Ortner-Whitehead, Sexual Meanings- Introduction
Goal: to elucidate the culture (symbols, meanings, ideologies) of gender
Focus: on gender and sexuality as cultural (symbolic) constructs
Explore: sources, processes, and consequences of construction and organization of gender and
sexuality
methodological approach:
 culturalist: a gender symbol can be understood through an appreciation of its place in a
larger system of symbols and meanings.
top-down
(making sense of sex and gender symbols in terms of other cultural beliefs, classifications,
assumptions)
 recognizes the sociological approach
(focusing and exploring the effects of political, economic and social organizational
arrangements such as kinship-marriage)
bottom-up
(- which aspects of social relations have greater influence upon the shape of gender
ideology than others
- how certain types of social orders tend to generate certain types of cultural perceptions of
gender and sexuality)
Prestige structures (social honour or social value):

the mechanisms by which individuals and groups arrive at given levels or positions,
&

the overall conditions of reproduction of the systems of statuses
aspects:
a) A gender system is a prestige structure itself
b) Prestige structures in any society tend toward a symbolic consistency with one another
c) Gender constructs are partly functions of the ways in which male prestige-oriented
actions articulates with structures of cross-sex relations.
a) A gender system is a prestige structure itself
simple societies →
men
men
junior women
more complex societies→ gender formal social organizational principle
(boys who are not sporty and masculine → like a girl)
b) Prestige structures in any society tend toward a symbolic consistency with one another
harmonized with other prestige orders: nature/culture or two more fused (age/gender),
caste/class/rank/gender, occupational specialization
c) Gender constructs are partly functions of the ways in which male prestige-oriented
actions articulates with structures of cross-sex relations.
other-than gender-prestige hierarchies are male games
men → defined according to their role (warrior, statesmen)
simple societies → big man (women wards)
more complex societies → statesman, Brahmin, elder
women → defined in relation to men (wives, mothers)
not as a result of domestic/public domains but
sphere of prestige relations
domestic = female (childtenders, hostesses)
domestic ≠ female (mothers, wives)