The narrow definition of "hunting", limited to the act of killing large prey animals, does not match with the conceptions of foragers themselves. In Iñupiat society, women are considered hunters because it is their work, in provisioning the men for the hunt and in their general behavior, which calls animals to the men. The association is strong enough that men without wives are considered inadequate, even if they are able to find other women to perform female associated tasks such as sewing and caring for their children. According to Bessie Ericklook, an Iñupiat woman, said, "[t]his is what we have always known. When a mother loses a husband, she can sew, or she can get food by begging or working for it. But when a husband loses a wife, …show more content…
he can't do anything" (Bodenhorn 1990:62). Here, the definition of hunting is broadened in such a way to give credit for a successful hunt to women. Hunting is a cultural phenomenon and, as such, no two societies will have exactly the same view of it.
Anthropologists must be sure that we outline what, precisely, we mean by hunting, whether the focus is on a technique, prey size, or a suite of behaviors that the society itself considers hunting. Hunting can refer to a broad range of actions, very roughly equivalent to “procuring meat resources”, but it is often preferable to examine more specific hunting behaviors, and we must be sure to fully explain which behaviors, precisely, we are studying. Explanations for the sexual division of labor suffer when there is not a clear definition of hunting and gathering. The lack of adequate definitions hides important exceptions and limitations to what has been proposed. We cannot begin to make sense of the numerous theories about the sexual division of labor without understanding what, precisely, we are talking about. The following are prevalent theories regarding this division, with some of their weaknesses …show more content…
highlighted. 3: BIOLOGICAL THEORIES Theories for why there is a gender split in the labor of food acquisition have often been based on what women are presumably unable to do. An example of this is the notion that women's weakness relative to men makes them worse hunters. Physical inequality, coupled with the demands that childcare makes on women, explains why men hunt. These biological differences make it more advantageous for women to stay closer to camp with the children (Murdock and Provost 1973:211). Brute strength is not a reasonable explanation, however. Women are often the burden carriers in their tribes (Murdock and Provost 1973:207), and hunting success is not dependent on strength (Kelly 2007:267). A related, and also thankfully abandoned, theory is that women smell differently than men and that makes them more likely to alert prey to their presence. Menstrual blood was one reason given for this problem, which would only be an issue for, at the most, a quarter of a woman's time (Dobkin de Rios and Hayden 1985). It is also unclear if a menstruating human's smell would be more alarming to a prey animal than human smell in general. Biological theories have also been influenced by perceptions of reproduction and motherhood. Women in pre-Enfamil societies must breastfeed their children, and they tend to do so well into toddlerhood (Kelly 2007:248). A woman so constrained, it is imagined, cannot leave her child for long, and it is too dangerous to bring it along with her on hunting forays. Not only are small children fragile, but also they are also notoriously loud and so are likely to scare prey away. Women do factor children into their planning decisions, even in modern, industrial societies, which have the benefits of breast pumps, infant formula, and daycare centers. It is not difficult to imagine that a foraging woman would decide that the energetic costs of hunting with a child far outweigh any benefits she might achieve from the catch, and the dangers of hunting are very real. More Ache men than women die of accidents, likely due to hunting (Hill and Hurtado 1996:162). Female foragers generally stick closer to camp than their male counterpoints, which may lessen the danger. However, "closer" has a different definition to a group that may travel hundreds of kilometers a year (Kelly 2007:112-114, 135). Foraging women are hardly homebodies in any sense that a modern Westerner would recognize. They face many of the same dangers that men heading out of camp would, although they are able to use noise to scare away predators while hunters must stay silent (Howell 1979:57). More, all types of hunting are not created equal. Is a communal net hunt more or less dangerous than bow-and-arrow or atlatl hunting? What if the arrows or spears are being used to hunt small game? Women’s participation in communal hunts and trapping could provide evidence for childcare-centered theories if those methods are safer, although numerous other factors must also be considered, such as how much time a small child spends in the company of other caregivers and what other activities are done by the mothers of infants. Mothers of small children are able to hunt, even if it is tricky. Agta women hunt with babies strapped to their backs, and their offspring do not have a higher mortality rate than those of other women in the band who do not hunt or hunt rarely, suggesting that, while it may be frustrating, hunting with a baby is not prohibitively dangerous (Noss and Hewlett 2001:1026). Western ideas about the amount of time a woman must spend mothering and what is an acceptable level of danger to expose a child to do not necessarily correlate with hunter-gatherer norms. Babies in foraging populations are already in a situation that westerners may construe as dangerous: they are unlikely to have sunscreen, toys that are approved by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, vaccines, or a childproofed environment. The Agta show that whatever the dangers, it does not preclude mothers from actively hunting and "more difficult" does not mean "impossible". Women also pursue other activities that could be considered incompatible with childcare. Cooking fires are undoubtedly dangerous, and many clothing production tasks involve sharp implements or small objects. Fishing, another activity in which women often participate, also carries the risk of injury or drowning. An infant's fussiness may affect hunting success negatively, particularly since !Xun and Ju/'hoansi infants, for example, nurse every 17 minutes (Takada 2005:302-303). Such a short interval between feedings would make hunting, which is already a risky activity, more difficult. Those who concentrate on large game may only bring home a kill every couple of weeks, while a gatherer will rarely, if ever, return home empty-handed (Hawkes et al 2001:687, Hawkes et al 2010:261). A fussy infant who will interrupt the hunter three times an hour or else cry loudly enough to scare game away should make hunting even more difficult. Again, though, Agta women show that, at least in some cases, hunting with a small child is not as impossible as it appears. Agta groups that hunt with small children, each of which included women, brought home 14% of the large game in one study, with women without children bringing in a further 26% (Goodman et al 1985:1204). Men did not hunt with small children. The data on the Agta were based on a small number of women, but their experiences do suggest that the detrimental affect children have on hunting may be overstated. Also, defining hunting as incompatible with childcare ignores all but the broadest view of "large game hunting". Net hunts, which women with small children regularly participate in, are also quite successful. The meat per person hour from net hunts is similar to that of bow-and-arrow hunts, due to the larger number of people required, but it is a stable way to get meat resources, with a success rate of 100% versus 64% for archers in one study (Wilkie and Curran 1991:684). Net hunts are best for capturing medium-sized game that are too big to escape through the holes in the net but too small to simply jump over or crash through it, although there is plenty of overlap in the kind of game caught by each method (Wilkie and Curran 1991:684). Small children are not a deterrent to success in communal hunts, at least. In this case, defining hunting as a solo activity or as the moment of the kill ignores the contributions of women and children to the protein supply and misrepresents hunting as an activity which is excluded to all but the able-bodied men. Basic biology must be taken into account for any activity.
However, the fragility of women and children has been overstated. Hunter-gatherer women are more than capable of performing the physical tasks of hunting. It also appears that infants brought along on a hunt experience little more danger than those taken on a plant gathering trip. Undoubtedly, there is increased risk, but it is either low enough that it does not affect infant mortality rates or the benefits are high enough to cancel out the danger. Simple biology does not fully account for the sexual division of labor, whether the issue is strength or
childcare. 4: MALE POWER Theories regarding the sexual division of labor do not always focus on women’s perceived inabilities. In some cases, men's concerns are highlighted. Robert Brightman (1996), for instance, argues that the issue is not so much female hunting, but the male exclusion of women from the use of weapons. Men are usually free to gather, although they do not do so as often as women, but women are often forbidden from using or even touching the weapons that men use to hunt. The taboo may be philosophical; women's roles of life-givers may be inimical or perhaps redundant with the role of hunters as either the takers of animal lives or the givers of life to humans in the form of food. When women are able to use hunting tools, they are often less efficient or effective than male hunting tools (Brightman 1996:705-706). Brightman sees women's exclusion as arising from a system in which men are already in a position to prevent women from hunting, suggesting that male dominance leads to the sexual division of labor. The question is, how did men achieve control of weapons in the first place? They would have to either dominate armed women or have been the ones to invent or improve weapons the world over. While either scenario could certainly have happened a few times, it is unlikely that all women everywhere were significantly less proficient with weapons and technology than men.
The first three chapters focus on women in agriculture and reproduction and in the process unveils how the “internalization of prescribed gender traits colored people’s reactions to the world around them (p. 25).” Unger spends a great deal of time discussing how Native Americans and enslaved Africans used reproduction as a means of resistance and autonomy in their status. Unger does not shy away from practices that uncomfortable like abortion and infanticide. Unger notes the practice of “prolonged lactation, Native American women, like their European counterparts, also practiced infanticide and abortion (25).” She discusses these topics with unbiased language and does so without using any judgmental tone or justification for such practices. Reproduction is discussed in terms of its effects on the
The Choctaws in the Southeast were a matrilineal society. Traditionally, women preformed tasks related to domestic life. Among these responsibilities were creating pottery and utensils, food preparation, and planting and harvesting crops. The majority of their diet consisted of agricultural products such as corn, pumpkins, squash, and beans. Women would also accompany men on hunting excursions in order to provide food preparation. After the hunt, women were responsible for transporting the slain animal back to the village for processing of skins, bone, and meat (Carson 1995:495-6).
However, Brown claims on how gender roles and identities shaped the perceptions and interactions of both English settlers and the Native American civilizations. Both Indian and English societies have critical social orders between males and females. In addition, their culture difference reflexes to the English and Indian males and females’ culpabilities as well. However, the Indian people put too much responsibility to their women. Women were in charge as agriculturalists, producers and customers of vital household goods and implements. They were also in control for providing much of the material culture of daily needs such as clothing, domestic gears and furnishings like baskets, bedding and household building. Native American females were expected to do a range of tasks. On the other hand, the Indian men only cleared new planting ground and constantly left the villages to fish and hunt. Clearly, Native Indian women had more tasks than the men did. Therefore, Indian males’ social and work roles became distinctive from females’ at the moment of the huskanaw (a rite of passage by which Virginia Indian boys became men) and reminded so until the men were too old to hunt or go to war. English commentator named George Percy underlines, “The men take their pleasure in hunting and their wares, which they are in continually”. “On the other hand the women were heavily burdened with”, says other commentator, John Smith. Gender is directly referential in an important sense, describing how sexual division was understood in the social order. Consequently, Native American people prescribed the gender social practice that women should be loaded with range of liabilities than the
Gender relations in the Dakota tribe were very specific and there were no crossing of the sexes. To begin, I think it is important to analyze the difference between “sex” and “gender”. Up until researching for this paper, I though that the two terms were interchangeable in meaning, rather, they are separate ideas that are connected. According to Mary K. Whelan, a Doctor of Anthropology focusing on gender studies, sex and gender are different. She states, “Western conflation of sex and gender can lead to the impression that biology, and not culture, is responsible for defining gender roles.
Even though there were plentiful reasons, there were ample hardships too. First of all, women often had no say in whether they were going or not, and then had to sell anything that wouldn’t be of any use on the trail. Then, it was a six month trip, sometimes longer, and all of that time was on the trail, out in the wilderness. Many died, and when that happened, the family had to immediately get over it; otherwise they would be “a weak link.” Travelers could be attacked by Indians or animals. Wagons could break down and the whole crew would stop. Although it wasn’t often, cannibalism could be the only way to survive. There were diseases. Many women had to g...
Boys in the Native American culture are pushed to be good runners, skilled hunters, and good warriors. When they achieve this they are considered men in their society. When they become too old to do all of this they become counselors of the village. Women are expected to raise children, make food, and take care of the children for a lifetime. There is no police force, government, or punishment in their culture. They do not need it. These r...
Since the beginning of time man has been hunting animals for food. Even before fire, man needed to hunt, because hunting was the only way to eat. At first man used things such as spears and rocks to kill its prey. As man evolved, they started using bows and arrows. Next came an early model of what we use today, the firearm. It is powerful yet easy to carry around. It puts the animal through less suffering and is a lot more efficient than previous techniques. Hunting was once a necessity, but now it is a tradition, passed on from father to son as a way to spend time together, enjoy the outdoors, and experience what our ancestors went through in hunting their dinner. Since it is considered a sport some think we are killing off the deer population, when in actuality, “While most other big-game species have declined with the spread of urbanization, the whitetail has been able to adapt to its ever-changing environment. Through the efforts of state agencies and conservation groups like Whitetails Unlimited, wildlife officials estimate today’s whitetail population to exceed 30 million” (www.whitetailsunlimited.org).
On few subjects has there been such continual misconception as on the position of women among Indians. Because she was active, always busy in the camp, often carried heavy burdens, attended to the household duties, made the clothing and the home, and prepared the family food, the woman has been depicted as the slave of her husband, a patient beast of encumbrance whose labors were never done. The man, on the other hand, was said to be an loaf, who all day long sat in the shade of the lodge and smoked his pipe, while his overworked wives attended to his comfort. In actuality, the woman was the man's partner, who preformed her share of the obligations of life and who employed an influence quite as important as his, and often more powerful.
Prior to the use of agriculture, life was extremely different for women. The information that historians have obtained is limited, but there are certain aspects of Paleolithic society that have been discovered and point towards a more liberal lifestyle for women. Generally, a woman’s job was to gather food and tend to her children while her male counterpart hunted. These simple divisions allowed both men and women to play significant roles in hunter-gatherer society, which further allowed women to be held in equal if not greater esteem then men. According to Elisabeth Gaynor Ellis and Anthony Elser, authors of World History: Connections to Today, women also held...
Low, Bobbi S. (2005). "Women's lives there, here, then, now: a review of women's ecological and demographic constraints cross-culturally". Evolution and Human Behaviour 26 (2005) pp. 64-87.
The hunter-gatherer societies of today much as they have in the past regard women and men’s work relatively egalitarian when you compare them to horticultural and modern societies. For example, the San divide tasks by gender, mostly because of availability of breast milk but regard each gender’s tasks as important and meaningful. Among the Aka, fathers spend a great deal of time with their infants just as the mothers do. It should be pointed out that foraging societies have more available time to spend with their families. A large part of their days and lives are spent socializing. Because of the sharing of tasks and resources, around 10% of forager’s time is spent securing food. Whereas people in more modern societies can spend...
From the perspective of economy, ecology, and environmental conservation, hunting is very important. Hunting is necessary to protect agriculture and the environment from animal pest or overpopulation. For example, wild boars tear up many farmers land causing many problems as well with the deer population growing eating away farmer’s resources. Also with the growth of white tail deer are damaging every landscape east of the Mississippi river. Unfortunately, the harm is very overlooked, and accepted as somehow “natural”. Over the last 30 years higher dear populations have made a more negative impact due to climate change. (“Is Hunting a Good Thing?”) Hunting was legalized in 1993 to help bring overabundant wild animal populations down. The legalization
In 1966, a group of about fifty anthropologists met in Chicago for a conference that would later known as the “Man the Hunter” meeting. The meeting contrasted with earlier scholarship and presented a Hollywood approach to the topic of early man, one where our ancestors were strong, powerful, and in control of their environment. Anthropologists Sherwood L. Washburn and C.S. Lancaster (1968), both present at the conference claimed, “our intellect, interests, emotions, and basic social life—all are evolutionary products of the success of the hunting adaptation”. The book Man the Hunter that emerged from the conference forced a re-evaluation of human subsistence strategies and the role of the hunter in human society. Although the idea of man as hunter, and thus exclusive provider, was initially disproved when it was shown that humans also relied on scavenging and were indeed hunted, the theory maintains relevance in modern anthropology. The theory itself pushed researchers to challenge prior assumptions regarding the role of females in society and helped develop the hunter-gatherer by sex theory that remains in place today. Importantly, whereas the original man as hunter thesis was groundbreaking because it challenged the scientific communities’ prior belief in an ancient man who was primitive and weak, modern researchers have built off of the man the hunter thesis and now debate the motivations for men to hunt. While our human ancestors may not have been the strong, bloodthirsty, killers once imagined by Raymond Dart, new studies conducted by modern anthropologists have revived this famous, yet once discarded theory.
Hunting for sport is legal, and should remain that way. Many arguments against hunting for sport claim it is a “violent form of recreation” and “we have no right to take an animals life” for example, an opposing viewpoints article “Sport Hunting is an Unnecessary Form of Cruelty to Animals” says just that. HoweverI argue that we are part of this planet, as well as it’s ecosystem. We are (in ways) predators. An article on sport hunting, “Hunting for Sport” compares “hunters and the hunted” to a mountain lion and a deer. Is the lion at fault for hunting the deer? No. The mountain lion’s duty is to play the role as predator as well as keeping it’s prey’s population away from its ecosystems capacity. The ecosystem can no longer always support and control all animals populations.
A functionalist perspective suggests that our society is made up of interdependent parts and that gender roles support its social stability, balance and equilibrium. According to “The Sociology of Gender: Theoretical Perspectives and Feminist Frameworks” by Linda L Lindsey, “In preindustrial societies social equilibrium was maintained by assigning different tasks to men and women. Given the hunting and gathering and subsistence farming activities of most preindustrial societies, role specialization according to gender was considered a functional necessity.” During this time survival was a more difficult task and so men and women had to rely on each other to live. In today’s society, these roles have begun to shift and it is more common to find females providing while males stay at home, but for the majority, our original gender roles are still intact. The functionalist theory even in a contemporary society finds that the survival of the family unit relies on conservative gender roles. This theory is not realistic in today’s society because women are more motivated to be educated and career based, instead of devoting their life to motherhood. Lindsey claims, “ Such a divide is artificial and dysfunctional when families need to cope with the growing