Chapter 11 Gender in Comparative Perspective

1. Chapter 11Gender in Comparative Perspective • Cultural Construction of Gender • Gender Crossing and Multiple Gender Identities • The Sexual Division of Labor • Gender Stratification

2.  Cultural Construction of Gender • Sex is biologically determined. • Gender is culturally determined. • Different cultures have distinctive ideas about males and females. • These ideas define manhood/masculinity and womanhood/femininity.

3. Hua of Papua New Guinea • Patrilineal, horticultural people who live in villages of 100 to 300 people. • Gender is constructed based on female-male differences that are not recognized by people outside of Papua, New Guinea. • The Hua believe that later in life each gender can become like the other in certain respects.  

4. Hua of Papua New Guinea • Bodies contain a life-giving substance, nu. • Females have an excess of nu - grow faster, age more slowly and are unattractively moist. • Men contain a smaller amount of nu - have difficulty with growth and maintenance of vitality later in life, but are attractively dry.

5. Hua of Papua New Guinea During intercourse: • A woman transfers nu to her husband which pollutes and debilitates him. • The man contributes his nu to a woman so she gains strength and vitality at his expense. • The greater difference in nu between them, the more dangerous a woman is to a man.

6. Nu Gender Classifications In addition to male and female: • Figapa - Their bodies contain substances symbolically considered feminine. • Kakora - Eligible to live in the men's houses and to obtain the secret "male" knowledge gained during initiation ceremonies.

7. Figapa • Children of both sexes - been in recent intimate contact with their mother. • Women in their child-bearing years. • Post menopausal women who have not had at least 3 children. • Elderly men -female nu has been transferred to them throughout their life.

8.  Kakora • Males in their early teens through the prime years who have been imitated. • Postmenopausal women with more than two children.

9. Multiple Gender Identities • Many societies have more than two gender identities. • A third or fourth gender of "man-woman" or 'woman-man" or "not woman - not man“. • Well documented among Native American peoples. 

10. Native Americans and Multiple Gender Identities • More than 150 Native American cultures had multiple gender identities for males, females, or both sexes. • Males adopted dress, tasks, family roles and other aspects of womanhood. • Females took on activities associated with manhood.

11. Characteristics of Third- and Fourth- Gender Identities • A preference for the work of the opposite sex and/or work set aside for the third- or fourth- gender identity. • Cross dressing, or dressing in a combination of male and female garments.

12. Characteristics of Third- and Fourth- Gender Identities • Associations with spiritual power or a spiritual sanction. • Formation of sexual and emotional bonds with members of the same sex, were not not men-women or women-men.

13. The Sexual Division of Labor • The patterned ways in which tasks are allocated to men and women. • Division of labor on the basis of sex is found in all cultures, although the specific tasks performed vary.

14. Factors in Sexual Division of Labor • Physical strength - Work tasks requiring greater strength are performed by males. • Fertility maintenance - Prolonged physical exercise can depress female fertility, so most strenuous tasks are done by males. • Child care -Women tend to perform tasks that can be combined efficiently with child care.

15. Componentsof Gender Stratification • The social roles men and women perform. • The cultural value attached to women's and men's contributions to their families and other groups. • Access to positions of power and influence.

16. Componentsof Gender Stratification • Control over personal decision making. • Female deference to males. • General beliefs and ideas about the sexes.

17. Influences on Gender Stratification • The greater the contributions women make to the welfare of a group, the higher their status. • Ownership of resources and the control women have over the distribution of products of labor influences their status. • Women have higher status in matrilineal and/or matrilocal societies.