The development of gender studies and feminist anthropology has evolved over time in relation to various relational and external factors. These positions have grown from the simplicity of terms and have evolved into a greater movement of recognition, advocacy, change and growth. Still, from its earliest references to current times, gender studies and feminist anthropology have undergrown a transition in focus and seemingly stiffened affect in the world around us. This paper will examine the holistic view of gender and feminist anthropology to relationally examine the current trends in gender research and the current stance of these matters.
Gender can be identified as the subset of anthropology and was in earlier times grounded as the supposed biological differences and the “latter” of cultural structures monitored, executed, and comprehended in any given society (Oxford Index, 2012). Throughout the 20th century and the growth of sociocultural anthropology, the meaning and significance of gender transformed. Early ethnographic studies illustrated how gender was parallel to family and kinship, with very little recognition of women and family problems. Even with early female advocates in the field, gender as a particular theoretical interest did not submerge until the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. It wasn’t until then that women were no longer seen as a classification of culture and society separate from the normally functioning world.
Numerous early literary works in anthropology were synonymous with perspectives generated by the interests of predominantly male ethnographers. Research of women and the theory of gender were generally included in references to family and kinship. With the work of advocates, the study of gend...
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... a wide array of varying groups of women. In conjunction with feminist projects, the promotion of women interest being recognized and heard is ongoing. Broader feminist project are insisting that women be heard, even with the possibility of them having to take more refined methods to authority through acts of resistance. Feminist scholars have served as influential advocates in the longing for women’s rights for pay equity throughout the United States and have stressed that women have the right to make choices for themselves, free of male dominance or foreseeing factors. However, there has been increasing awareness that these factors attempting to be rectified are not necessarily issues for all women around the world. Feminist anthropology has attempted to bring to emphasize their concerns and to find ways in which these women can empower themselves to urge change.
We have to truly take initiative in order to express our ideas regarding our feminist movement. We must take all our concerns in order to foster personal liberation and growth. The archaic social, psychological, and economic practices that discriminate against women must be ordeals of the past. We must compose new practices in order to develop a post-revolutionary society. This movement will require strategy, organization, commitment, and devotion; it may be a long battle, but I believe that we will end in triumph.
Shaw, Susan M., and Janet Lee. Women's voices, feminist visions: classic and contemporary readings. 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. Print.
Feminist theory, which occurred from feminist doings, marks to twig the kind of masculinity disproportion by scrutinizing women's mutual roles and lived participation; it has industrialized patterns in a range of self-controls in mandate to answer to problems such as the mutual making of femininity and masculinity. Some of the past whereabouts of feminism have been scorned for fascinating into report only antediluvian, conventional, experienced evaluations. This operated to the contraption of genealogically limited or multiculturalist treatments of feminism.
...of gender], there would be no gender at all” (Ibid. 522). The feminist declaration that the personal is political is even more significant in this era where the individual is seemingly powerless in the face of oligarchical controlled governments and inhumane patriarchal political structures. Even though gender in isolation may be meaningless, the construction of gender and experience of gender is universal and is important for its potential expansion unite people to protect or revolt against political frameworks and social norms that rule the world today.
In the U.S., feminism is understood as the rights of women (usually affluent white women) to share the spoils of capitalism, and imperial power. By refusing to fully confront the exclusions of non-whites, foreigners, and other marginalized groups from this vision, liberal feminists miss a crucial opportunity to create a more inclusive and more powerful movement. Feminist movements within the U.S. and internationally have long since accepted that, for them, feminism entails the communal confrontation of not only patriarchy, but capitalism, imperialism, white supremacy, and other forms of oppressions that combine together and reinforce their struggle. It means the fighting for the replacement of a system in which their rights are negated in the quest for corporate and political profit. It includes fighting so that all people anywhere on the gender, sexual, and body spectrum are allowed to enjoy basic rights like food, housing, healthcare, and control of their labor.
It is said that Western civilization had been primarily male dominated and as a result as diminished the feminine. Women’s roles in society have changed drastically over the past decades. While it took much time, progress for women’s rights has blossomed. Influences in civilization have affected view points of the commonly held mores, expectations, and stereotypes which define gender.
Gender roles are a staple construct of human civilization, designating the behaviors and lifestyles that society expects out of its participants, with gender as the defining characteristic. Historically, females have been at the forefront of the conversation, with feminism regarded as the principal solution to the well-established issue of gender inequality. However, this is foolish. To truly mend the gender inequalities forged by thousands of years of human interaction, both genders have to be acknowledged. Both males and females are equally constrained by gender roles, however the effects of this constraint are in differing fields. There are studies showing that females are at a disadvantage economically, in the workplace, while other studies
The Feminist Movement begin in the in 1848 spearheaded by the Seneca Fall Convention (Smith & Hamon, 2012). Feminism is the reaction to many year of oppression by a male dominated society. In the Feminist Movement women like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Canton Stanton desired rights, opportunities, and the identity that women deserved (Smith & Hamon, 2012). Osmond and Thorne (1993) stated that Feminist respond by expressing their desire to “develop knowledge that will further social change, knowledge that will help confront and end subordination of women as it related to the pattern of subordination based on social class, race, ethnicity, age, and sexual orientation” (p. 592). The “first wave” of the Feminist Movement
Shaw, Susan M., and Janet Lee. Women's Voices, Feminist Visions: Classic and Contemporary Readings. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012. Print.
Women and gender studies contribute greatly to our understanding of the social and cultural world we inhabit. Studying the complex issues of this field has instituted many key insights. Two major insights that positively affected our society are the awareness through learning and through this awareness activism that can ensue.
In just a few decades The Women’s Liberation Movement has changed typical gender roles that once were never challenged or questioned. As women, those of us who identified as feminist have rebelled against the status quo and redefined what it means to be a strong and powerful woman. But at...
...action with others… especially men. This supplies final substantiation of the authors' argument, that women continue to be oppressed by their male-dominated societies. It is a bold undertaking for women to ally and promote a world movement to abandon sexist traditions. Although I have never lived in a third world or non-Westernized country, I have studied the conditions women suffer as "inferior" to men. In National Geographic and various courses I have taken, these terrible conditions are depicted in full color. Gender inequality is a terrible trait of our global society, and unfortunately, a trait that might not be ready to change. In America we see gender bias towards women in voters' unwillingness to elect more females into high office, and while this is not nearly as severe as the rest of the world, it indicates the lingering practice of gender inequality.
Throughout history, women have remained subordinate to men. Subjected to the patriarchal system that favored male perspectives, women struggled against having considerably less freedom, rights, and having the burdens society placed on them that had so ingrained the culture. This is the standpoint the feminists took, and for almost 160 years they have been challenging the “unjust distribution of power in all human relations” starting with the struggle for equality between men and women, and linking that to “struggles for social, racial, political, environmental, and economic justice”(Besel 530 and 531). Feminism, as a complex movement with many different branches, has and will continue to be incredibly influential in changing lives. Feminist political ideology focuses on understanding and changing political philosophies for the betterment of women.
Kessler, Suzanne J, and McKenna. Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.
Throughout history, there have been constant power struggles between men and women, placing the male population at a higher position than the female. Therefore, in this patriarchal system women have always been discriminated against simply due to the fact that they are women. Their rights to vote, to be educated and essentially being treated equally with men was taken away from them and they were viewed as weak members of society whose successes depend on men. However, this has not prevented them from fighting for what they believe in and the rights they are entitled to. On the contrary, it has motivated them to try even harder and gain these basic societal rights through determination and unity.