Anthropology

Readings:

“The Five Sexes”

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Main points:

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There are more than 2 sexes, because sex exists on a spectrum

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Male

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Female

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Ferms - ovaries + some male traits

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Herms - both testicular and ovarian tissue

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Merms - testes + some female traits

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The binary system is a social simplification and maintained by medical institutions that perform surgery on intersex infants

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Sex is socially organized

“The Right Stuff”

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Science is not neutral, it reflects cultural assumptions, especially about gender and sex

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“The Right Stuff” refers to refers to picking the “right” biological materials

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These are influenced by expectations and norms

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The author and her wife spent months and thousands of dollars picking through sperm donor profiles

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Sperm banks are making lots of money and capitalizing off of the fact that they know people will pay thousands of dollars to find the “perfect” fit/sperm

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People want to feel some sort of biological connection to their kin, although there are many kinship ties

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But not everyone has the money to afford this and those that are expected to spend the money are typically queer couples

“Language, Race, and White Public Space”

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Everyday language helps maintain racial inequality, by creating “white public space” since whiteness is seen as normal and dominant

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Mock Spanish → When white speakers use exaggerated forms of Spanish (not an honest effort to speak the language) and it reinforces negative stereotypes/racial hierarchy

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This practice is has become normalized, but still reproduces inequality

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People perceive Spanish as being “impolite” or “dangerous” when used in the US over English

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White Public Space - a morally significant set of contexts that are the most important sites of the practices of a racializing hegemony, in which Whites are invisibly normal, and in which racialized populations are visibly marginal and the objects of monitoring ranging from individual judgment to Official English legislation

“The Myth of Race”

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Race is not a valid biological category - it is a social and historical construct

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Skin color, hair color, eye color are simply adaptations to the environment and not indicators of distinct biological groups

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However, the effects of race and how people get treated differently is very real

Cultural Anthropology Textbook Chapters

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Race is a cultural construction

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Racism is a system of inequality

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Ethnicity - shared cultural identity

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Flexible and situational

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Nation - political community

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Nationalism - belief in unity of a nation

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Gender roles - expectations for behavior (vary across cultures)

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Gender stratification - unequal power between genders

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Sexuality - culturally shaped, not purely biological

Dadi and Her Family Film

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A film about a grandmother living with her extended family in a multi-generational household

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Family is not just nuclear → it is a social and economic unit

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There is a clear division of labor in which women cook, clean, take care of kids, men make the money and make decisions, daughter in laws have less power and autonomy

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Dadi as the grandma holds a lot of power in the family, especially over younger women

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So even within the patriarchy women still have power

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Marriage is central to family organization and women’s roles

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Women are expected to join their husband’s household and adapt to a new family hierarchy

Terms/Vocab

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Direct indexicality - the intentional, overt, and commonsensical aspects of language use

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Indirect indexicality - systematic but covert and often counter-intuitive aspects of language

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Biological Essentialism - the belief that human, social, and gender identities are innate, unchangeable traits determined solely by biology (genetics, chromosomes, or anatomy) rather than social factors

Consanguineal - individuals related by blood or shared ancestry

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Affinal - family relationship by marriage

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Endogamy - marrying within a specific social group to maintain a certain social identity

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Exogamy - marrying outside a certain social group to build alliances and promote genetic diversity

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Bilateral/Cognatic Descent - a kinship system in which individuals trace their ancestry, inheritance, and social status equally through both their mother’s and father’s lines

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Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis - suggests that the structure of a language shapes the way its speakers perceive and think about the world

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Technostrategic Language - a language that abstracts and sanitizes the brutal realities of weapon systems, focusing on technical components rather than human consequences

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Direct Indexicality - immediate context (speaker, time, place)

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Indirect Indexicality - connects linguistic features to social meanings, such as stances, social identities, or cultural ideologies, rather than immediate, physical, or personal references

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Linguistic Determinism - often called the "strong" Sapir-Whorf hypothesis,

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argues that language structure determines and limits human thought and perception. This theory suggests speakers can only conceptualize the world through the lens of their native language, meaning language constrains cognitive capacity

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Carolus Linneas - Swedish biologist responsible for the modern system of naming organisms (binomial nomenclature)

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Racial Formation - process by which racial identities are created, inhabited, transformed, and destroyed

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Racial Essentialism - the belief that racial groups possess inherent, fixed, and deep-seated differences—often incorrectly assumed to be biological—that determine personality, abilities, and behavior

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Hegemony/Hegemonic Rule - the political, economic, and military predominance of one state or group over others, often relying on a combination of coercion and consent

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One Drop Rule - a historical American social and legal principle that classified any person with even one ancestor of African descent ("one drop of black blood") as Black

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Human Genome Project - a landmark 13-year international scientific endeavor (1990–2003) that successfully mapped and sequenced the entire human genome, comprising roughly 3 billion base pairs of DNA

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Sickle Cell Disorder - a group of inherited blood disorders characterized by crescent-shaped red blood cells that block blood flow, causing chronic pain, severe anemia, and organ damage

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**REMEMBER: Sickle Cell Disorder defends against Malaria (disease spread by mosquitos). It is a genetic mutation that is highly prevalent in areas with high levels of Malaria.

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Human Leukocyte Antigens - proteins on the surface of most body cells that act as markers, helping the immune system distinguish between self-cells and foreign invaders

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Ancestry Informative Markers - specific DNA sequences (polymorphisms) that show significantly different frequencies between populations from distinct geographical regions, enabling accurate estimation of an individual's ancestry

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BiDil - a prescription combination medication approved for treating heart failure in Black patients as an adjunct to standard therapy

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Sex - physical characteristics that traditionally distinguish males from females

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Gender - culturally constructed roles assigned to males or females

Types of Masculinity:

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Hegemonic Masculinity - top of the hierarchy, sustaining a dominant position in society, cultural ideal of manhood