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.
