The Domestication of Women

Discrimination in Developing Societies

Barbara Rogers

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN:
  9780415040105
  9781138833968
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134954698
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Policy
• Index: Social Sciences

"The Domestication of Women is a feminist critique of international development agencies and programs. A researcher in development studies with past experience as a United Nations consultant, Barbara Rogers writes with a note of outrage about the pervasive biases against women that lead to wasteful and destructive bungling on the part of Western and Westernized men who dominate the field of development planning."

- Amy Burce (Stanford University), Signs

Part One:
Problems of Perception

Introduction to Part One

The assumptions that development planners make about women in society are almost never stated, but are all the more powerful for that reason. It is thought ‘natural’ that a woman’s place is in the home and that she has a very specific set of tasks which are thought to be universal because they are based on the biological imperatives of sex. The most important role for women, defining their entire life, is portrayed as the bearing and bringing-up of children. A man, on the other hand, is seen as the ‘natural’ head of the family, its representative in the outside world, and therefore the person with whom planners will deal. Since it is assumed that men control families (‘the master in his own home’), any new resources intended for everyone should logically be channelled through them.

Chapter 1 discusses some of the misconceptions held by development planners, as products of the Western tradition, about women and how they relate to men. We review in Chapter 1 some questions about sex and gender, the division of labour, the role of women and men in child-care and the role of women as domestics in modern Western society. In Chapter 2 the definition of the problem in terms of the ‘status of women’, as it has come to be called, is scrutinized. The ways in which Westerners describe women in what they call ‘primitive societies’ are also questioned. The processes of discrimination involved in development, with its dual economy relegating women increasingly to the ‘underdeveloped’ subsistence sector, is presented as a means of understanding what is happening in the Third World today.

Chapter One
Women and men: the division of labour

Sex and gender

Sex is a physical distinction; gender is social and cultural. Although masculine or feminine gender is usually associated with male or female sex, this is not an absolute correlation. In Western society a child is conscious of the gender of its upbringing well before it can talk properly, and any attempts to change the gender of rearing because of ‘mistaken’ sex-labelling (biological characteristics at birth can often be ambiguous) frequently results in severe disturbance after the age of two. Many transsexuals are unambiguously of one sex, but identify themselves as of the opposite gender. A comprehensive survey by Ann Oakley has helped to clarify the important distinction between biological sex and the enormous range of distinctions made by Western society in the name of gender—feminine and masculine.¹

Gender and the division of labour

In talking of the division of labour between women and men in different societies we are talking almost exclusively of gender roles rather than sex roles, determined by culture rather than biology. Virtually all human behaviour, including even such ‘physical’ activities as copulation, childbirth and the parental care without which children cannot survive, is learned behaviour. It varies widely among different societies, and is quite distinct from that of the lower animals where activities are conducted, to a much greater degree, without prior experience or learning. It has been argued by Clifford Geertz that people (whom he calls ‘man’) are unique in that they are not highly programmed and do not perform actions basic to survival through intrinsic processes, but need to learn.

Geertz stresses that a major fact about our central nervous system is ‘the relative incompleteness with which, acting within the confines of autogenous patterns alone, it is able to specify behaviour.’ Thus culture is of crucial importance in, among other things, determining the role of gender. This applies even to sexual activities and to the bearing and rearing of children, as well as to other distinctions less directly linked to biological sex.²

Gender-roles, then, are determined to a relatively small extent by sexual characteristics. However, we have to account for the fact that the division of labour by gender is a factor in most, if not all societies. It plays a role in the production process—although the lines of demarcation show almost infinite variation and some societies will have more strictly defined areas of ‘female’ and ‘male’ activity than others. Gender is, together with age, a widely used means by which societies make some form of division of labour, a process of specialization which is an important tool of efficiency in any production system. There are many other criteria which are also used, such as racial or other physical distinctions, geographical origin, ‘family’ or ‘tribe’ and so on, and also to some extent caste or class. These are all cultural interpretations of physical differences. Margaret Mead, who did pioneering work in revealing the wide range of psychological and cultural traits which can be attached to masculine and feminine gender-roles, found that important characteristics of women in one culture were often those of men in another.³ She concludes from her field-work:

‘Primitive materials, therefore, give no support to the theory that there is a “natural” connexion between conditions of human gestation and appropriate cultural practices.’⁴

There is little physical determinism about which gender performs which role, apart from pregnancy and childbirth (and even these may be elaborately simulated by the father, who would then receive the credit for it).⁵ Even where Westerners commonly assume that only women would participate in a particular activity —for example breast-feeding—the pattern is by no means as clear-cut as the Western model would have us believe. Margaret Mead, in an attack on the sexual determinism advocated by Dr John Bowlby and others, promoting the mother as the only person able to care for a baby, has pointed out that in many ‘primitive’ societies both men and women— including those who have never given birth—may give the breast to a small child, and may offer it premasticated food right from birth.⁶ She lists several examples of societies which insist on the men being primarily responsible for infant and child-care.⁷ When Manus children were offered dolls for the first time it was the boys who took and played with them,⁸ while in other societies this would be seen as consistent with feminine roles.

Women’s work

The actual pattern of female and male activities will be devised by each society according to its beliefs about the reproductive functions of the sexes. Where many Western societies see rest as appropriate for women in pregnancy and labour, others require hard work and exercise. Childbirth has completely different and incompatible meanings, and is a different kind of event, according to the society in question.⁹ Western societies see men as largely superfluous in pregnancy and childbirth; other societies believe them to be vitally concerned, and restrict their activities during their wives’ pregnancy. Men may also simulate labour and be treated accordingly;¹⁰ and they may play a large part in nurturing children almost from birth.¹¹ Bronislaw Malinowski observed that among Australian aborigines, if a child’s father dies before it is born the child is killed by the mother. Eskimos of Greenland kill a baby if its mother dies in childbirth, for the same reason.¹² Either variant makes equal sense in terms of the gender which has been socialized in what we call the ‘maternal’ role.

The reproductive and nurturing roles, however they are assigned by the culture between the two genders, may serve to define broad lines of division among new tasks. George Murdock explains it by saying: ‘New tasks as they arise are assigned to one sphere of activities or the other in accordance with convenience and precedent.’¹³ These are of course matters of culture and the individual interpretation of culture.

In Western industrial society gender distinctions are commonly rationalized by beliefs about the central importance of women’s role in child-rearing, and the imputed operation of a maternal ‘instinct’. There is also the assumption that all men are ‘naturally’ incapable of nurturing children and, to compensate, are ‘naturally’ stronger than all women, who are deemed incapable of heavy work. The work that women perform, regardless of its actual character, is seen as somehow ‘not-work’, or at best very light work. In many other societies, the reverse beliefs apply. Malinowski, despite believing implicitly in the Western prescription as to the ‘natural’ characteristics of women, sums up his observations in The Sexual Life of Savages:

‘It is easy to see that the amount of work allotted to women is considerably greater and that their labour is much harder than men’s work…. Heavier work ought naturally to be performed by men; here the contrary obtains.’¹⁴

In an attempt to quantify the incidence of various patterns of division of labour by gender, George Murdock surveyed the available data for 224 societies, most of them non-literate. With a list of 46 different activities, he suggests that some are more often masculine than feminine, and some the reverse. For example, lumbering is exclusively masculine in 104 and exclusively feminine in six cases; cooking is exclusively feminine in 158 and exclusively masculine in five. Hunting, fishing, weapon-making, boat-building and mining tend to be masculine; grinding grain and carrying water tend to be feminine. Activities, that are less consistently allotted to one gender include preparing the soil, planting, tending and harvesting the crops and burden-bearing.¹⁵ This kind of survey, based on very crude data often not intended for this kind of analysis and with a relatively small number of societies being studied, is of rather limited value. However, it serves to indicate that even activities which are usually exclusively masculine or exclusively feminine do not invariably have to be so. One occupation sometimes assumed to be always for men only is war; but Ann Oakley is able to list various instances, in modern as well as ancient times, in which women have taken part in war.¹⁶ At the time of writing there are women fighting with liberation movements in Zimbabwe, Namibia, Western Sahara and Eritrea, and with urban guerrilla movements in various countries.

How sharply the distinction is made between feminine and masculine roles of course varies within a wide range. In some cultures, a special category may be created for women who excel in pursuits assigned to both sexes.¹⁷ In parts of Africa wealthier women can even acquire wives to perform women’s work in their own and their husband’s fields and compounds: they will pay the bride-price and go through a normal marriage ceremony.¹⁸ In many societies the division of labour is flexible. Margaret Mead points out that where women withdraw periodically from their families—a common enough feature of many societies—men have to do the housework and child-care even if the women do that for the rest of the time.¹⁹ Among the Bemba of Zambia, men would normally sew, wash clothing and sometimes cook, but would have to take over all the women’s tasks as well when the chiefs required tributary labour.²⁰

Sometimes the division of labour is merely preferential, and very little anxiety is shown by either gender over temporary reversals of the guidelines. Cora Du Bois reports that in Alor it is not thought unhealthy for anyone to take on the other gender’s work; in fact, those who do, are admired for possessing a supplementary skill. Many men are passionate horticulturalists (this being feminine work) and many women have financial skills (masculine work).²¹ The Mbuti pygmies have been described by Colin Turnbull as having a social structure in which sex- or gender-roles seem to be negligible. Both genders take part in the main activities of hunting and gathering. They also share political decisions and have the same social ‘status’. There is very little division of labour by gender; for example, men as well as women often care for even the youngest children and pregnancy is no bar to hunting. The Mbuti language distinguishes by gender only in terms of parenthood, ie ‘mother’ and ‘father’. Where other societies in their rituals emphasize the distinctions between the genders, Mbuti rituals emphasize the lack of them. There seems to be little anxiety about gender-roles.²² Margaret Mead also found a lack of differentiation among the Arapesh of New Guinea.²³ Geertz notes a similar pattern in Bali:

‘Sexual differentiation is culturally extremely played down in Bali and most activities, formal and informal, involve the participation of men and women on equal ground, commonly known as linked couples. From religion, to politics, to economics, to kinship, to dress, Bali is a rather “unisex” society, a fact both its customs and its symbolism clearly express.’²⁴

At the other end of the scale are societies which impose extremely rigid gender-roles. In some cultures where horticulture, for example, is defined as women’s work, a proclivity for it in a man is regarded as proof of sexual deviation.

One example of a society which imposes extremely rigid gender-roles is that of the Mundurucú Indians of central Brazil, where the polarization...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part One: Problems of Perception
• Part Two: Discrimination In Development Planning
• Part Three: The Effect of Development Planning On Women and Their Dependants
• Conclusions