Chapter 3: Ancestors and Neighbors
Social Construction of Gender at
Other Times, in Other Places
Course Number: Gender Studies 100
Women, Men, and Society
Annette Schonder
Orange Coast College
Division of Social Sciences
Department of Sociology
Intro
What were men and women like 5 million years ago?
The caveman/ape-like, club-wielding
The cavewoman/mentioned on the side/bearer of children/stirring
the pot.
This popular theory is being challenged.
Bones and Stones: The Archeological Record
There is no definitive theory of human origin and evolution:
Behavior leaves no fossils
Many parts of human life will decay-flesh, plant materials, objects
made from biodegradable materials
What remains are stone and bone
-> origin myths
Bones and Stones:
Archeologists and Anthropologists have the following account:
Man the hunter:
12-28 mill years ago/apes left the tress due to climate changes
They adapted with bipedalism: walking upright
Bodies changes/pelvis smaller/head larger ->females birthed at
earlier stages->became incapacitated taking care of dependent
offspring
-> male the breadwinner
Bones and Stones
Men: Breadwinner/ Man the hunter theory
Due to spread of indigestible grasses in new savanna habitat ->
meat became a central part of the early human diet.
Needed to cooperate, banded together -> language/tools
Kill was shared/women cooked
This division helped in the struggle for survival and procreation
Over time men and women developed different personality traits:
Women empathic, nurturing, dependent
Men daring, unemotional, aggressive
Bones and Stones:
Man the hunter theory:
Very similar to gender relations in industrialized nations:
Biased
1. ethnocentrism: to view the world through our cultural lens
Such division of gender is not universal, nor consistent through
history
This implies that our gender relations are correct and appropriate
as it appears adaptive and natural
2. androcentrism: male centered
Language, tools, competition, cooperation, material technology is
seen as contingent upon the hunter role -> women only had
children/cooked
Bones and stones:
Feminist Perspective:
Apes came down to expand their habitat/avoid competition
Ate a variety of foods/nuts, plants, fruit, seeds, small animals, eggs
Bipedalism: was to free the hands for food gathering/finding
Yes, due to bipedalism offspring came earlier/were dependent, but this causes
women to be more innovative in gathering food, making baby carriers (no longer had
fur for baby to cling to), making carriers for food
Women not passive childbearing cooks, but inventors of tools and providers
->new gender attribution
Who did what with which tools
Many tools were interpreted as cooking tools for vegetarian diets -> we might not
have been the hunting, meat eating society but gatherers
Women the gatherer vs. man the hunter ->
Gynecentrism: women centeredness
Bones and stones:
We need to look at larger question of how labor was divided
See that many roles overlapped
See women and men as a community
See that women also made art
Feminists describe men and women not just as gendered, but as
active human actors
Our Primate Relatives:
Primatology: research on living, nonhuman primates
We have close genetic ties to chimpanzees and bonobos
We try to learn about our history from them
Problems: many species, many social arrangements (40% female dominant),
many behaviors
Most primate groups are matrifocal: life is centered around the mother/female,
most are related biologically or socially
Chimps and bonobos: leadership shifts frequently
Size does not determine dominance
Males chimps may try to intimidate female chimps into mating, females typically
initiate sexual activity and may chose several mates who must wait for their turn
Are omnivorous
Females find their own food/feed offspring/sharing does occur
Women and Men Elsewhere: Are Western
constructions of Gender Universal?
Margaret Mead
New Guinea
Nurturing, timid men
Women aggressive and competitive
All known societies have a division of labor by sex/age the kind
of work varies dramatically
In some cultures women building houses/men building houses
Most cultures women cooking, some cultures men do the cooking
In a few societies women do metalwork, lumbering, hunting
Agta/Phillippines women hunt deer and wild pigs w
knives/bows/arrows
Some say men more violent/some say women equally aggressive
(especially when competitiveness and verbal abuse is considered)
Gender Relations in contemporary foraging
societies
Hunter-gathering society
Often, men hunt large animals/deep sea fishing
Women primary responsibility for gathering/hunting small
animals, cooking, home building, childcare
Most societies have considerable overlap/crossover in roles (no
shame)
Wide range in of gender relations
Some society gender relations highly egalitarian
Show group life characterized by cooperation and reciprocity in
which both sexes contribute to survival
Many societies had a division of labor without devaluing the
roles women played/see each other with same worth
Child rearing and nurturing is socially defined-not just biological
destiny
Multiple Genders:
We have a gender dichotomy: male vs. female
Other societies have multiple genders:
Berdache of some Asian, South Pacific, and North American
Indian societies
Individuals who adopt the gender behavior ascribed to
members of the opposites sex. There are female berdaches,
but most research has focused on men
Live as members of the opposite sex, often specialists for tasks
of both sexes
Mohave: allowed man and women to cross genders. boys who
preferred girl behavior had an initiation ceremony at puberty
and became alyha. ->feminine names, painted their faces
as women id, performed female tasks, and married men.
When they married, cut thighs to mimic menstruation, went
through the birth of a fictitious stillborn
Multiple Genders:
Mohave Women:
Initiation ceremony to become hwame
Dressed and lived like men, hunted, farmed, became shamanswere not allowed leadership and participation in war fare
Took paternal responsibility for children
No stigma attached to alyha or hwame
Zuni berdaches, Ihamana, American Indian nation
Cross dressing routine, public, no erotic motives
Some were hetero, homosexual or oriented toward other
berdaches. Seen as becoming what they are. Small children
called child-not boy or girl.
Western influence brought shame as their way of life was
condemned.
Multiple genders:
We see the fluidity of gender and the creativity of humans.
Gender, Evolution, and Culture
Man the hunter theory
Feminist theory drawing on archeological records, pimatology,
ethnographies studies of pre-industrial societies
- gynecentrism -> putting females at the forefront
->new perspective -> balanced view of men and women living
cooperatively in social communities as interdependent people
Gender is to be seen as socially constructed and fluid.