ANTH 206 Lecture 4: 4
8 Jun 2018
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Summary
• Gender: definition and essentialism
• Property Relations
• Gender is only meaningful in specific socio-cultural contexts. Different from biological sex.
o Norms, expectations and institutions decide gender implications- other institutions like
marriage, rights of passage, etc. also shape gender
o Gender shapes habitus (dispositions in terms of behavior, ways of speaking and being
oneself), aspirations, identity, subjectivity (what pressures you subject yourself to- do you
respond to social cues)
▪ Embodied, something that you grow up in
▪ How you present yourself
o About social relations- receiving signals and embodying results
▪ Some relations deal with process of production and reproduction- how to people
invest in and transform their environment?
• Gender and Theory
o Structuralism
▪ Culture defines gender roles
▪ How certain objects of daily life come attached with gender power (tools that are for
men and women, rituals that take place during day or night)
▪ Culture creates meaning through relations and concepts, defines partly what a gender
is- meaning of being a man or woman
o Intersectionality
▪ Many identities and systems of oppression
▪ Level of education, wealth also define who you are
▪ Changes how you feel oppression and promotion of systems
o Post structuralism
▪ Context
• Rather than having a stable structure or system, how is the specific case
important?
• Gender neutral bathrooms
• Historical period
▪ Experience
• Cannot analytically divide world in genders- people can have meaningful lives
independently, can feel other systems of oppression, adopt different structures
▪ Get rid of stiff analysis that applies in general but to no one in particular. Learn
through beings in their lives
• Gender Essentialism
o The dominant view in Women, Development and Environment approaches is that women
have a special and close relationship in nature
o Associated with field work, nurturing and natural caregivers- men are associated with
markets, travel, seen as exploiting nature
o Encouraged NGOs to target women specifically- give money to something particular, men
tend to take the opportunity and displace women from traditional spaces
o Chipko (an event where women are seen hugging trees to defend against intrusion of timber
companies) Andolan (means a movement in a civil society)
▪ Women did not allow timber companies to access forest- villagers did not own the
forest but used it as part of tacit agreement
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Summary: gender: definition and essentialism, property relations, gender is only meaningful in specific socio-cultural contexts. Intersectionality: many identities and systems of oppression, changes how you feel oppression and promotion of systems. Depicted women as naturally tending towards protecting natural system. Observed that only women would come- assumed that women were the only ones inclined to do the natural work: men were the only ones allowed to go to market and gain money. Sometimes women are more effective in other contexts: can disseminate other ideas in village on daily basis, can have more impact than being forced to village council. Some villages accept women more than others, tends to be male dominated when less formal. In article, women have access to certain resources, rights to access certain things, do not own land but own what can grow on the land: property relations, property-rights framework. Locke"s labor theory of property: when you mix labor with soil, you acquire natural right over property.
