Social Theory/ Anth 304,
Take home assignment 1
25th October, 2010 with corrections submitted on 24th November, 2010
Question 3: How do different kinship structures affect gender status? Discuss with reference to at least four class authors.
As the discourse surrounding women's emancipation movements began to emerge, anthropologists picked up some of the questions posed, to critically review the discipline's own biases especially within the realm of kinship studies – a central component of anthropological studies ever since the discipline began to focus on cultural phenomena (Stone 2010:2-5).
Among these anthropologists is Linda Stone who notes that “The sexual and reproductive roles of men and women are socially and culturally managed through kinship thus affecting gender” (2010:2) Jane F. Collier and Sylvia J. Yanagisako, in their controversial essay 'Towards a Unified Theory of Gender and Kinship', also acknowledge the interconnectedness between gender and kinship when they write - “Schneider's insight that kinship is by definition about sexual procreation leads us to realize that assumptions about gender lie at the core of kinship studies” (Collier and Yanagisako 1987:29). Both essays reveal the critical role that sexual reproduction plays in defining both gender and kinship.
While Stone does not completely discard 'biological fact' of differences between the sexes and it's role in defining gender roles (2010:4), Collier and Yanagisako question whether these differences are universal and “argue against the notion that cross- cultural variations in gender categories and inequalities are merely diverse elaborations and extensions of the same natural fact” (1987:15). This, they reason, would imply that the subordination of women is universal.
Among others, Franklin and McKinnon explain how this these biological assumptions embedded in gender tie in to those within kinship studies which use of the genealogical grid to map relations based on blood ties thus limiting its scope (2001:6).
Karin Kapadia clearly demonstrates the link between kinship structures and the status of women, when she observes how the change in kinship structures in the non-Brahmin Tamils of a village in South India cause the status of women to fall as they adopt a more patriarchal form of kinship which concentrates the property and wealth distribution with the families with more male members through the vehicle of marriage (1993).
Evelyn Blackwood explores how prescriptive ideal family unit presumed to lie at the core of kinship, contains a heterosexual married couple with a dominant patriarchal man and how this caused women-centered households were found in the Flats area of Chicago that she was researching, to be considered pathological by those that had done work in the area before her (2005:4-5).
The assumption that men would dominate underlies false claim of 'missing men' she notes. When the men do not fall within the 'normal' dominant and idealized role, as is seen in the area that Blackwood is studying, the women are denied a legitimate dominant position within the family because the entire context is viewed as being less than ideal and these circumstances are attributed to poverty (2005:8-10).
The men are thought to be missing, even though they participate in the family unit. Matrifocality is thus seen as an indicator of a less than ideal context and the poverty seen in these families is misconstrued instead of taking into account other factors, especially the welfare norms, that propagate and sustain poverty (2005:12).
Jane Edwards unravels how the Christian Right's argument against same-sex marriage is an extension of heteronormative ideals for the family unit and marriage and how this excludes same-sex coupling from being a legitimate form of kinship (2007:249). Edwards thus explains that the effects of biological assumptions within kinship are thus, far reaching.
The assumption that kinship is centered around the heterosexual couple pervades the anthropological study of kinship and took a long time to be exposed (2007:259). Thanks to the discourse on the status of women that the feminist movement created, kinship studies was able to incorporate some of the findings from these to highlight how various kinship structures act as a major thrust for legitimatizing and illegitimizing the role of women in the household and in the society (2007:259). The status of women is hinged not just on how the kinship structure operates but also on how the larger society perceives the role of women and accordingly works with or against the lot of women.
A better understanding of how the two – kinship and gender, are linked led to a better understanding of how this relationship and it's biological assumptions have sometimes caused those that fall outside the normative forms of kin to be excluded. At other times these assumptions have led to prevailing forms of kinship to be ignored or trivialized which has had far-reaching implications for women and the status that has been allowed to be ascribed to them.
Question 4: What's at stake when government and religious authorities make policies and proclamations regarding the sorts of families that people live in? Who would be affected by such policies, and what do they stand to gain or lose? Discuss with respect to Stacey (1997), Edwards (2007), and at least two more class authors.
When government and religious authorities make policies and proclamations regarding the sorts of families that people live in, they risk marginalizing and demonizing other forms of families prevalent in society as is delved into by Jane Edwards in her essay on the Religious Right's argument against same-sex marriage (2007). This spells dire consequences for all those that do not follow the dominant paradigm especially same-sex couples.
Interestingly, Edwards points out that unease concerning women’s economic independence and ‘fatherless families’ cannot be dissociated from disquiet over masculinity (2007:249). The problem with boxing up the family unit within “heteronormativity” is that anything that falls outside this, will run into problems including for example, women who want to pursue careers as well as men who want to be single parents (2007:253). Even though this is not addressed in the essay, the likelihood of a single father being allowed to adopt a child would be difficult simply because the dominant understanding of kin is that the mother-child bond is stronger than the father-child bond and therefore you need the institution of marriage to cement the bond not just between the father and mother but mainly between the father and child.
Michael Peletz essay denaturalizes the “heteronormative couple” by drawing on the studies of homosexuality in the natural world to debunk the anti-gay view that homosexual alliances go 'against nature'. In doing so he redefines masculinity allowing more scope for homosexuals to inhabit a legitimate space within society (2004).
Edwards describes how underlies the homophobia that these groups display. Any form of union other than “heteronormative” is perceived to be a threat to the ideal family especially the gay lobby's move to legitimatize same-sex coupling.
Judith Stacey explains how some social scientists have managed to sway public opinion and policies in favour of maintaining the ideal family unit by stigmatizing any other form of family (1997:456) She says that a range of social crises including poverty, substance abuse, homicidal rates have been misattributed by the “realists” to a breakdown in family unit and a decrease in the value of the family unit itself (1997:458). She explains that this causes the actual catalysts and causes for these social problems to be ignored which is detrimental to the effectively instituting policy-level change for a better society (1997:458).
Apart from those who want to give legitimacy to same-sex marriage and the wealth of benefits that could lead to in terms of shared property rights and modes of inheritance, avenues for these couples to adopt and raise children easily, single mothers too stand to be marginalized because they do not fall within the prescriptive norm.
As is evident from Evelyn Blackwood's essay, the women in women-centered households also fail to meet the criteria for a healthy family and thus get marginalized in not just their status and the roles they play in keeping their families together, but in how the state addresses “political, social, and global processes that leave women undereducated, underskilled, and undervalued for the work they do” (2005:15).
From the above mentioned essays, we can see that when a society bases its laws and policies on the rhetoric of a few groups, it effects all those who challenge the 'norm' and exist outside this space. The more a society becomes one that forces people to follow an ideal, the less likely it is to be able to include a larger number of its people within it's protection.
When the the groups that sway the way the state functions base their notions on religious concepts, it becomes even harder to debunk these as they are not left open for questioning as they occupy the 'sacred' space the Durkheim describes. This leads to even more problems because the discourse is unable to move forward and people existing outside the prescribed norm are demonized.
Bibliography
Stone, Linda
2010 Gender, Reproduction, and Kinship In Kinship and Gender: An Introduction, 4th Edition. Pp. 1-25. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.
Collier, Jane and Sylvia Yanagisako
1987 Toward a Unified Analysis of Gender and Kinship In Kinship and Gender: Essays toward a Unified Analysis. Collier and Yanagisako, eds. Pp. 14-50.
Franklin, Sarah and Susan McKinnon
2001 Introduction. In Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies, Sarah Franklin and Susan McKinnon, eds. Pp. 1-25. Durham: Duke University Press.
Kapadia, Karin
1993 Marrying Money: Changing Preference and Practice in Tamil Marriage. Contributions to Indian Sociology 27(1):25-51. 4
Blackwood, Evelyn
2005 Wedding Bell Blues: Marriage, Missing Men, and Matrifocal Follies. American Ethnologist 32(1): 3-19.
Edwards, Jane
2007 “Marriage is Sacred”: the Religious Right’s Arguments against “Gay Marriage” in Australia Culture, Health and Sexuality 9(3): 247-261.
Stacey, Judith
1997 The Neo-Family-Values Campaign In The Gender / Sexuality Reader: Culture, History, Political Economy. Lancaster and di Leonardo, eds. Pp. 453-470. New York: Routledge.
Peletz, Michael
2004 Discourse of Opposition to Marriage Equality. Anthropology News 45(6): 23-24.
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