PATRIARCHY AND POWER 1 21

We will never be free of the ideas Goldberg promotes, nor the tone with which he promotes them unless we (1) radically rearrange our child rearing practices so that men are equally engaged with women in parenting children of all ages, (2) reconstruct our origin myths, so that women have a central, positive place in our beliefs about the origins of the species, and (3) reconstruct our economies so that women can truly compete on a par with men and remain independent of men if they so choose. []

READINGS SUGGESTED B Y THE AUTHORS: Chodorow, Nancy. The Reprodttction qf Mothering Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1978. Hrdy, Sarah Blaffer. The Woman That Never Evolved. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981. Sanday, Peggy R. Female Powerand Male Dominance: On the Ortgtns of Sexttal Inequality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

Susan Abbott & associate professor of anthropology and behavioral sciences, and director of women's studtes, at the University of Kentttcky She has carried out field research in Kenya and the Umted States, and her work has appeared in man)' journals, inchtding Ethos, the Journal of Anthropological Research, the Journal of Marriage and the Famil), and Women's Studies. She is coeditor of Predicting Sociocultural Change and lhe forthcomtng

Social Inequality and Health. Miroslava Nikitovitch-Wmer ts professor and chair of the Department of Anatomy at the College of Medicine of the University of Kentucky. She has pubhshed extensively on the neuroendocrinology of reproduction, inchtdmg in Endocrinology, Neuroendocrinology, and Biology of Reproduction: and she is on the editorial boards of Neuroendocrinology and Signs. Jttdith Worell is professor of psychology and director of training in cotmseling psychology in the Department of Edztcational and Counseling Psychology at the Umversity of Kentucky. She is associate editor of Psychology of Women Quarterly and aztthor or coaulhor of several books, inchtding Psychology for Teacher and

Students, Psychological Development in the Elementary Years, and the forthcoming Adolescent Development: Issues for

Educators.

Logic, Gender and Power Alice Schlegel an we take seriously an argument that is based upon such assumptions as "the existence of [male dominance in male-female relationships] is evidenced by the ethnographies of every society"? Not if we have read a representative sample of ethnographies, which would include such sexually egalitarian societies as the Hopi, Navaho, Pygmy (contrary to Steven Goldberg's assertions), Bontoc, Semang, and other foraging and tribal peoples of the Old and New Worlds. Sweeping statements and lapses of logic mar what otherwise could be a serious attempt to ask some penetrating questions about patterns of gender relations. Let us dispose of the argument that everywhere, highest status roles are held by men (institution number two) because men, for biological reasons, are more motivated than women to be dominant and therefore become dominant over women (institution number three). ! shall return to "patriarchy" (institution number one). High status roles are held by those who have the skills needed to fill them and the social networks to support their assumption of these roles. In equal opportunity societies, as in the case of many tropical foragers, men and women of wisdom and ability are granted leadership by consensus. Where male tasks are of overriding importance to the immediate survival of the society as among Sub-Arctic hunters or peoples living under endemic warfare, the tilt in decision making and social power is toward

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males--not always completely, as the myths and rituals expressing conflict over male dominance make abundantly clear. In more complex societies, the division of labor by sex often becomes more institutionalized. When this happens, women's activities tend to become more confined to the domestic sphere and men's to the public arena. Often, this pattern leads to inequality in social power between the sexes, where male economic control or political activities put them into the principle decision-making roles. When the central institutions controlled by men and the central institutions controlled by women are in balance, social power is equivalent. I offer the example of the traditional Hopi, where women were in control of the major means to p r o d u c t i o n - - l a n d - - a n d men were in charge of dispute settlement and took primary responsibility for the major religious ceremonies. I describe this in my book Semtal Stratification: A Cross-Cultural View. The motivation issue is irrelevant: where high status roles are open to men, men will be motivated to fill them. Where they are open to women as well, both sexes will be so motivated. Biology has nothing to do with it. The truly interesting question that Goldberg raises is what he calls "patriarchy," which refers to the fact that in the large majority of societies (those beyond the simple foragers), positions of political authority are more often, although by no means exclusively, filled by men. This, I

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believe, relates to the centrality of reproduction in most preindustrial societies. Women's involvement in the biological and social reproduction of children, along with their significant contributions to household subsistence (a mean of 35.5 percent in one sample of preindustrial societies, as described in the 1986 American Anthropologist article by Herbert Barry III and myself) and to production generally, keep them occupied. When the reproductive cycle is over, after menopause, women in some male dominant-societies can move into high status roles and join men as peers. Here biology does play a part, but not in quite the fashion that Goldberg envisions. This question is still open, and anthropologists would welcome the contributions of sociologists knowledgeable about role theory and stratification theory. If Goldberg were to take part in this enterprise, he would find a friendly audience. []

READINGS SUGGESTED BY THE AUTHOR:

Schlegel, Alice, ed. Sexual Stratification: A Cross-Cultural View New York: Columbia University Press, 1977. Schlegel, Alice and Barry, Herbert, Ill. "The Cultural Consequences of Female Contribution to Subsistence:' American Anthropologist 88 (1986): 142-150.

Alice Schlegel is professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona. She became interested in sexual stratification when she noted it.s absence among the Hopi. among whom she has carried out cvtensivefield research. Her publications inchtde many arttcles on gender m society and culture and her books, Male Dominance and Female Autonomy and Sexual Stratification: A Cross-

Cultural View.

Nurturing the Nature Controversy John Gulick he nature-nurture controversy as expressed in arguments concerning similarities and differences between men and women remains a controversy despite Steven Goldberg's seemingly final pronouncements on the subject, I have in mind three considerations that make his pronouncements somewhat less than convincing. First, assertions that a particular behavioral trait or complex is present in all cultures, or absent from all of them, are highly suspect. At the very least, they should be supported by thorough documentation, but Goldberg's article has no bibliographic references at all. Even with what might appear to be ample bibliographic support, the quality of the source material would have to be assessed by the author very carefully--especially when the subject is as vulnerable to biased observation and reporting as sex and gender. From how many different cultures are there ample and reliable data to support Goldberg's contentions? I do not know, but I do know that he gives no indication that he has examined the issue in reference to the "thousands of societies" he mentions. Rather, he stops short of the issue by accusing writers 6f secondary works of misinterpreting primary ones..As for the primary sources, it is not true that there is not a single report of a reversal of male and female "expectations," as Goldberg puts it. Margaret Mead wrote of the Tchambuli of New Guinea, in Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies, that their gender roles were a."genuine reversal of the sex-attitudes of our own culture." and she described them in great detail.

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Second, Goldberg mentions the overlap in boys' and girls' SAT mathematics scores, but otherwise he ignores the fact that, even within the same culture, men are temperamentally highly diverse, as are women. Instead, he argues from uniform caricatures of men and women. In similar vein, his conception of societal male dominance is greatly oversimplified. In the descriptions of the relevant phenomena that I have read, male dominance is intense in some cultures but negligible in others. There is also evidence that men and women as individuals change temperamentally under various circumstances and at different points in their life courses. I provide one example that concerns testosterone which is the primary nonsocial factor in assertiveness, aggression, and dominance. This hormone is produced by both female and male bodies in diverse amounts. Distribution curves for male and female samples, in different cultures, would be enlightening. Nevertheless, there are data that show that individuals' testosterone outputs are not constant; rather, they fluctuate depending upon social stimuli. Mazur, in his 1985 article in Social Forces, says that "there appears to be a reciprocal relationship between circulating testosterone and dominance behavior" Individuals who win have increased testosterone, which increases their assertiveness. Those who lose (male or female) experience decreased testosterone and assertiveness. In terms of cultural norms, if you are a male socialized to win, what will be the consequences? On the other hand, if you are a female socialized to lose, what