Women's Status in Egalitarian Society: Implications for Social Evolution [and Comments and Reply]

Leacock, Eleanor; Abernethy, Virginia; Bardhan, Amita; Berndt, Catherine H.; Brown, Judith K.; Chinas, B; Cohen, Ronald; Leeuwe, J.; Egli-Frey, Regula; Farrer, Claire R.; Fennell, Valerie; Giovannini, Maureen J.; Hauser-Schäublin, Brigitta; Hellbom, Anna‐Britta; Jensen, Knud-Erik; Jørgensen, Kirsten; McElroy, Ann; Martinez‐Alier, Verena; Natarajan, Nalini; Strathern, Marilyn; Wadley, Susan S.

doi:10.1086/202074

Cited by 158 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…30-33;West and Zimmerman, 2014, p. 121), or cultural factors (Fuchs Epstein, 2014, p. 168;Moore, 1991, p. 37), and the confinement of women to the domestic sphere (Kimmel, 2004, pp. 120-121;Leacock, 1978;Martín-Casares, 2006, pp. 165-166) are recurrent topics in Feminist critical theory.…”

Section: Women Categories: From Wives To Unwomenmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Subjugation of Women through Lexical Innovation in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale

Rúa

2021

Fem

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Given the importance of novel formations in science and speculative fiction, the aim of this paper is to analyse a selection of morphosemantic and semantic neologisms that occur in the feminist dystopia The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), namely those items more closely connected with women’s lives. These items are gathered, classified and discussed by resorting to the tools provided by Morphology, Lexical Semantics, Onomastics and Women’s Studies. Therefore, the paper explores how new names for people (Econowives, Offred), activities (Particicution), artifacts (Birthmobile) and places (the Colonies) play a part in the linguistic task of female subjugation. It shows how in a fictional republic where gender roles and religious totalitarianism are taken to extremes, the forms and meanings of words are manipulated to enhance power relations and gender inequality, impose an orthodox frame of mind (comply with the system), and avoid uncomfortable truths. Neologisms provide a sense of authenticity in the narrative and show how language evolves to satisfy various needs, not only pragmatic, but also social, ideological and euphemistic.

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Section: Women Categories: From Wives To Unwomenmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Subjugation of Women through Lexical Innovation in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale

Rúa

2021

Fem

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“…In other words, the extent to which a national increase in the number of women surgeons was instantiated in each hospital influenced the degree of cooperation across status and power positions within the organizations, and whether they adopted more hierarchy-attenuating practices. Mohican confederacies; e.g., Leacock, 1978). Given that many such societies are found on many continents, trade, and that agricultural societies can have specialization of labor, it is untrue that agrarian, hunter-gatherer, and other "pre-modern" societies with other means of production do not acquire surplus (e.g., Bowles, Smith, & Borgerhoff Mulder, 2010).…”

Section: The Hierarchy-enhancing/hierarchy-attenuating Oppression Equ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given that many such societies are found on many continents, trade, and that agricultural societies can have specialization of labor, it is untrue that agrarian, hunter-gatherer, and other "pre-modern" societies with other means of production do not acquire surplus (e.g., Bowles, Smith, & Borgerhoff Mulder, 2010). According to social dominance theory, such societies should be group-based dominance hierarchies, but some of them are classless and gender-egalitarian (e.g., Collier, 1988;Leacock, 1978).…”

Section: The Hierarchy-enhancing/hierarchy-attenuating Oppression Equ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

When Inequality Fails: Power, Group Dominance, and Societal Change

Pratto

Stewart

Zeineddine

2013

J. Soc. Polit. Psych.

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Social dominance theory was developed to account for why societies producing surplus take and maintain the form of group-based dominance hierarchies, in which at least one socially-constructed group has more power than another, and in which men are more powerful than women and adults more powerful than children. Although the theory has always allowed for societies to differ in their severity of group-based dominance and how it is implemented, it has predicted that alternative forms of societal organization will occur rarely and not last. This paper revisits aspects of the theory that allow for the possibility of societal alternatives and change. We also consider boundary conditions for the theory, and whether its current theoretical apparatus can account for societal change. By expanding the typical three-level dynamic system to describe societies (micro-meso-macro) into four levels (including meta) to consider how societies relate to one another, we identify political tensions that are unstable power structures rather than stable hierarchies. In research on institutions, we identify smaller-scale alternative forms of social organization. We identify logical, empirical, and theoretical shortcomings in social dominance theory's account of stability and change, consider alternative forms of social organization, and suggest fruitful avenues for theoretical extension.

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Women and Men

Knack¹

2004

A Companion to the Anthropology of American Indians

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Women's Status in Egalitarian Society: Implications for Social Evolution [and Comments and Reply]

Cited by 158 publications

References 0 publications

The Subjugation of Women through Lexical Innovation in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale

The Subjugation of Women through Lexical Innovation in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale

When Inequality Fails: Power, Group Dominance, and Societal Change

Women and Men

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