FREE ESSAY ON GENDER AND PRESTIGE

GENDER AND PRESTIGE

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
Bibliography
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