Sex, Gender and the Body: Cross-Cultural Approaches to
the Body, Gender, Sexuality and Kinship
ANTH2170 – Fall/Winter 2011/2012 – Karen McGarry
Lecture 3 – The Animal Body – Sept 21
Last Week:
- Nature/nurture debate in anthropology.
o Nature theories were helped by evolutionary thinkers at the time.
- Problematic role of science in promoting the body and human behaviours as
natural.
Researchers Attempt to ‘Prove’ the Naturalness of Human Behaviours and Bodies:
- By using evolutionary paradigms to explain human behaviour.
- Through animal studies.
- Evolutionary paradigms to ‘prove’ the naturalness of gender.
Franz Boas
- Cultural relativism.
- Historical particularism.
Physical Anthropology
- Family hominidae.
o i.e. humans.
o Often time, within this family, we include humans, human ancestors,
fossils, chimps, gorillas, etc.
 Primates that don’t have tails.
o Habitual bipedalism – walking at least some of the time on two feet.
- ‘Man the hunter’; ‘woman the gatherer’ (published 1968).
o Around the 1970’s people started asking things along the lines of
gendered role distinction.
o They felt and assumed that there was a gendered distinction in terms of
labour in most societies.
 Men seemed to be the one’s doing the hunting in any given society.
 They felt this was a cultural universal – this lead them to
believe that there must be a genetic evolutionary reason for
this – that this was adapted in an evolutionary sense.
 Women seemed to be the gatherer – collecting wild fruits, plants
and supplementing the main diet of meat.
 They argued that hunting by many of our early ancestors stimulated
the evolution of hominids.
- Washburn and Lancaster in 1960s – 1970s.
- Argued that hunting stimulated hominid evolution.
Washburn and Lancaster argued:
- That bipedalism led to:
o Hands free.
o Tools can be made, which increased brain size.
 Tools can be used for hunting and for slaughtering animals.
o Large animals can be hunted/slaughtered.
o Hunting parties – needed language to communicate as a group.
 A great degree of planning and communication skill.
 You need a plan and everyone would have a specific role.
 Human like sort of traits.
Critique by Feminist Scholars against Washburn and Lancaster
- Sally Slocum
o Believes that Washburn and Lancaster composed a theory that is very
male oriented and gives females and inferior role in human evolution.
o It’s just as probably, that if women were out gathering, they would need to
be bipedal because they would need to develop and use tools and be
hands free.
o Argues that Washburn and Lancaster underestimated the use of protein
consumption.
o Chimps and gorillas are known to eat meat but it’s a very small proportion
of food. Washburn and Lancaster are assuming that our ancestors were
simply mostly eating meat.
o Projecting contemporary ideas of food habits into the past.
o A lot of human evolutionary models that try to root gender roles in human
evolution seek to create essentialist or universalizing narrative.
 Over simplifying explanation that overarches.
 An explanation that ignores a lot of human diversity.
 Example: Washburn and Lancaster were assuming that men
in all societies are the ones who do the hunting.
o Women do hunt in different societies around the
world.
o E.g. Agta (Philippines); aka Central African Republic;
some Australian aboriginal groups.
o In North American today, hunting as a hobby is
experiencing more growth among women than men.
o Female chimps hunt.
Man the Hunter
- But women do hunt!
- In North America today, hunting as a hobby is experiencing more growth among
women than men.
- Female chimps hunt.
Problems
- Sought to create essentialist ‘universalizing narratives’.
- Ignored human diversity.
- Projection of dominant, andocentric ideas into the past.
-
Ultimately, in erroneously rooting cultural phenomena (e.g. gender, race) in
biology or evolution – contemporary social/political implications.
The Problems with Nature:
- Eugenics: manipulating human genes to ‘improve’ a populations’ gene pool.
o Getting rid of whomever society deems a problem or undesirable.
 People that are believed to be less intelligent, etc.
o Coined by Francis Galton.
- Sir Francis Galton, 1873.
o A half-cousin of Charles Darwin.
o Also coined the term nature vs. nurture.
o Lived from 1822-1911.
o Interested in appropriating Darwin’s ideas to discuss social evolution.
o He looked at whether intelligence was hereditary.
- John LaBruzzo – a republican representative for Metarie, LA.
o He wanted to come up with a solution to Hurricane Katrina.
o In his words, there was a welfare problem.
 His concern was that birth rates were too high in welfare.
 He offered women $1000 if they agreed to be sterilized.
- Examples: mass sterilization initiatives.
o Hitler:
 1930s sterilization of ‘undesirable’ women;
 1940s mass murder of those labelled ‘undesirable’ or ‘threatening’
to the purity of the so-called Aryan race.
 1933 the nazi party passed a law; gave them the power to sterilize
anyone who seemed to be ‘mentally diseased’.
 Women who were considered to be undesirable, by virtue of
things like class, or prostitutes.
- Example of mass sterilization initiatives – Alberta and B.C. of certain groups until
1972 (Alberta) and into 1980s (B.C.).
Animal Studies: What Can We Learn About Our Own Behaviour From Studying
Animals?
- Nature theories become popularized through animal studies.
o Different kind of animals but not only the ones that share the same genetic
material as humans.
Why Animals?
- Assumption that they are closer to ‘nature’ and that their behaviours are thus
natural – based upon instinct or genetically hardwired.
- Problems?
o Basically says that human behaviours are not natural.
o The animals may or may not have a culture of their own.
o Trying to disentangle the distinction between natural or unnatural actions.
- Lancaster says that ‘nature is what we make it’.
- The natural sciences can also be shaped by culture:
o Scientists themselves are shaped by culture in terms of how to present
their data, and what kind of questions they ask.
Problems with Using Animal Studies:
- Animal studies often ignore the fluid nature of animal communities and
importance of context.
o E.g. Indian Grey Langur
- Humans attribute human motivations to animals (we anthropomorphize them),
we deny the cultural forces that shape various practices, then we read these
actions back as ‘nature’.
- Human practices – describe animals – then animal behaviours – describe human
behaviours.
- Researchers often make selective associations with animals, we ‘pick and
choose’ what behaviours they want to emphasize.
- Ignores cultural implications.
Conservative, Mainstream Behaviours Labelled as ‘Natural’:
- And by extension… Normal, with an ‘ontological priority’.
- E.g. P.38 Martha McCaughey.
‘Anyone questioning the natural and therefore privileged status of
heterosexuality today is likely to meet up with an evolutionary narrative:
After all, how could the human species survive without heterosexuality?’