The Current State of Feminist Anthropology
By Emmalyne Karnes
Feminist anthropology is a complex discipline with lots of importance and room to grow. It is described as both a field of study in which the subject is women and as an approach to studying anthropology in general. It was first designed to be “the anthropology of women, as we focused on correcting male bias in the discipline,” (Leonardo, p. 1). As an approach, feminist anthropology is a “critique of culture,” (Walter, p. 275). The feminist approach to critiquing shapes the way questions are asked about culture, whether it is concerning power differences, recreating “historically gendered structures” (Walter, p. 275), or responding to these ideas. Feminist anthropology is an ever-changing approach or study in that it, like any theory, is subject to reevaluation in order to form a less biased, more culturally inclusive thought process. Feminist anthropology is not accepted by all well-known anthropologists, one being Marilyn Strathern, who did not believe feminism and anthropology meshed well. Whether or not that is true, feminist anthropology continues to develop as an approach and correct where it is biased.
Feminist anthropology has shifted throughout the years from a study of women to a generalized analysis of gender. Still, with all of its changes, feminist anthropology remains as a discipline rooted in critique. Geller and Stockett, in their book Feminist Anthropology: Past, Present, and Future, explain that “Feminist anthropology has always been about critique — critical appraisal of the social structures and cultural ideologies that shape women’s live and reformulation of the theoretical apparatus that anthropologists have used to understand these structures and cultural notions,” (Geller & Stockett, x). Feminist anthropology is an observation of how men and women interact in their relationships with one another in their societies. Critique of these relationships has caused yet another change to the discipline in which more categories have been created to diversify feminist anthropology. In order to do this, reevaluation is necessary. Micaela Di Leonardo wrote about a crossroads of knowledge: “Anthropology has the potential of taking feminist thinking about gender differences out of a white, middle-class, and Western milieu, to expand our perspectives on past and present cultural constructions of gender and the material realities of women’s situations and to provide multiple models for gender relations that go beyond our accepted Western dualisms,” (Leonardo, ix.). The reevaluation of feminist thought will help reduce its biased patterns. It is important to question the conclusions made by theorists who have biases or misconceptions linked to them, which makes it important to do the same for disciplines (Scheper-Hughes, Introduction).
There were some anthropologists who critiqued feminist theory heavily. Marilyn Strathern wrote that feminist anthropology as a discipline is not possible because it borrows from too many other disciplines to be considered its own. Strathern considers the disciplines to be too close in practice: “Feminist and anthropological scholarship endorse different approaches to the nature of the world open to investigation. These cannot be blended or matched,” (Strathern, p. 36). Strathern argues that anthropology “mocks” feminism, for she believes that they are able to achieve the distance from society that feminists strain to create. In another sense, feminism achieves what anthropology strains to do in that it challenges theories created in the interest of the patriarchy, or the favored ideology: “Each in a sense mocks each other, because each so nearly achieves what the other aims for as an ideal relation with the world,” (Strathern, p. 286). Another one of Strathern’s concerns with feminist anthropology is that it might produce biased data as an approach. If the anthropologist’s feminist views are now part of the data, then “the anthropologist’s own experiences are the lens through which others of his or her own society may achieve a like understanding,” (Strathern, p. 288). However, this is a common concern with any type of ethnographic approach.
While some anthropologists such as Marilyn Strathern believed that feminist anthropology might not be possible, others thought about feminism and anthropology as two disciplines that go hand in hand. Lynn Walter explains their connection in her article “Feminist Anthropology?” (1995): “…feminist anthropology is both a field of study and an approach, because its questions and the approaches used to address them are inextricably intertwined. The questions that define feminist anthropology as a field of study are derived from feminism as a critique of culture,” (Walter, p. 275). These questions asked through feminist anthropology explore perceived power struggles created by gender over time, gender stereotypes created by social practice, gendered social, political, economic, and religious hierarchies, and the responses of both men and women to these struggles. Walter describes three points, or a “project”, that explains how feminist anthropology should be played out. The first point she makes has to do with what was previously mentioned: asking the right questions about gender. Her second point relates the topics of structure and agency, or how people respond to oppression. Walter’s third point of this project is identifying feminist anthropology as a justice claim: “Doing feminist anthropology obligates the anthropologist to identify and defend her relationship to scholarly questions and to place her words about another culture in ongoing communication with its practitioners,” (Walter, p. 273).
Feminist anthropology, once defined simply as the study of women, has evolved into an approach to ethnographic research of culture. The discipline is accepted by some anthropologists but is still rejected by well-known anthropologists due to the differing natures of feminism and anthropology as separate studies. Micaela Di Leonardo states in her book that “Feminist anthropologists, like all scholars, have sharply disagreed among themselves and have revised their perspectives overtime,” (Leonardo, p.1). As feminist anthropology moves forward, it continues to correct its own biased nature to include more minorities and diversify its goals. Leonardo continues by mentioning that “the feminist anthropological project has been influenced by shifts in the larger intellectual scene and in the global political economy in which we all live,” (Leonardo, p. 1). It has been broadened to include the right questions concerning gender, structure and agency, or responding to oppression under gendered biases, and including justice in its mission statement.
Resources:
Geller, Pamela L., and Miranda K. Stockett. 2006. Feminist Anthropology Past, Present, and Future. Philadelphia (Pa.): University of Pennsylvania Press.
Leonardo, Micaela Di. 2011. Gender at the Crossroads of Knowledge: Feminist Anthropology in the Postmodern Era. Berkeley (Calif.): Univ. of California Press.
Nancy Scheper‐Hughes. 1983. “Introduction: The problem of bias in androcentric and feminist anthropology”, Women’s Studies, 10, no. 1: 109–116, doi:10.1080/00497878.1983.9978584
Strathern, Marilyn. 1987. “An Awkward Relationship: The Case of Feminism and Anthropology.” Signs. 12, no. 2: 276–92. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3173986.
Strathern, Marilyn. 1988. The gender of the gift: Problems with women and problems with society in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Walter, Lynn. “Feminist Anthropology?” Gender & Society. 9, no. 3 (1995): 272–88. https://doi.org/10.1177/089124395009003002.