Gender And Prestige Essay, Research Paper

Jason Howard

The purpose of this essay is to show embeddedness of prestige system into subsystems of the cultures. We will discuss four cultures which represent four different types of social organizations; !Kung San represents band organization, Mundurucu represents village type, Polynesia – Chiefdom, and Andalusia represents state type of social organization. In all of these cultures prestige system,

which is the gender system, is imbedded into other subsystems. Three of these cultures: Mundurucu, Polynesia, and Andalusia, have hierarchical type of ideology, meaning in this culture males have more power then females. !Kung San culture, on the other hand, has egalitarian type of ideology, where there is no significant difference in power between males and females. We first start by defining prestige system, which consists of prestige itself. Prestige is level of respect at which one is

regarded by others. Every person in prestige system has status, by which other people value your prestige. Status it determined by following factors: economical, political, personal, and historical. When we talk about the prestige system we have to say that prestige system is supported by ideology, and since cultures have different ideologies, the prestige systems vary from one culture to another. Polynesia, discussed by Sherry Ortner, consists of large numbers of islands in the Pacific Ocean, which include Hawaii, Samoa, Tahiti, and many more. The islands in their majority have the same prestige system. The prestige systems in Polynesia is the system of hereditary ranking which is embedded in political system, kinship system, and economic system. The type of social organization in Polynesia, as we mentioned above, is chiefdom. Chiefdom is characterized by number of villages,

where each village has its own chief, and the whole village system has one chief, higher in rank then other chiefs. This fact is important when we discuss the embeddedness of prestige system in the political system. Every village, that is the part of the chiefdom, has a goal to get on the top of the symbolic pyramid, with main chief and fono, the governing council, on the top. Sometimes, statuses

can be brought higher with the right type of marriage, however, most of the villages have endogamy type of marriages, meaning the spouse comes from inside of the village. In case of exogamy marriage, where spouse comes from outside, the groom’s family will have to share part of the land with the bride’s family. Of course, if the groom’s family is higher in rank than the bride’s family, that kind of marriage will not happen. Therefore, as a rule, change of the social ranking does not happen,

and people die with the same rank they were born with. In Polynesia, people are born with certain statuses, that are passed patrilineally, meaning through the male line. Starting from this point, we can see that females value is lower then of males. However women status is important for men statuses. Thus the status of the chief of chiefs is that high because either daughter in law, or his own daughter is taupo, the ceremonial princess virgin with the highest status for women. In generally, a girl has big value to her descent line because if she marries and the husbands family has a higher rank, she gets the part of his land for her family and brings the rank of her descent group higher. So, actually, sisters unite the descent group, and brothers divide it, because brother’s are the ones who share the land with their wives. In general, females are valued for the reproduction of labor, which takes as to

the discussion of economic system. The economic system in the Polynesia is based on the redistribution exchange mode. The chief of chiefdom plays role of redistributor, where descent groups provide him with goods and he redistributes them where needed. By this means he getsmore of wealth and prestige. If in the top ranked descent group there is a shortage of labor, chief may adopt newborn babies from the lowest rank descent group So as we could see, the prestige system embedded in economic, political, and kinship systems, where this systems, in their turn, are embedded in each other. The next culture we discuss is Andalusia researched by Stanley Brandes. More, specifically, we look at one of the parts of Andalusia, called San Blas, located in southeastern Spain with population of about eight thousand people. Their economy relies on production and processing of olives. In this society, the prestige system is embedded in sexual morality and religion. The people of San Blas leave in the state social organization, characterized by the high male hierarchy. In this culture the males sexual ideology is based on belief that females are the once with the power and that they are dangerous to males. Beliefs are based on folklore, and idioms. In this culture women are associated with serpent and goat, and men associated with sheep and God. As an example of prestige system embedded in religion there is a story about a pregnant virgin, mule and serpent. Virgin was sitting on the mule when serpent scared the mule, causing the

latter to drop the virgin on the ground, nearly causing the death of unborn child. Before the virgin’s fall, the serpent had legs, but after the fall, God took the legs away and forced it to crawl for the rest of it’s life. Serpent represented female, and mule, mulo in Spanish, represented male; so if we interpret it in other words, we would see that in this folklore, female is shown as great danger to male. Essential part of the sexual ideology is the belief that bodily strength depends on bodily fluids, and so strength of men would depend of the amount of semen they have. In this context, female is seen as someone who is constantly reducing the supply of semen in a male’s body until he dies. One example of this belief is story about a fifty seven year old man who married a forty year old widow. In three days he left her, saying that she wanted to kill him by having to much sex. Most men in San

Blas believe that wives want them to be dead, moreover, they believe that all wives are having affairs with other men and that they can not be trusted. Of course, there are cases of adultery, but not as many as the folklore implies. Women dominate in the domestic domain, performing all of the domestic tasks, whereas men dominate in the public domain. Most of their time men spend with their friends and drinking in bars, when women spend their time mainly at home. The Mass and Rosary, part of the Ecclesiastical religion, the kind of religion that preserves the religious status, is important part of women’s lives, however the male hierarchy can be seen here as well; as a rule, women would stand on the back side of church, sometimes even outside, while all of important places are taken by men. Nonetheless, women do have power. They have power to influence the status of her husband. If a female has bad sexual records, it might destroy possibility for their daughter to get a good marriage. Moreover, just by doing adultery, they turn their husbands into

cuckolds. The next culture we discuss is Mundurucu culture researched by Leslee Nadelson. This is the culture of the village social organization, with male hierarchy. It’s located in Amazonia, near Brazil between the Cururu river and the Das Tropas river. The prestige in this culture is based on the men hierarchy and is embedded in religion, economic, and kinship systems. The prestige system is embedded in religion. Myths of this culture are the great example of it. Definition of myth implies that it is when super natural forces communicate with human. There are six myths with main character Karusakaibo. The two important animals are introduced in the myths: bird and tapir. Birds represent asexual behavior and tapir representssexual behavior. In the beginning of myths, Karusakaibo lives

away from the village and has no wife. He has son, which suggests that he reproduced asexually, like a bird. By the end of Myth 6 he has wife and a daughter. However, Karusakaibo created wives by turning fish into them, which puts female into the lower level in the religious prospect. When we talk about the embeddence of prestige system in to the economic system, we would have to mention that men bring home the prestige food – pigs. Since this is a village type of social organization, the production mode is foraging and horticulture. Men do all of the hunting and fishing, and women produce manoic flour in the farinha shed. Although manoic flour is reach with nutritions, it is not valued in the Mundurucu, and only prestige food, provided by men, is important. So the role of

hunter supports the male superiority. When we talk about the kinship, we understand that superiority of men is supported by patrilineal descent rule, where only fathers line is important. A family consist of consanguineally related women, women having the same ancestor, and young boys. Grown up boys live in the Men’s house. Men, most of their time, live in flute chamber and men’s house, where women live in houses and prepare food in farinha shed. Only when it comes to biological reproduction, men go in the houses. Men do their rituals in the flute chamber, where it is secret and no woman can enter. The farinha shed and men’s house are important because of the economic activity conducted in them. The houses don’t have much of the importance because women’s ability to give birth is not considered to be unique. In men’s rituals they show that men can reproduce without women, equalizing the capacities of men and women, so that women would not be important. So as we see, economic, kinship, and religion systems are interrelated with the prestige system imbedded in each one of them. The fourth culture we consider differs from the previous three. The !Kung San society located in Kalahari Desert has egalitarian ideology. There is no superiority of one gender over another. The prestige system in this society is based on the

prestige of the male hunter and female as sexual object. The prestige system is embedded in kinship, economic, and political systems of !Kung San. !Kung San society is the society of a band type of social organization. The characteristic detail of bands is the existence of the brideservice. Brideservice is a transfer of wealth to the bride’s family in terms of labor. So every groom is responsible to hunt not only for his family, his wife, but also for the bride’s family. Even in case if bride dies, groom would still hunt for her family until he gets married again. This fact shows that women are valued in this society. Embeddedness of prestige system in religion is shown by the ritual performed by both genders. Every boy, before marrying has to go through two rituals: one is hunting and killing a male animal, and second one is killing a female animal. Only boy who went through this two rituals would be permitted to get married. Bride’s family looks at a potential husband as at the

man who can hunt and provide for the family and children. On the other hand, women are not hunters and considered to not have any skills for it. Their rituals are to show their beauty and present themselves are sexual objects for men. Most of grooms in !Kung San do not look at their wives as on potential mothers but rather as sexual objects and express concern that a wife should be pretty. The following two examples of resolution of disagreement show the embeddedness of prestige system in the political system. In !Kung San there are not courts where people would go and resolve the disagreements. The only way for them to do it is by removing causes of disagreement. In one instance man found out that his wife commits adultery and started to sharpen his arrows to kill them both, but headman of the band convinced wife to return back home and prevented possible fatality. In another instance, two women stopped the fight by holding one of the fighters from fighting. This examples show that both, men and women, can resolve disagreements

and that both are valued equally. In !Kung San men admit that they do not have sexual power, nor they have the reproductive ability. That is why there is a balance in value of men and women, where men are seen as nurturers and care takers, and women are seen as sex objects and reproducing agents. The prestige system is supported by ideology. In the discussed examples, the four cultures belong to four different types of social organization and have different ideologies and, therefore,

different prestige systems. But all of the cultures share the same fact that prestige system does not exist by itself. Prestige system in each culture is embedded in many subsystems such as political, economic, kinship, religion and some other, and we saw it in Andalusia, !Kung San, Polynesia, and Mundurucu. Moreover, when we defined the prestige system, we mentioned that there are sources of prestige. To name some of them: wealth, power, social connections. Wealth is relates to economic factor, power relates to politics, and social connections is the kinship. So the prestige system, besides been embedded into the subsystems, is also supported by them.

Effects of Gender in Prestige Systems

BIBLIOGRAPHY

-Ortner, Sherry B. (1996). Making Gender: The Politics and Erotics of Culture. Boston: Beacon Press

-“The prestige systems in Polynesia is the system of hereditary ranking which is embedded in political system, kinship system, and economic system”

-“Every village, that is the part of the chiefdom, has a goal to get on the top of the symbolic pyramid, with main chief and fono, the governing council, on the top”

-“The economic system in the Polynesia is based on the redistribution exchange mode.”

-Roosevelt, Anna (1994). Amazonian Indians from Prehistory to the Present: Anthropological Perspectives. Tucson: University of Arizona Press

-‘This is the culture of the village social organization, with male hierarchy. It’s located in Amazonia, near Brazil between the Cururu river and the Das Tropas river. The prestige in this culture is based on the men hierarchy and is embedded in religion, economic, and kinship systems.”

- “The prestige system is embedded in religion. Myths of this culture are the great example of it.”

-Brandes, Stanley (1980). Metaphors of Masculinity: Sex and Status in Andalusian Folklore. University of Pennsylvania Press

- “More, specifically, we look at one of the parts of Andalusia, called San Blas, located in southeastern Spain with population of about eight thousand people.”

-“In this society, the prestige system is embedded in sexual morality and religion.”

-“The people of San Blas leave in the state social organization, characterized by the high male hierarchy. In this culture the males sexual ideology is based on belief that females are the once with the power and that they are dangerous to males.”

-Lee, Richard B. ( 1976). Kalahari Hunter Gatherers: Studies of the

!Kung San and Their Neighbors. Cambridge: Harvard University Press

- “There is no superiority of one gender over another. The prestige system in this society is based on the

prestige of the male hunter and female as sexual object”

- “The prestige system is embedded in kinship, economic, and political systems of !Kung San. !Kung San society is the society of a band type of social organization.”

-Lee, Richard B. (1979). The !Kung San: Men and Women, and Work in a Foraging society. New York: Cambridge Press

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-Ortner, Sherry B. (1996). Making Gender: The Politics and Erotics of Culture. Boston: Beacon Press

-“The prestige systems in Polynesia is the system of hereditary ranking which is embedded in political system, kinship system, and economic system”

-“Every village, that is the part of the chiefdom, has a goal to get on the top of the symbolic pyramid, with main chief and fono, the governing council, on the top”

-“The economic system in the Polynesia is based on the redistribution exchange mode.”

-Roosevelt, Anna (1994). Amazonian Indians from Prehistory to the Present: Anthropological Perspectives. Tucson: University of Arizona Press

-‘This is the culture of the village social organization, with male hierarchy. It’s located in Amazonia, near Brazil between the Cururu river and the Das Tropas river. The prestige in this culture is based on the men hierarchy and is embedded in religion, economic, and kinship systems.”

- “The prestige system is embedded in religion. Myths of this culture are the great example of it.”

-Brandes, Stanley (1980). Metaphors of Masculinity: Sex and Status in Andalusian Folklore. University of Pennsylvania Press

- “More, specifically, we look at one of the parts of Andalusia, called San Blas, located in southeastern Spain with population of about eight thousand people.”

-“In this society, the prestige system is embedded in sexual morality and religion.”

-“The people of San Blas leave in the state social organization, characterized by the high male hierarchy. In this culture the males sexual ideology is based on belief that females are the once with the power and that they are dangerous to males.”

-Lee, Richard B. ( 1976). Kalahari Hunter Gatherers: Studies of the

!Kung San and Their Neighbors. Cambridge: Harvard University Press

- “There is no superiority of one gender over another. The prestige system in this society is based on the

prestige of the male hunter and female as sexual object”

- “The prestige system is embedded in kinship, economic, and political systems of !Kung San. !Kung San society is the society of a band type of social organization.”

-Lee, Richard B. (1979). The !Kung San: Men and Women, and Work in a Foraging society. New York: Cambridge Press