the way of life of a people, its language, institutions, customs, its pots and pans. The division of labor between the sexes represents a cultural expression of what are believed to be biological differences. The variety of cultural forms that this expression may take in different societies is enormous; what may be considered women's work in one society may be deemed men's work in another. In some cultures men and women may engage in common activities that in other cultures are strictly separated along gender lines. The important point to grasp is that the prescribed roles assigned to the sexes are not determined biologically but virtually entirely by culture. As anthropologist Ralph Linton says,
All societies prescribe different attitudes and activities to men and to women. Most of them try to rationalize these prescriptions in terms of the physiological differences between the sexes or their different roles in reproduction. However, a comparative study of the status ascribed to women and men in different cultures seems to show that while such factors may have served as a starting point for the development of a division, the actual ascriptions are almost entirely determined by culture.
18
As I have already mentioned, role and status serve to emphasize the character of social expectations and thus control the nature of responses made to them. In societies in which such categorizations are the rule, the cultural perception of what are presumed to be biological sex differences, whether they are in fact so or not, provide the grounds upon which are based the
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different social status and roles. But the significance of the biological differences is usually interpreted to convey the impression of a natural connection between conditions that are, in fact, only artificially connected through misinterpretation. For example, in many cultures pregnancy, birth, and nursing are interpreted by both sexes as handicapping experiences; as a consequence women have been made to feel that by virtue of their biological functions they have been naturally placed in an inferior position to men. But as we today well know, these biological functions of women are only minimally, if at all, handicapping.
It is worth paying some attention to the fact that in the societies in which such discriminations are the rule, one would have thought it unequivocally clear that women were superior to men, namely, in their ability to bear and nurture children. Instead women have been made to feel that their life giving roles are a handicap. The evidence relating to the conditions of childbirth and child rearing in indigenous societies is scant enough, but the indications are that women in such societies seem to have an easier time than they do in more complex ones. Unquestionably, under many conditions childbirth and child rearing from a conscious male viewpoint appear to be handicapping conditions. The unconscious male viewpoint, there is much factual evidence to show, is of a very different nature. In almost all societies birth has been culturally converted into a much more complicated condition than it in fact is: In general, it would seem that the more complex a society becomes, the more it tends to complicate the process of birth. One result of this is seen in Western cultures where women have, until recently, been made to spend anything from ten days to three weeks in "confinement," as the subjugation to helplessness so appropriately used to be called. Since the advent of natural childbirth, women are finding childbirth far less unpleasant and scarcely handicapping. Childbirth is neither a disease, a disorder, nor a handicap.
Today following the birth of a baby, whether in a family birth center or hospital, if there has been no problem, a woman may rise within a few hours and within a few days resume a normal ambulatory existence. In some nonliterate societies some women take much less time than that to return to their normal domestic
All societies prescribe different attitudes and activities to men and to women. Most of them try to rationalize these prescriptions in terms of the physiological differences between the sexes or their different roles in reproduction. However, a comparative study of the status ascribed to women and men in different cultures seems to show that while such factors may have served as a starting point for the development of a division, the actual ascriptions are almost entirely determined by culture.
18
As I have already mentioned, role and status serve to emphasize the character of social expectations and thus control the nature of responses made to them. In societies in which such categorizations are the rule, the cultural perception of what are presumed to be biological sex differences, whether they are in fact so or not, provide the grounds upon which are based the
page_77
Page 77
different social status and roles. But the significance of the biological differences is usually interpreted to convey the impression of a natural connection between conditions that are, in fact, only artificially connected through misinterpretation. For example, in many cultures pregnancy, birth, and nursing are interpreted by both sexes as handicapping experiences; as a consequence women have been made to feel that by virtue of their biological functions they have been naturally placed in an inferior position to men. But as we today well know, these biological functions of women are only minimally, if at all, handicapping.
It is worth paying some attention to the fact that in the societies in which such discriminations are the rule, one would have thought it unequivocally clear that women were superior to men, namely, in their ability to bear and nurture children. Instead women have been made to feel that their life giving roles are a handicap. The evidence relating to the conditions of childbirth and child rearing in indigenous societies is scant enough, but the indications are that women in such societies seem to have an easier time than they do in more complex ones. Unquestionably, under many conditions childbirth and child rearing from a conscious male viewpoint appear to be handicapping conditions. The unconscious male viewpoint, there is much factual evidence to show, is of a very different nature. In almost all societies birth has been culturally converted into a much more complicated condition than it in fact is: In general, it would seem that the more complex a society becomes, the more it tends to complicate the process of birth. One result of this is seen in Western cultures where women have, until recently, been made to spend anything from ten days to three weeks in "confinement," as the subjugation to helplessness so appropriately used to be called. Since the advent of natural childbirth, women are finding childbirth far less unpleasant and scarcely handicapping. Childbirth is neither a disease, a disorder, nor a handicap.
Today following the birth of a baby, whether in a family birth center or hospital, if there has been no problem, a woman may rise within a few hours and within a few days resume a normal ambulatory existence. In some nonliterate societies some women take much less time than that to return to their normal domestic
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