Shanshan Du
Frameworks for Societies
in Balance:
A Cross-Cultural Perspective on Gender Equality
Questions concerning the equality/inequality of men and women comprise
an enduring humanistic inquiry – from Plato's philosophical exploration
of gender roles in his ideal society, to Marx and Engels' social and historical
accounts of the origin of sexual inequality, to the increasingly heated
debate among feminists over competing visions of gender equality. Despite
all these inquiries, in the vast majority of human societies, gender equality
has been relatively underdeveloped in ideologies, social institutions,
and gender roles. At the beginning of the twenty first century, mainstream
academic voices and popular opinion alike still tend either to deny, or
are ambiguous about, the existence of gender-egalitarian societies.
Is there any gender-egalitarian society on earth? Proposing answers to
this question constitutes an integral part of the debates over major academic
inquiries and feminist endeavors. Despite their scarcity, societies do
exist that are documented to have achieved remarkable levels of gender
equality. Early anthropological literature documented the Andaman
islanders of the Indian Ocean (Man 1883, Radcliffe-Brown 1922), and
the native American Iroquois (Wallace 1971). As I will show below,
more recently, following the declining influence of the notion of universal
female subordination since the late 1980s (Mukhopadhyay and Higgins 1988),
ethnographic studies of gender-egalitarian societies have greatly increased.
What can we learn from these societies? What are the possible sociocultural
frameworks which facilitate gender equality not only in dominant symbolism
and social structures but also in people's daily practices? In this
article, I intend to explore these questions by offering four types of
frameworks that empirically foster gender equality. I
term these: "maternal centrality," "gender complementarity," "gender
triviality," and "gender unity." I have tentatively
constructed this classification in order to expand our current analytic
capacity regarding the diversity of gender equality. My research
indicates that while rooted in different gender ideologies and expressing
sexual equality in diverse ways, these frameworks all promote harmony and
interdependence between men and women and they discourage the development
of gender-based competition and hierarchy. In other words, gender-egalitarian
societies are also societies in balance.
1. Frameworks of Gender Equality
1.1. Maternal Centrality
I term the first type of egalitarian framework "maternal centrality," which
greatly overlaps with "matriarchy" defined respectively by
Sanday's (2002:237), Göttner-Abendroth (1999), and McCall (1980:252). Typically
associated with societies that are characterized by matrilineal descendent
rule and matrilocal residence pattern, the sociocultural framework of maternal
centrality tends to highlight gender difference. Rather than stressing
the symmetrical complementarity between the two sexes, the symbolism of
this model tends to elevate the female principle over its male counterpart,
a phenomenon that is particularly salient in matrilineal kinship structures. The
principle value of this framework is placed on the characteristics that
are commonly associate with maternity, such as life-giving, nurturance,
connection, and harmony.
Despite the asymmetrical gender symbolism that favors the female, the
framework of maternal centrality does not lead to male subordination. Instead,
this model promotes gender equality by glorifying the maternal power that
links the members of a society to the source of life, rather than ranking
them according to sex difference (Sanday 2002:230). Maternal centrality
fosters the interdependence of male and female in layers of cross-sex bonding,
especially in that of mother-child and siblings relations. The expansion
of the mother-centered connections and values result in matrilineal kinship
groups at different levels. Within such mother-centered networks
of relationships, men and women are identified primarily as partners with
shared interests, benefiting from harmony and interdependence rather than
from competition for domination. Societies that have been documented
for their coherent socio-cultural expressions of maternal-centrality include
the Minangkabau of Indonesia (Sanday 2002), the preecolonial Iroquois (McCall
1980, Wallace 1971), and the Muoso of southwest China (Cai 2001,
Yan and Song 1983). I highlight the Minangkabau case here as it is
particularly well documented and analyzed for the contemporary era.
The cultural framework of the Minangkabau revolves around the mother-child
bond; the nurturing of the newborn is believed to be the source of fertility,
growth, and social well-being (Sanday 2002:214). Specifically, maternal
features that are associated with nurturing and growth constitute the core
of what is defined as "power" in Minangkabau culture. Asymmetrical
gender symbolism that favors the female is well exemplified by the association
between the origin of Minangkabau and anapical ancestress who is taken
to represent "the repository of the vital life-force, the centripetal
force around which social connections and access to land are formed for
each generation" (ibid.:237). Additionally, both men and women
are similarly expected to possess certain characteristics that are commonly
associated with femininity, especially nurturing and politeness. The
centrality of Minangkabau women in social life is manifested not only in
the fact that land ownership and lineage membership are passed down to
the next generation exclusively through the female line, but also in the
social and symbolic significance of women's roles in various social
and ritual contexts. Nevertheless, Minangkabau men are not devalued
within the maternal centered society. In contrast to the Western
association of "power" with domination and masculinity, Minangkabau
men are valued as equal members of the society, and are especially appreciated
for their contribution as brothers and mothers' brothers in the public
and educational domains. In fact, the common association between
men and public domains, and the significant role of the mother's
brother in matrilineal societies, were often misinterpreted in earlier
anthropological literature as signs of gender inequality, expressed by
husband and brother competing for authority over women (Richards 1950). By
contrast, valuing above all nurturing, growth, and harmony, the maternal-centered
sociocultural framework of the Minangkabau fosters interdependent and egalitarian
partnerships between the two sexes, rather than producing male subordination. Remarkably,
the Minangkabau have maintained this orientation while being adherents
to Islam, a religion that historically has tended to produce a notably
patriarchal orientation (Sanday 2002). The commitment of the Minangkabau
to gender equality while remaining faithful Muslims makes a careful examination
of their case especially compelling.
1.2. Gender Complementarity
The perceptions of the two sexes as "different-but-equal" are
evident in another model, which I term "gender complementary." I
suggest that the framework of gender complementarity generates equality
between men and women by promoting symmetrical reciprocity of the two sexes. Similar
to that of maternal centrality, the framework of gender complementarity
also highlight gender difference symbolically and socially. By stressing
the reciprocal interdependence of the two sexes, the complementary principle
not only symbolically highlights the differences between men and women,
it also institutionalizes gender separation in social and economic domains. This
principle also resembles that of maternal centrality in perceiving each
sex as fully reliant on reciprocity with the other and attaching equal
value to both men and women as well as to the different roles they play. Specifically,
by placing core values on the interdependence between the sexes, the complementary
principle identifies men and women as reciprocal partners with shared interests—both
benefiting from their harmonious cooperation—rather than as competitors
with conflicting interests. Different from that of maternal
centrality, however, the gender symbolism of the framework of complementarity
tends to be symmetrical.
The "dual-sex" system of some precolonial Igbo groups, especially
those who live in Midwestern Nigeria, seems to represent the most coherent
application of the principle of gender complementarity (Okonjo 1976). Traditional
Igbo gender ideals made sharp symbolic distinctions between men and women,
serving to maintain and perpetuate the reciprocal system between the two
sexes in all major domains of the society (Nzegwu 1994, Okonjo 1976). In
the economic arena, men and women grew their own crops, contributing complementarily
to the family and community and engaging in intense economic reciprocity. The
principle of gender complementarity was also widely realized in the realm
of social organization. Men and women had their own kinship institutions,
age grades, and secret and titled societies to manage their own affairs
and to interact with each other as equal partners in a variety of social
institutions (Okonjo 1976). Most dramatically, a male monarch (obi)
and a female monarch (omu) functioned as complementary political entities
that jointly governed various local political units that were also divided
by sex. Being unrelated to each other and living in their own palaces,
these two monarchs represented the highest authorities in the region to
deal with the affairs of the members of their own sex. In other words,
the king and the queen, together with the two monarchies that they ruled,
symbolized and operated as the complements of Igbo society as a whole,
rather than as two competitive kingdoms (Nzegwu 1994, Okonjo 1976). Remarkably,
the well-known Igbo ritual called "sitting on a man" (the "women's
war" in the context of anti-colonial protests), by which women gather
to sing songs of ridicule to a man for transgressions such as wife-beating,
was traditionally used to maintain harmony within the dual-sex systems,
rather than expressing institutional confrontations between men and women.
In sharp contrast to "maternal centrality" and "gender
complementarity," which promote harmony and balance between the sexes
while highlighting their differences, the next two frameworks that I will
discuss below foster gender equality by minimizing the sociocultural significance
of sexual difference, especially in gender roles (Du 2004)
1.3. Gender Triviality
I term third type of egalitarian framework "gender triviality," by
which I mean the scarcity and social insignificance of the symbolic elaboration
of "men," "women," and their relationships in a
given culture (Du 2002). Every known society distinguishes "male" from "female," at
least biologically and linguistically. However, this fact by no means
suggests that gender is universally and uniformly judged significant, as
is commonly assumed in the dominant Western discourse. From a cross-cultural
perspective, the degrees of conspicuousness and significance of gender
constitute a spectrum on which gender triviality occupies an extreme end.
Within the framework of gender triviality, sex difference is socially
and culturally insignificant because men and women are primarily considered
as individuals and members of a community regardless of their sex difference. By
minimizing gender differentiation in both ideological and practical arenas,
gender triviality leaves little space for discrimination against the members
of either sex. In other words, gender equality is achieved effortlessly
within such a sociocultural framework, i.e., simply by ignoring gender
itself. Based on the principle of gender triviality, gender equality
manifests itself in the form of "same-thus-equal"—i.e.,
men and women are equal because of the gender-blind attitudes of the dominant
ideologies and institutions.
I observe that the egalitarian societies that trivialize gender tend to
highly value individual autonomy and collective cooperation. The
Vanatinai islanders of New Guinea (Lepowsky 1993) provide a well-documented
example of such a society. In accordance with the scarcity of gender
symbolism in the society, gender-blindness is closely associated with the
Vanatinai ideal personalities, including characteristics that promote both
individual autonomy (such as strength, wisdom, and magical power) and communal
solidarity (such as sharing, generosity, and nurturing) (Lepowsky 1993:116,
119, 283). The ideological triviality of gender is also reflected
in the overlapping of sex roles. Most significantly, individuals who possess
desirable characteristics often attain the prestigious titles "big
men" or "big women" through their extraordinary hard
work and generosity. At the same time, there is a high degree of
tolerance of idiosyncrasy and variation among all members of the society. The
tendency to trivialize gender is also institutionalized sociologically
to a great extent. Specifically, the Vanatinai matrilineal system
is counterbalanced by other gender-blind institutions such as the relatively
unusual bilocal pattern of postmarital residence, which obligates a married
couple to live alternately with their two natal families for many years
(Lepowsky 1993:47).
To date, I have identified two additional societies as "gender-trivial":
the Aka of the western Congo, and the Okinawans at Henza. The Aka
people are characterized by a similar unelaborated gender ideology (Barry
Hewlett 2000, personal communication) and an ethical orientation toward
collectively grounded individualism (Hewlett 1991). The core values
of the Aka include individual equality, independence, autonomy, sharing,
and cooperation (Hewlett 1991:27-28). Both men and women regularly
participate in net hunting and in intensive and intimate care of infants. The
depth of this society's patrilineages is remarkably shallow, corresponding
to weak lineage identity (Hewlett 1991:22) and close relations between
a married couple and their relatives from both sides. The autochthonous
Okinawans at Henza exhibit related strategies of trivializing gender (Sered
1999).
1.4. Gender Unity
The final type of gender equality I have identified to date is one I term "gender
unity." I suggest that while distinguishing men from women
and recognizing certain superficial differences between them, the gender-unified
societies minimize the symbolic and social significance of sex differences. In
particular, the unitary principle maximizes gender similarities and mutuality
by highlighting the entities that are made complete by incorporating both
male and female. Accordingly, the two sexes are defined as essentially
similar and are bound to each other in value, interest, obligation, authority,
and social status. In other words, gender equality is fostered in
the unity of the two sexes, rather than being achieved by a careful distribution
of equal power and prestige between males and females.
As I will elaborate in the second passage of the article, my major fieldwork
to date has been with the Lahu, a society that is organized around the
principle of gender unity. Elsewhere, I have catalogued consistent
sociocultural elaboration of gender unity as recorded among the Andaman
Islanders (Radcliffe-Brown 1922) and some indigenous Andean groups living
in Ecuador (Hamilton 1998) and Bolivia (Harris 1978). Reminiscent
of the Lahu expression, "Chopsticks only work in pairs," some
Andean cultures express the principle of gender unity by phrases such as "It
takes two wings to fly" (Katherine Litherland 1999, personal
communication).
2. Gender Unity among the Lahu People
My fieldwork research focuses on the Lahu, a Tibeto-Burman-speaking people
in Yunnan, Southwest China. The subsistence pattern of the Lahu is usually
a mixture of farming, raising of domestic animals, gathering, hunting,
and fishing. Lahu villages generally lack stratification, and the major
markers for hierarchical status are generation and age. Monogamous
marriage is practiced, and households constitute the center of village
life, serving as basic units for production and consumption.
The Lahu egalitarian value of male and female is deeply rooted in their
dyadic worldview centering on the concept "pairs", which suggests
a single entity that is made of two similar yet distinguishable components. This
worldview is organized around the principle of gender unity, or, male-female
dyads. Such a dyadic perspective highlights the similarities and
harmony between the two components, which identify with each other through
their shared membership and joint function in the whole. When applied to
Lahu cultural perceptions of men and women as well as their relationships
and roles in society, such an ideology produces gender equality as a byproduct
(Du 2002).
The dyadic principle provides the fundamental order for Lahu cosmology.
According to Lahu mythology, just as the supreme god of creation (Xeul
Sha) is a male-female dyad, so are all the other entities and beings in
the universe, including the Sun (female) and the Moon (male), the earth
(female) and the sky (male), as well as the original ancestors of human
beings. Conforming to the dyadic cosmological order, joint gender roles
in managing the supernatural realms is believed a matter of course. While
the paired supreme god forms the top of the spiritual power framework ruling
the universe, deities or spirits that are subservient to the paired supreme
gods also operate in male/female units, including the paired spirits or
deities of a household, a village, and a region. The cosmological order
of male-female unity is coherently elaborated in the Lahu indigenous religion,
which combine beliefs in a supreme god, parental spirits, and animism.
Overall, Lahu cosmology perceives the world in terms of male-female dyads,
as expressed by their motto that "everything comes in pairs, aloneness
does not exist." Interestingly, even the Buddha worshipped
in some Lahu village temples has been transformed from Gautama to Xeul
Sha, i.e., the paired indigenous gods (Du 2003, Wang and He 1999:179).
Applying the dyadic cosmological order to the life cycle, Lahu perceptions
of personhood revolve around monogamous marriage in both the social and
spiritual realms. Specifically, the Lahu threshold for adulthood is the
wedding, which unites two socially immature individuals into a single social
entity and transforms them into full members of society. After the wedding
ceremony, the couple simultaneously achieves the social rank of "adult" and
is expected to share responsibility, prestige, and authority when they
go through the life journey together. After fulfilling their joint responsibilities
in life, a couple is believed to be able to reunite in the afterlife. Holding
the honorable and authoritative position of "parental spirits," the
deceased couple jointly enjoy offerings and ritual respect from their children
and children-in-law. Since the eternal bond between husband and wife
constitutes the essence of ideal human life, those who die before marriage
or before fulfilling marital responsibilities are considered the worst
failures at life and are said to be marginalized as lone souls in the afterlife.
The cosmological emphasis on the entity of husband and wife correlates
with the ideal of joint roles and authority of the two sexes, as is encapsulated
in an oft-cited metaphor: "Chopsticks only work in pairs" (Du
2000). The equal contribution of each stick in a pair of chopsticks
in their joint performance of tasks echoes the Lahu naturalization of joint
gender roles in all possible arenas, including pregnancy, childbirth (the
husband serves as midwife), childcare, domestic chores, subsistence work,
and leadership. Additionally, the uselessness, and thus powerlessness,
of a single chopstick serves as a metaphor for the joint power and authority
that are accorded men and women. Such a value is expressed by the traditional
belief that households, villages, as well as the whole universe are manageable
only when "a pair of male-female masters rules together." While
a co-headship of husband and wife in the household is still widely practiced,
the tradition that requires married couples to hold political and spiritual
posts in the village and the village cluster has been threatened by interventions
of the Chinese state and is now retained in only a few areas (Du 2002,
Wang and He 1999).
3. Implications of Gender-Egalitarian Studies
The preceding sections have discussed several types of gender-egalitarian
frameworks derived from a selection of ethnographic data from different
continents and my own fieldwork on the Lahu people. Rather than intending
to provide a few pigeonholing models, I hope that my preliminary classifications
may encourage more comparative studies on the equality between men and
women, a critical component in both humanistic inquiries and major theories
of social sciences. I argue that more systematic comparison and theoretical
analysis of known gender-egalitarian societies can serve both scholars
and activists who work to propose feasible parameters of gender equality
that may be possible elsewhere. The contributions of such studies
can be broken down into three interrelated aspects.
Most importantly, they help to break through the long-enduring and deeply
rooted Western emphasis on hypothetical utopian societies that has prevented
us from recognizing the existence of extant gender-egalitarian societies.
I argue that the difficulty in recognizing the existence of gender-egalitarian
societies is rooted in Western utopian ideals towards gender equality,
which, ironically, often turn the notion of the universality of female
subordination into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Such a tendency has
been exacerbated by the double standard used to measure gender equality
and hierarchy – i.e., while gender equality must be perfect to exist,
gender hierarchy can exist in any degree. Under the shadow of this
utopianist bias, very few scholars who have encountered gender-egalitarian
societies directly acknowledge those societies as such, thus further weakening
the impact of their studies. Comparative studies of gender-egalitarian
societies can contribute greatly to the removal of the utopian blinders
that hinder our recognition of gender-egalitarian societies.
Furthermore, gender-egalitarian studies can enhance our understanding
of the diverse meanings of "gender equality" across cultures. Such
studies can demonstrate that not only do gender-egalitarian societies exist,
they also differ in the respective sociocultural frameworks that foster
equality between men and women. These explorations can also reveal
that these different underlying principles of gender equality are rooted
in the diversity of cultural perceptions of men and women and their relationships. Accordingly,
comparative studies of gender-egalitarian societies can provide insight
into the recent academic effort to develop both general and specific indicators
of gender equality in cross-cultural settings.
Finally, by recognizing the existence of more distinct frameworks for
gender equality, gender-egalitarian studies encourage individuals from
different sociocultural backgrounds to reflect on the goals, challenges,
and strategies for promoting gender equality in their own societies. Such
reflections may contribute to more constructive dialogues between non-Western
women and feminists in the dominant societies of North America and Europe. An
increased recognition of the diverse meanings and manifestations of gender
equality can expand the horizons of cross-cultural communications regarding
how to define, assess, and achieve gender equality in particular socio-cultural
contexts.
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I would like to thank American Council
of Learned Societies for offering me a Charles A. Ryskamp Research Fellowship
to support this study. I also thank Heide Göttner-Abendrothand
Alma Gottlieb for their comments.
The major ethnographic examples I
have found to date in my research derive from societies located in East
Asia and the Pacific, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Central and South America. While
the socio-cultural conditions of the vast majority of these societies are
contemporary, some exist only in historical records.
