Man the Hunter, Woman the Gatherer: Binary Opposition in Historical Interpretations of Gender

Critique of Woman the Gatherer: Male Bias in Anthropology (1975)

One of the most notable lines from Sally Slocum’s “Woman the Gatherer: Male Bias in Anthropology” was as follows: “The basic of any discipline is not the answers it gets, but the questions it asks” (313).  She dove deeper into the nature of forming questions and asserted, “our questions are shaped by the particulars of our historical situation, and by unconscious cultural assumptions” (307). Here, Slocum made the assumption that we as human beings are unconsciously shaped by history and the driving ideologies of the culture. In essence, she created a clear link between history, or specifically in this case, patriarchy, and “unconscious cultural assumptions.” It is even slightly unclear who or what she refers to by “our.” Those it seems that she was accusing the academic discipline of anthropology, she was also accusing the very nature of human beings as focused and shaped only on one particular framework and mindset of scholarship: man as the hunter.

Her argument is, essentially, driven around how men have manipulated historical data and information to support the “men as a hunter” argument. Using an example such as an increase in brain size, she argued that the act of gathering resulted in a rapid increase in brain size as well. Slocum essentially used the women as a gatherer argument and specifically the argument that the oldest form of incest prohibition is between that of mother and son in order to reconstruct primitive social structure. Through the use of the woman as a gatherer argument, she attempted to recreate how gathering was perceived. She argued for how gathering was both difficult and demanding and even implied how our molded perceptions of masculinity and feminity and the designated roles from these perceptions made it difficult to view gathering as a difficult and demanding activity.

As Slocum constantly mentioned that the questions drive the nature of knowledge, I believe that there are some questions that she did not ask that should have been asked. It seemed that her argument created a binary opposition; she created two separate gender-based roles for the human through primarily archaeological and behavioral analysis. Such a binary opposition limited the nature of knowledge in that this dual gender divide created two specific categories and failed to account for individuals who did not fit into these categories (assuming such deviants existed at all). Therefore, the examination of men who gathered and women who may provide large insight into how such a development of male and female role split even came about. Slocum’s analysis as well as her criticism of the field made me feel as if sometimes, the discipline of anthropology in respects to gender-based problems focuses more-so on justifying or disputing the gender divide rather than looking for the forces, processes and mechanisms (essentially, the causes) that created such a divide in the first place.

L

Gal: Power and Resistance as Seen Through Female Athletes

Gal discusses the ideas of power and domination in her work “Language, Gender, and Power: An Anthropological Review”. She links gender to the idea of power and domination. She says that “The control of representations of reality occur in social, verbal interaction, located in institutions. Control of such representations, and control of the means by which they are communicated and reproduced, are equally sources of social power.” (Gal 319).  Basically gender is socially reproduced through power dynamics, social idealizations, and communication. Society has defined the gender roles for both males and females through things like advertisements that reinforce how a woman or man should look and dress.

I am going to apply Gal’s Idea of power and domination, and the way that gender normal are reproduced in society through female athletes. Female athletes today face a dilemma; they are expected to succeed in their sport while maintaining hegemonic femininity.

Female athletes go against societies assertions about the body and how females should look, act, and dress. Stereotypical females use their bodies as a symbol for femininity with revealing clothing, long hair, emphasis on sex organs, and make up. Female athletes, on the other hand, have their bodies seen as a symbol for masculinity with large muscles, no emphasis on sex organs, hair pulled back, and covering their bodies through the use of uniforms. Athletics have been primarily male dominated, and are characterized by aggression, strength, and competition. Due to the intense training that professional female athletes must undergo, their bodies transform to large and heavily muscled. The construction of the female athlete bodies and their dress opposes the societal definition of the female gender, and as Gal would say they showing resistance. Resistance can be defined one of two ways by Gal, but this particular type of resistance is practice because the women “embody alternate models of the social world” (Gal 319). The resistance is seen through their ritual. Female soccer players begin to embody the male gender through many different avenues: they work out, pull their hair back or even cut their hair short as a way to keep it out of their eyes, and they eat high calorie foods; all of which are stereotypical seen as male rituals. The rituals are then incorporated onto their bodies, and the masculine features are apparent—large muscles.  

These women show resistance to the gender norms in place by society they are considered masculine. They are no longer defined by the female gender.  The rigid gender roles imposed onto society has led to a dichotomy for female athletes. The dichotomy of the masculinization on the field and the sexualization off the field. Female athletes allow themselves to be oversexualized through things like photo shoots, because they are forced, by society, to be a part of their gender. Gal would consider the women allowing themselves to be oversexualized as a type of complacence.

We see symbolic domination of gender norms is seen linguistically as well. When a person sees an extremely buff male athlete they may comment “He looks so strong”. When a person sees an extremely buff female athlete they usually respond with “that is unnatural” or “She looks so masculine”.  Gal concludes by saying “The notions of domination and resistance alert us to the idea that the strongest form of power may well be the ability to define social reality, to impose visions of the world” (Gal 320). The true power lies in the ability to define the genders, and how people believe most people should look and act. The only way to change things like the masculization and sexualization of female athletes is to gain the power to redefine gender norms. 

Through the Eye of the Beholder

In the emergence of feminist anthropology, Slocum pretty much summarizes the overwhelming opinions of the emerging perspective. Slocum, in Woman the Gatherer: Male Bias in Anthropology, defines not just feminist anthropology but also the prelude to the emergence of it. She highlights the problems in a field dominated by the male perspective and in a field, which being dominated by men, is also a field based on observation. Slocum makes a valid point at the beginning when she says, “We are human beings studying other human beings, and we cannot leave ourselves out of the equation.” This is the summation of the problem with male bias in anthropology. Slocum introduces the problem in anthropology currently coming from the unconscious origins of the past from a field that was originated and dominated by the male perspective from its foundation to fairly recently. She makes the argument that, “the perspective of women is, in many ways, equally foreign to an anthropology that has been developed and pursued primarily by males.” Her claim implies that male perspective influences the questions asked, to whom they are asked, and, due to the presence of the asker, probably the answers given.

In my opinion, there are many elements of validity to Slocum’s article. The article is rooted firmly in feminist anthropology but to her discredit it is also rooted firmly in opposition to male-centered anthropology. She highlights during the second page on the problems with a field with a single-gender orientation. There are problems, Slocum claims, the male hunter became somewhat of the protagonist in the anthropological screenplay in which this ‘ego’ was in charge and responsible for his children and female dependents, wives included. Slocum goes as far as to claim, “It gives one the decided impression that only half the species – the male half – did any evolving.”

To her credit the latter half of the reading makes more claims as a proponent of feminist anthropology rather than an opponent of a male-founded anthropology. She uses evidentiary support to indicate that things like the development of family and the idea of food-sharing were in fact originated from the mother-infant bond. These claims rival the male hunter being upheld as the hero and originator or the primitive family and bring a parity to the women’s role in and outside of the household. The final statement leaving a more positive note of gender equality and nullification imposing the importance of a study of the “human species, in spite of, or perhaps because of, or maybe even means of, our individual biases and unique perspectives.  

Liminality and Greek Life

In his piece, Victor Turner talks about three stages during rites of passage and these stages include: separation, transition, and integration. In their simplest forms, they are the three stages one passes through or experiences during a rite of passage. First, the subject separates his or herself from their previous status. From here, they enter the transitional phase which is the phase they remain in until the passage is complete. After the transitional phase they must reintegrate his or herself back into the community as their new role or status. When broken down, this is not that difficult. Turner, on the other hand, wishes to delve deeper into one of the stages that he finds incredibly important. This is the in between stage where the person is no longer associated with either side. Turner talks about his idea of liminality, which is a concept that I found particularly interesting.

Liminality is a gradual but temporary process in which the individual suspends belief and judgment in an attempt to allow for “profound interior change” (Dr. Bender). It is a time of deconstruction in order to learn and ultimately reconstruct and reemerge with a new sense of community and appreciation. Turner also mentions that during the period of liminality, there is an acceptance for pain and suffering. When first reading about this, I could not help but relate this to an experience a good friend of mine had.

When he first joined the Wake Forest University campus in the fall of 2011, he was just another male freshman in a class of almost a thousand. He came from a small, liberal, preppy high school where everyone knew everyone else but as soon as he stepped foot on the Wake campus, he was swallowed up by thousands of others. After only a few weeks, he soon made the decision to try to join a fraternity and by the time the spring semester rolled around, he was a pledge. Pledging was undoubtedly his period of liminality. He had officially left the unaffiliated freshman but had not yet been initiated into Greek life. He was in his transitional phase.

Throughout the spring of his freshman year, he volunteered to take part in a great many tasks and activities (these tasks and activities were in no way forced upon him or asked of him, he volunteered his services for self-betterment and for the betterment of the fraternity) just so he could be a part of a bond created through this liminality. The system in which almost every male Greek organization participates in can be dangerous and seem to have no reason but for the sick amusement of older brothers but not only are these rumors mostly untrue but after reading Turner’s piece, there is, in fact, a reason for the pledge period. It is not to test one’s loyalty, composure, and devotion, which is often the consensus, but rather it is meant to create a strong bond between previous strangers where none would have existed. A fraternity is the farthest thing from a social club or an extracurricular, it is a brotherhood. My friend would do anything for his biological brothers and, like so, because of his period of liminality and the relationships he created and have built upon since, he would go through great lengths for them too.

With all of this in mind, there were a few differences that I found between my friend’s experience and the process described by Turner. In a table, he compares liminality to “normal life,” and though there are stark contrasts I feel some are forced. For example, Turner claims that during liminality, there is a disregard for personal appearance whereas in normal life, one cares for their personal appearance. During the spring of 2012, my friend definitely still cared for his personal appearance and as did many others that were pledging either the same or different fraternities. A few times, however, my friend did volunteer to dress in strange clothes, in costume, or with a jacket and tie just so he could bring joy to those around him. I also believe that Turner’s idea that in liminality one is humble as opposed to full of pride in normal life is slightly misleading. I believe that being humble is more of a choice and based on my friend’s experience, I feel that being “submissive” is a little more accurate.

Overall I think that this idea of a period of liminality is one that is ever present in each and every one of our lives, whether it is interning for a company (when all you really do is get coffee and do the dirty work), going through boot camp before the army, or even preparing for a ceremony to initiate you into adulthood. It is a very interesting topic and idea and one that no doubt invites further exploration.

Liminality at Wake

 For this post I have decided to investigate how Victor Turner’s idea of “liminality” plays a part in all of our lives as college students as we engage in various rituals for rites of passage into adulthood. Turner points out three stages that occur during the rite of passage, when one person moves forward in the life cycle. If we look at going to college as a ritualistic rite of passage for many Western children, Turner’s three stages align nicely with our “before, during, and after” of college life.

The first stage, separation, represents our pre-adult life. We are isolate from the “real world” as many people say. As children, we are not subject to the same stressors and pressures as adults. We may have a host of our pre-teen or teenage problems (I sure did), but there are countless things that I did not need to worry about that my mother and father did. The third stage (I’m going out of order here so that I can talk about liminality in more depth so bear with me), according to Turner is integration. This involves a reintroduction into social life, an incorporation of your values and behavior into that which is expected for normal societal beings. Pretty straightforward.

If we use Turner’s stages to look at rites of passage and the transition from kid to adult, there is a very important phase known as “liminality.” An individual during this stage has begun the transition and is no longer associated with the beginning or end points. This temporary stage is a preparation for the next stage of life; opening up the mind to be totally reorganized by the integration stage. I believe that college life is a perfect example of liminality as compared to adult and child life.

Liminality differs from normal life in several ways, which I will discuss in relation to college life. College is transitional rather than a state. College life, no matter how much we would like it to be, is temporary and will end eventually. College is also extremely homogeneous in comparison to the rest of our population. At Wake Forest (regardless of how much diversity we have) we are all from relatively similar backgrounds and are all of a relatively similar age. There is also a large amount of equality and a lack of status. As students we are involved in different clubs and organizations and live vastly different lives, but in the eyes of the university we are all considered equal – as students. (Although the fact that I can’t get into the business school after dark leads me to believe otherwise; but that’s another matter…)

Another major characteristic, according to Turner, of liminality, is a lack of property. As a college student, I do not have property. At Wake Forest we are required to live on campus for three years. During these first three years, all that I own has to fit into a 15’ by 11’ room. The furniture is not mine, and I might even have to share this space with another student. Furthermore, I cannot do whatever I please with my room. Resident Advisers regularly check our rooms to ensure that we are not engaging in one of the many violations. 

Turner also argues that liminality can be characterized by acceptance of pain and suffering.While there are some parts of Wake Forest that I have to literally suffer through (for example, the three or four hours after eating at The Pit), our pain and suffering is less physical and more mental. We work long hours and are subject to large amounts of stress, both social and academic. Finally, and arguably most importantly, we have developed a sense of communitas during our time at Wake Forest. By being in between two concrete stages, where status and other aspects of real life are well defined, we create strong bonds with others experiencing the same ambiguity as we are. Bonds with college friends last lifetimes, and are often more unique and deeper than many other relationships we will encounter during other times in our lives (usually). 

There are several aspects of Turner’s liminality that do not exactly apply to college life, in my opinion. I don’t necessarily believe that we live in anonymity,  and I certainly don't think that we - as college students - have a particular disregard for our personal appearance (except maybe during finals week). I’d love to see if any of you have any ideas of how these characteristics apply to our life at Wake!

Liminality during college prepares us to adjust to the shock that will come with being adults. During our time at Wake Forest we are slowly integrated into adult life by being exposed in small intervals to new types of activities that we will encounter in the "real world" - such as paying rent, meeting deadlines, practicing for job interviews, etc... College life parallels wonderfully with Turner's notions of liminality.

Turner, Victor "Symbols in Ndembu Ritual [1967]." Readings for A History of Anthropological Theory. By Paul A. Erickson and Liam D. Murphy. Toronto: University of Toronto, 2013. 273-289. Print.

Disney Dynamos - Juxtaposition of Main Characters Demonstrates Leach Socioculturally

 Leach illustrated Levi-Strauss's main ideas about myth and underlying structures common across myth through the use of the shocking example drawn from the Christian Bible, comparing John the Baptist and Jesus. He meant to show that "myth stories do not occur as isolates but in sets: the message of the myth is made obliquely by repetitive, yet contrasted, references to the same moral injunction which is transgressed in different ways" (Leach 1972). The stories of John the Baptist and Jesus, which juxtaposed by Leach, exhibit an exchange of roles where both violate the mores of the societies in which they lived.

     While the Bible functions to  deliver mores and warnings to adults, Disney was the messenger of many of my social and moral lessons as a child. The Bible has been translated into numerous languages, and similarly, Disney movies get translated from English into a whole host of other languages, making these stories accessible and formative on almost every continent. Embedded within the plot structures of Disney stories are moral injunctions that quietly instruct children beneath the surface of a light-hearted tale with catchy music. The most general moral injunction of avoiding sin can be equated to the childish term of "being bad." Disney movies continually depict the triumph of good over bad, but in order to triumph, characters must transgress the moral set forth and resolve the situation by the movie's end. I specifically chose Disney movies based on fairytales, since fairytales are an evident form of myth.

     Some commonly seen moral injunctions within Disney's plots include the importance of independence and of beauty, the importance of family, and the importance of a good work ethic. Notice that transgressions of these moral injunctions would easily lead to numerous sins, including vanity, envy, and sloth, that children are instructed to avoid. Just as Leach realized examples were more illustrative of his point than theory, I am going to exemplify my point through the following Disney movies: Tangled, Frozen, and The Princess and the Frog.

     Tangled is framed around the moral injunction of the importance of independence and youth, which represents an underlying idea valued in certain cultures. Both Rapunzel and Rapunzel's "mother" (Gothel) transgress in their behaviors applicable to the moral injunction. Gothel exerts too much control and is too independent, as seen by her locking Rapunzel up and living outside of the kingdom in a lone tower, while Rapunzel completely lacks independence due to being imprisoned in the tower both physically and emotionally (by guilt trips that her mother pulls). Gothel keeps Rapunzel imprisoned because she is obsessed with maintaining her youth, while Rapunzel lies on the other end of that spectrum in a state of unawareness as to her youthful beauty. Once their roles change, they are able to fulfill the most embedded more/value where the good (Rapunzel) wins over bad influences (Gothel).

     Frozen is framed around the moral injunction of the importance of family, another concept emphasized to children that is applicable to even more cultures around the world. Both Elsa and Anna transgress in their treatment of family throughout the film, and the film only resolves when Elsa and Anna cease transgressing and accordingly become a family unit again. Elsa is too alienated because of her powers and so doesn't fit within her family. Thus she elects to leave her family and be alone. On the other hand, Anna is held too firmly within her family because of the parents' desire to protect her from Elsa's power, and she fits too well within her family because her family has been built around her. Thus, at first chance, she seeks out another family in the form of her hasty suitor, Hans. Each transgression pertaining to family presents its own dangers, because Elsa being alone puts the whole kingdom at risk of freezing, while Anna's desire to not be alone put the kingdom in the hands of the conniving Hans. Only once the sisters reunite and resolve their differences can the movie reach its conclusion.

     The Princess and the Frog constructs their plot around the moral injunction of a good work ethic, which appears to be valued in many cultures. The transgressors are Tiana and Prince Navene. Tiana works too hard, to the exclusion of fun and family, in the pursuit of fulfilling her dream of owning her own restaurant. As a result, she is also overly cautious. On the other hand, Prince Navene works too little, to the bankruptcy of his title, in the pursuit of jazz and musical fun. As a result, he is overly carefree. The cost of both lifestyles is depicted in the plot, and the moral injunction of having a balanced work ethic is illustrated by the conclusion of the movie when Tiana and Prince Navene positively influence each other to be a bit more carefree and hard-working respectively.

     After mobilizing Leach's work to reexamine something as familiar as Disney movies, I ultimately realized the limitations of his work and Levi-Strauss's. Because of Levi-Strauss's valuing of binary opposition, the construction of binaries was paramount in Leach's analysis of John the Baptist and Jesus. Culture does not always shape itself in the form of binaries, so just like Leach, I felt myself straining to find connection at times or slightly reinterpreting the story to suit a more elegant and clean explanation. Leach also notates the universalizing goal of Levi-Strauss's theories about myth where many things can be reduced to fit certain binaries. Such universalizing theories ignores diversity, and Leach's use of the Bible lends a preferential Western slant to his investigation of myth. 

Leach, Edmunc. "Structuralism in Social Anthropology [1972]." Readings for A History of Anthropological Theory. By Paul A. Erickson and Liam D. Murphy. Toronto: University of Toronto, 2013. 159-168. Print.

"Mankind The Story of All of Us"... Or Most of Us

As part of our recent readings leading us into the topic of Feminist Anthropology we read Sally Slocum’s “Woman the Gatherer: Male Bias in Anthropology” (1975). In this piece Slocum demonstrates an attempt to identify the many biases that have yet to be acknowledged in anthropology and anthropological research. In this attempt she uses the work, Man the Hunter, as a means to deconstruct the idea of a solely male evolution and examine the importance of the female role in evolution with her example, Woman the Gatherer.  

In reading this article I could not help but to link it to some recent research of my own. As part of my Primate Behavior and Biology class we have a final paper that is coming up and for this paper we can either choose to make it a literary review or propose a research question. While on Google, trying to find a topic on primates that strikes my interest, I come across a series of human evolution books and videos/movies. Being the aspiring biological anthropologist that I am, I take a particular interest in these things and start clicking around ending up on www.history.com looking at a series of videos documenting the collection known as “Mankind the Story of All of Us”. I found the video titled “Defining Humans” to particularly interesting as it relates to many of the points made in Slocum’s article.

Before even pressing play one could make the correlation between Slocum’s work and the title of the collection, “Mankind the Story of All of Us”. Slocum makes a point in her argument when she talks about the display of male bias in our language. As an example she brings to our attention the “all too often” use of the word “man”. Here she argues that the word “man” is no longer just a reference to sex but is used in such a fashion that it’s become synonymous with the word “male” and now the human species as a whole (Page 308). Going back to the title of the documentary, if we look at this from Slocum’s point of view it is almost a contradiction. How could a term such as “mankind” be relevant to a story about all of us, men and women? Here we see an example of the very point Slocum makes in her article, connecting male bias to language use.  

Another huge point, and possibly the focal point of the article, is the idea of what women were doing while “man” was evolving. Slocum says that history has painted the picture of the evolution of man as one in which males were out hunting, developing skills, inventing language and creating tools, while females are seen as the dependents, sitting home and having children. She argues that anthropology fails to account for the importance of the female’s role of being a gatherer and child bearer (Page 310). She goes on to say that the females role of gathering to provide food for the dependent infants and their families was a precursor to hunting of larger bodied animals, activities done by men (Page 310-311). Males are seen at the forefront of every step of evolution; hunting, learning to cooperate, inventing art and weapons. This is something I found in the video after pressing play. The video notes the milestones of “man” (humans) documenting things such as the cave paintings found at Lascaux with a male figure, the survival of the ice age with varies male figures leading the group, while the females were depicted as needing a mans assistance or with child. The video also looks to define what makes humans different than our primate ancestors, stating that we are a species that “likes to be remembered” or “a species that looks beyond survival”. In these parts the video shows men building the railroads, men creating buildings, men creating the first cars, men taking authoritative roles during the 60’s, men creating electricity, men playing with fire, men building the pyramids, and in all of these pivotal shots, not a single woman is shown. The observations I've made from this documentary on “mankind” directly correlate with the points made by Slocum in her article. Our knowledge of man and the evolution of man as a whole leaves out a vital character; the woman. In all aspects of anthropological teaching, female figures take a backseat to the more prominent male roles in society and this is the story of history, or “mankind” that we teach the world through resources, such as the documentary mentioned above. It’s important to acknowledge the importance and the contributions made by both man and woman in order to get a holistic understanding of ourselves. If we do not consider both, we are only getting part of the story. 

Link to "Mankind the Story of All of Us" :  http://www.history.com/shows/mankind-the-story-of-all-of-us/videos/mankind-the-story-of-all-of-us-defining-humans

"Language, Gender, and Power" - A Reflection on Susan Gal

Susan Gal was a feminist anthropologist who is involved with linguistic anthropology. This selection entitled “Language, Gender, and Power: An Anthropological Review” was published in 1991 during the second wave of feminism beginning in the 1980’s, which was known for launching the now fairly well established concept that there is a difference between sex and gender. Her work, besides being influenced by this second wave of feminism, is also influenced by Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu, both poststructural theorists. Using their ideas, she aims to show how language can affect and even create gender-linked identity (Gal 315).

                

Gal describes two seemingly distinct types of language and gender research: variationist sociolinguistics and symbolic or cultural studies, and states that they are better suited to work in conjunction with each other. Variationist studies correlate linguistic variables with the sex of the speaker. Gal states that they should not just limit themselves to categorizing speech based on whether the speaker is a man or a woman, but should go further to take into account that the categories of “feminine” and “masculine” are culturally constructed. Therefore, it should be understood that the categories they use are actually constantly changing throughout history and are related to the cultures in which the speaker resides and their idea of moral order. By combining variationist sociolinguistics with cultural studies, the cultural and historical framework can be taken into account when examining linguistic patterns (Gal 316). Likewise, those anthropologists focused on symbolic studies should not neglect the forms of communication and linguistic aspects of the people they study (Gal 317). Together, these two forms of research can create a more complete picture of language, gender, and power dynamics.

                

One example that Gal uses to support the idea that the links between gender, linguistics, and status are culturally constructed is that of the Malagasy people. In this culture, women’s speech is frank and direct, while men’s speech is reserved and veiled. In this way, they seem to be the opposite of what is usually thought of to be normal in Western culture, with women being the restrained speakers and men being blunt. Another example from Gal is that of silence. From a feminist perspective, the silence of women is unacceptable and shows passivity and less power than men. However, in Apache culture, men use silence as a show of masculine power in that it is a strategic defense against other people (Gal 316). Also, for the English Quakers in the 17^th century, silence was a mark of political protest, not passivity (Gal 317). These two examples show how what is considered “powerful” in terms of linguistics varies from culture to culture, and that in order to understand the differences, we need to take into account symbolic or cultural studies.

                 

Another example used by Gal is the tendency for people in the United States and Britain to characterize manliness with toughness and working class culture, and femaleness with refinement, respectability, and high culture. These symbolic attributes, while frequently studied in cultural areas, should also be examined in terms of linguistics, as linguistic practices are a driving force in how these associations and symbols of femininity and masculinity are strengthened (Gal 317).

                

Gal’s next point after establishing the link between sociolinguistics and cultural studies of beliefs is that together they can help to examine how gender relates to symbolic domination, or power. Gal states that one aspect of symbolic domination is the ability to make other accept and carry out your way of looking at the world and your hegemonic views. However, these dominant cultural orders are often challenged (Gal 318).

                 

One way in which these dominant orders are defied is shown through Gal’s example of Carol Edelsky’s (1981) study of two different “floors” of faculty meetings containing both men and women in one American college. Here, it is shown that the first type of floor is characterized by speakers taking turns talking in the meeting, but taking longer and fewer turns and having fewer overall people talk. The second kind of floor is characterized by the speakers overlapping and talking at once with collaboration and more participation. Both floors spoke about the same subjects, but the first floor was dominated by men while the second floor had both men and women participating.  However, the more formal and more male driven first floor happened more, and was considered the norm. In this way, the second floor is a critique of the norms of the first and attempts to change the values of the first (Gal 319).

Another example is that of Bedouin poetry of Egypt’s Western Desert. Here, the dominant ideology is honor, sexual restraint, and autonomy. In contrast, the poems who are performed by women and youths express the values of romance, emotional vulnerability, and reliance. These poems are both subversive and admired in the culture and undermine the values of honor held by men, and show contradictions in the dominant cultural order, just as the “floors” exhibited in America with its undermining of the typical meeting style that favor men (Gal 320).

                 

Overall, Gal points out that the ideas of domination and resistance through actions like the floors and poetry examples reveal that one strong aspect of power is that it defines social reality and how people should act (Gal 320). Through examining practices of domination and resistance, language, and ideology, we can form a more complete interpretation of dominant social institutions and history. One of Gal’s strengths is that she moves past the idea of man vs. woman. Since her work was published fairly recently in 1991, it is clear that she is able to synthesize the feminist writings from the 1970’s and 1980’s, and is able to move past the initial push of feminism to rectify the male bias in anthropology. Her research shows feminist anthropology taking an even further step into the ideas of power and hegemony in general, and analyzing how speakers subvert and undermine the dominant ideology of their culture, no matter their sex. Hopefully this is an indication of where anthropology is headed in the future, a place where humans, their relationships, and their actions, are examined not in the classifications of men and women, but instead in a broader, more holistic context.

Gal, Susan. "Language, Gender, and Power: An Anthropological Review [1991]." Readings for A History of Anthropological Theory. By Paul A. Erickson and Liam D. Murphy. Toronto: University of Toronto, 2013. 315-323. Print.

Cockfighting and Buzkashi

Influenced by Max Weber, Clifford Geertz believed that the core of culture was a set of integrated moral values that satisfied the discrepancy between how the world currently exists, and how the individual or society believes it should exist. Using the process known as “Thick Description”, which is the process of interpreting culture as text, Geertz attempted to determine how symbols and events were utilized by a culture to symbolize and convey multiple messages about the world around them and the social processes which encompass that world. 

Geertz wrote that culture is, “an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and their attitudes toward life” (Wilks 2007). In Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight, Geertz applied the idea that is the basis of symbolic anthropology, that attention should be applied to the role of symbols and cultural practices in understanding community meaning. 

Through the cockfights, a status competition between individuals is created in which the money lost or gained through betting is inconsequential, but the prestige and status gained or lost is the most valued. By means of the cockfights, hierarchical, and gendered rankings are established and attempted to be overthrown. The cockfights are able to shape and direct the social and cultural structure of the Balinese by directly injecting social and political rivalry into the game. By looking at the cockfights as a text, Geertz was able to determine the ultimate meaning and role behind the cockfights and explain while the cockfights were outlawed, they were still held regularly and attended by so many. 

I think Geertz has a good idea in that those words and activities that we use to describe ourselves often have more meaning and importance than that what is used to describe us externally. However, I think it can be problematic similar to the epistemological perspective of Emic Behavioral proposed by Marvin Harris in that people can develop a false consciousness and by talking about something that may have deep symbolic meaning, misrepresent the meaning of the behavior or activity to themselves and the ethnographer. Thus it is important to be able to not only take an emic perspective, but at times take a step back and look through an etic lens upon the cultural situation you, as the ethnographer, are interpreting. 

Although I cannot think of a specific example that has similarities in our modern western culture (perhaps someone else can think of one!), my mind immediately thought of the use of the game of Buzkashi in Central Asia. I first learned about Buzkashi in Dr. Folmar’s Anthropology 111: Peoples and Cultures of the World. This is a game that could be described as being similar to polo as it is played on horseback with the major difference being that instead of a ball and a bat, players fight over a headless calf or goat carcass.  

By hosting a Buzkashi game, individuals are able to commemorate their cultural heritage, as well as providing an arena through which political competition can occur, much like during a cockfight. Hosting a Buzkashi event demonstrates the host’s power and status in the community as hosting requires a significant amount of time and money to coordinate all the needed supplies and to court favor with others to attend. Additionally, it provides an arena for individuals to compete and create status where there had previously not been. 

Similar to the cockfight, the game of Buzkashi, provides an opportunity to demonstrate and discuss, in a subtle way, the social relationships that are evident in their societies and the power struggle that exists daily. 

Geertz, Clifford. "Notes on the Balinese Cockfight" in The Interpretation of Cultures, Basic Books, 1973.

Wilk, Richard. “Anthropologist Biographies – Geertz.” Indiana University Bloomington. Indiana University Department of Anthropology. 2007. Web Accessed March 20, 2014. http://www.indiana.edu/~wanthro/theory_pages/Geertz.htm.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/6516374/Afghan-horsemen-play-Buzkashi-a-kind-of-polo-using-a-headless-calf-or-goat-instead-of-a-ball.html