ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how contributors to this volume use a variety of feminist theoretical approaches to challenge androcentric conceptions of power and constructions of past cultures in the shape of modern Western stereotypes about gender identities and relationships. These stereotypes are derived from the binary opposition in the dominant Victorian gender ideology, which identified men as public, active, powerful, and dominant over women, who were considered intrinsically subordinate, domestic, passive, and powerless. This hierarchical gender ideology has been projected into the past to interpret all men’s activities and roles as powerful and high status, while devaluing women’s roles and activities as unimportant and low status (Spencer-Wood 1993). For instance, Kent points out that when hunter-gatherer women hunt, even with the same tools as men, it has been devalued as a type of female gathering, while men’s hunting role retains its pre-eminence. In this framework men’s views and behaviors are represented as the ungendered cultural norm or ideal, while women’s different views and behaviors are marginalized as gendered deviations from the norm (Conkey and Spector 1984:4). The case studies in this volume show how deeply assumed Victorian gender stereotypes have pervasively shaped anthropological interpretations of other cultures and historic documents (Spencer-Wood 1992).
