Test Bank Answers Gender, Sex, Fluid Identity Ch.11

Chapter 11: Gender, Sex, and Sexuality: The Fluidity of Maleness and Femaleness

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 01

1) The reproductive forms and functions of the body are referred to as our

Feedback: Sex is understood in Western cultures as the reproductive forms and functions of the body.
Page reference: How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?

a. sex.

b. gender.

c. hormones.

d. sexuality.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 02

2) The cultural expectations of how males and females should behave is

Feedback: Gender is the complex and fluid intersections of biological sex, internal senses of self, outward expressions of identity, and cultural expectations about how to perform that identity in appropriate ways.
Page reference: How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?

a. sex.

b. gender.

c. hormones.

d. sexuality.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 03

3) The early anthropologist who wrote the book Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies and was the first to distinguish between biological sex and gender roles was

Feedback: The distinction Mead made between sex (biology) and gender (cultural expectations) was assumed by anthropologists for decades. 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,” or cultural expectations.
Page reference: How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?

a. Ruth Benedict.

b. Franz Boas.

c. Margaret Mead.

d. Judith Butler.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 04

4) 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

Feedback: Gender/sex system are the ideas and social patterns a society uses to organize males, females, and those who exist between these categories.
Page reference: How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?

a. gender roles.

b. biological sex.

c. gender/sex systems.

d. transgender.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 05

5) Sexual dimorphism refers to the

Feedback: Sexually dimorphism is a characteristic of a species, in which males and females have different sexual forms.
Page reference: How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?

a. different sexual forms, hormones, and chromosomal structures in men and women.

b. similarities in hormones in men's and women's bodies.

c. similarities in chromosomal structures for men and women.

d. different sex organs present in men and women.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 06

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

Feedback: Intersex are individuals who exhibit sexual organs and functions somewhere between male and female elements, often including elements of both.
Page reference: What Does It Mean to Be Neither Male Nor Female?

a. transsexual.

b. transgender.

c. intersexed.

d. cisgendered.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 07

7) Hormones are

Feedback: Hormones are chemicals our bodies secrete into the bloodstream that regulate many of our bodily functions.
Page reference: How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?

a. sex-specific.

b. linked to a specific behaviour.

c. important only for sexual functioning.

d. responsible for many biological functions.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 08

8) A misconception about hormones in society is that

Feedback: Hormones are chemicals our bodies secrete into the bloodstream that regulate many of our bodily functions. These days, a lot of people take for granted the power of hormones to shape—and even improve—their lives as males and females. Even minuscule amounts of hormones can have transformative effects on our bodies. Individuals receiving sex-assignment surgeries or sex-reassignment surgeries also take hormones to reduce or enhance certain secondary sex characteristics, such as breasts, body hair, and voice pitch. But the transformative effects of many of these administered hormones come with a dark side, including liver damage, fluid retention, heart dis-ease, increased rates of certain cancers, reduced ability to produce sperm in men, and impacts on women’s menstrual cycles.
Page reference: How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?

a. certain hormones are linked to both sexes.

b. they are not important for sexual functioning.

c. sex-specific hormones cause particular behaviors.

d. they are irrelevant.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 09

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

Feedback: In 1949, French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir published an influential book called The Second Sex, in which she argued that throughout history, women have been considered “the second sex,” inferior in status and subordinate to men. Even before the publication of this book, during the Victorian era, a handful of women anthropologists had studied women’s status and roles in other societies. A few of these anthropologists, animated by the so-called first-wave feminism that was beginning to challenge male domination and win the right to vote, want-ed to understand whether all societies treated women as unequally as Euro-American societies did.
Page reference: Why Is There Inequality Between Men and Women?

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.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 10

10) A number of societies have the notion that men are __________ and women are _________.

Feedback: Anthropologists have observed the existence in many societies of the notion that women are “born” but men are “created” (Gutmann 1997). Some of this could be explained by develop-mental differences: in females, the onset of adult physical characteristics is rapid once menstruation begins, while among males, is it much more gradual. The idea of these differences leads to symbolically assigning women to the category of “nature” and men to “culture,” a point that, as Sherry Ortner and other feminists have suggested, provides a basis for women’s subordinate status. The idea also explains why male initiation rites are such important events in many societies: when boys are ritually transformed into men—fully entered into the realm of culture that they represent—the social order itself is reproduced and affirmed.

Page reference: Why Is There Inequality Between Men and Women?

a. healthy; sick

b. good; bad

c. created; born

d. born; created

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 11

11) Which term refers to expressions of sex and gender that diverge from the male and female norms which dominate in most societies?

Feedback: Gender variance has been historically documented in over 150 American Indian societies, although it is no longer an important institution except in a few of these societies. Today, where it exists, American Indian gender variance is often called “two-spirit,” meaning an individual has both male and female spirits. The phenomenon has been greatly misunderstood, largely because Western culture lacks the conceptual categories to translate the specific beliefs and customs related to gender variance in these societies. For decades, white Americans have used the term berdache [burr-dash], a derogatory Arabic term that refers to the younger partner in a male–male sexual relationship, to refer to gender variance among American Indians. This term assumes that gender-variant individuals are sexually attracted to individuals of their own sex, which is not always the case. Western moral thought also categorizes them as devi-ants when in fact, in a number of Indian societies, third-gender individuals have held high social status. Furthermore, Western thinking tends to confuse a wide range of beliefs and customs not shared by all societies into a single phenomenon.
Page reference: What Does It Mean to Be Neither Male Nor Female?

a. Sexuality

b. Intersexed

c. Transgender

d. Gender variance

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 12

12) People everywhere establish their gender/sex identities, including normative categories like “man” or “woman,” through

Feedback: “Third gender” has often been entangled in debates about sexuality, which encompasses sexual preferences, desires, and practices. Third gender has been viewed as a form of homosexuality, since some third gender individuals engage in what appear to be same-sex sexual activities. But sexual preferences intersect in complex ways with gender variance. People everywhere establish their gender identities, including normative categories like “man” or “woman,” not through sexual practices but through social performance: wearing certain clothes, speaking and moving in certain ways, and performing certain social roles and occupations. Performance is central to establishing one’s identity as third gender because other markers, such as anatomy, are not always publicly visible. Indeed, in a number of societies, the performance it-self—not any essential features of anatomy or sexual preferences—defines an individual as third gender.
Page reference: Is Human Sexuality Just a Matter of Being Straight or Queer?

a. birth.

b. sexual preferences.

c. sexual practices.

d. social performances.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 13

13) Nádleehé are individuals who mediate conflicts in which society?

Feedback: The Navajo, who live in the Four Corners area of the Southwest, present an especially subtle and complex example of how one society has defined multiple genders. In Navajo society, nádleehé are individuals held in high esteem who combine male and female roles and characteristics. They perform both male roles (such as hauling wood and participating in hunts and warfare) and female roles (such as weaving, cooking, shepherding, and washing clothes). Some nádleehé dress in traditionally female clothing, while others dress in traditionally male clothing. Navajo families have traditionally treated nádleehé respectfully, even giving them control over family property. The nádleehé participate in important religious ceremonies, and many have become spiritual healers. They also serve as go-betweens in arranging marriages and mediating conflicts.
Page reference: What Does It Mean to Be Neither Male Nor Female?

a. Cherokee

b. Cree

c. Navajo

d. Blackfoot

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 14

14) A term referring to someone to whom society assigns one gender who does not perform as that gender but has taken either permanent or temporary steps to identify as another gender is

Feedback: Transgender is someone to whom society assigns one gender who does not perform as that gender but has taken either permanent or temporary steps to identify as another gender.
Page reference: What Does It Mean to Be Neither Male Nor Female?

a. machismo.

b. transgender.

c. gender/sex systems.

d. intersexed.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 15

15) Indiana University biologist Dr. Alfred Kinsey conducted a series of sexuality studies during the 1940s and found that

Feedback: 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. Kinsey and his colleagues surveyed the sexual lives and desires of American men and women, discovering that sexuality exists along a continuum.
Page reference: Is Human Sexuality Just a Matter of Being Straight or Queer?

a. sexuality is either straight or queer.

b. most people are homosexual.

c. most people are heterosexual.

d. sexuality exists on a continuum.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 16

16) Anthropologist Don Kulick did ethnographic research among the travestis and believes he was accepted into their group because he identified as

Feedback: Kulick believes that several factors helped him gain acceptance in the insular travesti community. One was that travestis were open to his involvement in their lives because they viewed Europeans as more liberal and cultivated than Brazilians, and they thought he would not have the same prejudices against their lives that Brazilians would. Another is that when Kulick started his fieldwork, he spoke very little Portuguese, so he could not communicate very well. Travestis came to see him as a nonthreatening presence, someone who would not condemn them.
Page reference: Is Human Sexuality Just a Matter of Being Straight or Queer?

a. female.

b. fluent in Portuguese.

c. a gay man.

d. an anthropologist.

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 11 Question 17

17) 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.

Feedback: The distinction Mead made between sex (biology) and gender (cultural expectations) was assumed by anthropologists for decades. 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,” or cultural expectations.
Page reference: How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?

a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 11 Question 18

18) Sex is a simple product of nature and biology.

Feedback: Sex is understood in Western cultures as the reproductive forms and functions of the body.
Page reference: How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?

a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 11 Question 19

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

Feedback: Gender is the complex and fluid intersections of biological sex, internal senses of self, outward expressions of identity, and cultural expectations about how to perform that identity in appropriate ways.
Page reference: How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?

a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 11 Question 20

20) All feminist anthropologists agree that women's subordination is a human universal.

Feedback: 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.” Women are as-signed 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 viewed as civilized and superior.
Page reference: Is Human Sexuality Just a Matter of Being Straight or Queer?

a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 11 Question 21

21) In many societies, some people live their lives as neither male nor female.

Feedback: As an example, the Navajo, who live in the Four Corners area of the Southwest, present an especially subtle and complex example of how one society has defined multiple genders. In Navajo society, nádleehé are individuals held in high esteem who combine male and female roles and characteristics. They perform both male roles (such as hauling wood and participating in hunts and warfare) and female roles (such as weaving, cooking, shepherding, and washing clothes). Some nádleehé dress in traditionally female clothing, while others dress in traditionally male clothing. Navajo families have traditionally treated nádleehé respectfully, even giving them control over family property. The nádleehé participate in important religious ceremonies, and many have become spiritual healers. They also serve as go-betweens in arranging marriages and mediating conflicts.
Page reference: What Does It Mean to Be Neither Male Nor Female?

a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 11 Question 22

22) Cisgender refers to someone whose gender identity aligns with their biological sex at birth as male or female.

Feedback: Cisgender is someone whose gender identity aligns with their biological sex at birth as male or female.
Page reference: What Does It Mean to Be Neither Male Nor Female?

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 23

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

Feedback: Walk into any kids’ clothing store in a North American mall and the message is clear: boys and girls are fundamentally different. The boys’ section is stocked with jeans, cargo pants, and blue or dark-colored t-shirts emblazoned with images of trucks, guns, or sports equipment. The girls’ collection is full of frilly dresses and lace-lined shirts and pants in pastel colors like pink and purple, featuring images of butterflies, flowers, or strawberries. Judging by these articles, boys are adventuresome, active, and aggressive, while girls are nurturing, domestic, and sentimental.

Page reference: How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?

a. numbers.

b. colors.

c. body shapes.

d. sounds.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 24

24) Sex-assignment surgery is important because it

Feedback: With the development of new medical techniques during the late twentieth century, doc-tors and parents have gained new powers to “correct” what they view as a medical disorder. These days, for example, pregnant women can often know before birth if they will have an inter-sex child, at which point they may choose to have an abortion. In the United States, most intersex children are treated shortly after birth with “sex-assignment surgery,” in which a doctor eliminates any genital ambiguity through surgery, and doctors counsel the parents to raise the child to correspond with that sexual assignment.

Page reference: How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?

a. improves the biological functions of intersexed people.

b. shows that “sex” is a biological phenomenon.

c. shows that “sex” is constructed upon cultural assumptions.

d. is performed only on girls.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 25

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

Feedback: 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.” Women are as-signed 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 viewed as civilized and superior.
Page reference: Is Human Sexuality Just a Matter of Being Straight or Queer?

a. men and women.

b. public and domestic.

c. strength and weakness.

d. nature and culture.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 26

26) When anthropologists observe that the roots of female subordination lay in the distinction all societies make between nature and culture, they are taking which theoretical approach?

Feedback: Claude Levi-Strauss stressed structuralism, the idea that people make sense of their worlds through binary oppositions like hot–cold, culture–nature, male–female, and raw–cooked.
Page reference: Why Is There Inequality Between Men and Women?

a. Structural

b. Functional

c. Interpretivist

d. Marxist

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 27

27) According to some, a critical limitation of “second-wave” feminism is that it

Feedback: Feminism’s First and Second Waves. The first wave of feminism (late 1800s, early 1900s) in Britain and the United States focused on legal obstacles to gender/sex equality, such as laws prohibiting women from voting or owning property. The second wave (1960s and 1970s) focused on issues like unofficial inequalities and reproductive rights. Both had a major influence in anthropology.
Page reference: Why Is There Inequality Between Men and Women?

a. ignores differences among women in different cultural groups.

b. failed to acknowledge gender inequalities in a historical perspective.

c. assumes the fight for gender equality was not a global priority.

d. acknowledged the expansive experiences of women around the globe.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 28

28) Anthropologists understand that in order to understand gender/sex inequalities one must study

Feedback: Gender/sex system are the ideas and social patterns a society uses to organize males, females, and those who exist between these categories.
Page reference: How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?

a. women.

b. men.

c. both men and women.

d. gender roles.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 29

29) In what group can women be headmen?

Feedback: 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.”
Page reference: Why Is There Inequality Between Men and Women?

a. The Batek in Malaysia

b. The Nuer in Southern Sudan

c. The !Kung in Southern Africa

d. The Laymi in Bolivia

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 30

30) Which of the following is a dilemma facing an ethnographer of transgender people in the United States?

Feedback: Transgender is someone to whom society assigns one gender who does not perform as that gender but has taken either permanent or temporary steps to identify as another gender.
Page reference: What Does It Mean to Be Neither Male Nor Female?

a. To do good research, one should identify as transgender.

b. One's research or advocacy can reinforce social inequalities and suffering.

c. It is difficult to work with people who cross-dress as a reflection of their sexual fantasies.

d. Transgender people are often too welcoming of ethnographers, encouraging them to become transgender themselves.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 31

31) To understand aggression in society, we have to understand which of the following factor(s)?

Feedback: Aggression, dominance, and violence are complex psychological and social states that may involve the production of testosterone, but neither this hormone, nor any other single hormone for that matter, shapes any of these states. Both males and females are capable of aggression and dominance, and societies differ in what they consider to be culturally appropriate levels of aggression expressed by men and women. For example, the egalitarian !Kung San expect both men and women to be aggressive, although in different ways. !Kung San women engage in verbal abuse, while homicides are usually committed by men. Understanding when, why, and how !Kung San men and women ex-press aggression, cannot be reduced to biological factors influencing behavior; it is more important to understand the immediate social causes of conflict, the availability of weapons, culturally approved expressions of hostility, and the broader conditions, such as political-economic pressures, that drive social conflict.

Page reference: Do Hormones Really Cause Gendered Differences in Behavior?

a. The availability of weapons and cultural attitudes toward violence

b. Fixed and innate notions of violence behavior

c. The absence of the state in promoting or preventing conflicts

d. The biological basis of violence

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 32

32) A key finding of anthropologist Matthew Gutmann's fieldwork on masculinity in Mexico is that

Feedback: Another influence of focusing on what men and women actually do has involved a rethinking of men. For decades, anthropology involved men studying the lives of other men, but until recently, very few anthropologists had closely examined men as men; that is, how men and women collectively view and shape what “being a man” means, and how men actually perform, or act out, manhood. The anthropological study of masculinity, the ideas and practices of manhood, has not just opened new avenues of research for understanding how gender identities are constructed; it has also generated new perspectives on the issue of male–female inequality, including the notion that ideals of masculinity are dynamic and do not in themselves necessarily assume male dominance.

Page reference: Why Is There Inequality Between Men and Women?

a. women cause their own subordination by being submissive.

b. women support machismo by supporting domineering men.

c. women challenge men's domination over them by arguing and issuing ultimatums.

d. women prefer macho men.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 33

33) Hijras interest anthropologists mainly because they are

Feedback: In India, hijras (hee-drahs) are members of a third gender who have special social status by virtue of their devotion to Bahuchara Mata, one of many versions of the Mother Goddess worshipped throughout India. Hijras are defined as males who are sexually impotent, either because they were born intersex with ambiguous genitalia or because they underwent castration. Because they lack male genitals, hijras are viewed as “man minus man.” They are also seen as “male plus female” because they dress and talk like women, take on women’s occupations, and act like women in other ways—although they act as women in an exaggerated, comic, and burlesque fashion.
Page reference: What Does It Mean to Be Neither Male Nor Female?

a. exotic.

b. increasingly acting as prostitutes.

c. homosexual.

d. a reflection of a gender/sex system that sees meaning in combining male and female.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 34

34) Anthropologists reject the idea that same-sex sexuality is a fixed and exclusive condition because

Feedback: Sexuality is the sexual preferences, desires, and practices.
Page reference: What Does It Mean to Be Neither Male Nor Female?

a. gender is biologically determined.

b. of the research of Dr. Bronislaw Malinowski.

c. of cross-cultural research that shows sexual practices and sexuality is variable throughout a lifetime.

d. sexuality is established at birth and remains the same throughout the lifespan.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 35

35) One of the reasons it is important to develop culturally sensitive campaigns to address a health crisis like HIV/AIDS is that

Feedback: One of the difficulties anthropologists studying same-sex sexuality in other societies have faced is the problem of adequately naming what they are studying (Weston 1993). Most North Americans hold the view that people are born straight or gay, implying a fixed and stable condition and identity. This notion originated in the late nineteenth century, when medical science and psychology turned what people had previously considered “perverse” behaviors into bio-psychological conditions requiring medical intervention. In many other cultures, this idea of same-sex sexuality as a fixed and exclusive condition does not exist. Anthropologists have found in other cultures that same-sex sexual behaviors can exist side by side with heterosexual behaviors, suggesting that sexuality is not an either/or condition in all cultures.

Page reference: Is Human Sexuality Just a Matter of Being Straight or Queer?

a. gay sex causes the disease.

b. what some people think is gay sex is not considered to be the case by others.

c. gay sex is about passivity and activity.

d. gay sex is a reflection of a permanent condition.

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 11 Question 36

36) One of the reasons intersex individuals interest anthropologists is how unusual and strange it is in a sexually dimorphic species.

Feedback: Intersex are individuals who exhibit sexual organs and functions somewhere between male and female elements, often including elements of both.
Page reference: What Does It Mean to Be Neither Male Nor Female?

a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 11 Question 37

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

Feedback: Human sexuality is variable and patterned by cultural ideologies and social relations. It is also not a fixed or exclusive condition.
Page reference: Is Human Sexuality Just a Matter of Being Straight or Queer?

a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 11 Question 38

38) 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.

Feedback: 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.”
Page reference: Why Is There Inequality Between Men and Women?

a. True

b. False

Type: True/False

Title: Chapter 11 Question 39

39) The debate over male and female inequality was never adequately resolved because there was not enough evidence to prove either side.

Feedback: On one side are those who argue 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.” 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 viewed as civilized and superior.
Page reference: Is Human Sexuality Just a Matter of Being Straight or Queer?

a. True

b. False

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 40

40) A biocultural perspective on gender variance emphasizes all of the following except the

Feedback: The distinction Mead made between sex (biology) and gender (cultural expectations) was assumed by anthropologists for decades. 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,” or cultural expectations.

Page reference: How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?

a. unique social role occupied by people who are neither male nor female.

b. relative allocation of sex-specific hormones, such as testosterone and estrogen, that influence whether a person is male or female.

c. role of genetic mutations in producing intersex individuals.

d. distinction many societies make between gender variance and sexuality.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 41

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

Feedback: In 1949, French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir published an influential book called The Second Sex, in which she argued that throughout history, women have been considered “the second sex,” inferior in status and subordinate to men. Even before the publication of this book, during the Victorian era, a handful of women anthropologists had studied women’s status and roles in other societies. A few of these anthropologists, animated by the so-called first-wave feminism that was beginning to challenge male domination and win the right to vote, want-ed to understand whether all societies treated women as unequally as Euro-American societies did.
Page reference: Why Is There Inequality Between Men and Women?

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

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 42

42) If an anthropologist studies how teenage boys perform their gender in high school sports team membership, the anthropologist is exploring

Feedback: Masculinity includes the ideas and practices of manhood.
Page reference: Why Is There Inequality Between Men and Women?

a. sexuality.

b. masculinity.

c. discrimination.

d. prejudice.

Type: multiple choice question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 43

43) An anthropologist who studies how societies control sexuality would likely be most interested in the following situations:

Feedback: Family-planning programs can also be viewed as another manifestation of government control over sexuality—especially women’s sexuality, since such programs tend to focus on women’s bodies. China’s well-known “One Child Policy,” which, until it was phased out in 2015, limited most families to one child, reducing 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.

Page reference: Is Human Sexuality Just a Matter of Being Straight or Queer?

a. Obstacles in access to birth control

b. The activities in a club or bar whose clientele is gay or lesbian

c. How the research of Dr. Alfred Kinsey was immoral

d. The political activities of transgender activists

Type: Short Answer

Title: Chapter 11 Question 44

44) One of Margaret Mead'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.

Feedback: The distinction Mead made between sex (biology) and gender (cultural expectations) was assumed by anthropologists for decades. 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,” or cultural expectations.
Page reference: How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?

Type: Short Answer

Title: Chapter 11 Question 45

45) What are the primary strengths of viewing male–female differences through a biocultural lens?

Feedback: The distinction Mead made between sex (biology) and gender (cultural expectations) was assumed by anthropologists for decades. 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,” or cultural expectations. Biocultural approaches would stress the complex intersections of biological, psychological, and cultural processes.
Page reference: How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 46

46) How would you apply the insights about human sexuality in this chapter to a study of the LGBTQ community on your campus?

Feedback: During the 1970s and 80s, calls to decolonize anthropology increased in response to growing attention to the discipline’s historical role in colonialism and assumptions about its authority to represent the lives of other people. This work was followed by a number of influential works exploring the politics and ethics of representing and translating non-Western and poor women’s lives in anthropological writings). It also contributed to a shift in ethnographic focus toward studying the multiple forms of oppression and inequality experienced by marginalized women, often in highly intersectional ways.
Page reference: Is Human Sexuality Just a Matter of Being Straight or Queer?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 47

47) 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?

Feedback: On one side are 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.” Women are as-signed 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 viewed as civilized and superior.
Page reference: Is Human Sexuality Just a Matter of Being Straight or Queer?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 48

48) If you were asked to study the sexuality of US college students, what anthropologically informed concerns and perspectives would you bring to the issue?

Feedback: Human sexuality is 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. Kinsey and his colleagues surveyed the sexual lives and desires of American men and women, discovering that sexuality exists along a continuum.
Page reference: Is Human Sexuality Just a Matter of Being Straight or Queer?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 49

49) How is gender different from sex?

Feedback: Type general feedback here (maximum of 1000 characters, including spaces) Page reference: Type relevant section heading here

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 50

50) Why does American culture construct gender differences in the way that it does?

Feedback: Gender is the complex and fluid intersections of biological sex, internal senses of self, outward expressions of identity, and cultural expectations about how to perform that identity in appropriate ways. Sex is understood in Western cultures as the reproductive forms and functions of the body.
Page reference: How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?

Type: essay/short answer question

Title: Chapter 11 Question 51

51) Gender/sex inequalities are reproduced and performed in everyday life. How? Discuss using examples.

Feedback: The distinction Mead made between sex (biology) and gender (cultural expectations) was assumed by anthropologists for decades. 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,” or cultural expectations.
Page reference: How and Why Do Males and Females Differ?