Theoretical Approaches
to the Cross-Cultural Study of
Women
What is a Theory?
Definition: a
set of related
hypotheses
that provide a
better
explanation
than any
single
hypothesis.
You are using a theory if
you are dealing with any
of the following:
• Definitions
• Components of concepts
• Relationships between
concepts
• Attempts to model how a
system works
• Explanations
• Predictions
Components of a Theory
• Definitions for the central concepts
used for explanation or prediction
• Logical connections between concepts
to create a system of explanation
and/or prediction
• Explanation and/or prediction
• The development of assumptions that
affect the way a problem or issue is
viewed.
The World of Theories
• Theories can be based on logic, ideas or
belief without the use of empirical evidence
• Grounded theories are derived from
empirical evidence, and are continuously
tested against new empirical evidence
• Many different and sometimes conflicting
theories can coexist and be used for different
purposes
• Theories are the basis from which world
views are developed and changed
Theories about Gender
• Theories about gender come from many
disciplines including:
Anthropology
Biology
Feminist and/or Women’s Studies
Sociology
Political Science
Psychology
• Theories from these disciplines have been
shared and blended over the past 35 years.
Classical Theorists
Marx and Private Property
• agricultural and urbanized societies produce a surplus
Marx called private property.
• the bourgeoisie is a class of individuals who control
resources and accumulate surpluses as wealth.
• the proletariat is the working class who provide the
“social labor” through which resources become
products.
• the bourgeoisie controls the private property produced
from resources and social labor in the form of wealth
Classical Theorists
Marx and Private Property
Summary
All societies organize themselves
around the central struggle over the
control of private property; the
bourgeoisie fights to maintain their
control and the proletariat fights to
obtain control. This is “capitalism.”
Eisenstein
Revised Marx’s Theory of Private Property
to better explain gender stratification.
• Marx’s theory is not sufficient to explain why
women do not rise as fast as men to status and
wealth in the bourgeoisie.
• Marx’s theory is not sufficient to explain why
women’s social labor in the proletariat does
not give them equal status with men.
• The rise of capitalism must be combined with
an ideology of patriarchy to fully explain
gender stratification.
Vogel
Revised Marx’s Theory of Private Property
to better explain gender stratification.
• There are two modes aspects to production in
capitalist societies:
Production
Reproduction of the mode of production
(i.e. producing workers)
• While labor is the key to producing a surplus,
women will be controlled by men in order to
control their offspring = gender stratification.
• When reproduction of laborers is available
from other sources (e.g. migrant laborers),
then women do not need to be controlled.
World Systems Theory
Marxist-Inspired theory of global
economics and gender stratification
• The penetration of capitalism from Western
Europe throughout the world has resulted in three
types of societies:
Core (e.g.United States, Japan, France)
Semi-peripheral (e.g.Saudi Arabia, South Africa)
Peripheral (e.g.African, Latin American nations)
• Capitalist influence affects the social institutions
and structures of societies in these categories
differently.
Ward
Revised World Systems Theory to better
explain gender stratification.
The patriarchal nature and expectations of
capitalism must be taken into consideration.
• Core nations give control to men over
resources, economic opportunities, educational
and political institutions.
• Women are confined to precapitalist subsistence
farming and handicrafts that must compete with
industrialized products
• Access for women to participate in national and
global capitalism is limited to labor in the “global
assembly line” or low level service jobs.
Classical Theorists
Engels, Tylor and Morgan
Tylor and Morgan developed a theory that
explained the evolution of human culture in
three stages: savagery, barbarism, and
civilization.
Engels expanded their theory in ways that
explained the emergence of gender
stratification using some of Marx’s principles.
A Model of Engels’ Theory
Karen Sacks
Revised Engels’ theory to account for
modern anthropological data.
• Social labor is labor for use or appropriation
by someone of another household.
• Domestic work is labor done for one’s own
household.
• Doing social labor makes people “social
adults.”
• Those who do not do social labor are not
considered social adults.
Sacks . . . Con’t
• Property ownership does not, as Engels
proposed, constitute a sufficient cause for
gender inequity.
• The exclusion of women from social adulthood
on the basis of their lack of social labor does.
• As women increasingly contributed to social
labor, their status as adults improved.
• Ongoing responsibility for domestic work in
addition to social labor results in the
maintenance of lower social adulthood status
for women.
Rosaldo
Maternally-based division of labor leads to
gender stratification.
• Women give birth to and nurse children
• This leads to a universal division of labor
between men and women
• Women are in charge of activities that keep
them close to home and are interruptible – the
domestic sphere.
• Men are in charge of activities that take them
away from home for prolonged periods of time
and cannot be interrupted – the public sphere.
Rosaldo . . . Con’t
• Women’s status is ascribed; Men’s status is
achieved.
• Women’s domestic roles are uniform and not
hierarchically organized
• Men’s public roles are socially constructed,
and can be hierarchically organized.
• The more separate the domestic sphere is from
the public sphere, the less gender equality and
the more male dominance.
Weber
Focused on ideology rather than material
culture
• Believed collective systems of thought
(in our terms culture), especially religion,
are the basis of social and economic
institutions (eg. “the Protestant Ethic”)
• Social status through symbols rather than
economic class
• Authority as opposed to power
Power vs. Authority
Power is the ability to make
people do things
Authority is the right
given by society to make
people do things
Sanday
Expanded on Weber’s approach in
order to address gender stratification
• Each culture has a “sex-role plan” that specifies
how relationships between the sexes should be
structured based on worldview and origin myths
• There are two general types of sex- role plans:
Inner orientation = forces of nature are sacred
and associated with women (plant economies)
Outer orientation = forces of nature are
dangerous and must be controlled by men
(animal economies)
Sanday . . . Con’t
• Male dominance is a response to stress from
Technological complexity
Migration
Conflict with other societies
Natural threats and dangers
• Women will accept male dominance more
easily in the context of male dominance in the
myths and symbols of the society
Ortner
Nature vs culture and gender stratification
• Women are seen as having a closer relationship
with nature because they bear children.
• Men are seen as having a closer relationship with
culture, the means by which humans transcend and
control nature.
• Women create naturally; men must create
artificially.
• Women are close to nature, therefore they are part
of what must be transcended and controlled
• Women have less status in a cultural world.
Classical Theorists
Freud and Individuals
All gender differences arise through
developmental stages organized around sex
Oral Stage – gratification through oral stimulation 0-2
Anal Stage – gratification through control of bowels 2-3
Phallic Stage – conflict over attraction to opposite sex
parent (Oedipal and Electra Complexes) 3-5
Latent Stage – avoidance of opposite sex peers 5-12
Genital Stage – emergence of adult sexuality in teens
12+
A universal theory of human development.
Classical Theorists
Freud and The Origins of Culture
• The first human group was a family with a father, a
mother, sons and daughters.
• The father had sole access to the mother for sex.
• As they matured, the sons grew jealous and resentful of
their father, because of his monopoly on sex.
• The sons plotted to kill their father. They succeeded in
killing and eating him, then taking over sexual access to
their mother and sisters.
• Eventually, they were overcome with guilt over what
they had done to their father. They renounced sexual
relations with mothers and sisters, establishing the first
incest taboo, and the first real human culture that
differentiated humans from animals.
Kittay
Neo-Freudian Variation
Womb Envy leads to the need for
men to control women and
women’s fertility since they
cannot bear children themselves
(Menstruating men and Couvade)
Couvade
• From antiquity in Africa, China, Japan, India,
Basques of France and Spain
• South American groups such as the Caribs, the
Arawakan, the Guayapo, and the Northwestern
and Central GE of E Brazil,
• The man mimics the pain and process of
childbirth at the time his wife gives birth and
may expect her to wait on him in the following
days.
Menstruating Men: Wogeo (Melanesia)
• Men and women pollute one another when they come in contact.
• Females automatically purge male contamination when they
menstruate. Men must artificially bleed themselves to purge
female contamination. Men are not required to menstruate every
month.
• Blood lost due in menstruation in both sexes is considered polluted
and is not to be touched.
To menstruate, the male:
• eats nothing the morning of his menstruation
• wades out to knee-high waters in the ocean
• uses a crayfish or crab claw to cut the glans of the penis
• Keeps the blood from touching his body.
• goes to the men’s house when the cut stops bleeding
• remains secluded for two or three days.
Mead’s Symbolic Interactionism
A developmental theory based on social
learning through communication of roles
Three stages:
Play Stage– imitation of simplified roles
observed in adults
Game Stage – participation in complex games
that simulate life
Mature participation – ability to act out roles of
others in real life settings
Social Learning Theory
• Learning through modeling the
behavior of others using either
Direct learning
Vicarious learning
• Process influenced by rewards and
punishments meted out by others