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Anthropology

<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Although there is a detailed exploration of <OpenstaxTerm>gender</OpenstaxTerm>, <OpenstaxTerm>patriarchy</OpenstaxTerm>, and <OpenstaxTerm>power</OpenstaxTerm> in <a href="./cf0085c6-528c-4101-ad26-19c612c5a2fa@153910e:56acff5d-d143-46c4-8755-69092b7b676a.xhtml">Gender and Sexuality</a>, this chapter will discuss how gender is tied to social inequalities. Anthropologists have studied how <OpenstaxTerm>gender relations</OpenstaxTerm> play a big part in experiences of inequality. Gender relations can interact with various other powerful cultural institutions to further oppress individuals.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	An important concept to grasp when seeking to understand gender and power is <OpenstaxTerm>patriarchy</OpenstaxTerm>, a system of social inequality based on gender in which power is assumed to be in the hands of men and characteristics associated with femininity are less valued. Patriarchy is related to male lineages and contexts in which men hold more political, social, and economic power or prestige. Recently, the claim that patriarchy remains a powerful force has been challenged by some social commentators, who argue that this system of oppression does not exist in modern society and that women and men experience equal opportunities in terms of employment, rights, and salary. Many anthropologists and other social scientists challenge this claim, pointing out ways in which patriarchy still impacts women’s lives.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Many anthropologists have made connections between gender and patriarchy, poverty, and race. In her fieldwork in the poor, mostly Black midwestern suburb of “Meadow View,” sociologist Sharon <OpenstaxTerm>Hicks-Bartlett</OpenstaxTerm> (2000) observed a particular type of oppression experienced by local women. Women living in poverty were relied upon and expected to keep their families together. Hicks-Bartlett described women tasked with managing low-wage, part-time work in a place where public systems of care and assistance, or even buses, were largely unavailable.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	The interpersonal and even internalized forces of patriarchy and power can also make women “compete to lose,” meaning they will deliberately not succeed at some things in order to gain social capital among their peers. For instance, anthropologist Signithia <OpenstaxTerm>Fordham</OpenstaxTerm>, (2013) who spent two years studying the interactions of Black teenage girls in a predominantly White high school (which she aptly named “Underground Railroad High School”), found that the girls in this middle-class high school downplayed their achievements in order to fit in with peer groups and friends. Academic success was sometimes experienced as a social hindrance for those whose goals were family and children.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxNote>
	<OpenstaxNoteTitle> Profiles in Anthropology </OpenstaxNoteTitle> <OpenstaxH3> Dr. William S. Willis Jr. 1921–1983 </OpenstaxH3>
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		 
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		Personal History: <a href="https://openstax.org/r/william-shedrick-willis">Dr. William S. <OpenstaxTerm>Willis</OpenstaxTerm> Jr.</a> was a Black intellectual, anthropologist, historian, and anti-racist scholar of the 20th century. He was born in Waco, Texas, but his family moved to Dallas because of threats from the Waco Ku Klux Klan. After graduating from Howard University as a history major, Willis volunteered for service with the US Coast Guard. Eventually, he began his graduate studies in anthropology at Columbia University, drawn to the program by the scientific anti-racism of the Boasian tradition.
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		Area of Anthropology: As a graduate student, Willis wanted to study Black culture and Black relations at home and abroad, but he was not able to do so because of the dominance of the study of Native Americans in American anthropology at the time. Nevertheless, Willis remained convinced of the importance of the historical approach in anthropology and of studying cultural change through time, considerations that were largely ignored by other theoretical frameworks popular in anthropology at the time.
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		Importance of His Work: Willis became the first Black faculty member at Southern Methodist University (SMU). While he was popular as a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at SMU, he faced numerous hurdles. He received the least pay and has said that he felt like he was the “workhorse of the department” (quoted in Harrison and Harrison 1999, 253), teaching the greatest number of new courses. Despite being promoted to associate professor with tenure, Willis resigned from SMU in 1972, citing the covert and overt racism he experienced in the anthropology department.
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		His 1972 article “Skeletons in the Anthropological Closet,” published in <OpenstaxEm>Reinventing Anthropology</OpenstaxEm>, declared that anthropology’s claim of being the “science of man” was delusional and asserted that anthropology’s virtual silence on the domination and exploitation of people of color at home and abroad, living outside the boundaries of White societies, was not consistent with the field’s tradition of scientific anti-racism. Willis argued that anthropology was organized around the needs of White people and that most White anthropologists did not see people of color as real human beings.
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
</OpenstaxNote>

9.2.3 Gender and Patriarchy

1 What Is Anthropology?

1.1 The Study of Humanity, or "Anthropology Is Vast"

1.1.1 The Heart of Anthropology: Central Narrative and Commitments

1.1.2 Central Commitment #1: Exploring Sociocultural Diversity

1.1.3 Central Commitment #2: Understanding How Societies Hold Together

1.1.4 Central Commitment #3: Examining the Interdependence of Humans and Nature

1.2 The Four-Field Approach: Four Approaches within the Guiding Narrative

1.2.1 Biological Anthropology

1.2.2 Archaeology

1.2.3 Cultural Anthropology

1.2.4 Linguistic Anthropology

1.2.5 How the Four Fields Work Together: The Example of Race

1.3 Overcoming Ethnocentrism

1.3.1 Enculturation and Ethnocentrism

1.3.2 Primitivism and Orientalism

1.4 Western Bias in Our Assumptions about Humanity

1.4.1 Primitivism and Orientalism in Popular Culture

1.4.2 The Bias of Backwardness

1.5 Holism, Anthropology’s Distinctive Approach

1.5.1 Society as an Integrated Whole

1.5.2 Sources of Contradiction, Conflict, and Change

1.6 Cross-Cultural Comparison and Cultural Relativism

1.6.1 Relativism Is Not “Anything Goes”

1.6.2 Morality, Activism, and Cultural Relativism

1.7 Reaching for an Insider’s Point of View

1.7.1 The Challenge of Representing Others

1.7.2 Collaborative Methods of Representation

1.7.3 Working across Cultures toward Common Goals

1.7.4 Suggested Readings

2 Methods: Cultural and Archaeological

2.1 Archaeological Research Methods

2.1.1 Archaeological Techniques

2.1.2 Archaeological Dating Methods

2.2 Conservation and Naturalism

2.2.1 Early Efforts

2.2.2 Salvage Anthropology

2.2.3 Museum Collections

2.2.4 Interpretation and Voice

2.3 Ethnography and Ethnology

2.3.1 The Development of Ethnography and Ethnology

2.3.2 Perspective and Interpretation in Ethnography

2.4 Participant Observation and Interviewing

2.4.1 Participant Observation

2.4.2 Interviewing Informants

2.4.3 Ethical Considerations

2.5 Quantitative and Qualitative Analysis

2.5.1 Differences between Quantitative and Qualitative Information

2.5.2 Modeling

2.5.3 The Science of Anthropology

2.6 Collections

2.6.1 Archives

2.6.2 Three-Dimensional Collections

2.6.3 Ownership

2.6.4 Suggested Readings

3 Culture Concept Theory: Theories of Cultural Change

3.1 The Homeyness of Culture

3.2 The Winkiness of Culture

3.3 The Elements of Culture

3.3.1 Culture Is What We Make

3.3.2 Culture Is What We Do

3.3.3 Culture Is What We Think

3.4 The Aggregates of Culture

3.4.1 Symbols

3.4.2 Ritual

3.4.3 Social Structure

3.5 Modes of Cultural Analysis

3.5.1 Evolution, Adaptation, and Historical Particularism

3.5.2 Functionalism

3.5.3 Structuralism

3.5.4 Ontology

3.6 The Paradoxes of Culture

3.6.1 Paradox 1: Culture Is Continuous, but It Changes

3.6.2 Paradox 2: Culture Is Bounded but Mobile

3.6.3 Paradox 3: Culture Is Consensual but Contested

3.6.4 Paradox 4: Culture Is Shared, but It Varies

3.6.5 Suggested Readings

4 Biological Evolution and Early Human Evidence

4.1 What Is Biological Anthropology?

4.1.1 Looking to the Deep Past

4.1.2 Exploring What It Means to Be Human

4.2 What’s in a Name? The Science of Taxonomy

4.2.1 Defining the Science of Taxonomy

4.2.2 Defining a Species

4.3 It’s All in the Genes! The Foundation of Evolution

4.3.1 The Units of Life

4.3.2 Gregor Mendel and the Laws of Heredity

4.3.3 Mendelian Inheritance in Humans

4.4 Evolution in Action: Past and Present

4.4.1 Early Evolutionists and the Fixity of Species

4.4.2 Charles Darwin’s Role in Changing Views of the Natural World

4.4.3 Understanding Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection

4.5 What Is a Primate?

4.5.1 What Is a Primate?

4.5.2 Primate Behavioral Variation

4.5.3 Explaining Primate Success

4.5.4 Primate Classification and Taxonomy

4.6 Origin of and Classification of Primates

4.6.1 Understanding Concepts of Time

4.6.2 Fossils and Dating Methods