Analysis of Relationship Between Modes of Production and Gender Inequality
Amongst societies, there is a great variety of means of survival, all of which are dependent upon factors influencing the community—geographical location and structure of authority, to name a few. Such factors and the community’s ways of survival create the underlying basis of other complex issues, including the relationship between the sexes. Many anthropological papers that concentrate on the modes of production of specific groups of people have shown a connection between the modes of production and the presence or absence of gender inequality. Futhermore, there is also evidence of a further causality between the two: as a society adopts a more complex mode of production, the more distinct and apparent the sexual division of labor will appear.
In several works—such as P. Bion and Agnes Estioko-Griffin’s work, “Woman the Hunter: The Agta,” and Maria Lepowsky’s “Gender, Horticulture, and the Division of Labor on Vanatinai”—the societies depicted show that their specific ways of survival allow more impartiality. On the other hand, works such as Patricia O’Hara’s “Divisions of Labour on Irish Family Farms,” Susan Rasmussen’s “Pastoral Nomadism and Gender among the Tuareg in Niger and Mali,” and Anne Allison’s “Japanese Mothers and Obentōs: The Lunch Box as Ideological State Apparatus,” bring other societies to attention that have implemented modes of production that essentially serve as vehicles for the existence of gender inequity.
In P. Bion and Agnes Estioko-Griffin’s work, “Woman the Hunter: The Agta,” foraging—or hunting and gathering of wild food resources—is said to be the main mode of production for the Agta, a group of people that are located in...
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...ender in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 6th ed. Caroline B. Brettell and Carolyn F. Sargent, eds. Pp. 124-138. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Lepowsky, Maria
2012 “Gender, Horticulture, and the Division of Labor on Vanatinai,” in Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 6th ed. Caroline B. Brettell and Carolyn F. Sargent, eds. Pp. 131-138. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
O’Hara, Patricia
2001 “Divisions of Labor on Irish Family Farms”, in Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 3rd ed. Caroline B. Brettell and Carolyn F. Sargent, eds. Pp. 271-279. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Rasmussen, Susan
2012 “Do Tents and Herds Still Matter: Pastoral Nomadism and Gender among the Tuareg in Niger and Mali,” in Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective, 6th ed. Caroline B. Brettell and Carolyn F. Sargent, eds. Pp. 139-148. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.
Rebecca Sharpless’ book “Fertile Ground, Narrow Choices” tells the stories of everyday women in Central Texas on cotton farms. She argues that women were not just good for keeping house, cooking, sewing and raising children but that they were an essential key to the economy. Whether they were picking cotton alongside men or bearing children
Significantly, Welch deconstructs the myth that Plains Indian women were just slaves and beasts of burden and presents them as fully rounded women, women who were crucial to the survival of the tribal community. In fact, it is the women who perform the day-to-day duties and rituals that enable cultural survival for the tribes of...
Wade Davis’ article, Among the Waorani, provides much of the content brought to light in Nomads of the Rainforest. His article delves deeper into their culture and motivations allowing one to more fully understand their beliefs, relationships, and savagery. Both the documentary and article attempt to create a picture of their close-knit relationships and their desire f...
During the American Industrial Revolution, women began to work in factories, leading to conflicts in 19th century society that would eventually result in the Cult of Domesticity—the belief that women’s only responsibilities existed at home. This aimed to establish the subservient woman and the husband as the master of the house as the social norm. Kate Chopin's bleak but realistic depiction in her work, The Awakening, reveals her reasonable attitude during the Second Great Awakening in American history. Men coveted control and achieved it by undermining women and being their superior. Society followed a mob mentality and accepted gender inequality as a social norm. Subjugation of women lead to panic and mania in men and the oppression made
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Gender relations in the Dakota tribe were very specific and there were no crossing of the sexes. To begin, I think it is important to analyze the difference between “sex” and “gender”. Up until researching for this paper, I though that the two terms were interchangeable in meaning, rather, they are separate ideas that are connected. According to Mary K. Whelan, a Doctor of Anthropology focusing on gender studies, sex and gender are different. She states, “Western conflation of sex and gender can lead to the impression that biology, and not culture, is responsible for defining gender roles.
Fitts, Alexandra, and University of Alaska. "Sandra Cisneros's Modern Malinche: A Reconsideration of Feminine Archetypes in Woman Hollering Creek." Sandra Cisneros's Modern Malinche: A Reconsideration of Feminine Archetypes in Woman Hollering Creek 29 (2002): n. pag. 2002. Web
In the 1850?s through the 1870?s 45% of all Irish immigrants were persons in the 15-24 age group with gender evenly balanced. But in the 1880?s to 1920 that same age group made up about 60% of all Irish immigrants. This social class was young and could adapt to working in the harsh conditions. Immigrants who arrived alone often eventually married either someone from the immigrant community in the area. With each passing year women began taking up a higher and higher percentage of Irish immigrants. By 1921 women outnumbered men 2:1. These women were overwhelmingly concentrated in domestic service. At the turn of the century more than half of all Irish immigrant women were servants. These Irish women learned American housekeeping through first-hand experience, living in the home of the family they served.
...wler-Salamini and Mary Kay Vaughan, eds Creating Spaces, Shaping Transitions: Women of the Mexican Countryside, 1850-1990 Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1994.
The first three chapters focus on women in agriculture and reproduction and in the process unveils how the “internalization of prescribed gender traits colored people’s reactions to the world around them (p. 25).” Unger spends a great deal of time discussing how Native Americans and enslaved Africans used reproduction as a means of resistance and autonomy in their status. Unger does not shy away from practices that uncomfortable like abortion and infanticide. Unger notes the practice of “prolonged lactation, Native American women, like their European counterparts, also practiced infanticide and abortion (25).” She discusses these topics with unbiased language and does so without using any judgmental tone or justification for such practices. Reproduction is discussed in terms of its effects on the
However, omissions in his account of his time spent with the tribe provoke questions regarding the role of women in the society and the power dynamic in Cameroonian tribes, such as the Dowayo. In order to answer such questions, one may look to Miriam Goheen’s experience and fieldwork with the Cameroonian Nso people. Her fieldwork, which closely examines exactly such questions affords great insight into the role of the women in these regions and how their labors are regarded by the other tribespeople. Juxtaposed, Barley’s The Innocent Anthropologist and Goheen’s Men Own the Fields, Women own the Crops: Gender and Power in the Cameroon Grassfields provide a very interesting look into the people of the Cameroonian
2) Literature Overview: The resources use to complete the assign were Kevin Reilly, Women and the Origins of Patriarchy: Gathering, Agricultural, and Urban Societies; Elise Boulding, Women and the Agricultural Revolution, Gilbert C. Fite, American Farmers, The New Minority, John T Schelbecker, Whereby We Thrive: A History Of American Farming, Sandra Johnson, and a unknown web source. They describe in their own way how the American agriculture was established.
Lynn Hunt, Thomas R. Martin, Barbara H. Rosenwein, R. Po-chia Hsia, Bonnie G. Smith. The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures: 3rd Edition, Volume I.(Boston, New York 2009) 9-10
French, Katherine L., and Allyson M. Poska. Women and Gender in the Western past. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2007. Print.
Gender stratification is the cuts across all aspects of social life and social classes. It refers to the inequality distribution of wealth, power and privilege between men and women at the basis of their sex. The world has been divided and organized by gender, which are the behavioural differences between men and women that are culturally learnt (Appelbaum & Chambliss, 1997:218). The society is in fact historically shaped by males and the issue regarding the fact has been publicly reverberating through society for decades and now is still a debatably hot topic. Men and women have different roles and these sex roles, defined to be the set of behaviour’s and characteristics that are standard for each gender in a society (Singleton, 1987) are deemed to be proper in the eyes of the society. They are as a matter of fact proper but as time move on, the mind-set of women changes as well, women also want to move on. However the institutional stratification by the society has become more insidious that the stereotypical roles have created a huge barrier between men and women. These barriers has affected women in many aspects such as minimizing their access on a more superior position in workforce organization, limits their ownership of property and discriminates them from receiving better attention and care.