Complete Test Bank Chapter.10 Gender, Sex, And Sexuality

Chapter 10 Test Bank

Multiple Choice

1. Feminist anthropologists have argued that egalitarian male-female relations have existed throughout human history. Inequality exists because of historical processes including
2. colonialism.
3. democratic state-building.
4. anthropological intervention.
5. second-wave feminism.
6. 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
7. gender roles.
8. biological sex.
9. gender/sex systems.
10. transgender.
11. Sexual dimorphism refers to the
12. different sexual forms, hormones, and chromosomal structures in men and women.
13. similarities in hormones in men’s and women’s bodies.
14. similarities in chromosomal structures for men and women.
15. different sex organs present in men and women.
16. Individuals who diverge from the male–female norm and exhibit sexual organs and functions somewhere between, including both male and female, are called
17. transsexual.
18. transgender.
19. intersex.
20. cisgender.
21. A misconception about hormones in society is that
22. certain hormones are linked to both sexes.
23. they are not important for sexual functioning.
24. sex-specific hormones cause particular behaviors.
25. they are irrelevant.
26. French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir argued in her book The Second Sex that
27. throughout history women have been treated as inferior.
28. women are biologically inferior to men.
29. women are more capable than men to be in leadership roles.
30. women could do without men in society.
31. After emerging as an important term for activists in the 1990s, “trans” has become a catch-all term to describe a wide variety of people including all of the following except
32. transvestites.
33. drag queens.
34. cisgender people.
35. transsexual.
36. Which term refers to expressions of sex and gender that diverge from the male and female norms that dominate in most societies?
37. Sexuality
38. Intersexed
39. Transgender
40. Gender variance
41. People everywhere establish their gender/sex identities, including normative categories like “man” or “woman,” through
42. birth.
43. sexual preferences.
44. sexual practices.
45. social performances.
46. Biologist Dr. Alfred Kinsey conducted a series of sexuality studies during the 1940s and found that
47. sexuality is either straight or queer.
48. most people are homosexual.
49. most people are heterosexual.
50. sexuality exists on a continuum.
51. Which of the following is not a feminist explanation on women’s subordination?
52. The distinction between nature and culture
53. Colonial domination
54. Capitalism
55. Biological difference
56. Hijras in India are characterized by all of the following except
57. they are devout Hindus.
58. they give blessings at weddings and at births.
59. they may have sex with men, but they are not considered gay.
60. they live in communes amongst other hijras.
61. All societies differentiate between male and female, but one way Americans are unique in how we do it is that we link gender to
62. numbers.
63. colors.
64. body shapes.
65. sounds.
66. Sex-assignment surgery is important because it
67. improves the biological functions of intersexed people.
68. shows that “sex” is a biological phenomenon.
69. shows that “sex” is constructed upon cultural assumptions.
70. is performed only on girls.
71. Sherry Ortner, a feminist anthropologist, observed that the roots of female subordination lay in the distinction all societies make between
72. men and women.
73. public and domestic.
74. strength and weakness.
75. nature and culture.
76. According to some, a critical limitation of “second-wave” feminism is that it
77. ignores differences among women in different cultural groups.
78. failed to acknowledge gender inequalities in a historical perspective.
79. assumes the fight for gender equality was not a global priority.
80. acknowledged the expansive experiences of women around the globe.
81. Anthropologists understand that in order to understand gender/sex inequalities one must study
82. women.
83. men.
84. both men and women.
85. sexual dimorphism.
86. Which of the following is not an example of state control of sexuality?
87. The China one-child policy
88. Malta’s ban on abortion
89. Previous US government bans on openly gay people serving in the military
90. India’s 2014 supreme court decision to officially recognize a third gender
91. To understand aggression in society, we have to understand which of the following factor(s)?
92. The availability of weapons and cultural attitudes toward violence
93. Fixed and innate notions of violent behavior
94. The absence of the state in promoting or preventing conflicts
95. The biological basis of violence
96. A key finding of anthropologist Matthew Gutmann’s fieldwork on masculinity in Mexico is that
97. women cause their own subordination by being submissive.
98. women support machismo by supporting domineering men.
99. women challenge men’s domination over them by arguing and issuing ultimatums.
100. women prefer macho men.
101. Women’s resistance to machismo in Mexico is demonstrated through women’s practice of
102. eating before men.
103. refusing to perform domestic labor.
104. issuing ultimatums.
105. publicly shaming men.
106. If an anthropologist studies how teenage boys perform their gender in high school sports team membership, the anthropologist is exploring
107. sexuality.
108. masculinity.
109. discrimination.
110. prejudice.
111. Hijras interest anthropologists mainly because they are
112. exotic.
113. increasingly acting as prostitutes.
114. homosexual.
115. a reflection of a gender/sex system that sees meaning in combining male and female.
116. Anthropologists reject the idea that same-sex sexuality is a fixed and exclusive condition because
117. gender is biologically determined.
118. of the research of Dr. Bronislaw Malinowski.
119. of cross-cultural research that shows sexual practices and sexuality is variable throughout a lifetime.
120. sexuality is established at birth and remains the same throughout the lifespan.
121. One of the reasons it is important to develop culturally sensitive campaigns to address a health crisis like HIV/AIDS is that
122. gay sex causes the disease.
123. what some people think is gay sex is not considered to be the case by others.
124. gay sex is about passivity and activity.
125. gay sex is a reflection of a permanent condition.
126. What is not true of anthropology’s findings on masculinity?
127. It is something to be attained in many cultures.
128. Male initiation rites are important in many societies.
129. It inherently promotes male dominance.
130. It is dynamic.
131. What is not true of Indian hijras?
132. They have women’s occupations.
133. They perform blessings at lifecycle events.
134. They are officially outlawed, though many still live openly.
135. They are defined as males who are sexually impotent.

1. What was not one of the consequences of China’s “one child policy”?
2. Reduced unemployment
3. Forced sterilizations
4. Less gender inequality
5. Lower fertility rates

1. When did political activists in the United States begin to pressure the government to formally recognize the rights of gender variant individuals?
2. 1890s
3. 1970s
4. 1920s
5. 1990s
6. Sexual preferences, desires, and practices are encompassed in the study of
7. gender.
8. sex.
9. sexual orientation.
10. sexuality.
11. People establish their gender/sex identities through
12. biological markers.
13. romantic practices.
14. social performances.
15. sexual preferences.
16. Which of the following is true of gender?
17. It is totally unrelated to sex.
18. It is static.
19. All cultures only have two normative genders.
20. It is defined by the set of cultural expectations for how males and females should behave.
21. Which of the following is an example of state control of sexuality?
22. Argentina’s ban on abortion
23. India’s 2014 decision to officially recognize a third gender
24. Doctor’s prescribing hormones to trans individuals
25. Single-sex public bathrooms
26. If you were an anthropologist studying cross-dressing rebel soldiers in Liberia, what might you conclude?
27. Gender identities are rooted in local concepts and practices.
28. There are strange perversions of certain soldiers.
29. The inequality between male and female.
30. Hormones shape human behavior.
31. What is not a finding of the anthropology of masculinity?
32. Cultural ideals of masculinity do not always lead to male dominance.
33. Masculinity changes with time.
34. Male initiation rites are of relative unimportance globally.
35. Masculinity is something to be attained in many societies.
36. Which of the following is not an example of the naturalization of gender?
37. The assumption that girls are nurturing and domestic.
38. The assumption that all boys like sports.
39. The assumption that people are heterosexual.
40. The assumption that men are aggressors in relationships.
41. Why is it often so difficult for Euro-American anthropologists to understand same-sex sexuality in other societies?
42. There are much higher rates of intersex births in other societies.
43. They do not have adequate language to describe what they are studying.
44. They cannot adequately account for the environmental factors at play in the formation of sexual desire.
45. Same-sex sexuality is often pushed to the margins of society and so it is difficult to access information.
46. Which of the following observations would be least likely to come from an anthropologist who shares Simone de Beauvoir’s notion of “second sex”?
47. Gender inequality is universal.
48. Men subordinate women.
49. Western models of male–female relations cannot be universalized.
50. Egalitarian relations between male and female are rare, if not impossible.
51. An anthropologist interested in the cultural construction of gender would be most interested in
52. sexual dimorphism.
53. hormone regulation.
54. genetic causes of intersex.
55. learned behavioral differences between men and women.
56. An anthropologist who studies how societies control sexuality would likely be most interested in which of the following situations?
57. Obstacles in access to birth control
58. The activities in a club or bar whose clientele is gay or lesbian
59. How the research of Dr. Alfred Kinsey was immoral
60. The political activities of transgender activists

True/False

1. As children get older, cultural influences on behavior become much stronger, and as a result, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to isolate biological influences on what it means to be male or female.
2. True
3. False
4. Sex is a simple product of nature and biology.
5. True
6. False
7. The dichotomy between males and females is not two distinct categories but a continuum of sexual possibilities in the human species.
8. True
9. False
10. All feminist anthropologists agree that women’s subordination is a human universal.
11. True
12. False
13. In many societies, some people live their lives as neither male nor female.
14. True
15. False
16. One of the reasons intersex individuals interest anthropologists is how unusual and strange they are in a sexually dimorphic species.
17. True
18. False
19. The notion of “ritualized homosexuality” developed by Gilbert Herdt is problematic because Western notions of homosexuality do not easily apply cross-culturally.
20. True
21. False
22. In nearly all societies with any degree of social stratification, more men are in leadership roles than women, not only in political roles but also in economic and social roles involving trade, exchange, kinship relations, ritual participation, and dispute resolution.
23. True
24. False
25. The debate over male and female inequality was never adequately resolved because there was not enough evidence to prove either side.
26. True
27. False
28. The reproductive forms and functions of the body are referred to as our sex.
    1. True
    2. False
29. Gender is the set of cultural expectations for how males and females should behave.
    1. True
    2. False
30. The caste system refers to the ideas and social patterns a society uses to organize males, females, and those who do not fit either category.
    1. True
    2. False
31. The anthropological study of masculinity includes looking at the ideas and practices of manhood and how gender/sex identities are constructed.
    1. True
    2. False
32. Some societies allow for gender variance, which refers to people who are neither male nor female.
    1. True
    2. False
33. Sexual preferences, desires, and practices are encompassed in the study of gender.
    1. True
    2. False

Short Answer

1. Using one example, explain the state’s role in regulating its population’s sexuality.
2. How might an advocate of using the new terminology “gender/sex system” analyze the example of international sporting events and athletes that opens the chapter?
3. How did colonialism alter the social role of Hijras in India?
4. What, do some anthropologists argue, is the link between the nature/culture distinction and global inequality between men and women?
5. How would you apply the insights about human sexuality in this chapter to a study of the LGBTQ community on your campus?
6. 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?
7. If you were asked to study the sexuality of US college students, what anthropologically informed concerns and perspectives would you bring to the issue?
8. How is gender different from sex?
9. Gender/sex inequalities are reproduced and performed in everyday life. How? Discuss using examples.
10. Why are anthropologists skeptical of biological determinism as it relates to human sex and sexuality? How do they study these matters without falling into its opposite, cultural determinism?

Short Answer Key

1. Using one example, explain the state’s role in regulating its population’s sexuality.
   1. Is Human Sexuality Just a Matter of Being Straight or Queer?
   2. Long ago, anthropologists observed that every society places limits on people’s sexuality by constructing rules about who can sleep with whom. Modern governments routinely exert great control over sexuality, implementing and enforcing laws that limit the kinds of sexual relations their citizens can have. For example, in dozens of countries, and even in twenty-one U.S. states, adultery is considered by the law to be “injurious to public morals and a mistreatment of the marriage relationship” (Adultery 2009) and is treated by authorities as a civil offense (subject to fines) or even a crime (subject to jail time). Until the U.S. Supreme Court overturned such laws in 2003, fifteen states still outlawed “sodomy,” or sex acts considered “unnatural” or “immoral” such as anal sex, oral sex, or same-sex sex acts. In our country, the most contentious public issues—including debates about abortion, gay people in the military, and the right to same-sex marriage—involve questions over whether and how the government should control the sexuality of its citizens.
   3. Family-planning programs can also be viewed as another manifestation of government control over sexuality, especially women’s sexuality (Dwyer 2000). China’s well-known “One Child Policy,” which limited most families to one child, has reduced fertility rates and unemployment significantly, but it also involved unprecedented government control over sexuality, including (until 2002, when it was outlawed) forced abortions and sterilizations of women who exceeded their quota or were deemed unfit to reproduce.
2. How might an advocate of using the new terminology “gender/sex system” analyze the example of international sporting events and athletes that opens the chapter?
   1. How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?
   2. Anthropologists have changed their terminology and commonly refer to the ideas and social patterns a society uses to organize males, females, and those who exist between these categories as a gender/sex system (Morris 1995; Nanda 2000). Around the world, gender/sex systems are cross-culturally variable and historically dynamic. As the opening story suggests, in any particular gender/sex system a spectrum of possibilities exists for defining and expressing masculinity and femininity, as does a shared understanding of when, how, and why it is important to do so.
3. How did colonialism alter the social role of Hijras in India?
   1. What Does It Mean to Be Neither Male Nor Female?
   2. Although British colonialism tried to outlaw hijras, they continued to exist largely by conducting their initiation rites in secret. In recent decades they have had to adapt to a changing Indian society. Government family-planning programs have reduced birth rates, and urban families increasingly live in apartment buildings with security guards who prevent the entrance of hijras when they arrive to bless a baby. In response, hijras have exploited new economic opportunities, asking for alms from shop owners and expanding their involvement in the sex industry (Nanda 1994:415).
4. What, do some anthropologists argue, is the link between the nature/culture distinction and global inequality between men and women?
   1. Why Is There Inequality Between Men and Women?
   2. Most feminist anthropologists rejected the idea that biological differences are the source of women’s subordination. Instead, they argued that cultural ideologies and social relations impose lower status, prestige, and power on women than men. But here the agreement ends, and during the 1970s and 1980s a major debate took place over whether gender inequality is universal and what causes it.
   3. On one side were those who argued that women’s lower status is universal. Sherry Ortner, an influential participant in the debate, observed that the roots of female subordination lay in the distinction all societies make between “nature” and “culture” (Ortner 1974). Across many cultures, women are assigned symbolically to nature because of their role in childbearing, and thus they are viewed as uncultured and uncivilized. Men, on the other hand, are associated symbolically with culture and thus are viewed as civilized and superior.
   4. On the other side were feminist anthropologists who argued that egalitarian male–female relations have existed throughout human history. Inequality exists, they observed, as the result of particular historical processes, especially the imposition of European capitalism and colonization on native peoples who were once egalitarian. For example, Eleanor Leacock (1981) argued that among the Montagnais-Naskapi [mohn-tan-yay nahs-kah-pee] of the Labrador Peninsula in Canada, women enjoyed equal status with men, held formal political power, exercised spiritual leadership, and controlled important economic activities before the arrival of Europeans. By the 1700s, however, dependence on the fur trade with Europeans undercut the traditional political system and economy, and Jesuit missionaries imposed compulsory Catholic schooling, which was hostile to women’s independence and power. Eventually, the Montagnais-Naskapi developed a cultural view of women as inferior and subordinate.
5. How would you apply the insights about human sexuality in this chapter to a study of the LGBTQ community on your campus?
   1. Is Human Sexuality Just a Matter of Being Straight or Queer?
   2. Most of us assume that sexuality (sexual preferences, desires, and practices) is an either/or issue, that people are either straight or queer. We also assume that most humans are heterosexual. The term we use to indicate heterosexuality—“straight”—implies that it is normal and morally correct, while anything else is deviant, bent, or “queer,” a term that once had derogatory connotations but in recent years has been appropriated by LGBTQ communities and given a more positive connotation.
   3. But human sexuality is far more complex and subtle, something that social scientists began to realize after Indiana University biologist Dr. Alfred Kinsey conducted a series of sexuality studies during the 1940s (Figure 10.8). Kinsey and his colleagues surveyed the sexual lives and desires of American men and women, discovering that sexuality exists along a continuum. They found, for example, that 37% of the male population surveyed had had some sexual experience with other men, most of which occurred during adolescence, and at least 25% of adult males had had more than incidental same-sex sexual experiences for at least three years of their lives (Kinsey 1948; Fausto-Sterling 1992b). Many of these men did not think of themselves or lead their lives as gay; this suggests quite clearly that in practice, people’s sexuality does not fall into absolute categories. More important, Kinsey’s research challenged views of same-sex sexuality that consider it a pathological and deviant condition, indicating that psychologically “normal” people may express their sexuality in many ways.
6. 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?
   1. Why Is There Inequality Between Men and Women?
   2. Men hold most leadership roles in most societies around the globe. The few exceptions are generally small hunter-gatherer societies like the Batek of the Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia. This small community lives in bands that anthropologists Kirk and Karen Endicott (2008) report are generally egalitarian in their gender roles, to the extent that the band they lived with during their fieldwork had a woman as its headman (Figure 10.3).
   3. But such cases are unusual. In nearly all societies with any degree of social stratification, more men are in leadership roles than women, not only in political roles, but in economic and social roles involving trade, exchange, kinship relations, ritual participation, and dispute resolution (Ortner 1996:176). For example, in the United States today, only 2319% of Congressional seats are held by women; in the workplace women earn on average 81% of what their male counterparts earn; and sex discrimination persists in social expectations, such as the notion that women should do housework. Very few of the privileges men have over women are predicated on physical strength. So why is inequality between the sexes such a common feature of many societies?
7. If you were asked to study the sexuality of US college students, what anthropologically informed concerns and perspectives would you bring to the issue?
   1. Is Human Sexuality Just a Matter of Being Straight or Queer?
   2. Most of us assume that sexuality (sexual preferences, desires, and practices) is an either/or issue, that people are either straight or queer. We also assume that most humans are heterosexual. The term we use to indicate heterosexuality—“straight”—implies that it is normal and morally correct, while anything else is deviant, bent, or “queer,” a term that once had derogatory connotations but in recent years has been appropriated by LGBTQ communities and given a more positive connotation.
   3. But human sexuality is far more complex and subtle, something that social scientists began to realize after Indiana University biologist Dr. Alfred Kinsey conducted a series of sexuality studies during the 1940s (Figure 10.8). Kinsey and his colleagues surveyed the sexual lives and desires of American men and women, discovering that sexuality exists along a continuum. They found, for example, that 37% of the male population surveyed had had some sexual experience with other men, most of which occurred during adolescence, and at least 25% of adult males had had more than incidental same-sex sexual experiences for at least three years of their lives (Kinsey 1948; Fausto-Sterling 1992b). Many of these men did not think of themselves or lead their lives as gay; this suggests quite clearly that in practice, people’s sexuality does not fall into absolute categories. More important, Kinsey’s research challenged views of same-sex sexuality that consider it a pathological and deviant condition, indicating that psychologically “normal” people may express their sexuality in many ways.
8. How is gender different from sex?
   1. How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?
   2. Since the 1930s, anthropologists have made a distinction between sex (biology) and gender (cultural expectations). But in recent years the distinction has been breaking down because it is difficult to tease apart just how much differences in male and female behavior are caused by “sex” (that is, shaped by biology) and how much they are caused by “gender” (cultural expectations) (Collier and Yanagisako 1987). Scientists believe that sex-specific biological influences on temperament are strongest during infancy and early childhood (McIntyre and Edwards 2009). But cultural influences on behavior are strong even early in a child’s life, and these influences get much stronger as individuals age. Furthermore, “sex” is not simply a product of nature; it is also mediated and produced in the context of a specific culture. In light of this complexity, anthropologists increasingly reject an either-or perspective—that it’s either biology or culture, either sex or gender—and accept that ideas and practices associated with male–female differences are shaped by a mix of biology, environmental conditions, individual choices, and sociocultural processes that construct the meanings of the categories of male and female (Worthman 1995).
9. Gender/sex inequalities are reproduced and performed in everyday life. How? Discuss using examples.
   1. Why Is There Inequality Between Men and Women?
   2. Men hold most leadership roles in most societies around the globe. The few exceptions are generally small hunter-gatherer societies like the Batek of the Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia. This small community lives in bands that anthropologists Kirk and Karen Endicott (2008) report are generally egalitarian in their gender roles, to the extent that the band they lived with during their fieldwork had a woman as its headman (Figure 10.3).
   3. But such cases are unusual. In nearly all societies with any degree of social stratification, more men are in leadership roles than women, not only in political roles, but in economic and social roles involving trade, exchange, kinship relations, ritual participation, and dispute resolution (Ortner 1996:176). For example, in the United States today, only 2319% of Congressional seats are held by women; in the workplace women earn on average 81% of what their male counterparts earn; and sex discrimination persists in social expectations, such as the notion that women should do housework. Very few of the privileges men have over women are predicated on physical strength. So why is inequality between the sexes such a common feature of many societies?
10. Why are anthropologists skeptical of biological determinism as it relates to human sex and sexuality? How do they study these matters without falling into its opposite, cultural determinism?
    1. How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?
    2. In the idealized world of science textbooks and international track competitions, human beings are a sexually dimorphic species, which means that males and females have a different sexual form. Men have X and Y chromosomes, testes, a penis, and various internal structures and hormones that support the delivery of semen. Secondary effects of these hormones include deep voices, facial hair, and, in some cases, pattern baldness. Women have two X chromosomes, ovaries, hormones, and internal structures that support the movement of ova, pregnancy, and fetal development, and the secondary effects of these hormones include breast development and a high voice.
    3. You can probably name some minor exceptions to this rule—men with high voices, women with facial hair—but those variations are not enough to challenge anyone’s certainties about male and female difference. On more systematic inspection, however, a sharp dichotomy between males and females breaks down. Chromosomes, gonads, internal reproductive structures, hormones, and external genitalia vary across our species more than you may realize (Fausto-Sterling 2000). Individuals who diverge from the male–female norm are called intersex, meaning they exhibit sexual organs and functions somewhere between male and female or including both male and female elements. Some individuals have both ovaries and testes; some have gonad development with separate but not fully developed male and female organs; and some have ovaries and testes that grow in the same organ. Many intersex individuals are infertile, but not infrequently at least one of the gonads functions well, producing either sperm or eggs.