Janet Carsten
After Kinship Ch 3
“Gender, Bodies, and Kinship
pgs 59-105
Anthropological Studies
In the Past
 What does Carsten say about past
studies of kinship and gender?
Anthropological Studies
In the Past
 Question: What does Carsten say
about past studies of kinship and
gender?
 Answer: Both kinship and gender
studies in anthropology were based
upon Western theories of biological
reproduction.
Carsten - After Kinship
Ch 3 “Gender, Bodies, and Kinship”
 What does Carsten propose be done
with kinship and gender studies in
anthropology?
Carsten - After Kinship
Ch 3 “Gender, Bodies, and Kinship”
 QUESTION: What does Carsten propose
be done with kinship and gender
studies in anthropology?
 ANSWER: Carsten says that kinship
studies need to be brought back into
the picture. She says an analysis of
gender needs to happen with an
analysis of kinship.
Carsten - After Kinship
Ch 3 “Gender, Bodies, and Kinship”
 QUESTION: Why does Carsten use the
Rom as an example in the reading?
 ANSWER:
Carsten - After Kinship
Ch 3 “Gender, Bodies, and Kinship”
 QUESTION: Why does Carsten use the
Rom as an example in the reading?
 ANSWER: She is saying that those
beliefs and practices that occur in the
house have implications in the public
world.
Carsten - After Kinship
Ch 3 “Gender, Bodies, and Kinship”
 QUESTION: What does Carsten say
about sameness and difference?
Carsten - After Kinship
Ch 3 “Gender, Bodies, and Kinship”
 QUESTION: What does Carsten say
about sameness and difference?
 ANSWER: She gives the example of a
culture (the Malay) who stress
similarities between men and women
(not differences).
Carsten - After Kinship
Ch 3 “Gender, Bodies, and Kinship”
 QUESTION: Why does Carsten bring up
the Druvidian kinship system in
Southern India?
Carsten - After Kinship
Ch 3 “Gender, Bodies, and Kinship”
 QUESTION: Why does Carsten bring up the
Druvidian kinship system in Southern India?
 ANSWER: She is arguing that there are
varying gradations of sameness and
difference, conceived in terms of kinship and
gender. Kinship and gender should be
studied together because they are linked.
Carsten - After Kinship
Ch 3 “Gender, Bodies, and Kinship”
 QUESTION: In Ch 3 what is Carsten’s
main argument?
Carsten - After Kinship
Ch 3 “Gender, Bodies, and Kinship”
 QUESTION: In Ch 3 what is Carsten’s
main argument?
 ANSWER: conceived in the broadest sense,
relatedness (or kinship) [or gender, or race,
or class] is simply about the ways in which
people create similarities or differences
between themselves and others.
Mallon - Gay Men Choosing Parenthood,
Ch 2“Creating a Family”
 QUESTION: What is gender-bound
labor?
 What does Mallon have to say about it?
 Do heterosexual couples differ from
homosexual couples?
Mallon - Gay Men Choosing Parenthood,
Ch 2“Creating a Family”
 QUESTION: What did Mallon have to
say about gay parents and
overcompensation?
Mallon - Gay Men Choosing Parenthood,
Ch 2“Creating a Family”
 QUESTION: How did the gay parent’s
social life change after adopting?
Mallon - Gay Men Choosing Parenthood,
Ch 2“Creating a Family”
 QUESTION: Do most of the gay couples
stay together in Mallon’s study?
Mallon - Gay Men Choosing Parenthood,
Ch 2“Creating a Family”
 QUESTION: In chapter two (Creating
Family) of Gerald Mallon's book Gay Men
Choosing Parenthood the main argument
was:
 ANSWER:
Mallon - Gay Men Choosing Parenthood,
Ch 2“Creating a Family”
 QUESTION: In chapter two (Creating
Family) of Gerald Mallon's book Gay Men
Choosing Parenthood the main argument
was:
 ANSWER: the fatherhood narratives dispel
the myth of "men can not nurture children"
and "father is breadwinner"
Mallon - Gay Men Choosing Parenthood,
Ch 2“Creating a Family”
 Yes, you know, I have seen the way gay men have
been challenged in this new parenting role. It’s just
a female, mommy-driven culture, early childhood.
And the lack of welcome for gay men in that culture
has got to be painful and extra challenging and
extra scary. I’ve seen that. I’ve been on those park
benches and playgrounds were its all the women,
the nannies and the moms, and a man comes in, and
there is this kind of distrust and bristling.”
Mallon - Gay Men Choosing Parenthood,
Ch 2 - “Creating a Family”
 PARENTING
 Adoptive or foster parents have a different
approach to parenting.
 They take it more seriously, according to
Mallon’s subjects.
 Dividing roles and duties – negotiating
gender and parenting
 One parent has legal rights, the other might
not
 The legal status of parent often makes him
the primary care giver.
 The other partner gets left out of many of
the decisions or is de facto secondary.
Mallon - Gay Men Choosing Parenthood,
Ch 2 - “Creating a Family”
 INVISIBLE DAD
 “In some ways I think I have gotten used to
being unrecognized, the invisible dad. But I
hate feeling that way, because, god knows, I
do my share of parenting. I really hate it
when someone asks, “Which one of you is
the real dad?” The kids have my partner’s
last name, so in some ways it is already set.
Its also becomes a challenge when I have to
sign something for the kids from school or
the doctor’s office- it really gets to me”
(Mallon 78)
TERMS - ethnocentrism
 The belief in the inherent superiority of
one’s culture.
 The belief that one's own race or ethnic
group is the most important and/or that
some or all aspects of its culture are
superior to those of other groups.
 Within this ideology, individuals will judge
other groups in relation to their own
particular ethnic group or culture, especially
with concern to language, behavior,
customs, and religion. These ethnic
distinctions and sub-divisions serve to define
each ethnicity's unique cultural identity
TERMS - Biologism
Use of biological principles in
explaining human especially social
behavior
The general tendency in western
cultures to constituting and
conceiving human character,
human nature and human behavior
in biological terms.
TERMS - Hegemony - Gramsci
 According to Antonio Gramsci the ruling classes will
use whatever means available to ensure its status.
 A hegemonic position is legitimized as a “common
sense”
 This consent is achieved through science and the
control of morality in society
 Scientific validation is a powerful form of social
control that ensures the continuation of hegemonic
structures
TERMS - genetization
A term coined by Abby Lippman
“Describes the trend in American
society toward a reductionist view of
humanity as a collection of genes”
Lippman’s definition: “Genetization
refers to an ongoing process by which
differences between individuals are
reduced to their DNA codes, with
most disorders, behaviors and
physiological variations defined, at
least in part, as genetic in origin”
TERMS - naturalization
Naturalization are cultural practices
that reify categories as essential,
different and discrete
Gender
Race
Family
Sex
Kinship is an example of
naturalization as knowledge
because kin ties are seen as
natural and primordial ‘facts.’
TERMS - “New” Reproductive
Technologies
 Frozen donor sperm has been available to
infertile couples since 1949.
 Men can “bank sperm” prior to undergoing chemo
or radiotherapy that might effect gametogenesis.
 Sperm banking when American servicemen were
about to depart for an uncertain fate during the
war in Iraq with potential exposure to chemicals
and radiation.
 Harvest immature eggs from ovarian biopsies
similar procedures for women who must undergo
radiation or chemotherapy
 Successful freezing of eggs remains challenging
and a technique that needs refinement.
TERMS - Reproductive Technologies
Artificial insemination by donor
Super ovulation
In vitro fertilization
Embryo flushing
Transfer and surrogate
motherhood
Sex predetermination
TERMS - Designer Baby
 Donor sperm, eggs, and embryos have
been employed to avoid transmission of
serious genetic disorders.
 Sex preselection useful to avoid certain
types of sex linked genetic disorders such
as Duchenne's muscular dystrophy and
hemophilia
 Gestational surrogacy has been employed
for women who are born without a uterus
or in whom the peculiar risks of pregnancy
pose serious threats to their own health.
TERMS - designer baby
 The term "designer baby" has been used in
popular scientific and bioethics literature to
specify a child whose hereditary makeup
(genotype) can be, using various reproductive
and genetic technologies, purposefully selected
("designed") by their parents.
 The term is usually used with derision, although
some social theorists.
 Transhumanist not only consider the notion of a
designer baby to be a responsible and justifiable
application of parental reproductive rights but
also an important next step in human evolution.
Research Papers
New Reproductive Technologies
DUE AUGUST 14
Research Papers - General Instructions
 Locate media coverage on one new
reproductive technology.
 You must locate several (3-5) news
stories so that you can compare the
coverage.
 The comparison of the different
representations is key to the analysis. For
example, compare how the Christian
Science Monitor represents the story of
egg donors versus Oprah or Newsweek.
 Your paper should focus on one issue such
as prenatal testing, genetic screening,
invitro-fertilization, surrogacy, or sex
selection technology.
Your paper must address the following:
 Apply theories learned in class.
 How would a particular theorist interpret
specific newspaper and magazine articles
or the events described within them?
 Choose 5 concepts from our readings and
films apply to your analysis.
 Changing ideas. How are new technologies
reforming ideas about family, community
and kinship?
 Short personal reflection. How do the
arguments presented in the readings add
to or change your own perspective on the
issues represented in the media?
Research
 Layne, L. ed. “Transformative
Motherhood: On Giving and Getting in a
Consumer Culture.” NYU Press.
 Franklin, S and Helena Ragone eds.
“Reproducing Reproduction: Kinship,
Power and Technological Innovation.” U
Penn Press.
 Becker, Gay “The Elusive Embryo: How
Women and Men Approach New
Reproductive Technologies.” U Cal. Press.
 Kahn, Susan “Reproducing Jews: A Cultural
Account of Assisted Conception in Israel.”
Duke.
Discourses of Reproduction
 In Western culture social constructions of
maternity have been firmly anchored in
the idea of women’s vulnerability.
 Giving birth was deemed as manifestation
of a woman’s need for assistance.
 Emily Martin argues that the human
body—- the uterus– is compared to a
mass-produced product such as a car.
 Martin views the body as an information
processing system with a hierarchical
structure for purposes of continuous
production.
 Medical texts describe the process of
birthing as “work in progress.”
In Vitro Fertilization
 1980s the introduction of methods such
as in vitro fertilization (IVF) and
gamete intrafallopian transfer (GIFT)
 Media representations reflected a bias
towards the technological perspective
of the treatment, investing physicians
with control over their patients since
these procedures are all lab-based.
 Physicians “life givers”
Press Coverage
 In her study of newspaper and magazine
coverage of reproductive technologies in the
late 1980s, Celeste Michelle Condit writes about
the manner in which the press constructed the
images of physicians as “life givers,” and even as
parents to these children.
 Press position women as dependent on others
when it comes to making medical decisions,
unlike the framing of abortion as a “woman’s
choice,” free of constraints.
 According to the press coverage, woman cannot
make decisions about life for herself but are
portrayed usually as the sole responsible party
for killing (the fetus).
 Condit CM. Media Bias for Reproductive Technologies. In: Parott RL,
Condit CM, eds. Evaluating Women’s Health Messages. Thousand
Oaks: Sage, 1996.
Our House
Growing up with Gay parents
 Our House – challenges to growing-up
with gay parents.
 How society normalizes certain
relationships and pathologizes others.
 What are some examples of daily,
mundane practices that are heteronormative.