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.