Three Primitive Societies

Mead was able to prove that “genes don’t cause behaviors” (Kimmel 2013, 29). For that purpose, Mead agrees that one does not “simply inherit a male or a female sex role, but we actively–interactively–constantly define and redefine what it means to be men or women in our daily encounters with one another” (Kimmel 2013, 139). Gender is not an essential category and there is no universally distinct characteristic that is masculine or feminine. For that reason, I chose Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies as one my favorite work because it illustrates the “attempt to mingle anthropological research work with educational planning makes the book attractive for large groups of people, but may sometimes lead the student in anthropology …show more content…
Upon reading this article, Mead immediately clarified her objectives and methodology regarding this research. Mead’s main purpose in writing this book is “to give to the reader the positive findings from a comparative study of culture about similarities, about the essentials in maleness and femaleness with which every society must reckon, and regularities as well as differences” (Seward 1950, 280). Considering this, as an anthropologist Mead was able to study subjectivity because she wants to understand what people view through their life experience and culture. According to Ruby, “the fundamental fact that shapes the future of anthropology is that it deals in knowledge of others. Such knowledge has always implied ethical and political responsibilities, and today the ‘others’ whom anthropologists have studied make those responsibilities explicit and unavoidable” (Ruby 2000, 140). As an anthropologist, it is Mead’s duty to understand that her main objective is to be a cultural relativist, which she clearly outlines in her work. An important lesson that Mead gathered and analyzed from this research is that “an important lesson preliterate peoples can teach us is that underlying wide diversity in superstructure, all cultures share certain basic regularities in …show more content…
Mead was able to come to a conclusion that gender is socially constructed and both men and women are equally capable of accomplishing any task that one desires. Mead has helped me to look at the social construction of gender differently, especially as a Christian. I have become more aware and open to my thoughts and ideas. Mead was also an Episcopalian Christian like myself and she has learned and developed different concepts based on the growth and the development of children and gender. Mead’s not only revealed her methodology, but she was also