Gender and Sexuality Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Gender and Sexuality - Essay Example t concerns of the feminists of the period included the investigation into the true meaning, roots etc of female subordination with an intention to knock over the established concepts. Ion this attempt of the feminists, anthropology seemed to provide the most effective tool as it could tell about the status of women in various societies as well as about why women are subordinated to men in several societies. Anthropology was approached as to attain central materials for awareness about the dynamics of the relation between men and women. On the other hand, there was an attempt by anthropology in finding pertinent understanding about female subordination in feminism and the feminist anthropologists started reassessing anthropology on the basis of feminism. Female subordination has been the major concern for both the feminists in general and the feminist anthropologists in particular. The arguments of the feminist anthropologists on female subordination differed greatly in the mid 1970s. There were feminist anthropologists who felt that in spite of the existence of some democratic societies, all the societies gave prominence to men’s power. While a group of feminist anthropologists regarded that female subordination was not common, a strong argument was in support of the view that female subordination was universal and every society is male dominated. Michello Rosaldo and Sherry Ortner, two important feminist anthropologists of structuralist-anthropologist school, regarded female subordination as universal and the endeavoured to explicate the sources of this female subordination. â€Å"But they were very eager to make it clear that, to them; universal did not mean ‘unavoidable’ ‘compulsory’ ‘unchangeable’ or ‘natural’. In particular, they wanted to separate the concept of universality from the concept of ‘biology’. As feminists, they were eager to find ways to overturn female subordination.â⠂¬  (Anthropology of Gender, 2006, P.12). In this paper a