Evolution of Gender Roles in Kinship Structures

There are a plethora of elements of kinship that are worthy of research and contemplation. However, one of the main concepts that have significantly evolved in several cultures since the beginning of anthropology is that of gender and gender roles. Since the recognition of anthropology as a social science in the 1800’s, there has been a focus on gender roles, with a lack of focus towards the importance of women in kinship structures. Moreover, as the discipline was completely made up of males, there was a bias towards the powerful role of men and a patriarchal structure. As such, since the feminist movement in the 1900’s, kinship and how we view family structures has vastly changed. Kinship is commonly defined as the family ties, blood ties

Beginning in the 1800’s the majority of all professions were dominated almost exclusively by men. This exclusion of the female population led to studies being conducted with a completely male focus. Furthermore, western-based men travelled to other countries bringing with them their sexist and ethnocentric views on women and culture. It must be noted early on that the recommendation of this paper is not that we need an entirely female-centred approach to the social sciences or to kinship, but rather we need a healthy balance to be able to truly understand kinship structures as they involve both males and

The conclusion of her study was that gender roles have more of a negative impact on social cohesion among women than among men (Valentova, 2015, p. 175). Therefore, this paper supports the notion that looking at gender as a strict binary is not only primitive but can have negative impacts on society. Additionally, this research supports the work being done by feminist theorists in allowing women to partake in both spheres of life. Which leads to the third and final point of this paper, the role of