What is the relationship between gendered divisions of labor and women's status in society? How do divisions of labor arise, and how do they change? How do divisions of labor within households shape women's broader social, economic, and political roles? How do social, political, and economic changes affect these divisions of labor, in both practical and symbolic terms?

In this 5-7 page essay, you are asked to explore the relationship between gender and women's status by critically examining how one theorist and one ethnographer address one or more of the questions suggested above. What do their arguments suggest to you about the nature of gendered divisions of labor and the broader question of the relationship between difference and inequality? For theorists, you can select Durkheim, Ortner, Engels, Boserup, Beneria and Sen, or Sacks. For ethnographies, choose White or Wiegersma.

Since this is a short essay, you should choose to focus on one or two central themes from those listed above. You might choose, for example, to focus on why Sacks believes that the socialization of women's reproductive labor will lead to their liberation and then explore Wiegersma's account of rural cooperatives in Vietnam to see if the outcomes are what Sacks would have predicted. This juxtaposition could enable you to point out the strengths and weaknesses of Sacks' account of the relationship between women's work and their lower social status. Or, you could compare Boserup's accounts of female farming and economic development with White's description of how aid programs in Bangladesh have affected women's roles as producers within their households. How have these policies led to changes in women's status, and are these changes the same as those Boserup theorized? Why or why not, and what does this suggest about Boserup's account?

The key for this essay is to juxtapose a theorist and an ethnographer in a dialogue about an aspect of the relationship between gendered work and women's status and then to use this dialogue to formulate your own argument about this relationship. While your essay should focus primarily on two authors, feel free to refer to other relevant readings.

REFERENCES:
As this is a seminar in anthropology, you will be expected to follow the citation guidelines set by American Ethnologist. A complete copy of these guidelines is available on-line, but the following examples should be sufficient for this essay:

TEXT REFERENCES
These (including references to personal communications) are placed in the body of the text, not as notes. For each quotation or statement specific enough to need a reference, place the citation in parentheses (author's name, year of publication of work quoted or referred to, page(s) cited), thus: (Doe 1968) or (Rowe 1893:115-119).

NOTES
All notes follow the text, beginning on a new page, and are restricted to material that cannot be included in the text. Notes are numbered consecutively throughout the text by superscript numerals.

REFERENCES CITED
Do not include any publication not cited in the text. References Cited must begin on a new page, and all entries must be double-spaced, listed alphabetically by last name of senior author, and chronologically for two or more titles by the same author(s). The typed layout should conform to the printed layout as follows:

Driver, Harold E.

1956 An Integration of Functional, Evolutionary, and Historical Theory by Means of Correlations. Bloomington: Indiana University Publication in Anthropology and Linguistics, Memoir 12.

1966 Geographical-Historical versus Psycho-Functional Explanations of Kin Avoidances. Current Anthropology 7:131-182.

Miller, George A.

1954 Psycholinguistics. In Handbook of Social Psychology II. Gardner Lindey, ed. Pp. 693-708. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Thibault, John W., and Harold H. Kelley

1959 The Social Psychology of Groups. New York: John Wiley.

 

For more information, contact:  aleshkow@holycross.edu