Anthropology

1. Sex and Gender
ANTH 210

2. Difference between sex and gender
• Sex differences: Differences between females
and males (or any other biological sex) that are
most likely due to biological differences
• Gender differences: Differences between
female and males (or any other gender) that
reflect cultural expectations and experiences
– Cheyenne Native Americans (Great Plains) have a
third gender, the “two-spirit” people, biologically
male, but would wear women’s dress and take on
many female activities, could be taken as a second
wife by another male
– Xanith (Oman), biologically male, have distinctive
dress between that of female and male (pastel),
medium-length hair

3. Gender Roles
• Roles that are culturally assigned to genders
– Strength theory
– Compatibility-with-child-care-theory
– Economy-of-effort theory
– Expendability theory

4. Strength Theory
• Men tend to get assigned work activities that
require physical strength and mobilizing
strength in burst of energy such as lifting
heavy objects, hunting large animals, or
clearing land.
• Sexual dimorphism: the phenotypic difference
between males and females of the same species
…But women in some cultures also perform these
activities.

5. Compatibility-with-child-care-
theory
• Women tend to assigned work activities that
are compatible with caring for infants and
young children. (Men can’t biologically
breastfeed)
…But men also do some of these same duties.
(Men become full time craft specialists because
these activities are not compatible with
childcare. Cooking, for example, is traditionally
done by women, but meanwhile, men are usually
the ones that become chefs.)

6. Economy-of-effort theory
• Women and men tend to get assigned work
activities that are located near each other.
Women caretake children in the home so
get assigned other activities that take place
at home.
• This is more economical for getting the
same job done with less effort (hitting 2
birds with one stone in a sense)

7. Gender Roles
• Roles that are culturally assigned to genders
– Strength theory
– Compatibility-with-child-care-theory
– Economy-of-effort theory
– Expendability theory

8. Expendability Theory
• Males are reproductively more expendable
than females
• Many sperm can be produced within a short
time, few eggs are produced in comparison
(more biological in eggs than in sperm)

9. Expendability theory
• Polygyny vs. polyandry
• According to the Ethnographic Atlas, of 1,231 societies
noted, 186 were monogamous; 453 had occasional
polygyny; 588 had more frequent polygyny; and 4 had
polyandry.
• Polyandry is only most common in egalitarian societies
marked by high male mortality or male absenteeism.

10. Political Leadership
• Men were leaders in 88% of
surveyed societies
• 10% of the societies in which a
woman occupied a leadership
position, she was greatly
outnumbered by males
• 2% leadership was evenly
distributed
• Very few societies where women are
central figures (Iroquois)

11. Warfare
• Women almost never engage in warfare
– Strength theory
– Compatibility-with-child-care-theory
– Expendability theory

12. Relative Contributions to Work
• Primary subsistence activities: The food-
getting activities: gathering, hunting,
fishing, herding, and agriculture.
• Secondary subsistence activities: Activities
that involve the preparation and processing
of food either to make it edible or to store it.

13. Relative Contributions to Work
• Men contribute more through primary
subsistence activities in societies that
depend on hunting, fishing, and herding for
most of their calories, and especially for
those practicing intensive agriculture
• However, women contribute more in
foraging and horticultural societies

14. Gender Stratification
The degree of unequal access by the different genders
to prestige, authority, power, rights, and economic
resources.
To measure degrees of gender stratification
anthropologists commonly consider the following:
• how much importance a culture places on women
relative to men and vice versa
• how power and authority is delegated between
women and men
• what kinds of rights and responsibilities do women
and men possess

15. Gender Stratification
• Theories:
– The greater the contribution to primary
subsistence activities, the higher the status
– If warfare is an important aspect of life for that
culture, men will be more valued
– If there is a centralized political hierarchy, then
men are more valued
– Power resides in the gender that kinship
revolves around (matrilineal, patrilineal, etc)

16. Gender Stratification: Biological or
Psychological Origin?
• Aggression?
• Nature vs. nurture?
• This does not mean that males are aggressive
and females passive; that females caretaking
and males not. It is a relative tendency;
Burbank’s work with Australian aborigines:
women initiated aggression 43% of time; men
57% and used more lethal weapons.

17. Misconceptions about differences in
behavior amongst males and females
Misconceptions:
Females are more dependent, sociable, and
passive than males
-These are too subjective and not scientifically
proven (behavior is difficult to quantify)

18. Cultural Differences in Sexuality
• Premarital sex (degree to which it is
permitted)
– Some cultures encourage premarital sex as an
important preparation for marriage.
– Others see chastity (i.e. no premarital sex
especially for women) as linked to reputation
and honor.

19. Cultural Differences in Sexuality
• Sex after marriage
– Privacy, nighttime etc.
– On certain occasions some cultures view sexual
activities as inappropriate, i.e. during pregnancy or as
polluting, i.e. before a hunt.
• Extramarital sex (generally frowned upon,
HOWEVER, there are exceptions)
• Homosexuality (permissible in some cultures, can
be put to death for it in others)
– Some cultures may approve of homosexuality as a phase
in one’s life or as a companion to heterosexuality.

20. When biological and reproductive
constraints are gone…
• When technology replaces human strength,
when women have fewer children and can
assign some childcare to others, a strict
gender division of labor begins to disappear.