CH.12 people

Ortner

Stated that women's lower status is universal. she observed that the roots of the female subordinationlay in the distinction all societies make between nature and culture. women are assigned symbolically to nature because of their role in childbearing, and thus viewed as uncultured and uncivilized. men on the other hand are associated with symbolically with culture and thus viewed as culture civilized and superior. she believed in symbolically assigning women to the category "nature" and men to "culture"

kirk and endicott

are generally egalitarian in their gender roles to the extent that the bands they lived with during their fieldwork had a woman as its headman. However, such cases are unusual.

leacock

argued that among the Montagnais-Naskapi women enjoyed equal status with men, held political power, practiced spiritual leadership, and controlled important economic activities before the arrival of the Europeans. eventually, the Montagnais-Naskapi developed a cultural view of women as inferior and subordinate.

Hughes

argued that ants should not study social problems but also have ethical imperative to help alleviate the suffering and preclude the violence they witness during course of their research. she has seen the violence and suffering that some transgender-identified ppl experience bcus of their identity. valentine sometimes confronted hostility from transgender-identified individuals who were suspicious of him as a researcher and advocate. social scientific representations of transgender ppl have tended to objectify them as pathological and exotic. although these representations, some argue have themselves caused suffering and pain bcus they influence how powerful social institutions treat and control transgender ppl. valentine considers his research important for helping transgender ppl gain social and political recognition,, he is afraid that his data and conclusions might cause suffering, or even be construed as violent bcus of the sensitive stories they recount of transgendered ppls lives. he found that ppl of color and the poor often had a different experience and notion of being transgender than did white middle class. many of the former did not know what "transgender" meant and others rejected the term as too wide a label, lumping ppl with different issues. valentine realized that in their efforts to build a community and identity based on gender variance, transgender activists were ignoring how other powerful social differences with gender and created suffering of their own among individuals in poor and minority communities. he argues that "transgender' is formed on an implicitly middle class model of identity based on claims that conceptually and therefore effectively wxcludes the ppl most at risk for violence. valentine does not have simple methods for the dillemas he raises, concluding that effective advocacy is based on careful research that does not simplify the messy, ambiguous, and contradictory meanings of violence, pain and suffering.

Kinsey

conducted a series of sexuality studies during the 1940's. he surveyed the sexual lives and desires of American men and women, discovering that sexuality exists along a continuum. they found that 37% of the male pop had some homosexual experience., most of which occurred during adolescence and at least 25% of adult males had had more than incidental homosexual experiences for at least 3 yrs of their lives. many of these men did not think of themselves or lead lives as homosexuals, this suggests that in practice ppls sexuality does not fall into absolute categories. he also challenged the views of homosexuality stating that psychologically "normal" ppl may express their sexuality in many ways. His work was highly controversial during a period in American history when homosexuality and heterosexual promiscuity were considered unacceptable.

the navajo

is an example of how society defined multiple genders. in Navajo society, nadleehe are individuals held in high esteem who haul wood and participating in hunts and warfare and female roles. some but not all nadlee crossdress. Navajo families have traditionally treated nadlee respectfully, even giving them control over their own property. the nadlee participate in important religious ceremonies and many have become spiritual healers, they also serve as go-betweeners in arranging marriages and mediating conflicts. to understand who becomes nadhlee, it is necessary to understand Navajo ideas about gender. the Navajo recognize 5 genders, 2 of them beimg male and female. the term nadlee "one who changes continuously" reders to intersex individuals whom they consider a 3rd gender. the 4rth and5th genders are also called nadleehe but are distinct from intersex individuals the 4rth gender is the masculine-female, female bodied individuals who don't get involved in reproduction and who work in traditional male occupations. today they often serve as firefighters or auto mechanics. the 5th gender is the feminine male, male bodied individuals who participate in women's activities of cooking, watching children and weaving. feminine-males may engage in sexual relations with males, although the Navajo do not consider these "homosexual" relationships. the meanings and status of the nadlehee have changed. for example, the high school of nadleehe became pronounced and the military government forcd Navajos onto reservations, undermining men's traditional economic activity of raiding. these changes did not affect womens traditional economic pursuits, in which nadlehee also engaged. nadlehhee took advamtage of opportunities presented by these social changes often became wealthy as shephards and weavers including the famous weaver Hastiin Klah. around the same time Christian missionaries on these reservations tried to eliminate the nadlehhee. pprominent nedlehee began to be more discrete about exposing their identities to the outside world, a situation which continues today. although the nadlehee continue to exist, many young Navajo's, especially those off reservation might not identify themselves as nadhlehee but as "gay" or "lesbian" adopting western forms of identification that have nothing to fo with traditional Navajo gender notions.

parker

studied Brazilian sexual culture, and points out that implicit sexual meanings can have major consequences for designing public health programs. he observes that in the early years of the HIV/Aids crisis, Brazilians accepted the notion derived form the U.S and Europe that HIV/AIDS was a "gay disease" transmitted through homosexual sex and only affecting the homosexual population. to create effective public health interventions, parker advised it was necessary to build programs around the specific Brazilian cultural meanings of sexuality, and not ignore the risky behaviors of men who did not consider themselves susceptible to HIV because they weren't gay.

gutmann

studied how men and women define what being a man means in a poor neighborhood of Mexico city. he observed that certain ideals and practices of machismo: the Mexican stereotype of the dominant, assertive male contribute to women's subordination. Mexican masculinity has always been more subtle and dynamic than the stereotypes of inflexible, domineering machos suggest. one reason is that broader social transformations: greater number of women are now working outside the home for money, boys and girls in school are given equal status, and the feminist movement had influenced Mexican life contributing to changing perceptions of manhood. he also observed that women play a key role in shaping the ideas of masculinity, one of those ways being to challenge men's domination over them. they argue, cajole, and ultimatums to men, forcing them to act contrary to macho stereotypes.

Lewin

studied lesbian parents in the U.S and found that even lesbian parents focus little energy on policing the boundaries of lesbian sexual identity. instead of claiming an essential identity which they enforce on others, they negotiate their identities constantly in the face of constant demands from children, lovers, fathers, and sutody disputes. for ex. in custody disputes, they emphasize themselves not in terms of sexuality but as women who have achieved motherhood and will make "good mothers". as lewin explained that lesbians and gay men identify themselves along a number of axes, and while sexual orientation is often a salient dimension of their identification, other personal and social characteristics also feed into how they view themselves.

Herdt

studied the male initiation rituals of the sambia ppl. boys undergo 6 elaborate stages if initiation that involve behavior he calls "insemination." to be strong, powerful warrior requires jerungdu(the essence of masculine strength), a substance a boy can only acquire from ingesting the semen of a man. before insemination, the boys must purge harmful feminine essences with a rite that mimics female menstruation; sharp grasses shoved up their noses of the boys to make them bleed off the lingering essences of their mothers milk. finally, they receive jerungdu in the form of semen directly from young married men on whom they perform fellatio. during the early stages, the boys are inseminated orally by the young married men at the height of their sexual and physical powers. during later stages of initiation, after marriage but before they become fathers, younger initiated will perform oral sex on them. the final stage of initiation occurs after the birth of their 1st child. Men in their 20 and 30's now have sex only with women, usually their wives. but can occasionally have sex outside marriage. He referred to these initiation activites as "ritualized homosexuality" a term that highlights the homoerotic nature of these rites. the problem with this is that western notions of "homosexuality" imply an inborn condition or identity, yet after marriage sambia men shift their erotic focus to their wives with whom they have intercourse or fallatio. the term implies that these acts are intended to develop erotic pleasure, while for the sambia these ritual acts are intended to develop masculine strength. the term is now described as "semen transactions" or "boy inseminating rights"

Rosaldo

theorized that it was due to the distinction of all societies to make between public and domestic spheres, thus control political, economic, religious, and other social relations while women are assigned to the domestic sphere, managing the household, and raising children

Valentine

used ethnographic methods that to study how the term "transgender" has been conceived. did research among transgender-identified ppl. he was inspired by ant Hughes.

mead

was interested in the differences between males and females, the cultural roles assigned to each, and how sexual differences shaped an individuals life experiences and personality. her book analyzed sex differences in papua new guinea societies. the distinction that mead made between sex(biology)0 and gender (cultural expectations) was influential among ants. but in recent yrs it has been difficult to see how much differences in male and female behaviors are caused by sex and how much they are caused by gender or cultural expectations.

Beauvior

wrote the book called 2nd sex which argued that throughout history, women have considered the second sex inferior in status and subordinate to men. during the Victorian era, a handful of women ants studied women's status and roles in other societies. as a result a few women ants had animated the 1st wave feminism, that was beginning to challenge male domination and win the right to vote, wanted to understand if all societies treated women as unequally as euro-American societies did. until beaviour's work inspired the emergence of a "second Wave" of feminist ants beginning in the 1950's and again in the 1970's ants had ignored the issue of gender/sex/ inequality. Most feminist ants rejected the idea that biological differences are the source of women's subordination , instead they argued that cultural ideologies and social relations impose lower status, prestige, and power on women than men. but here the agreement ends, and during the 1970's and 80's a major debate took place over whether gender inequality is universal and what causes it.