Teaching
Cultural Anthropology
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Unit 2
Gender and Sex
Gender and sex shape our personal identities, indicate how we should relate to others, and help us determine where we fit into our worlds. This unit gives students an opportunity to consider the differences between sex and gender cross-culturally. They are encouraged to question power imbalances along gender lines and how institutions are changing to reflect debates around gender and sex.
Sapiens articles
The Moral Code of Chinese Sex Workers
A researcher immersed herself in the “sisterhood” of China’s female sex trade—and came away with an appreciation of its rules of conduct.
Confronting Rape Culture
Rolling Stone’s now infamous article “A Rape on Campus” inspired a new program at the University of Virginia to help end campus rape. Unfortunately, it’s not likely to work.
Keywords
View All in Gender
![A line of cattle travel across a dry desert landscape, kicking up dust.]()
![An old bucket coated in multicolored limestone sits in front of a limestone-covered wall out of which protrudes a faucet dripping water that falls into the bucket.]()
![A stream of clear water pours into an orange bucket. Behind it, two slightly out-of-focus women and a child look on.]()
![A close-up view features an art exhibit composed of multiple photographs arranged side by side. The photos show people riding a horse, receiving medical care, and speaking at a women’s event.]()
![A historic black-and-white photograph shows a small group of workers on the floor of a pin manufacturing plant tending to rows of machines.]()
![Amid a political rally where red, black, and green colors are prominent, a smiling woman wearing glasses, a khaki shirt, and a black headscarf holds aloft a sketch of a person’s face that says, “Khan Is Hope.”]()
An Imagined Monograph for Nongqawuse
A 19th-century prophetess reportedly bore a serious message from the ancestors to her Xhosa people amid British colonial assault. The written archives judged her—but much still remains unknown and unacknowledged.
Her Dirge
A poet-historian reflects on women’s labor carrying memories and the past.
How Water Insecurity Impacts Women’s Health
Anthropologists and local activists in Indonesia and Peru uncover links between water scarcity and gendered violence, and work together to lessen the harms of gender inequality.
Fighting for Reproductive Rights in Retirement
An anthropologist conducts research in an Arizona retirement community, where older women share hard-won insights about how limitations on sexual and reproductive freedom impacted their lives.
How Allocating Work Aided Our Evolutionary Success
Societies divide labor by gender and age. A biological anthropologist considers when and why this behavior arose.
The Rise of Aunties in Pakistani Politics
Middle-class, conservative women in Pakistan have found a political voice as supporters of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party—putting them at odds with the secular women’s movement their own daughters support.
View All in Sex
![On a paved city street fenced off and lined with people, three people wearing colorful clothing stand and hold signs. These read: “Monogamy is not for everyone,” “I love my girlfriend’s boyfriend,” and “Sharing is Caring.”]()
![A computer-rendered graphic depicts a group of people in torn clothes and furs with black smudges on their faces and bodies. They gather in front of a rock overhang, with one sitting in front and poking at a pile of wood near which are dangling pieces of meat.]()
![A close-up image features a circular street sign with random black symbols such as an exclamation mark and hashtag and a red circle and strikethrough over them.]()
![A man with black hair and a beard sits on a sofa in the dark and looks at the illuminated screen of a cellphone he holds in his left hand.]()
![A person with blonde hair wearing a pink blazer stands at a podium with several microphones on it and a sign that reads, “Protect Children’s Innocence.” Several people in suits stand behind, with a large white domed building in the background.]()
![A child wearing a plaid shirt and a beanie looks up and holds the hand of an adult wearing jeans and a plaid shirt but whose head isn’t visible. They stand next to a cholla cactus.]()
What Is “Natural” for Human Sexual Relationships?
A biological and anthropological researcher explains how humans' diverse ways of mating might have evolved.
Dismantling the “Man the Hunter” Myth
Two biological anthropologists analyze archaeological and physiological evidence to debunk enduring assumptions about the gendered division of labor in ancient times.
Why I Ask My Students to Swear in Class
An anthropologist uses explicit insults to get students thinking about gender and power in everyday language. Plus, a brief explainer on the slang term “sus.”
Dating Apps Can Gauge Attraction but Not Chemistry
Why do attraction and chemistry feel different in the digital age? The answer lies in how digitally mediated information is changing the way we come to know potential partners.
Two Myths Fueling the Conservative Right’s Dangerous Transphobia
An anthropologist attends the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)—ground zero for the current onslaught of anti-trans rhetoric and legislation in the U.S.
Monogamy. Grandmas. Milk. The Evolution of Childhood Is Very Strange.
In a new book, Growing Up Human, a bioarchaeologist chronicles some of the most surprising evolutionary adaptations of babies, parents, and grandparents.
Professor Talking Points
- Understandings of sex and gender are shaped by social norms and beliefs, and are upheld by institutions.
- Views on sex and gender have changed from considering them the same to recognizing that sex refers to biological characteristics while gender points to a person’s social identity.
- Anthropologists have helped challenge rigid perspectives on gender and sex binaries, reveal the hierarchies that support and reinforce gender inequality, and call for the eradication of those hierarchies.
- It is important to analyze the influence of colonialism on modern-day perspectives of gender, gender roles, sex, and sexuality.
- Sexual violence is one of the most recognizable ways that patriarchal societies maintain order.
- Because sex and gender are social constructions that have changed over time, they can be transformed to create equitable societies.
Academic Articles
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Guttman, Matthew. 2014. “Alternative Cultures of Masculinity: An Anthropological Approach.” In Alternative Masculinities for a Changing World, edited by José María Armengol-Carrera and Angels Carabi, 51–62. London: Palgrave-MacMillan.
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Ortner, Sherry. 1972. “Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?” Feminist Studies 1 (2): 5–31.
Student Discussion Questions
- How do gendered differences play out across cultures and time?
- What do legal statutes tell us about how societies view and respond to gender differences?
- Why might there be a problem with classifying all gender-nonconforming people as “third gender”?
- How do different Indian social hierarchies and power dynamics shape the changing place of hijras?
- What are some ways that we can start to think differently about gender roles and sexuality?
Activities
- Have students watch Paula Stone Williams’ “I’ve Lived as a Man and a Woman.” Break the class into small groups and discuss what the speaker learned—and what each student learned.
Additional Resources
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TEDx Talk: Alice Dreger’s “Is Anatomy Destiny?”
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Video: Soraya Mire’s “Fire Eyes”
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Video: Jean Kilbourne’s “Killing Us Softly: Four Advertising Images of Women”
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Video: BBC’s “Me My Sex and I”
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Video: The Guardian’s “Muxes—Mexico’s Third Gender”
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Video: Crash Course Sociology #33’s “Theories of Gender”
Unit By
Eshe Lewis (2020)
Teaching
Cultural Anthropology
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Unit 3
Religion
