Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Glossary
- Map of Mozambique
- Introduction
- Part I CONCEPTIONS OF GENDER & GENDER POLITICS IN MOZAMBIQUE
- Part II NIGHT OF THE WOMEN, DAY OF THE MEN: MEANINGS OF FEMALE INITIATION
- Part III IMPLICATIONS OF MATRILINY IN NORTHERN MOZAMBIQUE
- 11 Male Mythologies
- 12 Ancestral Spirits, Land & Food
- 13 Sex, Food & Female Power
- 14 Tufo Dancing
- Epilogue
- References
- Index
11 - Male Mythologies
An Inquiry into Assumptions of Feminism and Anthropology (2005)
from Part III - IMPLICATIONS OF MATRILINY IN NORTHERN MOZAMBIQUE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Glossary
- Map of Mozambique
- Introduction
- Part I CONCEPTIONS OF GENDER & GENDER POLITICS IN MOZAMBIQUE
- Part II NIGHT OF THE WOMEN, DAY OF THE MEN: MEANINGS OF FEMALE INITIATION
- Part III IMPLICATIONS OF MATRILINY IN NORTHERN MOZAMBIQUE
- 11 Male Mythologies
- 12 Ancestral Spirits, Land & Food
- 13 Sex, Food & Female Power
- 14 Tufo Dancing
- Epilogue
- References
- Index
Summary
Implicit or explicit belief in the universal subordination of women … continues to obstruct efforts to understand both other societies and our own.
(Mona Etienne & Eleanor Leacock, 1980)The point of this chapter is to identify and make visible some persistent assumptions, active in anthropology as well as in feminism(and elsewhere). I call them ‘male mythologies’, not because they are produced and maintained by men only (this is far from the case) but because they naturalize and legitimizemale power. I believe that a critique of these assumptions will help to clear a space for different concepts and lines of thinking, better suited for grasping realities of men's and women's lives.
I am not alone in this endeavour. Feminist anthropologists and African feminists have at various times in various ways been chasing the same assumptions, struggling to develop new conceptualizations. After an introduction explaining my personal stake in the matter at issue, I'll proceed to section 1, briefly introducing work by feminist anthropologists/sociologists Eleanor Leacock, Pauline Peters, Kate Crehan, Ifi Amadiume, Oyèrónké Oyewúmi and others, who have all made important contributions regarding the matter at issue. In the main body of the paper (section 2) I'll go back into the history of anthropology in an attempt to clarify the genealogy and subsequent configurations of the master mythology of male dominance/female subordination, as it has unfolded in anthropological analysis of matriliny. In the course of this discussion I'll show how Second Wave feminist thinking, through its foremother Simone de Beauvoir, is linked to structural anthropology.
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- Sexuality and Gender Politics in MozambiqueRethinking Gender in Africa, pp. 217 - 230Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2011