Sex and Gender II

1. Sex, Gender and Sexuality II

2. Sex, Gender and Sexuality
• Sex refers to the anatomical characteristics of
maleness and femaleness.
• Gender refers to the understanding of manhood,
womanhood (or other) in cultural terms.
• Sexuality refers to our sexual desire and
expression; how we understand ourselves as
sexual beings.

3. Men, Women and Power
• Patriarchy is a term to describe a society
where men dominate the social world and
have more authority and power than women.
• Ultimately, most societies demonstrate some
degree of patriarchy.

4. Men, Women and Power
• Matriarchy is used to describe a society where
women hold more power than men.
• However, most anthropologists don’t consider
there to be any truly matriarchal societies.
• Societies tend to either be egalitarian in terms
of gender roles or men dominate.

5. Mead on Gender
• Margaret Mead is one of the first
anthropologist to critically look at gender and
power in societies.
• She commented that with little exception,
men’s work was more valued than women’s
work…regardless of what type of work that
was.