Indices of comparison - Gender.doc BY DR SAROJ
- 1. INDICES OF COMPARISON: GENDER BY DR SAROJ The status of women in all types of societies but particularly in the patriarchal is determined by various types of taboos ; that are attached to women generally. These taboos might be protective or preventive or productive. Toda (tribe) taboos on women are preventive as the impurity of women arising out of mensuration, child birth etc. Makes unsuited for the Toda religio-ceremonial life which centres round the sacred buffalo dairy. Consequently anything affiliated to the buffalo dairy and milk is generally to be prevented from being made impure through contact with women. Such hard and fast rules cannot be laid down however for all patriarchal societies. Among Ho both dominant as well as subservient husbands are equally common. Among Ho’s heavy bride price is prevalent so that Ho girls remain unmarried for long time. Among Gonds in various aspects of social life women enjoy status and freedom in the choice of husband, premarital sexual life seeking of divorce and so on. Women are labourers are prized in Gond society. The patrilocal Tharu are dominated by their wives. Tharu women are notorious for the influence they have even over people from the plain. The polyandrous Khasa are well known for the double standard of their women; that is a polarity in their women’s sex life. When a woman is at her husband’s house she is drudge with no position or freedom or will of her own, but according to the traditional practice she frequently visits her parents house and once in her own village all controls and restriction are lifted. The accumulated tension find release in sexual indulgence. The position of women among the patriarchal Naga tribe of Assam varies from tribe to tribe. Sema Naga women are socially better placed than Ao and Angami women. Sema women have no dominant voice. Division of labour along gender lines occurs in all human human societies. In some cultures the Ju/Hoansi in southern Africa for example many tasks that men and women undertake may be shared. People may perform work normally assigned to the opposite sex without loss of face.
- 2. However men and women re rigidly segregated in what they do. Such in the case in many maritime cultures where seafarers abroad fishing and trading ships are usually men. For instance we find temporary all male communities abroad ships of coastal Basque fisherman in Northwestern Spain. Yupik Eskimo whalers in Alaska and Swahili merchants sailing along the East African coast. These seafarers commonly leave their wives, mothers and daughters behind in their home ports sometimes for months at a time. Gender demarcated grouping also occurs in many tradition horticultural societies. For instance Mohwak, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora Indians of New York -- the famous six nations of Iroquois society was divided into two parts consisting of sedentary women on the one hand and highly mobile men on the other. Women who were blood relatives to one another lived in the same village and shared the job of growing the corn, beans, squash that all Iroquois relied upon for subsistence. Although men built the houses and the wooden palisades that protect villages and also helped women clear fields for cultivation, they did their most important work, some distance away from the villages. This consisted of hunting, fishing, trading, warring and diplomacy. As a consequence men were mostly transients in the villages being present only for brief periods. Traditionally Iroquois viewed women’s activities as less prestigious than those of men but they explicitly acknowledged women as the sustainers of life. Moreover women headed the long houses (dwelling occupied by matrilineal extended families) descent and inheritance passed through women and ceremonial life centered on women’s activities. Although men held all leadership positions outside households--sitting on the councils of the villages, tribes and the league of six Nations-the women of their clans were the ones who nominated them for these positions and held Veto power over them. Thus Iroquois male leadership was balanced by female authority. Relationship between the sexes in six Nations Iroquois society with members of neither sex being dominant or submissive to the other. Related to this seems to have been a low incidence of rape for outside observers in the 19th century widely commented upon its apparent absence within Iroquois.
- 3. Even in warfare sexual violation of female captives was virtually unheard. They never violate the chastity of any women of their prison. Although Iroquois men often absent from the villlage when present they ate and slept with women. This contrasts the habits of Mundurucu Indians of Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest. Mundurucu men and women work, eat and sleep separately. From age 13 onwards male live together in one large house while women, girls and preteen boys occupy two or three houses grouped around the men’s house. For all intents and purposes men associate with men and women with women. Among the Mundurucu Indians relations between the sexes is not harmonious but rather one of oppositions. According to their belief sex roles were once reversed. Women ruled over men and controlled the sacred trumpets that are symbol of power and represent the reproductive capacities of women But because women could not hunt they could not supply meat demanded by the ancient spirits, that abided in the trumpets. This enabled the men to take the trumpets from the women, establishing their dominance in the process. Ever since the trumpets have been carefully guarded and hidden in the men’s house and traditionally women were prohibited from ever seeing them. Mundurucu men express fear and envy towards women and seek to control them by force. For their part the women neither like nor accept a submissive status an even though men occupy all formal positions of political and religious leadership, women are autonomous in the economic realm. Margaret Mead : Study of Sepik region of Papua New Guinea Book: Sex and Temperament in three Primitive Societies Mead found a different pattern of male and female behaviour in each of the cultures ARAPESH: 1 Inclination towards peace and absence of warfare. 2 involvement and role of both the sexes in so called maternal roles such as rearing of children 3 Temperament of both the sexes were gentle, responsive and cooperative 4 Children: passive, emotional and secure 5 Arapesh predominantly maternal in their paternal aspect and feminine in their social aspect. Mundgumor: 1 Patriarchal
- 4. father/husband/son had the right to trade women in their family exchange for another wife. 2 Father could trade his daughter/sister and son could trade his sister in exchange of wife 3 Results in sense of competition, hostility prevails between father and son 4 Mother viewed their daughters as sexual rivals and have feeling of jealousy towards their daughters. 5 Daughters were seen allies to their fathers and son to their mothers. 6 This divide in the family results in hostility, suspicion and brutality. 7 Announcement in pregnancy leads to spousal conflicts 8 Children grow up in hostile environment which made them head hunting tribe. Techmbuli: 1 Conventional gender roles were interchange in this society i.e. reversal in roles. 2 women play expressive and instrumental roles. 3 Seen as breadwinners 4 Perform activities like fishing, trading, weaving etc. 5 They look after their children and husbands as little boys not as their counterparts 6 Men decorate themselves and make arrangement of different ceremonies the above explanation shows that how gender roles vary on several factors, culture and social conditioning of gender Different culture leads to the formation of different personalities and gender roles.