Deck 10: What Can Anthropology Teach Us About Sex, Gender, and Sexuality

Question 1

The roles, activities, and characteristics that a culture assigns to each sex are known as

A) Sex types.
B) Kin types.
C) Gender roles.
D) Race roles.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Anthropologists use the term sex to refer to biological differences. The term gender is defined as

A) Biological identity.
B) A culturally shaped role for each sex in a given society.
C) Sexual status.
D) Race roles.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

Which of the following terms do anthropologists use to refer to the observable physical characteristics that distinguish the two kinds of human beings, male and female, needed for human biological reproduction?

A) Sex.
B) Gender.
C) Hermaphroditism.
D) Berdache.

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Which of the following terms do anthropologists use to refer to the cultural construction of beliefs and behaviors considered appropriate for males and females in a particular society?

A) Sex.
B) Gender.
C) Hermaphroditism.
D) Berdache.

Question 5

If the distinctiveness of male and female characteristics can be used to help people think about the nature of social relations more generally, then

A) Gendered forms of inequality can be used to structure relations between different categories of men.
B) Gender is natural.
C) Gendered forms of inequality can be explained by other forms of social relations.
D) Gender roles can be changed once people decide on new understandings of male and female characteristics.

Question 6

Anthropologists define gender as

A) Ways in which people experience and value physical desire and pleasure.
B) The tasks and activities that a culture assigns to each sex.
C) The physical differences in male and female biology, which vary across cultures.
D) Biological identity.

Question 7

Based on what you have learned so far in the textbook, of the following, what would you say might have the highest dependency on an individual's biology?

A) Race.
B) Gender.
C) Kinship.
D) Sex.
E) Sexual norms.

Question 8

Which of the following statements accurately refers to one of the achievements of feminist anthropology in the last third of the twentieth century?

A) Beginning in the 1970s, anthropologists began to examine closely the ethnographic record to determine whether male dominance is a feature of all human societies.
B) Sherry Ortner argued that males were universally ranked higher than females because females were everywhere seen as "closer to nature" than males.
C) Studies of the roles of men and women within families demonstrated that the very idea of what constituted a family varied enormously, cross-culturally and historically.
D) All of the above are true.

Question 9

Eleanor Leacock argued that women's subordination to men could be connected explicitly to

A) Genetics.
B) The rise of private property and the emergence of the state.
C) Ecological factors connected with the development of domestication and sedentism.
D) A form of binary cultural thinking that opposed male to female.

Question 10

Marilyn Strathern argues that

A) Male dominance is universally present because everywhere, women are perceived as closer to nature than men are.
B) The particular relations between males and females in society are just one example of gender symbolism.
C) People in some societies use gender categories to structure relations between hierarchically ranked groups of all kinds.
D) Both b and c

Question 11

According to Marilyn Strathern, gender symbolism refers to

A) The connection of males with culture and females with nature.
B) The categorization of persons, artifacts, and event sequences in ways that draw on sexual imagery derived from the distinctiveness of male and female characteristics.
C) The universal devaluation of any work done by women, simply because women do it.
D) Both a and c

Question 12

The anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker found that male village-dwelling Lese householders distinguished themselves from their Efe pygmy trading partners using the same unequal gender categories that they used to distinguish themselves from their wives. This usage is captured by the discussion of gender offered by which anthropologist?

A) Sherry Ortner.
B) Eleanor Leacock.
C) Sylvia Yanagisako.
D) Marilyn Strathern.

Question 13

According to Roy Richard Grinker, Lese men

A) Used one gender category for themselves, another for women, and a third for Efe trading partners.
B) And their Efe trading partners considered women unequal.
C) Moved women into separate households to keep them unequal.
D) Used the same unequal gender categories for their wives and their Efe trading partners.

Question 14

In Haiti, gender relations are incorporated into the nature of the state, such that

A) It is the responsibility of women to reproduce the nation.
B) Until recently, women who married foreigners lost their Haitian citizenship.
C) The state pays for prenatal care for Haitian women.
D) Women must live in Haiti to pass citizenship on to their children.

Question 15

The phenomenon called guevedoche ("testicles at twelve") in the Dominican Republic

A) Is the same as the indigenous North American phenomenon called berdache.
B) Involves an irregularity in the pattern of X and Y chromosomes.
C) Is caused by a hormonal defect that causes children to be born with ambiguous genitals.
D) Is a result of the deliberate castration of chromosomal males at puberty.

Question 16

Eunuchs in the Byzantine civilization of late antiquity are an example of a supernumerary sex

A) Based on the presence of ambiguous genitals at birth.
B) That was deliberately created by removing a male's testicles before puberty.
C) Based on the surgical removal of genitalia on adult males.
D) That is a role that apparently had nothing to do with morphological sex anomalies.

Question 17

The hijras of Gujarat, India, are an example of a supernumerary sex

A) Based on the presence of ambiguous genitals at birth.
B) That was deliberately created by destroying or removing a male's testicles before puberty.
C) Based on the surgical removal of genitalia on adult males.
D) That is a role that apparently had nothing to do with morphological sex anomalies.

Question 18

The so-called berdache of many indigenous North American societies is an example of a supernumerary sex

A) Based on the presence of ambiguous genitals at birth.
B) That was deliberately created by destroying or removing a male's testicles before puberty.
C) Based on the surgical removal of genitalia on adult males
D) That is a role that apparently had nothing to do with morphological sex anomalies

Question 19

According to Will Roscoe, the presence of multiple genders requires

A) A belief in the existence of three or more physical sexes.
B) A view of physical differences as unfixed or insufficient on their own to establish gender.
C) A view of physical differences as simply less important than individual or social factors in determining gender.
D) Both b and c

Question 20

Gilbert Herdt's survey of the ethnographic literature leads him to conclude that

A) It is easy for a society to maintain supernumerary sexes or genders.
B) It is difficult for a society to maintain supernumerary sexes or genders.
C) It is harder for a society to maintain supernumerary sexes than it is to maintain supernumerary genders.
D) Supernumerary sexes and genders are never found alongside strongly marked male-female duality.

Question 21

Among the Sambia of New Guinea,

A) Male-female duality was unimportant.
B) Male-female duality was strongly marked.
C) A supernumerary sex was found.
D) Both b and c

Question 22

According to Gilbert Herdt, a case can be made for the existence of a supernumerary sex or gender if

A) Children in the society are born with ambiguous genitals.
B) Chromosomally normal males are found performing female tasks and chromosomally normal females are found performing male tasks.
C) A culture defines for each sex or gender a symbolic niche and a social pathway of development into later life that is distinctly different from the life plan set out by a model based on male-female duality.
D) Both a and b

Question 23

Comparative information on human sexual practices worldwide suggests that

A) The preservation of virginity until marriage is universally valued, especially for women.
B) A double standard, in which married men are free to take lovers but married women are not, is universally observed.
C) Expectations of an active and satisfying sexual life are found everywhere.
D) None of the above.

Question 24

According to Gill Shepherd, for Mombasa Swahili women,

A) Social rank takes precedence over all other measures of status.
B) A marriage between a poor husband and a rich wife might be more shocking than a lesbian relationship between a rich woman and a poor one.
C) Being involved in a lesbian relationship diminishes a woman's social rank.
D) Both a and c

Question 25

According to Gill Shepherd, Swahili women in Mombasa

A) Regularly spend leisure time in sex-segregated activities.
B) Shift between what European Americans call homosexuality and heterosexuality throughout their lives.
C) May only choose other women as sexual partners after they have been married.
D) All of the above.

Question 26

Which of the following statements about same-sex practices of people with female bodies is FALSE, according to research conducted by Saskia Wieringa and Evelyn Blackwood?

A) Woman marriage can take many forms, some of which are more likely than others to have included sexuality.
B) As a result of globalization, Western and non-Western same-sex practices are becoming increasingly entangled in many parts of the world.
C) Homosexuality is "un-African."
D) All of these statements are false.

Question 27

According to the findings of the medical anthropologist Emily Wentzell, who worked with male urology patients in Cuernavaca, Mexico, confronting questions regarding their sexual potency, we can best understand their experience

A) As a mechanical masculinity.
B) Through showing how these men created new ways of being men in what she calls "composite masculinity."
C) As a product of the gender binary.
D) All of the above are true.

Question 28

In Nicaragua, Roger Lancaster discovered that

A) Cochones are active, violent, and dominant.
B) "Manly men" are expected to be aroused by the idea of sex with a woman.
C) "Manly men" are expected to be aroused by the idea of sex with a cochón.
D) Both b and c

Question 29

Which of the following describes the Nicaraguan cochón, according to Roger Lancaster?

A) They are never the victims of hate crimes.
B) They are much-admired performers during Carnival.
C) They adopt the cochón identity after consistently losing out in the competition for male status.
D) All of the above are true.

Question 30

Nicaraguan men whom Lancaster interviewed about the Sandinistas' New Family Laws in the 1980s

A) Rejected these laws as communist inspired.
B) Rejected these laws because they required men to behave in ways that were viewed as "unmanly."
C) Embraced the new laws as an expression of resistance to the Contras.
D) Embraced the laws as an important step in undermining machismo.

Question 31

According to the study of gender performativity, we "do gender"

A) When we are unable to naturally express our genetic sex.
B) Only when it applies to our biological sex.
C) At all times because gender is not something that we "are."
D) When we are actively following our socially assigned gender roles.

Question 32

To what does the public/private divide refer?

A) The separation of elite and nonelite classes.
B) The separation of secular and sacred.
C) The separation of spheres of exchange.
D) The separation of home and the outside world.

Question 33

Based on your reading of the chapter, how would you characterize the social tasks and activities that a culture assigns to each sex?

A) Gender stereotypes.
B) Gender roles.
C) Sexually ascribed status.
D) Sex roles.

Question 34

Individuals' own sense of themselves based on such features of culturally informed notions of "masculinity" and "femininity" is shaped by the historical, economic, political, and sociocultural settings in which they live their lives.

A) Gender identity.
B) Gender bias.
C) Sexual orientation.
D) Sexual attitudes.

Question 35

According to the textbook authors, those who have been clinically diagnosed as having gender dysphoria

A) Are most likely to request that they be given the diagnosis of gender identity disorder.
B) Are unlike individuals who were diagnosed as "homosexual" before the 1960s.
C) Insist that their sexuality should not be made a medical condition.
D) Reject the notion that their sexuality is a form of gender variation.

Question 36

A term used by anthropologists that best describes the position that heterosexuality is the only correct form of human sexual expression is

A) Gender dysphoria.
B) Queer.
C) Heteronormativity.
D) Gender performativity.

Question 37

Intersectionality is a social phenomenon understood by anthropologists as entailing

A) Forms of institutionalized oppression organized within interconnected racial, class, and gendered terms.
B) Constraints and opportunities for individual persons in a given society.
C) Recognition that every person has multiple identities that intersect.
D) All of the above are true.

Question 38

According to the textbook author's discussion of the term, transgender may be described as

A) Homosexual preference for sexual gratification.
B) Mismatch between his or her gender identity and his or her gender assignment.
C) Need to wear clothing of the opposite sex.
D) None of the above.

Question 39

Androgyny is a term that refers to a

A) Combination of both male and female traits.
B) Transvestite.
C) Male transgendered person.
D) Heterosexism.

Question 40

If we follow the approach suggested by Donna Haraway's "cyborg anthropology," which of the following statements is the most true for our likely point of view?

A) Intersexed individuals suggest the future of human cybernetics.
B) Blurred boundaries between what have been taken as "natural" organisms and "cultural" technologies.
C) Composite masculinities and femininities will become the norm for most societies within the next generation.
D) The gender binary is unimportant.

Question 41

Why have anthropologists found it important to differentiate between the categories of sex and gender? What importance might this distinction have in modern society?

Question 42

Based on the discussion in the textbook, does it appear that there any universals about gender roles across all societies? Use examples from your reading to support your position.

Question 43

How are sex, gender, and sexuality related to each other? What are the differences among these three analytical concepts?

Question 44

If women are unable in a given society to hold important positions in what may be characterized as the "public" sphere of life, does that indicate male dominance? In other words, in what ways might the prohibition of women from the economic activities of men-as has historically been the case even within the United States-indicate differences in power? What do you think is necessary for there to be equality between women and men?

Question 45

Does it appear to you that certain aspects of sexuality, such as sexual preferences, are more "natural" than others? What factors might lead to some cultural groups deviating from what might be taken as the heterosexual norm found in most human societies?

Question 46

How can sexual practices serve as a metaphor for differential power within a society?

Question 47

Identify several examples of how American society may be characterized as heteronormative or, alternatively, how this heteronormativity may now be challenged by changing social sentiments regarding sexuality.

Question 48

Discuss variations in male sexuality throughout the world, drawing on examples provided in the text.

Question 49

Based on your understanding of the ethnographic accounts of sexuality in Nicaragua provided through Lancaster's research, how would you compare homosexuality in this society with that in the United States, for example? Why do we see these similarities and/or differences?