Feminist anthropology and kinship

Ryan Schram

ANTH 2654: Forms of Families

10 September 2015

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

• 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.”