In terms of gender status and reproductive roles, is biology destiny?
In terms of gender status and reproductive roles, is biology destiny?
Compare and contrast evolutionist theories of female subordination relative to males with the anthropologists’ arguments against ignoring cultural variations in female gender status cross-culturally. Present your position on the gender-destiny question and support it with evidence from the readings and videos.
For each discussion forum, the following are expected:
The initial posting of 150-250 words
Refer specifically to the assigned readings and/or video in your posts.
Instructor’s Commentary
You will be introduced to the kinship code used by anthropologists to denote relationships. The code is a shorthand way for writing about kinship relationships and will be used throughout the assigned readings. Please become familiar and comfortable with it. Further, all of the “specialized” terms and concepts used in the overview, above, are defined in the assigned readings. They are also defined either in the Appendix or the glossary found at the end of the text, Kinship and Gender: An Introduction, by Linda Stone. It is important to read and understand these definitions and concepts as they are the foundation for understanding the social and cultural organizing roles of kinship.
Above: Three-week-old bonobo baby Luebo is caressed by his mother Lisala, in 2006. In their habitat in central Africa, bonobos are threatened with extinction. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
In this module, you will also explore theories of kinship evolution, such as sociobiology, and evolutionary psychology, evolutionary survival strategies and mate selection. Primate studies, demonstrating kinship recognition, as well as primitive descent and alliance patterns are also presented, including an interesting case study in Chapter 2. Male and female primate reproduction strategies, aggression and dominance are discussed and compared. The evolutionary transition to human kinship is presented and compared with the patterns of more primitive kinship observed among nonhuman primates. Extrapolation of nonhuman primate kinship behavior to human primates is very informative and suggestive, but limited as human kinship is much more complicated. Primate data suggest, however, that while human kinship’s roots lie in our shared primate evolutionary history and are not purely a cultural construction, humans created adaptive forms of kinship extending the relationship beyond biological connections.
In terms of gender status and reproductive roles, is biology destiny?
