Transcript Theoretical Approaches to the Study of Women Cross

Methods and Bias
The Pre-Feminist Era
Before 1970 very little attention
was given to women by
anthropologists.
Structural Conditions in the
Pre-Feminist Era
 Most anthropology was written as though the
perspective of male elders was the most
correct and “authoritative” account of a society
and its culture
 Ethnographers tended to be men, and
therefore had little or no access to the
activities, perspectives and beliefs of women
 Senior academicians, publishers and
administrators of granting agencies were
virtually all men.
Some Areas Where Women’s Lives
Were Not Adequately Represented
• Participation in general activities and
rituals
• Activities and rituals exclusive to women
• Control over economic resources
• Decision-making
• Power and influence vs. authority
Examples from the
Pre-Feminist Era
C. W. M. Hart & Arnold Pilling
The Tiwi North Australia published 1960
(fieldwork 1928-20, 1953-54)
From the publisher’s introduction:
“This is a case study of a system of influence and power
which is based on a strange currency. The currency is
woman. Newborn females, nubile marriageable females,
toothless old hags – all are valuable in Tiwi terms. Because
men compete for prestige and influence through their control
over women, women have the value of a scarce commodity.
Under this system, there are no illegitimate children,
unmarried females of any age, and wives are either very
much older or very much younger than their husbands.”
Hart/Piling con’t
“Space permits only the barest mention of
initiation, which was, along with mourning, the
chief vehicle of Tiwi ritual. For females, there
were no initiation ceremonies, but for males, it
was a long, drawn-out and elaborate affair,
marked by successive stages or grades which
began with he status of Marukumarni, which a
boy entered when he was about fourteen, and
did not end finally until he was around twentyfour.”
pg. 93
Hart/Piling con’t
Taboo/pukimani
…when a man found himself in a state of
pukimani, his behavior was automatically
prescribed for him and for the duration of his
pukimani condition he observed his avoidances
and his abstentions just as automatically as he
dropped them when his pukimani period expired.
…Big men simply did not dare to be casual
about the requirements lest their reputations
suffer and they lose face and influence. Less
successful men were occasionally explained as
probably being secret violators.
pg. 89
Examples from the
Pre-Feminist Era
Jane C. Goodale
Tiwi Wives: A Study of the Women
of Melville Island, North Australia
Mountford [her thesis advisor] suggested that I
concentrate on the role of women in the culture,
since . . . Almost nothing was known about this
aspect of aboriginal life. Most of the field work
had been done by male investigators using male
informants. In many of these cultures studied,
the males played a dominant economic and
ceremonial role, often to the exclusion of the
women.
Goodale, con’t
• I was extraordinarily lucky to find a superb
informant, without whose help much would
still remain in misty confusion. This
informant was a young girl I had known
well in 1954, having made my first
excursion into the bush with her and her
parents. At the age of eleven, Happy had
stood out as one of my chief informants of
her age group . . . (1954)
Goodale, con’t
• During the intervening years Happy had
completed the schooling offered at Snake
bay, had finished additional teacher’s
training in Darwin . . . And was now in
charge of kindergarten training at
Snakebay School. . . . Happy and I crosschecked extensive basic and essential
data . . . 1962
Goodale con;t
“
Not long after our arrival we witnessed our first Tiwi
ceremony, and abbreviated kulama, one of the most two
most important rituals in Tiwi culture. Although the
women played special women’s roles during the threeday event, they were not excluded entirely. Nor were
they prevented from seeing all that was going on, even
though this is the initiation ceremony for Tiwi males.
Even more significantly, Tiwi women were initiated by
this same ceremony and at the same time as the males,
according to my informants. Shortly after the kulama, a
pukamani (funeral) gave me the opportunity to observe
the important role that women played in this, the second
of the two most important of Tiwi ceremonies.
It was thus clear that women were directly and
importantly involved in most Tiwi ceremonies. It also
became apparent that Tiwi women played a dominant
economic role. . . . I concentrated on using women
informants.”
pg. xxii
Goodale, con’t
“For the women, their puberty ceremony, the
murinaleta, is the most significant. I learned
about the murinaleta when I introduced the
subject of marriage rules to a group of women.
At first I thought they had not understood my
question, because they began by telling me
what happens when a girl has her first menses.
Fortunately I let them continue, and it soon
became apparent why they had begun the
subject of marriage in this way. It is during this
ceremony that the complex marriage system of
the Tiwi has its beginning and, I believe, its
explanation in structural terms.”
pg. xxiii
Goodale, con’t
“Thus the idea of using the life cycle of
women as a framework for discussing
Melville Island culture occurred to me I the
field, as a result of my growing realization
that analyses of the two most important
rites of passage for the women – the
murinaleta and the pukamani – might
provide clues for clarifying the picture of
the entire social organization.”
pg. xxiii
The Feminist Critique
In the early 1970’s female anthropologists
began to realize that the women’s point of
view was missing in most ethnographic
accounts. The occurred because of a
“triple bias.”
1. Bias inherent in the anthropologists’ own
cultural filters that caused them to miss whole
aspects of a culture or of specific traditions
2. Bias inherent in the culture being studied, eg.
In the accounts of male informants
3. Bias in the anthropologists’ unavoidable
ethnocentrism
Pre-Feminist Exceptions
Margaret Mead
Beverly Chinas
Hortense Powermaker
Oscar Lewis
Margaret Mead
Worked in Samoa in the 1920’s
Did the first ethnographic study
that focused on women by
studying adolescent girls
Hortense Powdermaker
 Worked in Australia in 1929 and then
in American Black communities in the
1930’s
 Discussed the fact that she could do
fieldwork in places that men couldn’t
because she was a woman and
therefore non-threatening
Oscar Lewis
 Included female perspectives in his family
portraits from Mexico City and Puerto Rico
during the 1950’s and early 1960’s
 Argued that the female perspective was
essential
 Had credibility because he was a male
anthropologist
Examples of Resulting Women-Focused
Studies
Melissa Llewelyn-Davies
Masai Women Video/DVD
Marjorie Shostak
Nisa: Kung Woman Video/DVD