module 4 review Flashcards
(47 cards)
Bacha posh
A male identity for prepubescent females in Afghanistan that affords more freedoms in the public realm.
Initiation
The rites, ceremonies, ideas, or instructions with which one is made a member of a particular community or group.
Nature-Culture dichotomy
An explanatory model that associates women with nature through the association with the family where many “natural” or bodily functions occur, and men with culture through the association with the world of work where “cultural,” “mental,” and therefore, higher functions occur.
Rite of passage
Culturally defined activities that are associated with the transition from one life stage (e.g., boy) to another (e.g., manhood).
Stereotype
Overly simplified, but strongly held ideas, about the characteristics of males and females.
Symbol
Something verbal or non-verbal that arbitrarily and by convention stands for something else with which it has no natural connection.
stereotype
Stereotype – Overly simplified but strongly held ideas about the
characteristics of males and females
How is this seen in the media and in toys for children?
In children’s cartoons, women are still the helpless victims that
the
fearless male hero must rescue. Toys are targeted either for little
boys or little girls and are packaged appropriately in colors and
materials culturally defined as either masculine or feminine
Describe the Nature-Culture dichotomy.
An explanatory model that associates women with nature
through the
association with the family where many “natural” or bodily
functions
occur, and men with culture through the association with the
world of
work where “cultural”, “mental”, and therefore, higher functions
occur.
What are the three main criticisms of this dichotomy?
Although this model may be applicable in some cultures, its
universality has been challenged not only by those who point out that
nature-culture is a dichotomy of western thought in particular, but also
by those who provide ethnographic data to indicate its lack of
salience in other cultures around the world.
o The assumption that women are universally subordinated while
men are dominant appears questionable when viewed through the
lens of recent ethnographic analysis
o Critique of the concepts of universal subordination and of the
nature-culture dichotomy has stimulated significant research on how
gender identity and gender roles are constructed in particular cultural
contexts. Whether and under what conditions social asymmetry between men and women emerges in the process of this construction
is open to empirical investigation
What does the cultural construction of gender involve?
The cultural construction of gender in a particular society
involves definitions
of what it means to be masculine or feminine, and these
definitions vary
cross culturally
mong the Mende of Sierra Leone, what is the act of boys being
seized from their homes by the force of spirits considered to signify?
the importance of these rituals to
construct manhood by identifying a recurring cross-cultural
notion:
that “real manhood is different from simple anatomical
maleness hat it is not a natural condition that comes about spontaneously
through biological maturation but rather is a precarious or
artificial
state that boys must win against powerful odds
What is usually involved with the transition to womanhood?
Initiation rituals that prepare girls for their roles as women and
instruct
them in what it means to be a woman in a particular cultural
context
can also be found in various societies around the world.
however, the
transition to womanhood is often part of a more subtle and
continuous
process of enculturation and socialization. In a description of
hausa
socialization, Callaway (1987) demonstrates how girls in this
society
learn how to behave in culturally appropriate way
Among the Hausa of northern Nigeria, when do girls marry?
hausa girls marry young, generally upon reaching puberty. At
that time
they enter kulle, or seclusion. In seclusion, the social roles of
women
are specifically defined and their sexual activities are limited.
What is kulle? What is the purpose of going into seclusion?
seculsion
Although a hausa woman becomes part of her husband’s
family,
her place is secured only by bearing sons, and all her children
belong to her husband. hausa women are taught the expected
life
course from early childhood.
What attributes may be considered to constitute personhood?
In addition to gender, it may comprise age,
status
in the family and in the community, and physical appearance or
impairment
How may naming construct personhood?
n many cultures, naming is also an important mechanism for
constructing personhood. In the United States, for instance, the
use
of Ms. to replace Mrs. and Miss is an acceptable option. It is now
quite common for married women to retain the name that they
were born with rather than replace it with one that only gives
them
an identity in relation to someone else—their husband.
“these names both reflect and affect the transactions which
constitute a person’s fundamental social relationships and
identity. .
. . Totemic names allow both men and women to pursue
respectively their culturally defined preoccupations of political
competition and the bearing of children. The totemic names
available to men, however, convey different sorts of power and
resources than do those available to women. . . . Men seek to
augment their own power through gaining control of the names
of
others. . . . The power conveyed by [women’s] names cannot
shape social relationships as does the power of names men hold, but,
instead, ensures reproduction
How may personhood be encoded in the language men and
women use?
i many cultures around the world, speech styles differ between
men and women, whereas in others there are no distinctions
According to the Sambia, maleness is not biologically given but
must be induced
warfare, marriage, and initiation were interlocking institutions; the
effect of this political instability was to reinforce tough, strident
masculine performance in most arenas of social life. “Strength”
(jerundu) was—and is—a pivotal idea in this male ethos. Indeed,
strength, which has both ethnobiological and behavioral
aspects,
could be aptly translated as “maleness” and “manliness.”
Strength
has come to be virtually synonymous with idealized conformity to
male ritual routine.
) What is the basis of maleness for the Sambia?
Men fear not only pollution from contact with women’s vaginal
fluids
and menstrual blood but also the depletion of their semen, the
vital
spark of maleness, which women (and boys, too) inevitably
extract,
sapping a man’s substance. These are among the main themes
of male
belief underlying initiation
How does this translate into initiation rites?
There are six intermittent initiations from the ages of seven to ten
and
onward. They are, however, constituted and conceptualized as
two distinct
cultural systems within the male life cycle. first-stage (moku, at
seven to ten
years of age), second-stage (imbutu, at ten to thirteen years),
and third-stage
(ipmangwi, at thirteen to sixteen years) initiations—
bachelorhood rites—are
collectively performed for regional groups of boys as age-mates.
The
initiations are held in sequence, as age-graded advancements;
the entire
sequel takes months to perform.
Is it the same for females?
Module 4 Review Questions 8 | P a g e
The solution is also different for the two sexes: men believe that a
girl is born with all of the vital organs and fluids necessary for her
to
attain reproductive competence through “natural” maturation.
This
conviction is embodied in cultural perceptions of the girl’s
development beginning with the sex assignment at birth
How do the Sambia view the bond between a mother and her son?
ll infants are closely bonded to their mothers. Out of a woman’s
contaminating, life-giving womb pours the baby, who thereafter
remains tied to the woman’s body, breast milk, and many
ministrations. This latter contact only reinforces the femininity and
female contamination in which birth involves the infant.
What is the belief underlying this view?
he father, both because of postpartum taboos and by personal
choice, tends to avoid being present at the breast- feedings.
Mother
thus becomes the unalterable primary influence; father is a weak
second. Sambia say this does not place girls at a “risk”—they
simply succumb to the drives of their “natural” biology. This
maternal attachment and paternal distance clearly jeopardize
the
boys’ growth, however, since nothing innate within male
maturation
seems to resist the inhibiting effects of mothers’ femininity. hence
boys must be traumatically separated—wiped clean of their
female
contaminants—so that their masculinity may develop.`
