Sex, Gender and Culture

SEX, GENDER AND CULTURE
GENDER
The ways members of the two sexes are perceived, evaluated, and expected to behave.
GENDER DIFFERENCES
Differences between females and males that reflect cultural expectations and experiences. Humans are sexually dimorphic
the females and males of our species are generally different in size and appearance. There is a tendency in our society to view taller and more muscled as better, which may reflect the bias toward males in our culture. Natural selection may have favored these traits in males but different ones in females.
TYPE OF ACTIVITY PRIMARY SUBSTINENCE ACTIVITIES
MALES ALMOST ALWAYS Hunt and trap animals, large and small
MALES USUALLY Fish, Herd large animals Collect wild honey Clear land and prepare soil for planting
EITHER GENDER OR BOTH Collect shellfish Care for small animals Plant crops Tend crops Harvest crops Milk animals
FEMALES USUALLY FEMALES MOST ALWAYS Gather wild plants
Secondary Subsistence and Household activities
Butcher animals Preserve meat and fish
Care for children Cook Prepare vegetable, food, drinks, and dairy products Laundry, fetch water Collect fuel Spin yarn
Care for infants
Other:
Lumber Mine and Quarry Make boats and musical instruments Engage in combat
Build homes Make nets and ropes Exercise political leadership
Prepare skins Make leather products, baskets, mats, clothing and pottery
THEORIES OF GENDER ROLE DISTRIBUTION
STRENGTH THEORY
-mens work typically involves tasks, like
(hunting and lumbering) requiring greater strength and greater aerobic work capacity. but the strength theory is not completely convincing, if only because it cannot readily explain all the observed patterns. for example, it is not clear that the male activities of trapping small animals and collecting wild honey require much physical strength.
COMPATIBILITY-WITH-CHILD-CARE THEORY:
-womens tasks tend to be those that are compatible with child care. Although males can take care of infants -most traditional societies rely on breast-feeding of infants, which men cannot do. An explanation for the gender division of labor suggests that a womans work will typically involve tasks that do not take women far from home for long periods, do not place children in potential danger if they are taken along and that can be stopped and resumed if an infant needs care. But the compatibility theory does not explain why men usually prepare soil for planting make objects out of wood and etc. all those tasks could probably be stopped to tend to a child and none of them is any more dangerous.
THE ECONOMY-OF-EFFORT THEORY

This may help to explain patterns that cannot readily be explained by the strength and compatibility theories. For example, it may be advantageous for men to make musical instruments because they collect the materials for making it and theyre more knowledgeable what materials are to be used. This theory also suggests that it would be advantageous for one gender to perform tasks that are located near each other. Thus, if women have to be near home to take care of young children, it would be economical for them to perform other chores that are located in or near the home.
THE EXPENDABILITY THEORY

Suggests that men, rather than women, will tend to do the dangerous work in society because men are more expendable, because the loss of men is less advantageous reproductively that the loss of women. Although the various theories, singly or in combination, seem to explain much of the division of labor by gender, there are some unresolved problems
GENDER STRATIFICATION
Stratification is the degree of unequal access by the different genders to prestige, authority, power, rights, and economic resources. Examples of Gender Stratification: Relative Contribution to Subsistence Political Leadership and Warfare
THEORIES ABOUT WHY WOMEN HAVE RELATIVELY HIGH OR LOW STATUS.

1. Womens status will be high when they contribute substantially to primary subsistence activities.
According to this theory, women should have very little status when foodgetting depends largely on hunting, herding or intensive agriculture.
2. Where warfare is especially important, men will be more valued and esteemed than women. Political Leadership and Warfare 3. Where there are centralized political hierarchies, men will have higher status. Political Leadership and Warfare Men usually play the dominant role in political behavior, so mens status should be higher wherever political behavior is more important or frequent. 4. Women will have higher status where kin groups and couples place of residence after marriage are organized around women.
Gender Ideologies
A system of thought and values that legitimize gender roles, statuses and customary behavior in societies.
Personality Differences
Boys are more aggressive rooted in the biological differences between the two sexes Systematic behavior observation showed that much of the behavior of the boys who did girls work were more like girls in that they were less aggressive, less domineering and more responsible than other boys, even when they are not working. task assignment has an important influence on how boys and girls learn to behave.
SEXUALITY
In view of the way the human species reproduces, it is not surprising that sexuality is part of our nature. But no society we know of leaves sexuality to nature; all have at least some rules governing proper conduct. There is much variation from one society to another in the degree of sexual activity permitted or encouraged before marriage. And societies vary markedly in their tolerance of non-heterosexual sexuality.
Cultural Regulation of Sexuality

Permissiveness vs. Restrictiveness
All societies seek to regulate sexual activity to some degree and there is a lot variation cross-culturally. Some societies allow pre-marital sex; others forbid it. The same is true for extra-marital sex. In addition, a societys degree of restrictiveness is not always consistent throughout the life span or of all aspects of sex. For example, a number of societies ease sexual restrictions somewhat for adolescents and many become more restrictive for adults. Then, too, societies change overtime. Our own society has traditionally been restrictive, but until recently more permissive attitudes were gaining acceptance.
PREMARITAL SEX
-The degree to which sex before marriage is approved or disapproved of varies greatly from society to society. -The Trobriand Islanders, for example, approved of and encouraged premarital sex, seeing it as a preparation for later marriage roles. -On the other hand, in many societies, premarital sex is discouraged. For example, among the Tepoztlan Indians in Mexico, a girls life became crabbed, cribbed, confined from the time of her first menstruation. Cultures do not remain the same; attitudes and practices can change markedly overtime, as in the United States. In the past, sex was generally delayed until marriage; in the 1990s most Americans accepted or approved of pre-marital sex.
Extra-Marital Sex
Extramarital sex is not uncommon in most societies. In about 69% of the worlds societys men have extramarital sex more than occasionally and in about 57% in women. In several societies, then, there is a quite difference between the restrictive code and actual practice cross-culturally most societies have a double standard with regard to men and women with restrictions considerably greater for women. A substantial number of societies openly accept extramarital relationships.
Sex within Marriage

There is as much variety in the way coitus is performed as there are in sexual attitudes in general. Privacy is a nearly universal requirement. Time and frequency of coitus also vary. Night is generally preferred. People in most societies abstain from intercourse during menstruation, during at least part of pregnancy and for a period after childbirth. Some societies prohibit sexual relations before various activities such as hunting, fighting, planting and etc. our own society is among the most lenient regarding restrictions on coitus within marriage, imposing only rather loose restraints during mourning, menstruation and pregnancy.
Homosexuality
The range in permissiveness or restrictiveness toward homosexual relations is as great as that for any other kind of sexual activity. Perhaps because many societies deny that homosexuality exists. Little is known about homosexual practices in the restrictive societies. In some societies homosexuality is accepted but limited to certain times and certain individuals.
What kinds of societies are more permissive than others? Although we do not as yet understand the reasons, we do not as yet understand the reasons; we do know that greater restrictiveness toward premarital sex tend to occur in more complex societies societies that have hierarchies of political officials, cities and town and class stratification. It maybe that as social inequality increases and various groups come to have differential wealth parents become more concerned with preventing their children from marrying beneath them. Consistent with this view is the finding that virginity is emphasized in rank and stratified societies, in which families are likely to exchange goods and money in the course of arranging marriage.
William Haviland

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SEX, GENDER AND CULTURE

TYPE OF ACTIVITY PRIMARY SUBSTINENCE ACTIVITIES

FEMALES USUALLY FEMALES MOST ALWAYS Gather wild plants

Secondary Subsistence and Household activities

Butcher animals Preserve meat and fish

Care for infants

Build homes Make nets and ropes Exercise political leadership

THEORIES OF GENDER ROLE DISTRIBUTION

THE ECONOMY-OF-EFFORT THEORY

THE EXPENDABILITY THEORY

THEORIES ABOUT WHY WOMEN HAVE RELATIVELY HIGH OR LOW STATUS.

Cultural Regulation of Sexuality

Sex within Marriage

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