Deck 16: Kinship and Gender: Sex, Power, and Control of Men and Women

Question 1

Which of the following refers to the family into which one is born and raised?

A) traditional family
B) natal family
C) nuclear family
D) family of procreation

Answer 1

B

Question 2

What is the family formed by a married couple and their children called?

A) natal family
B) traditional family
C) nuclear family
D) extended family

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Most families function as groups of real people who work together toward common ends. Such family groups are referred to as

A) natal family
B) extended family
C) nuclear family
D) corporate group

Answer 3

D

Question 4

If you live in a household with your mom and dad, your grandfather, as well as your aunt and two cousins, you live in what kind of family?

A) nuclear family
B) traditional family
C) extended family
D) blended family

Question 5

When social norms dictate that someone from a particular clan must marry outside of that clan, anthropologists say that the clan is

A) a corporate group
B) Endogamous
C) Exogamous
D) a lineage

Question 6

Anthropologists have studied hundreds of different kinship systems around the world over the past century, but they can all be grouped into six different patterns. This has resulted in the development of

A) kinship charts
B) kin groups
C) Lineages
D) kinship terminologies

Question 7

The decision to marry, and whom we choose to marry, in the United States is drawn strongly from the ideology of

A) Fanaticism
B) Individualism
C) Catholicism
D) free enterprise

Question 8

Marriage takes different forms in different places.All the terms listed below are forms of marriage except

A) Polyamory
B) Polyandry
C) Polygamy
D) polygyny

Question 9

Anthropologists commonly refer to the ideas and social patterns a society uses to organize males, females, and those who do not fit either category as

A) gender role systems
B) biological sex systems
C) gender/sex systems
D) sex role systems

Question 10

Sexual dimorphism refers to

A) how men and women have a different sexual forms
B) the differences of hormones in men's and women's bodies
C) the difference in chromosomal structures for men and women
D) all of the above

Question 11

Individuals who diverge from the male-female norm and exhibit sexual organs and functions somewhere between, including both male and female, are called

A) Transsexual
B) Transgender
C) Intersex
D) cisgender

Question 12

French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir argued in her book The Second Sex that

A) throughout history women have been treated as inferior
B) women are biologically inferior to men
C) women are more capable than men to be in leadership roles
D) women could do without men in society

Question 13

The social system that organizes people in families based on descent and marriage is called __________.

Question 14

Use of a kinship chart to map connections of family members accounts for the __________.

Question 15

A special group of relatives who are all descended from a single ancestor is called a __________.

Question 16

According to Dr. Alfred Kinsey, sexuality exists along a __________.

Question 17

In societies that tolerate the existence of people who are neither male nor female, there is room for __________.

Question 18

One of the key functions of family is controlling and managing its members' __________.

Question 19

The importance and weight of biological relatedness is nearly the same in all cultures.

Question 20

Since the early nineteenth century, the traditional American family has consisted of a husband, a wife, and at least two children.

Question 21

Weddings and marriages are usually less about the couple than about relationships with the couple's social network, including friends and family.

Question 22

The dichotomy between males and females is not two distinct categories but a continuum of sexual possibilities in the human species.

Question 23

There is a well-established biological norm for both the penis and the clitoris.

Question 24

What do anthropologists call the structural process of forgetting whole groups of relatives?

A) ethnic forgetting
B) ethnic amnesia
C) genealogical forgetting
D) genealogical amnesia

Question 25

For U.S. and many other citizens in Western nations, getting married means finding the right person and tying the knot in a nice ceremony, something in other countries that is not common because

A) marriage is usually too costly to manage on one's own
B) marriage is usually a matter of social and economic relationships between families
C) not all countries have the religious authorities needed to conduct a marriage
D) who can marry is a matter decided by the state or local governing body

Question 26

Women who practice polyandry tend to marry

A) two or more male cousins
B) a father and his sons
C) two or more male friends
D) two or more brothers

Question 27

Which of these is known as the "Westermarck effect"?

A) a birth defect that occurs among children of siblings
B) a birth defect that occurs among children of cousins
C) the psychological revulsion against having sex with close relatives
D) the psychological state where people are sexually attracted to their close relatives

Question 28

All societies differentiate between male and female, but one way Americans are unique in how we do it is that we link gender to

A) Appearance
B) Colors
C) body shapes
D) scents

Question 29

From an anthropological perspective, sex-assignment surgery is useful because it

A) improves the biological functions of intersex people
B) shows that "sex" is a biological phenomenon
C) shows that "sex" is constructed upon cultural assumptions
D) shows that "gender" is a biological phenomenon

Question 30

Sherry Ortner, a feminist anthropologist, observed that the roots of female subordination lay in the distinction all societies make between

A) men and women
B) public and domestic
C) strength and weakness
D) nature and culture

Question 31

Which term refers to expressions of sex and gender that diverge from the male and female norms that are predominant in most societies?

A) fourth gender
B) Intersex
C) Transgender
D) gender variance

Question 32

Hijras interest anthropologists mainly because they are

A) Exotic
B) a good way to study sex workers
C) Homosexual
D) a reflection of a gender/sex system that sees meaning in combining male and female

Question 33

Although most Americans think that kinship is basically about biological relatedness, anthropologists have long recognized that kinship is about relationships that can also be established though which of the following linkages?

A) by behaving like a relative
B) by being related to someone who is related to you
C) by religious rites like christenings that identify a nonrelative as a relative(such as a godfather or a godmother)
D) all of the above

Question 34

Anthropologists think of bride price as being about not buying anyone, but as compensation for rights in women-her labor, her support for family affairs, her looking after children, and rights of sexual access. What other social payment is structurally most dissimilar to a bride price payment from this perspective?

A) a series of child price payments
B) a father's purchase of a new car for his daughter when she goes off to college
C) acountergift for a bride price payment, usually of much lesser value than the original bride price payment
D) an American Valentine's Day gift, given by a college student to his girlfriend

Question 35

The prevalent belief among North Americans that sexuality is a fixed and stable conditionfrequently leads to uncertainty and even hostility about same-sex marriage and those who practice homosexuality.This idea that sexuality was considered an integral part of individual identity that does not change, originated largely because

A) medicine and science changed the idea of a perverse behavior into a condition needing treatment
B) religious scholars documented the problem of homosexuality and its being a perverse condition in their religious texts
C) psychiatrists confirmed the idea that sexuality was fixed at birth
D) doctors were able to cure those they saw as "afflicted"by homosexuality.

Question 36

__________ is any form of plural marriage.

Question 37

Payments of cash, cattle, pigs, or shell ornaments between brothers-in-law are __________.

Question 38

The work of early anthropologists who examined how sexual differences are understood in different societies is important because it helped establish a clear distinction between biological __________ and cultural __________.

Question 39

The anthropological study of __________ includes looking at the ideas and practices of manhood and how gender/sex identities are constructed.

Question 40

Studies have shown that marriage is mostly about sex.

Question 41

Navajo recognize five different genders, and only two are male and female.

Question 42

The notion of "ritualized homosexuality" developed by Gilbert Herdt was problematic because Western notions of homosexuality do not easily apply cross-culturally.

Question 43

Anne Fausto-Sterling suggests that the rate of intersex births in the United States is higher than that of albinos.

Question 44

Steven Pinker, an evolutionary biologist, argues that natural selection has selected genes that cause us to feel little sexual attraction for people we have grown up with. From an anthropological perspective on kinship, what is wrong with this view?

A) no gene (or combination of genes) has been linked to the proposed revulsion
B) the range of relatives prohibited by the incest taboo varies too widely from society to society to be explained by a selection
C) there is no reason to assume that the revulsion is the cause of the taboo, when it is equally probable that the incest taboo itself generates the psychological revulsion
D) all of the above

Question 45

Why might something like an incest taboo exist on an Israeli kibbutz?

A) members all have partners not living on the kibbutz
B) members view one another as siblings
C) the underlying ideology includes a strong belief that sexual intercourse is bad
D) the amount of time and labor required to keep the kibbutz functioning leaves no time for relationships

Question 46

When cultural anthropologists examine families in different cultures, they are mainly interested in all of the following except

A) why it makes sense for people to get married or not to get married in terms of the economic costs of establishing a separate household
B) the genetic differences among different members of the extended family
C) how popular media in the society being studied shapes people's expectations of married life
D) who looks after children in typical households

Question 47

If you wanted to study ethnographically how LGBTQ identities are being normalized on your campus, you would likely be sensitive to

A) how social differences intersect with these identities
B) how people make meaning of these identities and differentiate them
C) any ethical quandaries that emerge in the course of your research
D) all of the above

Question 48

Which of the following observations would be least likely to come from an anthropologist who shares Simone de Beauvoir's notion of "second sex"?

A) gender inequality is universal
B) men subordinate women
C) Western models of male-female relations cannot be universalized
D) egalitarian relations between male and female are rare, if not impossible

Question 49

The Navajo categorynádleehé helps make the case for

A) the close relationship between gender and sexuality
B) the non-binary nature of gender
C) gender variant individuals generally being homosexual
D) the low status of gender variant individuals

Question 50

One of anthropology's major insights is that there are important cultural influences on male-female difference. Give three examples from your own life where you can see these cultural influences.

Question 51

For most of our history American kinship has had a patrilineal bias, but in most American families women play a key role in keeping the families together. Using anthropological approaches to kinship, how do you explain this difference?

Question 52

Extended families are important in America as they are in most societies. In the United States, what determines whether members of an extended family will meet face to face?

Question 53

Why do anthropologists tend to reject or challenge the "either-or" perspective-that it is either sex or gender, either biology or culture-as a way to understand sex and gender? Why does the concept of a gender/sex system tend to make a more effective and useful approach toward the study of sex and gender in human bodily and social experience?

Question 54

If you were working on a campaign for sexual equality, what role do you think anthropological insights about relations between women and men should play in your work?

Question 55

Although romance novels and romantic comedy films routinely emphasize that people should marry for love, there are many other reasons for marriage. Identify three of these other reasons why people might want to marry, whether they are in love or not. Could one be in love and still marry for these other reasons?

Question 56

When we hear people talk about the traditional American family as if it has always been structured in the same way since the Revolutionary War, we know they are simplifying the situation in unrealistic ways. What cultural factors are behind these unrealistic simplifications?

Question 57

Dowry is often used in India to make a daughter more attractive to possible husbands, while bride price is used to compensate a family for the work and children of one of their daughters. Explain how both of these payments unite families but in different ways.

Question 58

Same-sex marriage is now legal all fifty states plus the District of Columbia, but the process of getting there has been a long and sometimes angry battle between different belief systems.What anthropological questions can you identify about the meaning that such unions have for Americans on different sides of the argument-pro or con-around same-sex marriage? What can we say about these cultural expectations when all of these changes happened within less than a decade?

Question 59

In many societies, third gendersare normal. In the United States today, major political battle lines have been drawn around the notion that there are anything but male and female genders. A basic concern in the last few years appears to be which bathroom a transgender individual is permitted to use, but beyondbathrooms, what are some of the possible implications of widespread acceptance or tolerance toward a third gender in American culture?