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Annotated Bibliography On Gender And Culture

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AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY ON GENDER AND ITS’ CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE ACCORDING TO ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDIES
INTRODUCTION
This bibliography aims to investigate the cultural significance of gender in anthropological terms, the definition of gender itself and the notion that gender plays a pivotal role in societal roles and norms.

Rosman, Abraham, Paula G. Rubel, and Maxine Weisgrau. 2009. “Gender and Age” In The tapestry of culture: An introduction to cultural anthropology,141-160. Rowman Altamira.
In Chapter 7, the writers look at age and gender as the basic forms of distinction for social roles in society. I will be focussing on gender for the purpose of this bibliography. It was noted that a difference between gender and sex exists; sex being …show more content…

It is stated that society is filled with many biases and stereotypes which are taught to children. Children are socialized differently based on their gender and are brought up to adopt gender roles based on their sex and as they grow up they are put into situations that influence their behaviours and attitudes about gender roles. These norms are generally taught first in the home and then are reinforced by peer groups, education and social media. The writer states that she believes that the most influential influence on gender roles comes from the specific family situation in which the child is brought up, with parents and family members passing down and reinforcing their own beliefs on gender onto the children. The writer aims to suggest that a more androgynous (gender neutral) gender role orientation is more beneficial to the child as it does not influence the child to be a certain way based on their perceived …show more content…

Sex and gender are two different concepts; sex being based on a set of biological characteristics and gender being the values and meanings people put on different sexes. Anne Oakley (1972) was one of the first social scientists to distinguish between gender and sex created by humans through the environment as well as interactions with each other but relies heavily on the differences in sex. It is stated that gender is a social construct, which can be demonstrated by the way in which both individuals and groups of people (societies) allocate traits, roles, hierarchies and values to people based on their sex, but these allocations differ according to culture and society and also differ over time within the same culture. In Western societies women are seen to be more nurturing and are thus more commonly expected to stay home and take care of the household, whereas men are seen as leaders and providers and are thus more commonly expected to be head of the household and provide financially for the family. The feminist perspective points out that these social constructs that determine gender also determine the levels of power between men and women, often benefitting the

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