Chapter 11

Gender in Comparative Perspective

Chapter Outline Cultural Construction of Gender Gender Crossing and Multiple Gender

Identities The Sexual Division of Labor Gender Stratification

Cultural Construction of Gender Sex is biologically determined. Gender is culturally determined. Different cultures have distinctive ideas

about males and females. These ideas define manhood/masculinity

and womanhood/femininity.

Hua of Papua New Guinea Patrilineal, horticultural people who live in

villages of 100 to 300 people. Gender is constructed based on female-

male differences that are not recognized by people outside of Papua, New Guinea.

The Hua believe that later in life each gender can become like the other in certain respects.  

Hua of Papua New Guinea Bodies contain a life-giving substance, nu. Females have an excess of nu - grow

faster, age more slowly and are unattractively moist.

Men contain a smaller amount of nu - have difficulty with growth and maintenance of vitality later in life, but are attractively dry.

Hua of Papua New Guinea

During intercourse: A woman transfers nu to her husband which

pollutes and debilitates him. The man contributes his nu to a woman so she

gains strength and vitality at his expense. The greater difference in nu between them, the

more dangerous a woman is to a man.

Nu Gender Classifications

In addition to male and female: Figapa - Their bodies contain substances

symbolically considered feminine. Kakora - Eligible to live in the men's

houses and to obtain the secret "male" knowledge gained during initiation ceremonies.

Figapa Children of both sexes - been in recent

intimate contact with their mother. Women in their child-bearing years. Post menopausal women who have not

had at least 3 children. Elderly men -female nu has been

transferred to them throughout their life.

 Kakora Males in their early teens through the

prime years who have been imitated. Postmenopausal women with more than

two children.

Multiple Gender Identities Many societies have more than two

gender identities. A third or fourth gender of "man-woman"

or 'woman-man" or "not woman - not man“.

Well documented among Native American peoples. 

Gender Crossing The adoption of social roles and

behaviors normatively appropriate for the opposite biological sex from one's own.

  Multiple Gender Identities The recognition, present in some cultures,

of more than two sexes, with the third and fourth identities often called by such terms as man-woman or woman-man.

Native Americans and Multiple Gender Identities More than 150 Native American cultures

had multiple gender identities for males, females, or both sexes.

Males adopted dress, tasks, family roles and other aspects of womanhood.

Females took on activities associated with manhood.

Characteristics of Third- and Fourth- Gender Identities A preference for the work of the opposite

sex and/or work set aside for the third- or fourth- gender identity.

Cross dressing, or dressing in a combination of male and female garments.

Characteristics of Third- and Fourth- Gender Identities Associations with spiritual power or a

spiritual sanction. Formation of sexual and emotional bonds

with members of the same sex, were not not men-women or women-men.

The Sexual Division of Labor The patterned ways in which tasks are

allocated to men and women. Division of labor on the basis of sex is

found in all cultures, although the specific tasks performed vary.

Gender (or Sex) Roles The rights, duties, and expectations one

acquires by virtue of one’s sex.

Factors in Sexual Division of Labor Physical strength - Work tasks requiring

greater strength are performed by males. Fertility maintenance - Prolonged physical

exercise can depress female fertility, so most strenuous tasks are done by males.

Child care - Women tend to perform tasks that can be combined efficiently with child care.

  Gender Stratification The degree of inequality between males

and females based on culturally defined differences between the sexes.

May be based on social status, and/or on access to resources, wealth, power or influence.

Componentsof Gender Stratification The social roles men and women perform. The cultural value attached to women's

and men's contributions to their families and other groups.

Access to positions of power and influence.

Componentsof Gender Stratification Control over personal decision making. Female deference to males. General beliefs and ideas about the

sexes.

Influences on Gender Stratification The greater the contributions women

make to the welfare of a group, the higher their status.

Ownership of resources and the control women have over the distribution of products of labor influences their status.

Women have higher status in matrilineal and/or matrilocal societies.

Quick Quiz

1. Gender:

a) and sex mean different things

b) refers to the roles maleness and femaleness have in a culture

c) is not fixed by your chromosomes

d) all of the above

Answer: d

All of the statements about sex are true. Gender and sex mean different things. Gender refers to the roles maleness and femaleness have in a culture. Gender is not fixed by your chromosomes.

2. Multiple gender identities, according to some anthropologists, include:

a) man-woman and woman-man genders

b) biological mutations of sex chromosomes

c) hermaphrodites

d) “neuters”

Answer: a Multiple gender identities, according to

some anthropologists, include man-woman and woman-man genders.

3. The sexual division of labor:

a) is changing in modern North America

b) is a cultural universal

c) of man the breadwinner and woman the homemaker is not a cultural universal

d) all of the above

Answer: d

All of the above statements about the sexual division of labor are true.