Book Review: Female
Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality – by Peggy Reeves
Sanday (Cambridge University Press 1981)
This is a
great anthropological study that compares creation stories, sex roles, division
of labor, and gender dynamics across many cultures. Tribal symbolism derived
from creation myths was found to strongly influence gender roles. Quite a
variety of gender relationships were found among the many societies studied.
Changes in tribal environment, availability of food and resources, migration,
war and conquest, and colonialism were found to strongly affect gender roles.
The author cites many anthropological studies including those of Ruth Benedict,
Margaret Mead, Mary Douglas, Sherry Ortner, and Clifford Geertz.
Sanday
utilizes Ortner’s inner orientation to
refer to female power and outer
orientation to refer to men who pursue power that is out in the world.
Women, by nature, are those who give birth and grow children while men often
pursue power through hunting game and warring, displaying and fetishizing their
kills much as a woman does her children. Women have the power to give life. Is
it that men compensate for this by displaying their power to take away life
through hunting and warring? Perhaps.
Tribal
creation myths often shape expected behavior. Changes in social codes often are
accompanied by changes in sex roles. Creations stories often depict the origin
of creative power. Tribes that have a creative mother or a unified male-female
creator often have integrated sex roles while those with a creative father
often have segregated sex roles. The author describes the creation stories and
subsequent sex roles of a number of societies, ancient and modern. The work is
quite scientific and statistical with clear definitions of how gender
relationships were determined and quite a few charts comparing several
variables to gender roles, creation myths, and environmental factors. There are
also several appendices which give more information about methodology and
background in anthropology. In several societies female power is associated with
a ritual orientation to plants, the earth, and fertility. In contrast to the
Judeo-Christian notion that women are the origin of evil, there are several
tribal myths where men originate evil.
She mentions
one society, the Hausa of northern Nigeria, who were conquered and converted to
Islam in 1804-1810. Women who once were tribally powerful became subjugated.
However, the female power went underground and became part of their new creation
myth were Eve hid half her children from Allah and this became ordained by
Allah (as a punishment) that they would remain hidden so they became the Bori spirits. The Bori cult became
powerful among women and was indeed a means for them to keep some of their
traditional power.
Fear,
conflict, strife, and scarcity of resources can lead to situations where males
become dominant and in some cases more violent. Males may do this to seek to
control the magical forces causing these stresses. There are different ways
this occurs in different tribes, some more extreme than others.
In exploring
the metaphors for sexual identities Sanday draws on Margaret Mead’s Sex and Temperament and Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of Culture. Mead argued that
once a gender temperament (based on slight biological differences between the
sexes) was determined by a group, that temperament was reinforced in social
rituals. There were often clues as well embedded in creation myths. Gender
symbolism in creation myths tends to confirm the inward focus of females and
the outward focus of males through female and male creative agents.
“Female
creators originate from within something – such as earth or water – and create
from their bodies. Male, animal, and supreme being creators originate from
without – such as the sky or another land – and produce people magically.
Couple creators, on the other hand, produce from within and without but they
tend to produce by natural reproductive processes.”
Sanday
suggests that conception of creators indicates the source of power within that
tribal worldview.
“Culture-hero
and ancestor creative agents are portrayed in more human terms. Usually the
latter are described as having migrated from another place.”
Female
creators tend to create naturally from the body while male, animal, or god
creators tend to create magically from beyond the body. Both female and male
creators are well represented in the societies noted but there are more male
creators. This may have to do with re-orientations toward male-centric views
during times of hardship like famine, war, and migration. In modern times the
issue of rape in conflict is very important around the world and there are far
too many instances of this. It is perhaps similar to the subjugation of women
during times of stress and conflict that has been well documented in histories
of various tribal peoples. Gang rape has been used as a punishment to women among
many tribes and for varying reasons.
Statistics
here show that fathers spend more time with infants in societies that have
female creation symbolism. Male-female cooperation and general egalitarianism is
also higher in societies with feminine origin symbolism. The evidence also
shows that fathers in societies with predominantly male creation symbolism are
more distant from infants and tend to be more controlling. Such societies can
exhibit suspicion, competition, sexual antagonism, and most often rigid sexual
segregation. Competition among males in societies where hunting and warfare are
most emphasized often keeps them too busy to care for children.
Next the
question is pondered as to why different groups choose female origin symbolism
as opposed to male or couple origin symbolism. The author suggests that the environment
plays a key role. If there is abundance of food and resources, particularly
plant food from the earth, then female or couple symbolism tends to prevail.
When there is competition for resources, food, and protein, and hunting is an
important activity, then male symbolism is more prevalent. Fathers in tribes
who hunt large game, which is more dangerous, tend to be more distant to their
children than those who hunt small or varied game. Statistics also make clear
that female origin symbolism correlates well to plant subsistence economies
through gathering. In later adoption of technological agriculture the trend may
be different – if male symbolism was prevalent before it may remain as males
take over farming or if female symbolism was more prevalent it may remain as
women continue as the purveyors of plant foods. But there are variations.
Origin symbolism may change due to circumstances – new origin stories may
appear. Origin stories may be adopted by conquered peoples or adopted by
conquerers. Older origin stories may also be updated due to changes in
circumstances. The author gives various examples.
An ongoing argument
in anthropology is whether sexual division of labor is due mainly to culture or
biology. While there are biological advantages for men or women to do certain
work it seems that most of the division of labor is cultural. Women of necessity
have to be pregnant and provide nursing and childcare. The upper body strength
of males lends them to more strenuous tasks. Gender roles define gender
identity and so there is a self-reinforcing of action and expectation. Females
are necessarily suited to childbirth, nurturing, growth, and fertility roles.
Male roles can be a reaction to female roles, a way of trying to balance the
female role so male roles may be associated with infertility and death. Activities
are means of displaying gender identity. The female role is well-defined by
biology but the male role is less biologically clear so it is often posited as
opposite of the female role, say anthropologists. There are variations as in
some societies there is great female-male integration and overlapping of roles
and in others there is much segregation, opposition, and division of labor.
Margaret Mead studied gender differences extensively and so her work is cited. The
author notes that sexual segregation is more common (up to 73%) in the tribal
societies studied than integration (up to 35%). There tend to be more taboos in
sexually segregated societies and the more sexually integrated societies seem
to be more psychologically healthy as there is often more cooperation and less
violence and male-female conflict. Dual-sex origin ideologies manifest in
various ways. Several can be found in West Africa. These are cultures which,
though segregated, venerate the complementary roles of men and women and so there
is often little conflict and much cooperation between the two. One reason
females are not often warriors is that women are life-givers and so as a balanced
opposing force men tend to be the life-takers. Women are also less expendable
as life-givers for they are the future growth of the tribe.
Tribal
taboos abound around menstruation and sexual intercourse but there is much
variation in intensity and number of taboos. Sometimes menstruation and/or
sexual activity are thought to sap male strength, weaken nursing children, or
endanger the society. Here she invokes the work of Mary Douglas about pollution
beliefs where bodily emissions can be seen as ritual pollution. Douglas
suggested that the pollution dangers mirror the dangers of men who wander
beyond the boundaries of the tribal world. By observing the taboos around
menstrual blood and sex it is thought that success in hunting, warfare, and other
quests for power could be gained. Thus outer danger is projected onto the
female body. Blood is the source of life but also the signal of death. The
author notes that segregation and taboo may be more pronounced in concentrated
settlements where the smell of menstrual blood would be more noticeable.
Hunting men associate blood with life and death so it is possible, she says,
that a female’s blood is associated with life and danger to balance that out.
“The more
people experience death in nature, the more likely they are to view menstrual
blood as dangerous.”
Some
cultures like the African Ashanti impose warrior and hunter symbolism on the
female reproductive process and apparatus. The Arapesh of New Guinea incise the
penis of males at puberty to achieve a symmetry to menstruation. Douglas argues
that pollution beliefs, including menstrual taboos, handling of the dead, and avoiding
certain foods “prevent threatened disturbances of the social order.” They help
to regulate the cosmos by enforcing social conformity. In some groups menstrual
segregation was done to separate the blood of life from the blood of death. Of
156 societies studied, only 8 (or 7%) had no menstrual taboos. Most had one or
two and some up to five. Men may assert their superiority through menstrual restrictions.
Where there is frequent warfare or where men take wives from other tribes there
tend to more menstrual taboos. Fear of pollution may also be a form of birth
control where societies with scarce food
need to reproduce less to be able to survive. Sexual separation and inequality
make two separate worlds where men do men things and women do women things.
Sexual separation and male control has been enhanced in societies as they came
in contact with technology and the “male-oriented Western world.”
Early
anthropologists thought that male dominance was universal. However, through
time many have argued for significant female power in several societies and modern
feminists have noted long-ancient societies that seem to indicate strong female
power.
“Females achieve economic and political power or
authority when environmental or historical circumstances grant them economic
autonomy and make men dependent on female activities.”
When
maternity and soil fertility are venerated there tends to be an association of
social good with female power. Women bear and nurse children and so are less
expendable than men and thus less involved in warfare. Men are more expendable
and need motivation to hunt and war. Social power and prestige provides such
incentive, says Sanday. Stats show that, as expected, women attain more secular
power in plant economies rather than animal economies, with the exception of
technological plant economies in more modern and Western-influenced times. Introduction
of intensive agriculture and cash crops tended to undermine traditional female
farming in many societies and often men then came to control farming. Also as
expected, female origin symbolism was more correlated with female secular power
and migration with male secular power.
There are
many examples where colonialism negatively affected traditional female power.
Oddly, what many people see as traditional cultures, including those within
them, have been altered by colonialism and the introduction of new ideas like
Christianity and Islam. One example is that some Native American beliefs seen
as traditional are actually reactions to and adoptions of Christianity. European
education also had an effect. The story of some Native American “prophets” like
the Seneca, Handsome Lake, is exemplary. He had “visions” that happened to
correlate strongly with the influence of the local Quaker missionary population
after the Indian wars with the U.S. What once was a matrifocal agricultural society
among all the Iroquois Federation tribes became sexually segregated among the
Seneca due to his influence. Women were marginalized, many executed for witchcraft.
Though Handsome Lake had practiced the traditional male role his doctrine
changed the sex roles of the tribe, mostly taking away female power. The introduction
of the horse and guns to Native American tribes that migrated westward also disrupted
traditional female power. The horse aided warfare and hunting (as it had done
wherever it was introduced) and became a prestige item traded for wives. Before
its introduction the tribes were more agricultural and sedentary. Gradual
encroachment of white European settlers also caused the tribes to compete for
less resources and so inter-tribal warfare was enhanced and due to the stress
of migration and war, traditional female power was reduced. The Cheyenne story
is a bit different. They migrated west from the Lake Superior region and first
encountered matrilineal sedentary agricultural tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa). They
first adopted these ways but after horses were introduced the focus was more on
hunting and warfare. Some natives like the Shavante avoided European contact by
migrating into inhospitable territory and developing the arts of aggression and
warfare to a high degree so that they were left alone. Ritual gang rape of
women by men was a part of that orientation as it was among the Cheyenne who
otherwise had good male-female relations. Prolonged contact with Europeans often
gradually wore away traditional female power.
“Though in
some cases Westernization opened opportunities for women, in most instances
contact with the male-dominated European society had a deleterious effect.”
Sanday goes
on to note that 63% of societies described before 1925 were noted to have
female political power while 60% of the societies where there is no female
political power were described later. Migration and subsequent food shortage also
exacerbated the loss of female power. Reactions to these stresses are often the
assertion of male domination.
“Sex-role
plans are part of the system of meanings by which a people explain their
success, come to terms with their fears, enshrine their past, and stamp
themselves with a sense of “peoplehood.”
She define
male dominance for this study as two general types of behaviors: 1) exclusion
of women from economic and political decision making, and 2) male aggression
against women. This aggression is measured by five traits: “expectation that
males should be tough, brave, and aggressive; the presence of men’s houses or
specific places where only men may congregate; frequent quarreling, fighting,
or wife beating; the institutionalization or regular occurrence of rape; and raiding
other groups for wives.” In some groups male dominance is accepted but in
others they don’t accept it. Where female economic and political power coexists
with male aggression the term “mythical male dominance” is used. Here there is
a balance between formal male authority and informal female power. This idea
derives from that of Susan Carol Rogers who argued that a nonhierarchical power
relationship between male and female is maintained by “the acting out of a ‘myth’
of male dominance,” where public deference towards men is practiced and their
authority and prestige respected. In these cases males do not actually dominate
and females do not actually believe males to be dominant. Where males display
aggression towards women and exclude them from politics and economics the
relationship is said to be “unequal.” Where there is no aggression against women
and they exercise power the relationship is said to be “equal.” Out of 139
societies measured by these criteria 32% were classified as equal, 28% as
unequal, and 40% as expressive of mythical male dominance.
The question
is asked: Why does male dominance occur in response to stress? Anthropologist
Marvin Harris suggested that it was due to imbalance between protein sources
and population density. In areas with protein deficiencies female infanticide
was practiced more due to the need for more hunters to acquire protein sources.
The resulting shortage of available women also required men to take wives from
competing tribes. Such competition encourages a cycle of violence. Thus, he
argued that warfare was a response to reproductive and ecological pressures.
Ernestine Friedl argued that war was the domain of males because they were more
expendable and not busy with childcare. Sherry Ornter argues that males must
assert their creativity externally and artificially, possibly as a response to
the inherent creativity of females, through culture and the prestige functions
of hunting and warfare. The author here along with Susan Carol Rogers
criticizes Ortner’s analysis, noting that many societies do not distinguish
nature and culture and women are not always exclusively associated with nature.
Martin and Voorhies noted that “while matrilineal structures are accommodating and
integrative, patrilineal ones are acquisitive and internally divisive.” They
also noted that patrilineal and patrilocal societies promoted stable political
systems in situations where competition for scarce resources was the means for
survival and expansion. Sexual equality is more common in matrilineal societies
but patrilineal societies are more common than matrilineal ones. In some
societies where there is male dominance there are mythical stories noting that
females once were prominent but men had to take control for various reasons.
Some of these are responses to contact with Europeans. Real male dominance as
opposed to mythical male dominance has occurred where male skills were required
for survival due to migration and competition for resources. John and Beatrice
Whiting thought that envy of female power was a factor in the rise of male
dominance although the underlying causes may have been resource competition and
danger. The author here acknowledges the importance of these ideas but prefers
a different approach based on the work of Mary Douglas and Margaret Mead. She
notes that there is much variation in different peoples’ responses to similar
stresses and that variation can be attributed to the cultural configuration of
the various peoples. Response to stress does not always involve the subjugation
of women. Mead noted that every society had two problems: how to beget enough
progeny and how not to beget too much. How a society will react to control
fertility to balance its needs will be based on the cultural configuration
derived from the creation myths as source of power. How a group responds to
stress might depend on their traditional concept of power, how they define
adversity, and how endangered is their group identity. She suggests that men
and women may respond differently to stress. Men often respond with aggression.
Woman may be more conciliatory, yielding some power as in cases where mythical
male dominance develops. Men in many cases have faced death as a group – more so
than women as a group, she notes – which may help explain the prevalence of
male dominance. In literate societies it may be organized religion rather than
tribal beliefs which lead to male dominance when tribal groups are conquered
and/or converted. Note the following quote from the Quran: “Men stand superior
to women in that God hath preferred the one over the other … Those whose
perverseness ye fear, admonish them and remove them into bed-chambers and beat
them; but if they submit to you then do not seek a way against them.”
Christianity and Judaism have similar admonishments and historical contexts for
women to submit to men, though perhaps a bit less harsh.
The epilogue
discusses the male dominance in the literary traditions of the early Hebrews
and the early Christians and so addresses the “guiding symbols” of Western male
dominance. These guiding symbols are “the patriarchal, decidedly masculine God
and the sexual, inferior female who tempts the male from the path of
righteousness.” The second one is not only a Western archetype but one seen all
over, in India, for example. Sanday states that secular society has not
liberated us from these concepts and notes the work of feminist theologian
Carol P. Christ who reminds us that symbols of a male God and subordinate
female affect us in rites of birth, marriage, and death. Religious symbols are
a blueprint for social forms. The author notes her own daughter asking about the
quote of God creating man in his own image, but what about women? The stamping
out of Canaanite goddess cults by the Hebrew Yahweh cults is addressed. The
Hebrew tribes entered Canaan as animal pastoralists, entering an area of
agriculturalists. Initially, the Judeans were the only tribe to adopt Yahweh
but as the tribes were threatened by the Philistines, the Judeans came to
dominate the Hebrew tribes and so the Yahweh cult advanced. Adam and Eve and
the Garden of Eden can be seen as a revised creation story of the new Yahweh
intertribal cult where animal pastoralists conquered and assimilated
goddess-centered agriculturists and so a new doctrine was needed to define sex
roles. Basically the Yahwists recast Cannanite goddess religion into Mosaic
terms (Moses being the most famous Yahwist religious and political leader).
Since the Canaanites practiced ritualized sex and fertility rites, this was
forbidden among the new Yahwists and so the status of women in the now mixed
Hebrew-Canaanite society was greatly reduced. Perhaps Eve, as the cause of the “fall
from grace” was symbolic of a Canaanite woman. At first, a balance was struck
so that women and Canaanites could have some power but as time wore on the
Hebrew prophets suppressed the old female-centered rites even more, especially
in response to war threats from without. When Hebrew priests were exiled to
Babylon they adopted some parts of the Babylonian creation epic where humans
arose from divine parents Apsu and Tiamat. Their son Mammu was the first human.
In this version there is a sense that male and female were created in the image
of the parents while in the more monotheistic Yahwist account men were created
in God’s image and women as Eve were created from Adam’s rib.
Early
Christianity included so-called Gnostic sects where variable ideas about
divinity and humans’ relation to divinity were expressed. The Gnostics tended
to accept the Babylonian-influenced version of genesis where the sexes were
more equal and to work with feminine symbolism. Orthodox Christianity snuffed
out such views and declared them heretical. Thus Christianity became an
authoritarian staunchly monotheistic patriarchy. Male dominance was sanctioned
by the gospels. Here is quote from Letter to Timothy:
“Let a woman
learn in silence with full submissiveness. I do not allow any woman to teach or
to exercise authority over a man; she is to remain silent, for Adam was formed first, then Eve and furthermore, Adam was not
deceived, but the woman was utterly seduced and came into sin …” (2 Timothy
2:11-14)
The banned
Gnostic texts often showed quite different orientations toward women and
veneration of female deities and teachers. Many of the Gnostic communities were
egalitarian in structure. The new orthodoxy, however, was strictly
hierarchical. Scholar Elaine Pagels noted that:
“Orthodox
Christians came to accept the domination of men over women as the proper,
God-given order – not only for the human race, but also for the Christian
churches.”
Thus female
power inherent in Early Near Eastern goddess worship and Gnosticism was
stripped from the orthodox movements that emerged from the chaos of war and
persecution. Nowadays things are changing in certain circles as we embrace
religious freedom as secular societies but the scars and habits are still very
powerful.
Finally, the
six appendices go through methodology as well as anthropological techniques.
This is a great book and should be more widely read and studied. It is quite
apparent to me that gender roles and relations are a big problem in the modern
world and until we can do better in these relationships we will find it harder
to solve other problems.
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