Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.