Kinship and Gender

An Introduction

Linda Stone, Diane E. King

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429871658
• Edition: 6
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Does kinship still matter in today's globalized, increasingly mobile world? Do family structures continue to influence the varied roles that men and women play in different cultures? Answering with a resounding 'yes!', Linda Stone and Diane E. King offer a lively introduction to and working knowledge of kinship. They firmly link these concepts to cross-cultural gender studies, illuminating the malleable nature of gender roles around the world and over time.

Written to engage students, each chapter in Kinship and Gender provides key terms and useful generalizations gleaned through research on the interplay of kinship and gender in both traditional societies and contemporary communities. Detailed case studies and cross-cultural examples help students understand how such generalizations are experienced in real life. The authors also consider the ramifications of current social problems and recent developments in reproductive technology as they demonstrate the relevance of kinship and gender to students' lives.

The fully-revised sixth edition contains new case studies on foster parenting in the United States and on domestic violence. It provides new material on pets as family members and an expanded discussion of the concept of lineal masculinity. There is also a comparison of the adoption of new reproductive technologies in Israel with other countries, along with a discussion of the issue of transnational movements in the use of these technologies.

1
Gender, Reproduction, and Kinship

Women and men today are raising new questions about gender identity and status. In the process of forming these questions, we have seen a growth of interest in approaching the subject both cross-culturally and historically. In 2017, National Geographic magazine devoted a special issue to the topic of “Gender Revolution,” documenting new social movements, problems and controversies over gender worldwide. This broad approach has been essential in that it allows us to address some of the larger concerns, such as whether and to what extent women have been universally subjugated to men or treated as “second-class citizens.” In addition, many students have sought to look beyond the confines of their own cultures and times to gain a broader perspective on particular gender issues in their own societies.

As a field of study, gender refers not only to people’s understandings of the categories “male” and “female” but also to the ways in which these understandings are interwoven with other dimensions of social and cultural life. The latter include the social roles that women and men play, the values surrounding male and female activities, and people’s particular conceptions of the nature and meaning of sexual differences.¹ All of these aspects of gender vary widely from culture to culture.

In this book we explore gender cross-culturally through the framework of kinship. Specifically, we seek to introduce new ways in which some cross-cultural variations in gender can be understood. Kinship is an old, established specialization in anthropology, noted more for its difficult jargon and tortuous diagrams than for the light it sheds on gender. Indeed, Michael Herzfeld (2007: 313) noted that “students who have never confronted [kinship’s] more technical aspects still profess boredom with the topic and relief that they do not have to deal with it.” Of course, our intention is not to bore yet another generation of students but, instead, to show that kinship, when stripped of certain of its more advanced complexities and focused on the subject of gender, can be both interesting and illuminating.

There are many areas in which the study of kinship and the study of gender intersect (for example, in religion or in political organization), but the one we emphasize in this book is reproduction. In all societies, human offspring are a vital concern; in fact, the very survival of any society depends on successful reproduction. And in all societies, human reproduction is regulated. Laws, norms, and cultural ideologies define where, when, and in what contexts heterosexual intercourse is permitted or prohibited, encouraged or discouraged. When intercourse results in reproduction, a whole host of laws, norms, and values come into play to define this situation, especially as it relates to the allocation of children to particular individuals or groups. The meanings of “marriage” and “divorce,” and the idea of child “legitimacy,” are all a part of how different human groups handle reproduction. Kinship is everywhere a part of the social and cultural management of reproduction and, as such, is intimately interlinked with gender. A primary concern of the book, then, is the sexual and reproductive roles of women and men. We will see how kinship shapes these roles and, in the process, affects gender.

Both ambivalence and controversy have surrounded the discussion of reproductive roles in relation to gender status. We know that, biologically speaking, women play a special role in reproduction—that they, and not men, undergo pregnancy and childbirth. Some scholars hold that gender is rooted in these biological facts of life, or that gender is rooted in sex differences. Consider Alice Rossi’s (1985) work, which focused on uncovering the influences of biological factors on women’s behavior, showing, for example, how pregnancy stimulates certain maternal responses in women. Or consider the many studies suggesting that even at very young ages, males are more aggressive than females and exhibit greater competition and dominance striving (MacIntyre 2009). Yet many social scientists feel that studies of biology do not go very far in accounting for differences in gender, as these differences vary considerably across cultures and, in their view, are largely learned. Barbara Miller (1993: 22) summarized this view: “A simple rule of science is that variables (sex and gender hierarchies) cannot be explained by constants (genitals and chromosomes).” In other words, if male/female biological differences are everywhere constant, then we cannot refer to those differences to account for the variable gender patterns we see around the world.

Other scholars have linked gender with biology by focusing on what they propose all human groups do have in common with regard to reproduction. For instance, evolutionary social scientists have suggested that human males and females have evolved different mating strategies, as have all other animal species. Thus, males and females are biologically oriented to maximize their genetic “fitness,” or reproductive success—that is, they pursue strategies to ensure that their genes will be maximally transmitted to and represented in subsequent generations (see Chapter 2). Men’s best strategy is to mate with a plurality of females. Women, by contrast, do not seek to become pregnant and give birth as often as possible (this would only weaken them and lessen the survival chances of their many children) but rather seek fewer offspring who can be well cared for and so themselves survive and eventually reproduce. A woman does not need many sexual partners to maximize her fitness, but only one good mate, or perhaps a few, to impregnate her. Thus, as expressed by one evolutionary ecologist, males go for “mate quantity” whereas females go for “mate quality” (Smuts 1995: 5). In the end, then, men seek sexual activity with a number of partners, or are inherently more promiscuous than women, since this will help maximize their fitness.

An additional idea along these lines is that men and women also differ in parental investment, or how and how much they care and provide for offspring to help the offspring’s survival and reproduction. For a woman the situation is simple since a woman always knows who her offspring are. Investing in her offspring will directly increase her fitness, although some circumstances may alter her strategies. For example, if the woman has poor resources and cannot provide well for all of her children, she may favor those of her children who are more likely to survive, and neglect the others. But for men the situation is very different: Their parental investment depends on “paternity certainty,” or the extent to which a man can be assured that a particular child is biologically his. Paternity certainty will be higher where there are greater restrictions on female sexuality. Some have argued, then, that many practices around the world (female seclusion, a sexual double standard, etc.) developed to increase paternity certainty (Smuts 1995). Women may also support these restrictions because they know, however unconsciously, that higher paternity certainty will increase the chances that men will help provide for the women and their children.

Evolutionary psychologists maintain that these different male and female strategies for mating and parental investment evolved during a particular period in time (the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation, or the Paleolithic period of human prehistory) but they continue to shape human behavior. David Buss (1994) claimed that as a result men everywhere are attracted to women who look young and healthy, as these are signs of good fertility. By contrast, women care less about looks and youth (older, less attractive men may still be good impregnators) but are instead attracted to men who exhibit wealth and power, as these men are likely to be good providers. Buss also argues that men evolved greater sexual jealousy than women: A man’s female mate’s infidelity threatens a man’s fitness since it reduces his paternity certainty, whereas a man’s infidelity does not really threaten his mate’s fitness. These ideas from evolutionary social science remain controversial. Some writers charge that they merely justify male infidelity, ideas about female dependence on male resources, restrictions on female sexuality, and hence female subordination (Tang-Martinez 1997).

Evolutionary ecologists have used these ideas on human mating strategies, or more generally strategies for reproductive success, to address questions about women’s status and life options. Here, attention is given to ecological and social factors (such as marriage forms and subsistence systems) that shape reproductive and parenting strategies. In this approach some cross-cultural generalizations emerge. For example, Bobbie Low (2005) has shown how, across cultures, male and female children tend to be raised differently in accordance with the strategies for reproductive success of each gender. “Cross-culturally, sons are more strongly trained than daughters in behaviors useful in open competition, while daughters are more strongly trained in such values as sexual restraint, obedience, and responsibility—traits widely sought by men in their wives” (2005: 74). Low also found that in those societies where women do control important resources, daughters are less likely to be raised to be submissive.

Other scholars have avoided or discounted discussion of gender and biological reproduction, not wishing to fuel the notion that “biology is destiny.” They are concerned that these approaches can be used to justify the subordination of women as “natural,” inevitable, and unchangeable. By contrast, their approach minimizes the difference in men’s and women’s reproductive roles (Rothman 1987). They stress, for example, that just because women get pregnant and give birth, it does not necessarily follow that they must be the primary caretakers of children, remain confined to the home, or be excluded from important political and economic pursuits. In particular, these writers argue that a subordinate status of women is not biologically rooted but socially imposed (or imposed by men).

Still other writers reject the idea that biology determines gender but nevertheless hold that women’s reproductive roles do work as an instrument of their oppression or subordination to men. For example, Michele Rosaldo (1974) claimed in her earlier writing that women’s reproductive roles confine them to the home and to domestic tasks. She argued that this domestic, “private sphere” of women is everywhere less valued than the “public sphere” of men, or the broader male world of politics and extra-domestic authority. The idea was that the male public sphere is superior because it encompasses the female domestic realm and involves economic and political activities of concern to larger social groups. However, critics countered that not all societies exhibit such a sharp division between private and public spheres, that women in some societies do have public roles, and that female domestic activities are not necessarily everywhere devalued. Rosaldo (1980) later came to agree with many of these criticisms; in particular, she concurred that gender conflicts in relation to a private/public dichotomy may be a characteristic of Euro-American society rather than a human universal.

In contrast to Rosaldo, others argued that women are generally oppressed not because their reproductive and domestic roles are devalued but precisely because their reproduction is highly valued socially and thus controlled by men (Moen 1979). Men have power over women because men are in greater control of the political and economic forces that control human reproduction (Robertson 1991: 41). Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp (1995) also looked at human reproduction in terms of the forces regulating it and the effects of this control on individuals and groups. They suggested many ways in which global processes perpetuate social inequalities through the international politics of reproduction (see Chapter 10).

More recently, many have come to question not only whether a subordination of women is universal but also along what criteria such a claim could ever be made. How should we define the “status” of women, especially cross-culturally? Women in a particular society might be seen as “oppressed” by outsiders and yet have a very different view of their own situation and status. A good example is the veiling of women in public, as practiced in several Islamic areas of the Middle East and Southwest Asia. Outsiders may see these practices as “oppressive” to women, but women within these societies may have an entirely different view. They may see veiling as a good and necessary protection of their persons in the world outside the home and as a symbol of their own self-respect. To what extent, then, can we define “female oppression” in a way that is free of our own cultural biases?

In addition, it has become clear that women, even within one society, can differ widely in their perceptions of gender, depending on factors such as class position. Also, any woman’s status will vary according to the different roles she plays within her society and the different situations she encounters over her life course. Faced with these kinds of considerations, studies of gender have subsequently moved somewhat away from the issue of whether and in what sense there is a universal subordination of women, focusing instead on the different interests and strategies of women and men in the performance of gender in everyday life and on gender in relation to other social divisions such as race, ethnicity, class, and age (di Leonardo 1991: 18; Lamphere 1993: 72; Lamphere, Ragoné, and Zavella 1997). There is still great interest in cross-cultural studies of gender; although many of these do not invoke the idea of a universal subordination of women, they do compare societies in terms of their level of equality between men and women in different spheres of life, as will be seen throughout this book.

Enacting and Embodying Gender

How do women and men come to play the gender roles that they do in any society? One set of ideas on this issue focuses on socialization (or enculturation), that is, how we internalize certain culturally specific behaviors and attitudes as we grow from infants to adults. A simple example concerns the effects of parents in the United States giving Barbie dolls to girls and toy military weapons to boys. Later in life peer groups become powerful forces behind gender construction and role performance. This internalization of ideas about gender and gender roles is often unconscious. While socialization theory is still used in studies of gender and gender roles, some scholars came to feel that this approach went too far in characterizing culture as a static set of ideas and practices and depicting human actors as passive recipients of cultu...