The Roles Of Alma Gottlieb's Interpreting Gender And Sexuality?

In her 2002 book, “Interpreting Gender and Sexuality: Approaches from Cultural Anthropology,” Alma Gottlieb gave insight into the roles of gender and sexuality in different cultures and how these roles have developed over time. Her book contrast gender stereotypes and how they are changing in Western nations like America, but are stationary in places like Afganistan. She dabbles on the topics of religious and cultural beliefs, and how these functions reflect societal opinions about masculinity and femininity. Her writings attempt explaining why gender power struggles occur, how these ideas were founded, and how people are either moving away from them or accepting them. Alma Gottileb first points out, from birth, a child’s gender can determine his or her future and role in society. She explains that boys are treated more aggressively, and girls are treated more fragilely, establishing a power dynamic between males and females at birth (Gottileb 168). Gottileb questions if this tradition of society’s treatment of the two genders actually reflects their future treatment and job placement, or if these roles assigned at birth actually matter. In the modern era, Andalusian women are trying to make more aggressive career choices by becoming

Old marital traditions used to prevent women from marrying down to a lower economic class, but men could marry in any class lower than them. Men marrying down had more economic status; thus, they could control the relationship. Women, on the other hand, if married down, could have more social and economic power in the relationship, which could disrupt the traditional patriarchal power balance. In modern times in Western nations, men and women can marry who they want without the threat of a disturbance in the power structure because these nations are developing gender equality concepts in their societies (180 –