ANTHR310 Lecture 7: “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?”
27 Sep 2016
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Sherry ortner, is female to male as nature is to culture? . A structuralist approach (inspired by claude levi-strauss: structuralists ask what are the unconscious categories we think with, these categories tend to take the form of binary oppositions (raw/cooked, male/female, nature/culture, insider/outsider) Attempts to explain women"s universal subordination, not due to biological inferiority but doe to cultural processes deriving from biological differences. Does ortner claim women are everywhere and in every way equated to nature, while men are associated with culture: women should be considered as mediators between nature and culture, which is dominated by men. Cooking, socializing children (animal-like) transforming the natural into cultural domain. Like all liminal figures ( others ), they can thus be considered low and inferior or holy and to be feared (*see victor. Think about how mainstream culture sometimes exalts women as mothers and sometimes berates them in various ways: mediators can be considered to be weak or strong.
