BIO-218x
Cadet Delaney-Manuel
5/28/18
Gender And its role in society
Gender roles differ because of many factors. One of these factors is which level of kinship a society falls under. There are three levels of kinship, Matrilineal, Patrilineal, and Bilateral. Kinship relates to bloodlines and from which parent (Mother or Father) the child will inherit whatever that particular family has to offer. Matrilineal is when the inheritance comes from the side of the mother. One society in which Matrilineal is used is in China. The Mosuo of China are unlike many cultures in both todays society and past societies. In this culture, the children of families inherit the mothers surname and female children are also preferred over sons. Usually in societies, sons were preferred because they were the ones who carried on the family name, but this society changed that norm into their own. The next field in kinship is patrilineal kinship. Patrilineal was most common in ancient cultures because inheritance runs through the man in the family. This means that the surname of the male is taken by children and boy children were preferred because thats who would carry out the family legacy. Bilateral kinship is when the child inherits from both mother and other roles.
The example which I was given was Incan/Andean culture in Peru. In this agricultural society, power was controlled by kinship groups called Ayllus. In these land regions, poor people performed acts called mitas. These included public works and other physical labor for the men, and wool work and weaving clothing for the women. The most powerful person in this society was the supreme ruler. In order to keep power within the family, the ruler would have a wife called a coya. A coya was the sister of the supreme ruler. This allowed bloodlines to rule for longer periods of time other than have to switch power to another family.
In the U.S. today, gender roles as well as expectations have changed a lot as our production lines have gone away and as our country has become more developed. When countries are more under developed, they tend to have less rights for their women than countries that are more developed. For the U.S., women in the early 1900’s did not have equality which was eventually fought for. As the U.S. developed in industry and gained a higher standard of living, women’s rights began to climb. In middle eastern countries, women do not have as many rights as the women in the U.S. This is due not only to the strict religious culture of the Middle East, but also to the development of the countries. When the roles of gender are more , so called, “traditional” men tend to be the gender that benefits the most from the expectations that people have.
Help Received: Womens Suffrage article
Noah Delaney-Manuel