Week 3: Born This Way?

NOTE:  This post is about "gender roles", not about gender itself.  We are taking on a cultural discussion about how those roles are shaped. 

Love her or just can’t stand her, there is no denying the role Lady Gaga plays (here as her male alter ego, Jo Calderone) in shocking our society into taking a closer look at our preconceptions regarding how we view the male vs. female dichotomy in our society.  We may feel like we have come a long way (baby!) since the days of the stay-at-home mom raising the kids and keeping the home while the dad heads to work every day to put in his 9-to-5 hours before returning home for dinner and an evening with the family.  We are modern!  Women have broken into roles traditionally held by men (Kamala Harris as Vice President and women graduating from West Point are good examples) and men have bravely learned to change diapers and attend PTA meetings.  But when faced with someone like Lady Gaga who not only gender-bends with ease but frequently and deliberately behaves in ways traditionally felt to be "inappropriate" for her own sex, that twinge of discomfort some may feel should help us recognize that our beliefs and preconceptions of gender roles are deeply ingrained and not so easily altered.

Lady Gaga, in her own unique way, is actually highlighting a question that has been the focus of exploration for generations of anthropologists, namely that of the source of our gender roles within our cultures.  At the center of this debate is the question of the forces that have the greater influence over the shaping of those roles, whether it be our genetics or our environment.  It is the age-old “nature vs. nurture” question.

First the nature side:  It is a common misconception in students new to anthropology that when we speak of the two primary sexes within the human race, we are also speaking of gender... that the two are interchangeable.  They are not.  Sex is strongly influenced by genetics.  We see that clearly in the match-up between the genetic genotypes for sex and the resulting phenotypic (or outward) expression of those genotypes; the sex chromosomes XY produces the outward phenotype of a male body and the paired XX chromosomes result in a female body.   Accompanying those body shapes are the biological roles of sperm production and child-bearing, which further influence behaviors. (NOTE:  There are many other factors, genetic and otherwise, involved that make this more complex and water down the dichotomous nature of these two sexes to produce more than just the two, but we won't delve into this here.)  If sex truly equaled gender, we would expect that gender roles would vary little across cultures, driven by our genes.

But gender varies greatly across culture.  Admittedly, when viewing gender roles, there are many similarities related to those biological roles, but otherwise there is greater flexibility in the resulting gender roles across culture compared with sexual roles.  In some cultures, women are considered to be completely subservient to men while in other matriarchal cultures, women have significant power and influence among their people.  So clearly, something else is going on here more than simple genetics.   

But what do we mean by "environment" when talking about the "nurture" forces influencing our gender behaviors?  Just like the physical and cultural traits you discussed in your assignment in Week 2, gender roles can be heavily influenced by the physical environment, the availability of food resources, and the climate.  Where resources are hard to come by and work effort is crucial for survival, the labor of women will be valued in addition to their ability to bear children.  Where resources are more plentiful and the work effort of women is not as important as their ability to bear offspring, the role of women will be much different.  But women’s roles (and the roles of men in return) can also be influenced by social, economic, religious and even political pressures, as we are seeing in our own political culture when the “appropriate” role of women and men often becomes one of the central discussions between political candidates.  

So which is more important, nature or nurture?

There have been times in our anthropological history when there were purists arguing that our gender roles were purely the result of our genes (nature) or of our environment (nurture).  Those who argued for genes alone were called “genetic determinists” while those who argued for full environmental control considered themselves to be “Free Will” proponents, which may seem odd when we have little more control over our developmental environment than we do of our genes.  But for the most part, all modern anthropologists agree that both play important roles in shaping how men and women take part in their particular cultures.   

by Pranav Purshotam, UNICEF India, 2010 

There is also common recognition that even within any particular behavioral pattern, both genes and the environment will share responsibility for the final expression of that behavioral trait.  An example of this is the practice of breast-feeding.  Obviously, genetics plays a key role in the ability of a mother to breastfeed her child.  But different environments influence the final decision to fulfill this role.  In hunter-gatherer societies, where there are no food surpluses and certainly no corner grocery store selling formula, the mother's role of sole-food provider to her baby will be met to insure the baby's survival.  But in a society such as ours when alternatives to breast-feeding exist and where women are valued equally (or more) as a provider of a paycheck as for her ability to breastfeed, there is less need for a mother to engage in this behavior and therefore there will be greater variability in its practice.  So both nature and nurture play a role in shaping our gender behaviors.

Of course, that doesn’t end the battle!  The nature vs. nurture debate is alive and well as anthropologists argue over which factor has the greater influence, our genes that shape us or the environment we are born into that re-shapes us?  Does one take precedence over the other?  Does one have greater power to shape how we look and how we behave and what role we play in our culture?  The question isn’t simply academic.   It is important to know, particularly when behavior roles seem to go wrong (as in the case of infanticide or pedicide or child abuse), which factors may have the greatest influence in not only shaping our behaviors in a positive way but also in a negative fashion.  How else to prevent a negative behavior than to understand how it comes about?

Why blue and pink?

So here is the question for this week:  Which factor do you think takes precedence in the shaping of the gender roles in any culture?  Do you think our genes and our environment are equally important or is one more crucial than the other?  Or do you fall into one of the still remaining extremes that feel that one or the other is entirely responsible for gender roles?   See if you can think of a human gender behavioral pattern that supports your position and lay out the forces (genetic and/or environmental) that shape it.  Your complete answer to this question will be worth 5 bonus points.

For an additional 5 bonus points, respond to one of your fellow students.  You can support what they have written with further evidence or you can challenge their argument with one of your own.  Don't be afraid to disagree, just do so respectfully and make sure you can back up what you say.

So what do you think?