Original scientific paper
Towards the Anthropology of Woman
Žarana Papić
; Studentski izdavački centar, Beograd
Lydia Sklevicky
; Institut za historiju radničkog pokreta, Zagreb
Abstract
The critique of the anthropological paradigm arose as a result of fundamental processes of emancipation of previously »primitive« societies and of the arising cognizance of its colonial alliance. However, it did not confine itself to those general, national relations. As early as in the heat of the bitterest debates on the boundaries of the anthropological approach, the awareness of the fact that tradition of the study of some social groups (usually marginal) contains all the elements of »colonial« approach emerged. The specific consideration of woman's status and her activities within anthropology, the springing out of a particular sort of »invisibility« of woman in science, is in fact only a part of a more widespread critique of the sexism existing in science. The militant anthropology which endeavors to provide for wider horizons of the analysis of sexuality in the society, based on a specific »female perspective« of the critiques of the anthropological paradigm, was given a metaphorical name »the anthropology of woman«. The article is giving, together with the fundamental starting assumptions serving as the base for such an orientation, a review of the most relevant literature dealing with the subject. The authors have divided their review of that body of literature into four parts, forming successive degrees indispensable for a new cognizance of the position of woman in different cultures. Those are: a study of nature and culture, whose regarding as ahistorical, separate entities has been challenged by the anthropology of woman; the problem of the social division of labour; the power relationships, and the notions of private and public. It is emphasized in the conclusion that, in spite of some one-sidedness and simplifications, the anthropology of woman is heading towards the ascertainment of a new, previously unexplored field of analysis, and towards the destruction of the manifestly ideologized order.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
156003
URI
Publication date:
30.6.1980.
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