethnographic knowledge?