Article 3
Will Ross

Reflective Tag

Despite their horticultural identity, the Yanomamo share nothing else with the Iroquois. Male dominant, the Yanomamo pursue polygyny and exogamy as means to continually reinforce the low standing women have within their respective villages. Driven in part by their war-like culture, their culture makes for an interestingly insightful look into the differences between cultures with the same means of subsistence.

Article 3

In contrast with the Iroquoi, the Yanomamo are a distinctly different society despite their horticultural similarities. Defined by their male dominant culture and their preference for village exogamy, all aspects of the Yanomamo culture are dominated by men.

Married off at the tender age of 8 or 9 to men in their 20’s and 30’s, women are constantly reminded of their inferiority. Polygyny is promoted and desired and men routinely capture new wives during raids on surrounding villages. The use of Ayahuasca in males and the ritualistic promotion of their role as both warriors and shamans inherently exclude women and this exclusion from these religious ceremonies reinforces their low standing in the Yanomamo culture.

Rape and beatings are commonplace for women and infanticide frequently occurs as women tend to be seen as undesirable in comparison to male babies. Women are also excluded from resource gathering and their lack of direct contribution gives them no ‘bargaining chip’ in their villages.

Their constant subservience is encouraged in all aspects in life, in most part thanks to the role of warfare in the Amazonian region as a tool for population control. The culture of endemic warfare strengthens the men’s position as the sole protector of a village and serves to further marginalize women.

Article 2
Will Ross

Reflective Tag

The global gender gap, while on the decline, is certainly prevalent and continues to be a problem in certain global regions. Even countries such as the U.S. and Japan, long-considered developed, place poorly within gender gap rankings due to the continual existence of underrepresentation and wage inequality. Africa and the Middle East, due to cultural factors such as religion and social hierarchy continue to rank at the bottom in both gender gap and maternal health studies. Only through continual education for both men and women alongside much-needed aid in poverty-stricken areas can this be overcome.

Article 2

The global gender gap is used to refer to the disparity between male and female equality within a country. Countries are ranked on a scale between ‘0’0 and ‘1’, with ‘1’ meaning that 100% of the inequality between men and women has been closed.

The kinds of criteria/measurements used to determine the ‘gender gap’ come in four separate categories. First, economic participation and opportunity, based on access to upper division employment opportunities, workplace participation levels, and salaries differences. Second, Educational attainment, based primarily on one’s access to both basic and upper levels of education. Third, political involvement, based on the proportion of women in decision-making institutions. Lastly, health and survival, based on the proportion of sex in newborn populations and overall life expectancy of each gender.

The U.S. ranks 20th in terms of gender gap, due in large part to its abysmal rank of 54th in terms of female political participation and its strikingly unequal wages where women still earn 77% of every dollar a male worker does. In comparison, Top Ten countries tend to have higher overall levels across the board, specifically in regards to upper echelon positions. In Sweden, ranked 4th globally, 57% of its political ministers are women, compared to just 32% in the United States. The countries at the tail end of the list also share common attributes. Inequalities within the workplace and political realm remain rampant and the term justice is used consistently to describe the different treatment women received at the hands of the legal system where an accusation of rape can lead to the punishment of the woman as much as the party responsible. Even more surprising is the low rank of countries seen to be fully developed. Japan sits at 104th in terms of global gender gap equality, largely thanks to not only an absence of women in the workplace but also in the government, where only 8% of lawmakers are female.

Reproductive responsibilities can also contribute to the gender gap. Nonexistent maternity leave and lax rules and regulations governing workplace rights can lead to women getting fired from their work on account of pregnancies. Societal norms can further magnify these effects with women receiving constant pressure to produce children simply because that is how their role is perceived by their community.

The countries at the top and those at the bottom of the Maternal Health (Save the Children) report have almost no common factors, perhaps the only one being that some of those at the top colonized those at the bottom. Within each group there are commonalities, the top 10 (except Australia) are all European while the bottom 10 are all African.

Saudi Arabia is an excellent example of how gender roles affect women’s status and health. Health tends to be reflective of social status which, for women in Saudi Arabia, is bad news. Lower rates of health care access, prevalent domestic abuse, low levels of education, poverty (usually the result of the death of the ‘man of the house’), and lack of workplace opportunity means that the higher longevity seen in women compared to men is fast declining.

Article 1
Will Ross
5/21/15

Reflective Tag

Commonly seen as interchangeable, ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are distinctly different. Scientific vs socially constructed, both phrases refer to different aspects of human sexuality and the role of men and women in society. It is paramount to understand their inherent differences and recognize the existence of a distinct dichotomy.

Essay

Sex has its origin within the realm of science. Used to differentiate between the male and female variants in countless species, sex is also a reference to the acts of reproduction responsible for procreation. Sex is determined via two separate avenues, genetic and non-genetic. Genetic determination relies on the number or typology of the chromosomes present in an organism. Non-genetic determinations, while uncommon, is seen in marine organisms and is determined by environmental factors such as temperature and size.

The biological components of ‘sex’ consist of both the reproductive organs and the acts of reproductions responsible for procreation. Different hormonal configurations and organs are the principal biological factors behind ‘sex’ differentiation. The acts of procreation are equally important yet are direct results from the former biological factors as the factors encourage attraction between the sexes.

In contrast to ‘sex’, ‘gender’ is primarily defined based on cultural and societal factors rather than biological ones. Traditionally it is commonly seen as the socio-cultural roles and attributes a specific society holds men and women to. However, the recent progress in LGBT rights have initiated a change in the definition of gender, now seen as the institutional reactions towards the presentation of one’s gender, whether male, female, or other.

In order to truly understand ‘gender’, it is imperative to have a proper definition of both culture and society and their differences. Culture consists of the characteristic of a society, mainly its beliefs, behaviors, food, technology, norms, values, language, tradition, and institutions. Institutions in this context refers to the rules associated with a particular society along with its institutions of religion, health care, and education. Society, while interrelated to culture, is the group of people that interact in such a way as to share a common culture among themselves. While the two are interdependent, they are by no means the same, much like ‘sex’ and ‘gender’.