Gender
Notes
Gender is the cultural construction of whether one is female, male, or something else.
Gender roles are the tasks and activities a culture assigns by gender. They vary with environment, economy, adaptive strategy, and type of political system.
Gender stereotypes are oversimplified, strongly held views about the characteristics of males and females.
Gender stratification is the unequal distribution of social value by gender.
Matrilocality is residence after marriage with the wife’s relatives. In such societies, female status tends to be high.
The patrilineal-patrilocal complex is male supremacy based on patrilineality, patrilocality, and warfare.
Patriarchy political system ruled by men.
Gender inequality is spawned by patriarchy.
The feminization of poverty is increasing representation of women (and their children) among the poorest people.
Transgender is a gender identity that is socially constructed and individually performed by individuals. Their gender identity contradicts their biological sex at birth and the gender identity assigned to them in infancy.
Intersex is pertaining to a group of biological conditions reflecting a discrepancy between external and internal genitals. (hermaphroditism)
Cisgender is someone who still identifies with the gender assigned to them at birth.
To some extent, gender, sexual preferences, and even sexual orientation are culturally constructed.
Gender identity is a person’s identification by self and others as male, female, or something else.
Sexual orientation is sexual attraction to persons of the opposite sex (heterosexuality), same sex (homosexuality), or both sexes (bisexuality). Asexuality, indifference toward or lack of attraction to either sex.
Culture always plays a role in molding individual sexual urges toward a collective norm.
Think like an anthropologist
- If sex refers to biological and physiological characteristics, then gender refers to socially constructed roles. In turn, sexuality is sexual attraction to persons (the same or opposite sex). These concepts are closely related to each other since, based on sex, society assigns a particular gender, and specific sexuality is expected. Anthropologists are uniquely positioned to study the relationship between these three concepts as they explore the origins and evolution of the physical organization of humans, who have had the most varied characteristics of these three concepts.
- An example of a gender role: a woman is gentle, compassionate, caring, and is only engaged in maintaining the home and raising children. An example of a gender stereotype is toys and games for children – dolls for girls, cars and robots for boys. An example of gender stratification: the number of male politicians significantly exceeds the number of female politicians.
- The feminization of poverty – increasing representation of women (and their children) among poorest people. This trend is typical not only for a North American, but also for Japan, certain South Asian and southeast Asian countries, certain African countries, and the Caribbean. It is because the income of families of single women is half that of families of married couples. It follows that men earn more.
- Intersex and transgender are different concepts. Intersex is associated with congenital biological characteristics, while transgender is individually performed by individuals. Gender identity can change under the influence of biological, cultural, and personal factors.
- Etoro Male-female intercourse was otherwise discouraged. At the same time, sex acts between males were viewed as essential. Kelly’s study applies only to Etoro males and their beliefs. Etoro cultural norms prevented the male anthropologist who studied them from gathering comparable information about female attitudes and behavior.
Families, Kinship, and Descent
Notes
A nuclear family consists of parents and children, who typically live together in the same household.
An expanded family household is a household that includes a group of relatives other than, or in addition to, a married couple and their children.
There is the higher incidence of expanded family households among Americans who are less well off.
An extended family household is a household with three or more generations. It is the form of an expanded family household.
Descent groups include people who share common ancestry—they descend from the same ancestor(s). (“Children of Abraham,” “Wolves,” “Willow Trees,” or “People of the Bamboo Houses”)
Neolocality is the living situation in which a couple establishes a new residence away from their parents. For middle-class North Americans, it is both a cultural preference and a statistical norm.
The nuclear family is important in industrial nations and among foragers.
The descent group, by contrast, is the key kinship group among nonindustrial farmers and herders.
Unlike nuclear families, descent groups are permanent.
Attributes of descent groups: Exogamy (means to marry outside one’s group), descent group membership is determined at birth and is lifelong, unilineal descent Matrilineal or patrilineal descent.
Matrilineal and patrilineal descent are types of unilineal descent. That means they use only one line of descent – either the male or the female line.
Lineages and clans are two types of descent groups. Clans tend to be larger than lineages and can include lineages.
Patrilocality: Married couples reside in the husband’s father’s community so that the children will grow up in their father’s village.
Matrilocality: Married couples live in the wife’s mother’s community, and their children grow up in their mother’s village.
Ambilineal descent is a flexible descent rule, neither patrilineal nor matrilineal.
Like race and gender, kinship is culturally constructed.
Kin terms are the specific words used for different relatives in a particular culture and language.
Kin terms are cultural, rather than biological, categories (uncle). Genealogical kin types, by contrast, refer to biology to an actual genealogical relationship (Father’s brother).
Kin terms reflect the social construction of kinship in a given culture.
The four basic kinship terminologies for the parental generation are lineal, bifurcate merging, generational, and bifurcate collateral.
Think like an anthropologist
- At a basic level, kinship is vital in anthropology because kinship is essential to humans. The diversity of kinship relationships speaks of human diversity and the unusual relationships we build. Moreover, relationships between people often affect our language. Studying kinship can help understand human behavior.
- The expanded family, including the extended family, is the alternative to the nuclear family.
- Changing household composition is since women need to work. On the one hand, it removes them from their family of orientation while making it economically feasible to delay (or even forgo) marriage. On the other hand, living in an expanded family implies closer communication between family members, more favorable from the financial side, and easier parenting.
- I am a member of the nuclear family. Kin terms that I use compare with lineal kinship terminology.
- This is related to whether the maternal degree of kinship is shared with the paternal one. There are families in which maternal relatives are considered closer than paternal relatives. There are families in which both maternal and paternal relatives are considered equally important. Accordingly, different terminology is used for both types.
Work Cited
Kottak, Conrad. Anthropology: Appreciating Human Diversity. 18th ed., McGraw-Hill Education, 2019.