There is a strong tendency in anthropology for us to be interested mainly in how human characteristics are constructed through culture rather than through individual psychology or genetic dispositions. The reason for this is simple: if human characteristics are as they are because of psychology or genes, then anthropology may have little to add to the conversation. It’s more useful as a methodological strategy – by which I mean the systematic way that anthropologists approach a given topic such as race or gender – to make the assumption that what you are studying is culturally shaped, in which case anthropologists can make a contribution. Another way of looking at it is that in actual fact, the way people express gender or race or other basic features of human identity is quite different in different cultures. So anthropology must have something to contribute, since if only genetics or psychology were involved, then all humans should be more or less the same no matter where you look in the world. And this is observably untrue!

QUESTION

There is a strong tendency in anthropology for us to be interested mainly in how human characteristics are constructed through culture rather than through individual psychology or genetic dispositions. The reason for this is simple: if human characteristics are as they are because of psychology or genes, then anthropology may have little to add to the conversation. It’s more useful as a methodological strategy – by which I mean the systematic way that anthropologists approach a given topic such as race or gender – to make the assumption that what you are studying is culturally shaped, in which case anthropologists can make a contribution. Another way of looking at it is that in actual fact, the way people express gender or race or other basic features of human identity is quite different in different cultures. So anthropology must have something to contribute, since if only genetics or psychology were involved, then all humans should be more or less the same no matter where you look in the world. And this is observably untrue!

I’m going to talk about gender in a number of different ways. First, I’ll start by looking at differences in power between women and men. Do all societies make men superior to women? Are there societies in which the reverse is true? What about equality – are there societies in which being a man or a woman simply doesn’t matter? I’ll be using articles by Ernestine Friedl and Peggy Reeves Sanday as a basis for my discussion of these questions. Then second, I’ll look at a specific case study, women in Islam, both through the video Paradise Lies at the Feet of the Mother, and based upon an ethnographic article on veiling by Elizabeth Fernea, one of the foremost authorities on this subject. Finally, we’ll look at some changes in our own society in the way gender is perceived and “performed,” and reasons why these changes have occurred in recent years.

Ernestine Friedl: Society and Sex Roles

Ernestine Friedl wrote a well-known article that takes up a very basic issue in human societies: are there societies in which women and men are equal, or are all human societies male-dominant? I note that Friedl’s position on hunter-gatherers is somewhat different from the one that I have already presented as that of Richard Lee, but it’s good for you to hear both sides of the debate, and it’s also useful to see how far Friedl’s insights can be applied to other societies as well.

Friedl argues that in hunter-gatherer societies, meat and plant foods are distributed differently. Meat is distributed publicly while plant foods are distributed only within a relatively restricted family network. Thus, she claims, in foraging societies where men distribute more meat, they are more likely to dominate women. Friedl gives several examples to illustrate her point, including the !Kung San.

Friedl’s position is at least partly right. The distribution of meat does get more attention in foraging societies, probably to help motivate the men who so often fail to hunt successfully. This doesn’t necessarily translate into an across-the-board position of male dominance, however. Leadership, as I have mentioned, is more situational than that, and there are typically no overall leaders (and not exclusively male leaders) in hunter-gatherer societies, with the possible exception of the hunters of the far north such as the Inuit.

The general principle she brings up, however, is a very important one. In societies where there is a public/collective sphere of action, in other words a single arena in which everyone in the society participates to a degree, then who has access to that public sphere of action matters. The exclusion of women from public recognition can damage their social standing. Many anthropologists think that foraging societies don’t really “count” because, by and large, they don’t have a public sphere at all. Most social life among hunter-gatherers is carried out among small groups of kin. For the !Kung San, for instance, the only important traditional sphere of public action was healing during the trance dance. Although more men than women acted as healers, nevertheless both women and men had their own versions of the dance, and both were publicly recognized.

What about the public/collective sphere of action in societies other than hunter-gatherer societies? Let’s consider pre-industrial farming societies first. We know several things about these societies that may be relevant. First of all, for most farming societies property – land, animals, tools, storage facilities – is important. Second, most farming societies engage in at least some organized violence to maintain control over their property. Third, farming societies tend to set up fairly large, elaborated kinship networks to manage property and pass it along to the next generation of farmers. Fourth, farming societies tend to create alliances for political, military, and economic purposes through the manipulation of marriage, which involves both women and men as potential political resources. Finally, farming societies are typically at least a little bit more centralized than foraging societies, while some of them are a great deal more centralized. This degree of centralization, whether slight or great, means that there will in fact be some sphere of public action, so access to publicly valued resources is important. Thus centralization and stratification are closely related: in a centralized society, some people have more access to important resources than others. These resources may be tangible, such as goods available for distribution at feasts, or they may be intangible, such as attention and approval, or they may be networking resources, such as the capacity to control who marries whom. How does this affect women’s status in these societies?

Peggy Sanday: Male Dominance and Female Autonomy

Peggy Sanday has built on Friedl’s pioneering work by writing about the roles of women and men in farming societies. Sanday argues that there are two main factors that affect the relationships of women and men in most societies. One of these is the degree of male violence in a given society; here she means both male violence directed towards women and male violence as a component of organized politics in that society. The other is the degree to which women participate in and control public resources, which may be either tangible or symbolic in nature. Another way to look at this second point is to ask whether women have a sphere of independent public action which is important both to them and to men, i.e., the society wouldn’t operate properly if women didn’t complete their role in the public sphere. I’ll talk about each of these two points in turn.

Sanday’s first point is about male violence. Male violence towards women is pervasive in many societies, including our own. In quite a few societies this sort of violence has become institutionalized, e.g., as Friedl suggests, Yanomamo men routinely assault, injure, or even kill their wives as a display of male ferocity designed to gain the respect of other men. Sanday did a landmark ethnographic study of gang rape in American fraternities that reminded us of the institutionalized aspects of male violence against women even in our own culture.

Male violence as a component of organized political life – men as leaders in war and as warriors – is important in many farming societies, as I’ve indicated above. The exclusion of women from violent roles correspondingly reduces their political efficacy and public standing. Why does this exclusion of women occur?

We know that at least part of this inaccessibility of roles of violence to women arises from the gendered division of labor, by which I mean the expected routine activities of women and men in any society. Judith Brown pointed out that since women typically take care of children in most societies, their daily activities must be set in a context that is nonviolent, relatively close to home, easily interruptible, and not requiring great concentration. None of this is compatible with women as warriors!

There are societies where women participated in war, but not many until modern times when alternative arrangements for child care became widely available. Even now women’s participation in warfare is seen as suspect in the United States, though there are countries such as Israel where it is perceived as nonproblematic. It’s worthwhile to note that where standing professional armies (as opposed to citizen volunteer armies) engage in most of the warfare, the pressure on women to be active in the military sphere as a precondition of their participation in politics is diminished considerably, and women regain much of their capacity for public participation. This is, of course, true of most modern countries in the world today.

Sanday’s second point is about women acting independently in the public sphere. Besides warfare, Sanday pointed out that women’s participation in the public sphere depends on their control over other resources that are deemed important in a given society. For instance, in many societies women must perform certain rituals associated with the growth of crops, the succession of leaders (male or female) to political office, or the ability of the living to communicate with the dead. Because these activities are considered crucial and because they require women’s involvement, women derive some leverage from their participation in the public realm. Classic examples of this sort of public activity come from Native American cultures such as the Iroquois or Huron, where women were extremely active in political deliberation and religious celebrations, or in West African societies such as the Igbo or Yoruba, where women controlled many important political offices and where women were often more active than men in the marketplace, managing their own businesses on which men were dependent.

I note, finally, that as a rule of thumb – Sanday makes this point quite clear – the symbolic associations and myths associated with women and men are often a good guide to the role that each gender will play in public. Where women are despised as inferior, created as an afterthought, or defined by ritual pollution (often the case in South American or New Guinea cultures), they are also unlikely to play a large role in public life. Where women are central to origin stories, or where they have their own symbolic and mythical sphere of significance that is separate from that of men (as is true in the Southwestern United States or in many cultures of South and Southeast Asia and Indonesia), women are likely to play a public role – particularly in key religious performances – that makes them if not entirely equal to men, at least not entirely dominated by them in a cultural sense.

Thus, Sanday thinks that to the extent that women (a) participate in warfare or at least are not the victims of systematic male violence, and (b) have their own important resources – material or symbolic – which allow them to operate independently of men in the public arena, their social standing will be higher. Now let’s look at a more specific ethnographic example, women in Islam.

Women in Islam

I’ve taken the role of women in Islam as an interesting and important example of the gendered patterns of culture, particularly because it is so current in the media and in the awareness of Americans of Islam as a religion. The video Paradise Lies at the Feet of the Mother gives an excellent and diverse perspectives on women’s roles in Islamic cultures. While I don’t intend to repeat everything that is in the video, I do want to call your attention to some things you should observe as you view it.

First of all, please notice that the formal legal status of women in Islam is relatively high, and in fact for hundreds of years the status of Muslim women was higher than that of Christian women:

• Women (Mohammad’s wife and daughter in particular) were prominent in the founding of Islam;
• Islamic family law requires men to treat women with “kindness”;
• Men are obligated to take care of the needs of their wives physically and financially;
• Muslim women can own and inherit property in their own right;
• Though there is some debate, most believe that Muslim women can own businesses and are entitled to work outside the home;
• Women can testify in court;
• Muslim women in most countries cannot be obliged to marry against their will;
• Women are entitled to religious instruction and to pray;
• Muslim women relate directly to Allah just as men do and are accountable for their own sins;
• Women are entitled to an education;
• Women can vote and hold public office.

Second, however, this list doesn’t answer important questions:

• It is typically easier for a man to divorce a woman than vice-versa;
• Some countries place a limit on women’s mobility, e.g., driving, traveling, or working with men;
• “Honor killings” and especially domestic violence occur with some frequency in Muslim societies;
• Women are often not seen as being entitled to as much inheritance, or as much education as men;
• Arranged marriages do occur, and men have a theoretical right (rarely exercised) to have more than one wife;
• In most Islamic countries, women do not enjoy political rights proportionate to their numbers;
• In some Islamic countries of Africa, genital mutilations such as clitoridectomy or infibulation are ritually practiced to control women’s sexuality, often with dire health effects.

At the same time it must be recalled, of course, that domestic violence is far from unknown in Christian countries, and that women are often at a severe disadvantage in the workplace or the political realm even in the United States, so we have to take all this into account in context.

I think what is important here is to realize that although there is a formal theological body of doctrine called “Islam,” any particular culture will interpret Islam in its own way. The video points out that urban Muslims in Egypt are quite different from rural Muslims in their attitudes towards women, and that Muslims from Arab cultures are likely to be far more conservative than Muslims from Asian cultures such as Indonesia. I note also what many people forget: the great majority of Muslims are not Arabs: many of the largest Muslim countries in the world are nonArab – e.g., Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria; Iranians and Turks typically define themselves as non-Arabs as well. Overall, only 15% of Muslims in the world are Arabs!

There is a historical component as well as a political component to the treatment of women in Islamic countries: individual cultures are likely to swing back and forth from conservative to liberal interpretations of women’s roles, depending on which party is in power and what “culture wars” are being waged. For instance, Nigeria used to be quite liberal, but now has become quite conservative. Iran changes periodically from liberal to conservative and back again. Indonesia has become more conservative, but not a great deal. Turkey has become increasingly liberal. Afghanistan was very conservative under the Taliban regime, then became more liberal when the Taliban were kicked out, but now is in the process of becoming more conservative again as the Taliban re-establish themselves.

Let’s take the issue of veiling as an example of cultural influence and cultural understanding of the role of women and men in Islam. My remarks about veiling are based on the work of Elizabeth Fernea, one of the most prominent Middle Eastern anthropologists.

The image that many Westerners hold is of women as controlled and secluded from public view, forced to wear ugly, confining clothing (hijab, burkah, etc.) to satisfy the men’s sense of honor. But the truth is more complicated than this:

• Many women believe that veiling as a practice preserves their dignity and demonstrates that they should be treated for who they are rather than merely as sex objects;
• Why, after all, should only Western women get to define what counts as fashionable? This is, for many Muslim women, ethnocentric and the remnants of colonial dominance;
• Veiling protects women’s right to privacy, particularly when they are going about their own business (or conducting love affairs!);
• Veiling is a public declaration of a Muslim woman’s relationship to Allah, and her status as a “true believer”;
• Veiling has been seen as a political statement – Egypt is a well-known example – in which Western values are being rejected and more traditional and independent cultural values asserted.

In addition, it’s important to realize that veiling practices are not as uniform as Westerners tend to believe. Veils can be partial as well as complete, the veils can be of different materials, decorative schemes, and may actually be seen under some circumstances as seductive rather than restrictive. Rules about wearing or removing a veil differ from one culture to another and from one situation to another, so the practice of veiling identifies or aligns women with specific groups of males, including kin, family, friends, and neighbors. Finally, men have dress and appearance codes (the wearing of a beard or a head cover would be examples) that parallel women’s rules about veiling, and are observed for many of the same reasons. In some cultures of North Africa, men wear veils as well as a protection against witchcraft!

So I guess the overall points to remember here are that each symbol of women’s or men’s status must be placed in its own specific cultural context to understand it. It’s hard to decide what counts as a signal of male dominance, and it’s also relatively rare to encounter a culture in which men are totally dominant over women in every part of daily life. That said, it’s also clear that male dominance in the ordinary sense of the term is still fairly widespread in the world, but that cultural changes seem to tend towards greater equality.

Gender roles in the United States

I will close with a few remarks about the changing gender roles in the United States. I think that the basic facts are there to see: even within the past fifty years or so, there has been a very close relationship between the large-scale movement of women into the workplace and the participation of women in public culture in the United States. This is entirely consistent with the arguments made by Friedl and Sanday that I have outlined above.

In the United States, women now make up a majority of those who are being educated in professions formerly dominated by men such as law, medicine, business, and some of the natural and clinical lab sciences. Women have attained formal legal equality in most respects, and participate freely in political life.

But we shouldn’t confuse the formal equality of women with actual practice and achievements. Women still get paid far less than men, and are far less likely to become chief executives of major corporations. Women are still in practice largely excluded from many prestigious professions such as engineering or mathematics. Few women are elected to high public office, or can attract the kind of funding they would need to run successfully for office (the fact that there are prominent exceptions doesn’t contradict the overall generalization!). Women are far more likely to be impoverished by divorce or single parenthood, and are much more likely to be the victims of assault in the home. Women’s activities – women’s sports is a prime example – typically receive less attention and support than men’s.

And one thing that we must not ever forget: in almost every respect – economic, educational, political, health-related, to name a few –  minority women have failed to share in the advances made by white women. In a lot of ways the United States lags behind other “advanced” countries in providing for the needs of women. So before we get too judgmental about Muslim women, or too smug about the real advances made by American women, again we need to place things in their proper context.

ANSWER

The passage you provided discusses the anthropological perspective on gender and its construction through culture. The author emphasizes that anthropology focuses on how human characteristics are shaped by culture rather than individual psychology or genetic dispositions. This is because if human characteristics were solely determined by psychology or genetics, anthropology would have little to contribute to the conversation.

The author argues that anthropology takes a methodological approach by assuming that the characteristics being studied, such as race or gender, are culturally shaped. This assumption allows anthropologists to explore and contribute to the understanding of how gender is expressed differently in different cultures.

The passage then introduces the works of Ernestine Friedl and Peggy Reeves Sanday, who provide insights into gender dynamics in different societies. Friedl’s work highlights the role of meat distribution in hunter-gatherer societies and its correlation with male dominance. Sanday builds on Friedl’s work and identifies two main factors affecting gender relationships in societies: male violence and women’s participation in and control of public resources.

The passage also discusses women in Islam as a specific case study. It mentions that women in Islam have a relatively high formal legal status, but there are still important questions and challenges regarding women’s rights and equality within different Islamic cultures. The author points out the complexity and diversity of veiling practices in different contexts and argues that cultural interpretation plays a significant role in understanding gender roles.

Finally, the passage briefly touches on the changing gender roles in the United States, acknowledging progress in terms of education and political participation for women but also highlighting persistent inequalities and challenges faced by women, particularly minority women.

In summary, the passage emphasizes the cultural construction of gender and the importance of considering diverse cultural contexts when analyzing gender dynamics. It highlights the contributions of anthropology in understanding how gender roles are shaped by culture and the need to contextualize gender issues in specific societies.