ABSTRACT
When I first started studying anthropology, the teacher defined it as “the study of man,” and this was the classic, well-accepted definition. Books had titles such as Kenneth Oakley’s Man the Tool-Maker (1964). It never occurred to me then that there was any problem with this designation. Shortly after I left graduate school, a new compilation of work, Man the Hunter by Richard Lee and Irvin DeVore (1968), was published, and I do remember wondering slightly about the title. Looking back on it and reviewing those books, it is rather striking that, to the extent women were discussed at all, it was either in their role as gatherers of roots, nuts, tubers, and berries, or in association with the discussion of kinship, marriage, and the family. These were not necessarily seen as insignificant areas of cultural endeavor, but the possibility that women had wider roles in cultural life was not really considered. When women’s roles that diverged from these domains were considered (for example, the roles of Ibo market women), the cases were seen as representing unusual instances. This vision of human life tended to minimize women’s roles. The result was that many of the ways in which women’s activities shape social and cultural life were overlooked until the last few decades.
