Androcentric Research Articles

Immunoreactive theory: A conceptually narrow theory reflecting androcentric bias

Immunoreactive theory: A conceptually narrow theory reflecting androcentric bias

Dominance Rank, Secondary Sex Ratio, and Reproduction of Offspring in Polygynous Primates

One question in evolutionary biology which is central to understanding reproductive strategies and parental efforts at rearing offspring is why organisms produce certain offspring sex ratios (Trivers and Willard 1973; Charnov 1982). Fisher (1930) argued that since each individual has a mother and a father, both sexes contribute genes equally to the next generation. All else being equal, if members of one sex were overproduced, their ability to reproduce would be limited by the availability of members of the less abundant sex and natural selection would favor any predisposition to produce offspring of the less abundant sex. In this fashion, Fisher reasoned, selection would adjust the offspring sex ratio in an outbreeding population until total parental investment (PI, Trivers 1972) in the two sexes was equal. Fisher (1930) assumed, but did not clearly state, that all parents were alike in their ability to rear reproductively successful sons and daughters (Patterson and Emlen 1980). A model proposed by Trivers and Willard (1973), however, specified how deviations from equal PI may be favored by natural selection according to the influence of maternal condition on the reproduction of offspring. The TriversWillard model proposed that in polygynous species if some condition of mothers (e.g., dominance rank) influences the condition and, as a result, the reproductive success (RS) of sons more than daughters, then selection should result in the evolution and maintenance of mechanisms by which females in poor condition invest less in sons than daughters and/or females in good condition invest more in sons than daughters. This model is particularly relevant for primates, since the majority of species are polygynous (Clutton-Brock and Harvey 1977). Since the dominance rank of a monkey's social group and family has a strong

Reconsidering the Menstrual Taboo: A Portuguese Case

Much of the recent literature on women attempts to correct an androcentric bias in ethnographic description and theoretical explanation. In treating menstrual taboo customs this paper addresses an ancient and revered topic in the anthropological literature. Traditionally discussions of these practices have focused on mens reactions of fear to menstrual blood and menstruating women. Occasionally womens opinions and views have been described but only rarely have they been considered in the explanation of behavior that ultimately concerns them. This research describes avoidance behavior exhibited by some Portuguese women during menstruation at the time of the annual pig killing. It argues that womens behavior can be explained not by reference to assumptions of male dominance over women but to womens conscious choice of modes of behavior reflecting strategic goals important to their own perceived self interest. Women are the principal actors in maintaining the menstrual taboo because it allows them to control certain social interactions outside the household and affords them a rationale for protecting the economic privacy of their homes for which they hold primary responsibility. Ultimately this research views womens behavior related to the menstrual taboo as embedded within the complexity of the social relations and values that surround them rather than a simple function of pollution concepts. (authors)

Feminism and Science

Over the past fifteen years, a new dimension to the analysis of science has emerged. Feminist theory, combined with the insights of recent developments in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science, has raised a number of new and important questions about the content, practice, and traditional goals of science. Feminists have pointed to a bias in the choice and definition of problems with which scientists have concerned themselves, and in the actual design and interpretation of experiments, and have argued that modern science evolved out of a conceptual structuring of the world that incorporated particular and historically specific ideologies of gender. The seventeen outstanding articles in this volume reflect the diversity and strengths of feminist contributions to current thinking about science.

An Ethnohistorical Analysis of Micmac Male and Female Economic Roles

Until recently, historians and ethnographers ignored the differential effects of Western modernization or the introduction of Western technological and economic patterns on sex roles in non-European cultures. While this differential effect is now observed in rapidly modernizing societies in the twentieth century, it has not been examined for New World cultures which first experienced European contact centuries ago. Ethnohistorical and ethnographic data for the Micmac of Nova Scotia indicates that a continual transformation of male and female economic roles occurred for the Micmac as they experienced the dominant Euro-Canadian culture over a 400 year period. From the Micmac case study it is concluded that modernization is one step in the process of economic differentiation between men and women and that this process is determined by various factors of economic differentiation for any given ethnohistorical period. The impact of Western culture on native North American populations has been studied by historian and anthropologist alike. Both disciplines have neglected the effects of this contact on the sex roles of aboriginal populations, while concentrating on the more obvious areas of social change such as demography, material culture and political organization. Historians, relying upon early accounts of Indian life, are oblivious to the inherent androcentric cultural bias of their sources. Ethnographers, approaching Native American groups synchronically, often assume a relatively static relationship existing between men and women, projecting backward in time the status and role of contemporary Native American women. A careful re-examination of the ethnohistorical record is requisite not only to ascertain these aboriginal sex roles but also to observe how these roles were altered during the ensuing years of contact with the dominant Euro-American culture. This study, using ethnohistorical and ethnographic data, examines the alteration and adaptation of Micmac male and female roles over a long time period-four hundred years, in the context of the broader changes which their society experienced as a minority population of Nova Scotia. There are difficulties encountered in attempting to reconstruct aboriginal sex roles, as others have indicated (Brown 1969; Leacock 1978). Since the archaeological record reveals little about the economic roles of men and women, prehistoric data is sorely lacking on pre-contact sex roles. Written records about the early contact period, although available, contain two serious flaws. The descriptive accounts often reflect a native population previously exposed to intermittent European visits which have already altered traditional aboriginal economic bases and social patterns. In addition, these records contain the cultural and historical biases of their 16th and 17th century authors. The difficulties this ethnohistorical data presents can be overcome by a critical reading of these records and by a comparison with appropriate contemporary ethnographic data such as Lee's (1972) study of the !Kung which presents a more com

Transition for whom? Adolescence theories with androcentric bias

Transition for whom? Adolescence theories with androcentric bias

Feminist Studies in Religion and Literature: A Methodological Reflection

HE recent feminist criticism of the androcentric bias of the major traditions of Western religion, reflected in such books as Beyond God the Father, Religion and Sexism,2 and A Different Heaven and Earth,3 has sent feminist scholars searching for alternative texts and traditions which may reflect an authentically female religious outlook.4 Sources for such study include the diaries, journals, letters, and other writings of women from all periods of history. The feminist historian of Christianity, for example, might study the writings of Julian of Norwich, Teresa of Avila, or Christine de Pisan with particular attention to the female perspective reflected in them. In twentieth century religious studies, which is my field, the novels and poetry of women writers are a particularly fruitful source for the study of women's religious outlook. Inasmuch as such study must draw on and integrate the work of scholars in the areas of religion and literature, theory of religion, and feminist literary criticism, methodological reflection is clearly called for. Since the area of religion and literature, as has been noted elsewhere,5 is in a state of methodological chaos, simple reflection on the feminist transformation of this area of study is impossible. Therefore, I will proceed in this essay from the concrete case of my own feminist studies in religion and literature, in the hope that my reflections will clarify and chart the way for other feminist scholars. My reflections will also suggest implicit androcentric biases in traditional religion and literature studies which make the texts discussed and the theories developed less than immediately relevant to women.

Power and Sexual Fear in Primitive Societies

Various aspects of the relationship between power and sexualfear are examined. It is originally hypothesized that female inferiority is positively correlated with the prevalence of taboos concerning female sexuality. This hypothesis is disconfirmed and an alternative hypothesis, that male superiority is positively related with concern for male genitals, is examined. The revised hypothesis is confirmed. It is concluded that in general there is a positive relationship between power and the prevalence of sexual fear evoked by powerful persons. This involves a reinterpretation of taboos concerning female sexuality as indicators of high rather than low status. Finally, the androcentric bias in cross-cultural data collections is discussed and criticized.

Anthropocentrism and androcentrism in biology

Robert A. Hinde. Biological Bases of Human Social Behavior. McGraw‐Hill Book Co., 1974. xv + 462 pp. Tables, figures, epilogue, bibliography, name index, and subject index. $10.95.

Sex Differences in Morbidity and Mortality

HE differences between men and women in relation to the processes that lead to death are of more than passing interest for the student of human constitution. This branch of human biology, it has been emphasized (Pearl and Ciocco, I936; Ciocco, I936a, b), has for one of its major objectives to discover and eventually measure the stable organic correlationintegrated biological relations-between the morphological, physiological, psychological, and pathological traits of the individual. Therefore, the differences in morbidity and mortality observed for the two sexes assume special importance not only because the individuals of the two sexes are on the whole also morphologically and functionally differentiated but primarily because the sex dimorphism reflects a dissimilar biological make-up. This, it is of course realized, does not mean that sex differentiation is due simply to the chromosomal constitution of the individuals. In the first place, as Danforth (I93z) ably points out, the results of investigations on sex linkage have shown clearly that the so-called sex chromosomes are, one might say, only incidentally concerned with sex differentiation. Besides, as a result of the work of Bridges and of all those who have confirmed and extended his observations (Bridges, I932), it is accepted that the characteristics of each of the sexes are deternmined not only by the absence or presence of one of the sex chromosomes but also by the quantitative balance between the number of sex and autosomal chromosomes. The original simple scheme is further relegated into the background when an explanation is sought for Goldschmidt's observations on the alteration of the sex ratio and on the production of intersexes as the result of crosses between certain varieties of tussock moths. The conclusion which Goldschmidt (I9I7) reached and which he has maintained since (cf. Goldschmidt, I938), is that "every individual is -able to develop into one sex or the other or any stage between; further that every individual contains all the elements necessary for the development of either sex and its attributes; further that these elements or substances must have a certain quantitative relation to each other in order to secure to one of them the control of development; and that the introduction of quantities in a cross which do not fit the given quantity of the other partner set up the sex differentiation in favor of the higher quantity." That the final differentiation of sex is dependent also on extra-chromosomal factors is universally admitted today, thanks to the many observations and experimentations reported on gynandromorphism and sex reversal. Thus, the observation by Crew (I973) of the broody hen transformed through disease into a potent rooster is well known. Equally familiar are the studies of Hertwig (I906) continued and elaborated further by