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# Feminist anthropology and kinship #

## Feminist anthropology and kinship ##

Ryan Schram

ANTH 2654: Forms of Families

10 September 2015

Available at http://anthro.rschram.org/2654/7

## Lecture outline ##

* The matrilineal puzzle, according to Audrey Richards.
  - Why is this puzzling? What do you have to assume is true?
* Gender in anthropology
  - Margaret Mead: Gender is not universal
* Feminist anthropology: Ethnography has a male bias
  - In many societies, women are not available to talk to anthropologists
  - Key informants tend to be men, since in many societies, men travel more.
  - Male ethnographers may not be permitted to talk to women. Even female anthropologists may be treated as if they were men.
  - Anthropological theory assumed that male kinship statuses were more important, and hence male informants would know more about society.
  - Early feminist anthropology sought to draw attention to and redress this bias.
* Feminist anthropology: Male domination
  - Patriarchy itself is a social fact, and can be explained as such.
  - Patriarchy defined:
    - Ideologies of male superiority or female inferiority.
    - Symbols of gender in which female is associated with danger.
    - Exclusion of women from power and valued social positions.
    - Men seem to stand for society as a whole.
* Criticism of Ortner
    - Not all societies are hierarchical. Egalitarian societies tend to have more fluid divisions of labor and more personal autonomy for men and women.
    - The myth of matriarchy. Just because men rule does not mean that men believe that they have a natural right to rule.
    - Women's power is invisible. Women are supreme in the "female domain."