1. The Influence of Culture &
Socialization on Gender Roles
Margaret Mead in Papua New Guinea

2. Margaret Mead One of the most famous
anthropologists of the 20th century
Preeminent speaker of women’s
rights and a controversial author
Nature or Nurture?
PREDOMINANTLY NURTURE

3. Margaret Mead Traveled to Papua New Guinea
1931 to determine the extent to
which gender roles were the
product of genes or culture
- Published her findings in her book Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies

4. Mead’s Findings
- Found a different pattern of M/F behavior in each of the cultures she studied
All different from gender role expectations in the United States at that time.
3 Major Tribes Studied
1. Arapesh
2. Mundugumor
3. Tchambuli

5. Arapesh - When Mead arrived in 1931, the people had no official
name for themselves.
- She called them Arapesh
- Arapesh = the tribe’s word for “person”
Found that both males and females were conditioned
to be cooperative, unaggressive and empathetic.
Both men and women behaved more like what we
would consider feminine behavior

6. Arapesh

7. Mundugumor More Aggressive tribe living along the Yuat River
In Contrast to the Arapesh, the Mundgumor people
socialized their youth to be more “masculine”
- aggressive
- ruthless
- relatively unresponsive to needs of others

8. Mundugumor
A Mundugumor mother holding her baby rather indifferent to her own child.

9. Mundugumor

10. Tchambuli Tchambuli contrasted previous two
Arapesh = “standardized females”
Mundugmor = “standardized males”
Tchambuli = opposite of “western idea of gender”
Female
Dominant
Impersonal
Aggressive
Male
Dependent
Submissive

11. Tchambuli
A Tchambuli mother holding her child. Tchambuli women tend to take on the more “masculine” role in tribal society

12. You inherit your sex, but you learn your gender
Conclusions
According to Mead: human nature is flexible enough to rule out biological determination of gender roles
Gender roles are NOT fixed at birth
Individuals can be fairly easily socialized into the gender of the opposite sex
You inherit your sex, but you learn your gender

13. Conclusions “Male and female personalities are socially produced.”
Margaret Mead
American Anthropologist