Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality [Paperback]

Peggy Reeves Sanday (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 30, 1981 | ISBN-10: 0521280753 | ISBN-13: 978-0521280754

In this book, Professor Peggy Sanday provides a ground-breaking examination of power and dominance in male-female relationships. How does the culturally approved interaction between the sexes originate? Why are women viewed as a necessary part of political, economic, and religious affairs in some societies but not in others? Why do some societies clothe sacred symbols of creative power in the guise of one sex and not of the other? Professor Sanday offers solutions to these cultural puzzles by using cross-cultural research on over 150 tribal societies. She systematically establishes the full range of variation in male and female power roles and then suggests a theoretical framework for explaining this variation. Rejecting the argument of universal female subordination, Professor Sanday argues that male dominance is not inherent in human relations but is a solution to various kinds of cultural strain. Those who are thought to embody, be in touch with, or control the creative forces of nature are perceived as powerful. In isolating the behavioural and symbolic mechanisms which institute male dominance, professor Sanday shows that a people's secular power roles are partly derived from ancient concepts of power, as exemplified by their origin myths. Power and dominance are further determined by a people's adaptation to their environment, social conflict, and emotional stress. This is illustrated through case studies of the effects of European colonialism, migration, and food stress, and supported by numerous statistical associations between sexual inequity and various cultural stresses.

Editorial Reviews

Book Description

Applying data from over 150 tribal societies to scales developed to measure power and dominance, Sanday offers answers to basic questions regarding male and female power. The view that emerges conforms to no particular theoretical perspective.

Product Details

• Paperback: 295 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (April 30, 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521280753
• ISBN-13: 978-0521280754
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #455,164 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mind blowing, October 3, 2010

By 

C. B. Murphey "graduate student" (Bellingham, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality (Paperback)

Sanday delivers an anthropological meta-analysis of numerous (thankfully) uncivilized cultures, tracing the relationships between mode of subsistence, origin myth, and gender relations. After surveying a number of the cultures--presenting their individual customs, practices, creation stories, etc.--Sanday steps back and delivers an analysis that both environmentalists and feminist could greatly benefit from: gender relations are highly dependent on a culture's origin myth (the accepted story of how and why the people exist) and mode of subsistence (ranging from hunting-gathering to intensive agriculture). The majority of the cultures who share origin myths that grant male figures the primary role as creator are apt to fall into male dominance during times of general stress or hardship. The pattern holds similarly for cultures practicing intensive agriculture versus hunting-gathering as modes of subsistence. The book finishes beautifully as Sanday draws the obvious connections to global cultures today based almost entirely on intensive agricultural practices and sharing a series of origin myths based in the Judeo-Christian tradition.

I see this work as a missing piece in the feminist movement, as it prompts the question, Can we ever achieve healthy gender relations without abandoning the most basic elements of modern capitalist lifestyle? I rarely hear feminists discuss agriculture today--aside from Vandana Shiva or Lierre Keith's "The Vegetarian Myth"--yet it seems to me to be the cornerstone of any successful emancipatory feminist theory.

I highly recommend this book for anthropology and sociology students, feminist and environmental activists/scholars, and anyone who feels that they're missing that certain something in their analysis of why global culture appears so immutably oppressive.

3.0 out of 5 stars Good overview, bad editing, no answers, February 4, 2012

By 

Ashtar Command "Seeker" (Stockholm, Sweden) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality (Paperback)

"Female Power, Male Dominance" by Peggy Reeves Sanday is an anthropological survey of gender roles, written from a feminist perspective. I sometimes credit this book for turning me towards feminism, but that's (of course) an overstatement, since I've always been for gender equality. Even so, I originally assumed that all "advanced" or "complex" societies were patriarchal, equality being a characteristic only of the most primitive and undifferentiated societies. Reeves Sanday shows that the true story is much more complicated.

Let me say at the outset that "Female Power, Male Dominance" could have needed better editing. It's a relatively hard read, not because its theses are difficult to understand, but because they are difficult to find! A large part of the book feels like a compilation of ethnographic material from societies around the world, often fascinating but ultimately bewildering. The chapter on Bible interpretation feels completely speculative and badly out of place. Thus, you will need a certain amount of patience to read this work.

There are certainly interesting trends in the research material cited by the author. There seems to be a correlation between animal husbandry and patriarchy, or between advanced agriculture and the same. Likewise, there's a correlation between gathering or fishing and gender equality. However, the correlations are weaker than I expected. The number of exceptions to the rule is sufficiently large to make you wonder whether a purely "materialist" explanation for gender equality is meaningful. Apparently, some pastoralist societies have gender equality, while some societies based on gathering are patriarchal. Nor does war seem to be necessarily connected to patriarchy. 50% of the equal societies in Reeves Sanday's study experienced chronic warfare!

The author doesn't really have a solid, across-the-board explanation for why certain societies develop patriarchy, while others remain equal. She spends a considerable time discussing religious symbolism and creation myths, and seems to believe that the cultural identity of a society explains if and when it changes gender roles. But where does the cultural system originally come from? Is it completely idiosyncratic, or what?

In the last chapter, the author suddenly introduces a biological (or pseudo-biological?) explanation. She claims that men always react to stress with aggression, often by competing with other men. This struggle will eventually come up against traditional female power. When this happens, two outcomes are possible. The first is that women respond by balancing male and female power, even letting the men think that they are wholly in command ("mythic male power"). The second is that women fight back. Reeves Sanday's assessment is worth quoting: "They succeed unless men kill a few token women to show that the battle for male domination is real. In these cases women acquiesce. (...) If there is a basic difference between the sexes, other than the differences associated with human reproductivity, it is that women as a group have not willingly faced death in violent conflict. This fact, perhaps more than any other, explains why men have sometimes become the dominating sex". This sounds like a sudden collapse into sociobiology by an author who otherwise stresses cultural (even religious) factors as paramount. Essentially, Reeves Sanday is suggesting that if men decide to play it rough, women will always loose, due to the latter's psychological make-up.

I'm not sure if this is a firm basis on which to build a modern, feminist movement. Love Conquers All, huh?

I'm more into Ms. Seattle Six-Gun and amazons, LOL.