The conditions of egalitarian male-female

Abstract

Recent writings on several hunter-gatherer societies — the !Kung (Draper 1975; Lee 1979; Marshall 1976), Mbuti (Turnbull 1965), Agta (Griffin and Griffin n.d.), Hadza (Woodburn 1978, 1980), Paliyan (Gardner 1966) and Malapantaram (Morris 1978) — do, however, report the existence of sexual egalitarianism. This equality is, in fact, treated as a socio-cultural datum that hardly needs justification. For example, Turnbull writes of the Mbuti: A woman is in no way the social inferior of a man, and there is little absolute division of labour along sex lines (1965:271). Lee states: The !Kung are a fiercely egalitarian (1979:244). Draper reports: members of the Harvard !Kung Bushman Study Project who have thought about the subject of !Kung women's status agree that !Kung society may be the least sexist of any we have experienced (1975: 77). It appears that people who have actually lived with hunter-gatherers and have actively looked for male bias within the society find it far easier to accept that there can be societies where sexual egalitarianism can exist than do those students of societies where men are clearly dominant. Before proceeding further, I would like to define the terms dominance, equality and egalitarianism. By dominance I mean control over others' labour, decision-making, social contacts, access to food and resources and sexuality. I do not include under dominance the protective and defensive roles that men may take when group defence is necessary. Defence of females and children is not the same as dominance over them. I use the two terms equality and egalitarianism interchangeably to refer to individual control of one's own labour, decision-making, course of action, social contacts and sexuality; and to all individuals coming under the same cultural evaluations. I do not distinguish whether the societies actually talk about equality or simply live in an egalitarian way. Most important, my use of the words equality and egalitarianism do not suggest or presuppose that