REVIEW ARTICLE

Anthropology and the Study of Women

T h e Status of Women in Preindustrial Societies. Martin K. Whyte. Princeton, N.J.:

Princeton University Press, 1978. xi + 222 pp. $15.00 (cloth).

Women in Ritual and Symbolic Roles.Judith Hoch-Smith and Anita Spring, eds. New
York: Plenum Press, 1978. xv + 289 pp. $19.50 (cloth).

The Nineteenth-Century Woman: Her Cultural and Physical World. Sara Delamont
and L o r n Duffin, eds. London: Barnes and Noble, 1978. 213 pp. $18.50 (cloth).

Sexual Stratification: A Cross-Cultural View. A lice Schlegel, ed. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1977. xix + 371 pp. $20.00 (cloth), $7.50 (paper).

W. TIFFANY
SHARON
University of Wiscowin, Whitewater

The reemergence of anthropological research on women is associated with contem-

porary feminist issues, a growing interdisciplinary literature in women’s studies, and the
development of women’s studies programs in colleges and universities. This interest has
resulted in increased awareness of traditional theoretical perspectives relegating females
to invisible or marginal statuses in both Western and non-Western societies. The books
under review are part of a rapidly increasing and more sophisticated scholarship on
women. They provide historical data on previously neglected areas, question assumptions
and earlier formulations, and contribute to the continuing reassessment of issues and
paradigms in anthropology.
The original contributions in Delamont and Duffin’s The Nineteenth- Century Woman
address three feminist issues: health, sexual ideology, and education. Chapter 2, “The Con-
spicuous Consumptive,” reviews the social contexts of illness and medical conceptions of
Victorian females as inherently unhealthy. At that time male models of female health
(and illness) dominated medicine and women’s views of their own bodies. Duffin’s
chapter, “Prisoners of Progress,” considers 19th- and early 20th-century evolutionary
theory, particularly the work of Herbert Spencer, and its application by social theorists
and policymakers to the definition of women and their appropriate roles in society.
Debates focused on the procreative capacities of women- their sexuality (or lack of it),
childbearing, and physical fitness to work outside the home. Two chapters discuss Vic-
torian concepts of female delicacy and women’s education. Atkinson describes the dif-
ficulties feminist reformers encountered in attempting to reconcile public and parental

Copyright Q 1980 by the American Anthropological Association

0002-7294/80/020S74-07$1.20/1

374
Tiffany] ANTHROPOLOGY A N D WOMEN 375

concern for “ladylike” behavior with academic standards. Delamont focuses on the rela-
tionship between education, class distinctions, and the ideology of domesticity. The final
chapter by McGuinn discusses George Eliot’s assessment of A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman after 50 years of obscurity. McGuinn argues that Eliot was “obliged to humiliate
herself intellectually” by having to structure her arguments defending Mary
Wollstonecraft in terms acceptable to “a male stereotype of femininity” (p. 203).
An interesting feature of this collection is the use of anthropological theory, particular-
ly the works of Edwin Ardener and Mary Douglas, to interpret historical materials.
Employing concepts of “dominant” and “muted” models, the volume illustrates the
hostility and opposition women encountered as they sought to reevaluate and modify
dominant male models of both sexes. Much of the editors’ introduction is devoted to
discussion of Mary Douglas’sworks on cultural categories of sex, pollution, weakness, and
danger. Elaborate conceptions of female pollution are not unique to exotic, non-Western
societies. Indeed, male fear of women as “strength-sappers” in the New Guinea
Highlands is “. . . particularly apposite when applied to Victorian society, and the
description of a tribe called the Mae Enga could be applied immediately to the Boy
Scouts” (Delamont and Duffin, p. 23).
The minds and bodies of Victorian middle- and upper-class women presented men
with ambiguities and contradictions. Both ideological and institutional forces were mar-
shalled from medical opinion, scientific theory, and educational policies to reconcile the
anomaly of female sexuality with women’s “natural” procreative and domestic functions.
The Nineteenth-Centuy Woman presents interesting material and highlights prob-
lems for further research. The chapters on education by Atkinson and Delamont il-
lustrate both ideoIogical and institutional constraints on Victorian women. However,
readers learn little from these analyses about the class structure of education and its use
as a mechanism of social control (e.g., see Okely 1978). Duffin’s chapter on female in-
validism covers familiar ground for students acquainted with the burgeoning literature
on women and health. Unresolved questions remain. For example, what was the relation-
ship between the prevaiiing ideology of asexual middle-class women and attempts to limit
childbearing? How did women use illness as a domestic political strategy? What are the
implications of illness behavior for reproductive control? Moreover, sickness varies by
gender and class. What kinds of reproductive or political strategies were available to
millions of poor women and to the large segment of “distressed’ gentlewomen who were
forced to work for their livelihoods and could not afford expensive, long-term illnesses?
Both “dominant” and “muted’ models associated with the political and economic
elites (which probably did not constitute more than 5-15% of the British population dur-
ing the entire Victorian period) were crosscut by class and economic considerations.
Comparison of the dominant and muted models of the prosperous upper and middle
classes, impoverished gentry, and the working class would be useful for clarifying the
complex relationships among working and leisured women and men in Victorian society.
Women in Ritual and Symbolic Roles is the product of a symposium convened during
the 1974 American Anthropological Association meetings. The editors describe the cen-
tral focus of the volume as ‘I. . . the relationship of dominant female metaphors and
ritual roles to ideas and practices concerning female reproductive and sexual energies in
a variety of cultures and religious systems” (p. 1). The 13 original chapters represent a
breathtaking array of diverse topics, including the strategic use of hats by female
members of Scottish evangelical churches, representations of women in Sinhalese myth,
and rehabilitation of female drug addicts. Despite the editors’ heroic efforts to organize
this disparate collection, the volume lacks overall unity and theoretical coherence, a
problem common to many anthologies.
The book is divided into three sections. Part 1 , “Women and Divinity,” contains five
376 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [82, 1980

chapters concerned with the subordination of female attributes in established religions.

Sexuality and procreative functions assume greatest significance in defining femaleness.
In “The Bride of Christ is Filled with His Spirit,” Maltz discusses the “church-as-woman’’
metaphor among Scottish Pentecostalists. In chapter 3 Arnold (pp. 50-52) describes how
childless women, known as “church cockroaches,” assume public roles in Catholic ritual
in a peasant Mexican community. Part 2 emphasizes women’s nurturing roles as ritual
specialists and midwives. This section contains a number of interesting case studies. Par-
ticularly noteworthy are Paul’s life histories of two Mayan women recruited to midwife
roles and Myerhoff s description of senior Jewish women in a small American community
center. Part 3, consisting of two chapters, focuses on negative evaluations of female sex-
uality.
Spring’s chapter in part 2, entitled “Epidemiology of Spirit Possession among the
Luvale of Zambia” is the most theoretically oriented contribution in the volume. She
criticizes “social conflict” and “war between the sexes” interpretations of possession used
by subordinate groups to express their grievances to those in power in a socially accept-
able, nonthreatening manner (pp. 167-168). According to Spring, “Nowhere do we find
a study of the actual health of patients, of the curative role of the altered state of con-
sciousness in possession, or of the health of the patients afterward’ (p. 166). The
“negative female imagery” of women in anthropological accounts of possession is similar
to 19th-century interpretations and diagnoses of female morbidity as reproductive
disorders. Spring emphasizes the positive, “legitimizing” functions of possession cults (p.
167). Luvale women participate in possession rituals in order to cure their reproductive
and other bodily afflictions, to cure the illnesses of their children, and to prepare as
specialists and priestesses.
Sexual Stnztqication is an important contribution to the anthropological study of
women. Fifteen original chapters, including a major theoretical introduction and con-
cluding overview by the editor, cover a broad range of topics and geographical areas.
Schlegel’s introduction is an ambitious effort to survey anthropological perspectives on
sexual inequality and outline a preliminary theory of sexual stratification. Theories of
women, according to Schlegel, may be divided into two broad categories: those explain-
ing sexual inequality as an historical product of specific material conditions: and those
linking universal male dominance to differences in biological and reproductive roles.
Schlegel concludes, after quickly surveying the works of Engels, Leacock, Sacks, Sanday,
and Friedl, that emphasis on relations of production or exchange excludes considerations
of the role of ideology “in motivating action and initiating change” (p. 14). Crude con-
ceptions of biological determinism (e.g., brute force and male bonding), as well as the
nature:female/culture: male dichotomy, are criticized for “ignoring the social bases of
social power” and the cross-cultural diversity of gender based distinctions (p. 16).
Sexual stratification refers to systematic differentiation by gender within the spheres of
prestige, power, and rewards. These three dimensions are frequently crosscut by addi-
tional socia! distinctions of age and status (pp. 3-9, 17-20). Acknowledging the com-
plexities of comparatively evaluating sexual status, Schlegel writes that “. . . it becomes
increasingly difficult to speak of the status of women in a society, let alone any type of
society” (p. 21, emphasis in original). That is to say, sexual status is variable: it “. . . is
the consequence of the interplay of productive relations, social relations, and ideology”
(p. 34). Naomi Quinn (1977:183) drew a similar conclusion in an earlier review article,
reasoning that the status of women in any society is multidimensional and continuously
changing as females move through the life cycle.
One of the most perplexing questions in the anthropological study of women concerns
universal sexual inequality - an issue compounded by conflicting value orientations,
assumptions, and paradigms (see Tiffany 1978, 1979a). Schlegel writes:
Tiffany] ANTHROPOLOGY AND WOMEN 377

To explain sexual status in any society, and to predict the changes it may take, we must first free
ourselves from deductions about the inherent and universal subordination of women. A critical
examination of the problem requires that, for every case, we look to the responses a society makes
to its own internal dynamics and to relations with other societies [p. 341.
Contributions in Sexual Stratz$cation are divided along a continuum, beginning with
societies that are most sexually stratified, both institutionally and ideologically, and end-
ing with the most egalitarian. Those in between are described by Schlegel as “neither
strongly male-dominant nor notably egalitarian” (p. ix). But Schlegel is also careful to
point out that the order of presentation is not a typology; female/male relationships are
too complex to fit into neat categories of dominance and subordination (pp. ix-x).
Chapters 2 through 5 in Schlegel’s book consider both institutionalized and informal
mechanisms whereby women “work through or around’ male-dominated structures.
D y e r examines the politicaI and juraI roIes of the femaIe ’arz;fa,who operates as an insti-
tutionalized intermediary between women and the male-dominated legal system in
Morocco. According to Cronin in chapter 3, Sicilian women must maintain uergogna,
“an enduring sense of modesty and decorum” (p. 75). A woman can opt for a passive life
of dependence upon close relatives within this constraint; or, she may . . choose to
‘ I .

operate in the system of adjustment and use the many skills and talents she feels are hers”
(p. 75). In chapter 4 Ullrich writes that differences in female autonomy between a South
Indian Brahmin and non-Brahmin caste are linked to differential contributions of
women to the domestic economy. In an overview of woman-marriage institutions,
O’Brien concludes that in some systems women must be sociologically converted into
husbands in order to exercise or symbolize political power and authority.
Intermediate societies with qualified male dominance are illustrated in the next five
chapters. Fluehr-Lobban and Awe discuss the impact of politicolegal changes on
Sudanese and Yoruba women. The Women’s Union in Sudan influenced legislative
reforms concerning women’s marital, economic, and political rights until the govern-
ment coups of 1971. British colonial policies transformed, and in many instances under-
mined, the traditional political roles of Yoruba women. The office of zyalode, a female
chief who represents women’s interests in government, still exists in attenuated form,
despite the impact of colonialism. However, the long-term future of the zyalode is prob-
lematic (Awe, p. 158). Chapters by Lewis, Smock, and Denich suggest that “moderniza-
tion” does not necessarily entail freedom from domesticity and child care. According to
Lewis, participation in the labor force is not used to circumvent marital and childbearing
roles by women in the Ivory Coast city of Abidjan. Smock traces the consequences for
Ghanaian women of changing domestic structures emphasizing the priority of males.
Denich describes the high participation of Yugoslavian women in the industrial work
force, but like American women they are underrepresented in political office and remain
largely responsible for domestic tasks and child care.
The remaining contributions discuss sexually egalitarian societies in which “. . . an
ideology of sexual stratification is absent and women have the means to activate their
equal status” (Schlegel, p. xi). Schlegel links the social importance of Hopi women to
their economic contributions and to a positive ideological valuation of femaleness. Bac-
dayan stresses the similarity of roles held by Bontoc Igorot women and men. Both sexes
contribute equally to subsistence and exchange, and men “are deeply involved in
domestic chores” (Bacdayan, p. 289). Sexual autonomy in Barbados rests on “. . . inde-
pendent access to the resources of the kinship system and the economy and on an ideology
that minimizes sexual differences and emphasizes the effectiveness of the individual
regardless of gender” (Sutton and Makiesky-Barrow, pp. 322-323). Datan contrasts sex-
ual stratification in an Arab village with an Israeli kibbutz. Masculine values characterize
378 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST 182, 1980

both systems, although “the roles expressing these values” are available to kibbutz women
and denied to Arab females (Datan, p. 340).
Sexual Stratification covers a wide range of subjects and includes new and provocative
material. The volume raises important questions and compels reassessment of existing
issues. My comments are limited to four brief points. First, the presentation of chapters
runs dangerously close to criticisms of “butterfly collecting,” despite the editor’s caution
about typologizing. Second, I have difficulty with Schlegel’s concept of “central institu-
tion” (p. 19) and its utility in assessing the contexts of sexual status cross-culturally.
Third, Schlegel is too quick to dismiss materialist explanations, particularly the work of
Eleanor Leacock. Schlegel also argues that a “sensitive analysis” of male/female produc-
tion requires that we “. . . break away from a technological and evolutionary paradigm
based on subsistence systems” and reexamine economies as social systems (p. 23). But,
surprisingly, no reference is made to Martin and Voorhies’s Female of the Species, an im-
portant work which provides a balanced account of women’s productive roles in different
societies. Finally, although the relations of production and reproduction are acknowl-
edged as important (Schlegel, p. 24), the subject is not considered explicitly in any of the
contributions.
The Status of W o m e n in Preindustrial Societies is the result of cross-cultural research
that attempts to answer the questions of how and why women’s status varies. Whyte’s (p.
10) definition of women’s status as ‘ I .. . the differential power, prestige, rights,
privileges, and importance of women relative to men” is similar to Schlegel’s (pp. 3-9)
formulation of sexual stratification. After a careful discussion of the weaknesses and
strengths of the cross-cultural method, Whyte describes 18 hypotheses and the variables
selected to test them. These hypotheses relate women’s status to several variables, in-
cluding subsistence, warfare, postmarital residence, family organization, and centralized
political structures.
In the fourth chapter, Whyte considers variations in women’s economic and political
statuses. Since only men hold political positions (in both kin and nonkin groups) in the
majority of the sample, he concludes that politics is a male domain (pp. 56-59). By con-
trast to sexual inequality in the political sphere, relationships between women’s status
and economic variables are more complex. Women are primarily responsible for
domestic work and child care in most societies; however, the importance of female parti-
cipation in production and exchange suggests sexual equality or “some male bias, but
with numerous exceptions” (Whyte, p. 68).
Whyte concludes, like Schlegel and Quinn (1977). that women’s status is multidimen-
sional:
Our findings lead us to conclude that we can find no evidence for the existence of any general
‘status of women’ complex that vanes consistently from culture to culture. Rather, with tenuous
exceptions, aspects of what we have called the status of women tend to vary independently from
culture to culture [p. 1161.

The implications of this research for the study of women and feminist demands for
change are summarized in the concluding chapter:
One can no longer assume that there is such a thing as the status of women cross-culturally. Nor
can one assume that a favorable position for women in any particular area of social life will be
related to favorable positions in other areas. Nor can one search for the best indicator of the
status of women. or for the key variable that affects the status of women. Instead one now has to
start with a very different assumption: that there is no coherent concept of the status of women
that can be identified cross-culturally, and that when we think we are looking at aspects or in-
dicators of the status of women we are dealing with essentially unrelated things [Whpe, p. 170,
emphasis in original].
Tiffany] ANTHROPOLOGY AND WOMEN 379

In effect, we cannot assume that changes in women’s labor force participation, for in-
stance, will necessarily alter low female participation in political office or women’s
primary responsibilities for housekeeping and child care in the West.
Lack of association between different dimensions of women’s status is linked to the
uniquely interdependent relationship of the sexes eloquently expressed by Simone de
Beauvoir in The Second Sex:
The bond that unites her to her oppressors is not comparable to any other. The division of the
sexes is a biological fact, not an event in human history. Male and female stand opposed within a
primordial Mitsein, and woman has not broken it. The couple is a fundamental unity with its two
halves riveted together, and the cleavage of society along the line of sex is impossible. Here is to
be found the basic trait of woman: she is the Other in a totality of which the two components are
necessary to one another [ 1952:xxiiil.
Whyte (pp. 177-181) argues that sexual inequality stems from women’s primary roles as
childbearers and rearers. However, he is cautiously optimistic that sexual inequality in
some domains (e.g., divorce, legal rights, the sexual double standard) is decreasing in in-
dustrialized societies:
It looks, therefore, as if the evolutionary trend, which within our sample appears to be linear, is
actually curvilinear, with women in complex industrial societies regaining some of the equality
that is lost in the transition from simple hunting and gathering societies to settled agrarian em-
pires [Whyte, p. 1811.
The Status of Women in Preindustrial Societies is clearly organized and written; it con-
tains useful material, and it deserves careful reading. Like most literature in women’s
studies, it raises more questions than it answers.
In my view, the most important issues raised by feminist scholarship concern the need
to reassess theoretical perspectives, models, questions, methods, and conclusions. Ini-
tiating inquiry by hypothesizing the absence of women from positions of leadership, for
example, ignores consideration of the values, assumptions, and paradigms of previous
fieldwork. A more important question, from a feminist perspective, asks first whether
researchers have ignored female political participation by assuming that politics is a male
domain. Anthropological studies of women and politics are rare; thus, few data are avail-
able for comparing meaningfully the question of female power (or powerlessness) in dif-
ferent societies. In addition to lack of studies, anthropologists disagree on what con-
stitutes the political sphere of social relations. Contradictory and often vaguely defined
terms such as “power,” “authority,” “politics,” and “influence” characterize much of the
literature on political roles and process (Tiffany 1979b). Similarly, feminists question
what is really known anthropologically about women’s economic roles, particularly when
earlier studies of production and exchange ignored or discounted the significance of
female participation in ceremonial distributions. The Tiwi illustrate these general issues
because they have been studied from differing perspectives at different times. Com-
parison of Hart and Pilling’s (1960) and Goodale’s (1971) works illustrates how applying
different assumptions and models to the same society results in differing emphases and
interpretations of women’s economic and political roles (see also Feil 1978; Weiner 1976).
Implicit in the books under review is the linkage between feminist concerns and inter-
disciplinary scholarship. The issues include: ( 1) reassessing the “natural” roles of women
as childbearers and rearers; (2) redefining cultural conceptions of female bodies and
psychology; (3) understanding (and changing) educational policies and socialization pat-
terns that perpetuate values constraining female aspirations; (4) reassessing the impact of
colonialism and industrialization on women’s roles; and perhaps most importantly, (5)
critically reevaluating the paradigms of anthropology and other disciplines.
Vigorous growth in feminist scholarship is reflected in the rapid development of inter-
380 AMERICAN A NTHR 0PO LOG IS T 182, 1980

disciplinary women’s studies programs in university and college campuses t h r o u g h o u t t h e

country. The number of programs increased from 2 to 152 between 1970 and 1975; this
figure rose t o 276 in 1977 (Clearinghouse on Women’s Studies 1975:3; Howe a n d Kelley
1977:17). The directory of Who’s Who and Where in Women’s Studies lists 4 , 6 5 8 courses
t a u g h t in 885 colleges and universities by 2,934 teachers (Berkowitz, Mangi, and
Williamson 1974:viii-ix). In 1977, 51% of t h e 276 women’s studies programs offered a
m i n o r , certificate, or degree; 56 offered a B.A., 1 6 an M.A., and 2 had doctoral pro-
grams (Howe and Kelley 1977:17). Women’s studies, t h e n , is n o t simply a f a d or “passing
fancy.”
In conclusion, a feminist perspective explores areas of social behavior t h a t are fre-
quently ignored or devalued as “insignificant” by researchers. Feminist reassessments a n d
models are needed, not merely to counterbalance male-oriented models, b u t t o propose
hitherto unasked questions and t o construct new and more comprehensive frameworks
t h a t incorporate both sexes i n t o t h e study of humanity.

REFERENCES CITED

Berkowitz, Tamar. Jean Mangi, and Jane Williamson, eds.

1974 Who’s Who and Where in Women’s Studies. Old Westbury, N.Y.: The Feminist Press.
Clearinghouse on Women’s Studies
1975 Trends in Developing Women’s Studies Programs. Women’s Studies Newsletter 3( 1):3.
de Beauvoir, Simone
1952 T h e Second Sex. H. M. Parshley, trans. and ed. New York: Vintage Books.
Feil, D. K.
1978 Women and Men in the Enga Tee. American Ethnologist 5:263-279.
Goodale, Jane C.
1971 Tiwi Wives: A Study of the Women of Melville Island, North Australia. Seattle: Univer-
sity of Washington Press.
Hart, C. W. M., and Arnold R. Pilling
1960 The Tiwi of North Australia. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Howe, Florence, and Frances Kelley
1977 Fact Sheet on Women’s Studies Programs in 1977. Women’s Studies Newsletter 5(4):17.
Okely, Judith
1978 Privileged, Schooled and Finished: Boarding Education for Girls. In Defining Females:
The Nature of Women in Society. Shirley Ardener, ed. pp. 109-139. New York: John Wiley,
Halstead Press.
Quinn, Naomi
1977 Anthropological Studies on Women’s Status. Annual Review of Anthropology 6: 181-225.
Tiffany, Sharon W.
1978 Models and the Social Anthropology of Women: A Preliminary Assessment. Man 13:
34-51, (new series).
1979a Introduction: Theoretical Issues in the Anthropological Study of Women. I n Women
and Society: An Anthropological Reader. Sharon W . Tiffany, ed. pp. 1-35. Montreal: Eden
Press, Women’s Publications.
1979b Women, Power, and the Anthropology of Politics: A Review. International Journal of
Women’s Studies 2~430-442.
Weiner, Annette B.
1976 Women of Value, Men of Reknown: New Perspectives in Trobriand Exchange. Austin:
University of Texas Press.