Walk Like a Man

Enculturation: Learning Culture

FILM: Strangers Abroad, Margaret Mead

Enculturation is the process by which culture is passed down from generation to generation. Understanding enculturation is one way to help us understand why we have different worldviews which underlie our different ways of viewing the world. These different views are often the source of CONFLICT in our globalizing world. Enculturation also helps us understand the core values in a culture (basis for ideological definition) as well as strategies for adaptation.

There are two basic strategies for enculturation that aim to produce different kinds of MODAL PERSONALITIES (the kinds of adults that will be successful in their culture).

Dependence Training--focuses on creating adults who are committed to the group, who see their individual needs as second to the groups concerns.

·        cooperation encouraged

·        group membership and interdependence stressed

·        tasks assigned progressively to children at a young age

·        prolonged breast feeding/lactation

·        expression of sexuality discouraged (although sexual experimentation may be free)

Independence Training---focuses on creating adults who are independent and self-sufficient and focused on individual achievement.

·        competition encouraged

·        individuality encouraged

·        prolonged childhood with little responsibility if any to group

·        curtailed breast feeding and lactation

·        encourage expression of sexuality

Things that are enculturated that we can see in our readings:

·        gender norms/identity/roles

·        racial identities/racism

·        notions about sexuality

·        “identity formation” (as a function of cultural interaction)

cultures are logical systems and will apply training method that makes sense for them. The actual training techniques and where the culture falls on the spectrum of IT or DT varies. All cultures have some degree of individual and cooperative ideals.

ILLNESS AND MODAL PERSONALITY

Illness: any significant deviation from the NORM (modal personality) whether it be physical or psychological (mental illness). A lack of proper physical characteristics may also indicate that you are "ill". Or the lack of ability to meet social norms (homosexual/antisocial/etc)

·        Culture-bound

o   anorexia/bulimia

o   kuru

o   amok

o   PMS

o   ADD/ADHD

READ ABOUT MAURITANIA!

READ ABOUT CRYING TO SLEEP IN AMERICAN CULTURE

Gender Norms Boxes

Men and Women

Two contrasting cases (genes and gender)

Case#1: In 1999, an appellate court in Texas invalidated a seven-year marriage between Christine Littleton, a transgender woman, and her deceased husband. The case arose when Ms. Littleton brought a wrongful death suit seeking damages for her husband's death as a result of alleged medical malpractice. Rather than ruling on the merits of Ms. Littleton's suit, the court held that a person's legal sex is genetically fixed at birth and that Ms. Littleton should be deemed to be legally male, despite her female anatomy and appearance, and despite the fact that she had lived as a woman for most of her adult life. As a result of that decision, Ms. Littleton was denied all of the rights afforded to a legal spouse -- not only the right to bring a wrongful death suit, but the right to intestate inheritance (or inheritance without a will), to obtain her deceased husband's Social Security and retirement benefits, and many others as well.

Case #2: in 1997, a trial court in Orange County, Calif., affirmed the validity of a marriage involving a transgender man. The case arose when the wife sought to invalidate the marriage in order to deprive her husband of his parental rights vis-a-vis the couple's child, who was born through alternative insemination. The trial court rejected the wife's argument that the transgender husband should be considered legally female and refused to nullify the marriage. The court held that California law recognizes the post-operative sex of a transsexual person for all legal purposes, including marriage. Notably, however, if the court had ruled differently, or if the transgender spouse had not undergone extensive and expensive sex reassignments surgeries prior to the marriage, it is likely that he would have lost any right to maintain a relationship with his child.

Assignment: imagine that they are the judges deciding the two cases in question. They must summarize their judgment and their reasons for deciding as they did. These decisions are incorporated into a broader discussion on what it is that makes people male or female.

What are the -- and are not -- acceptable for you to do in a public restroom? 

• the stall they are in has no toilet paper (mostly the women in the class say they would politely ask the person next to them, which is followed by disgusted and shocked looks by the men in the class who usually say they wouldn't dream of doing something like that). 
• differences when asked  about whether you talk to other people at all, or whether you'd compliment a stranger on their outfit.