Week 11 Quiz

Which statement gives the course's definition of gender?

Select one.

• Biological traits such as chromosomes, hormones, and anatomy
• The roles, behaviors, and identities a culture organizes around sex
• Patterns of attraction and the cultural rules around them
• A rule about whom a person may marry, set by the person's descent group

In the 1910s, Trobriand Islanders traced descent matrilineally, and a man's heir was his sister's son. What does this documented case show?

Select one.

• That women ruled Trobriand society in the 1910s, because descent and inheritance passed through the women of each group
• That descent and authority were the same thing in the Trobriand Islands
• That membership passed through women, which by itself says nothing about women ruling
• That matrilineal descent excluded men from the descent group

True or false: the man-the-hunter model, in which big-game hunting was done mainly by men and gathering mainly by women, is a description of every foraging society.

True or false.

• True
• False

How often women hunted in foraging societies is debated. Why does the course teach this debate without keying a verdict?

Select one.

• Because the classic model has already been proven wrong in every case
• Because the classic model has already been proven right in every case
• Because the question is a matter of personal taste with no evidence on either side
• Because each side has a strong case: a widely recorded pattern on one side, and documented exceptions and the observer's own position on the other

Which statement describes the term Two-Spirit as the course teaches it?

Select one.

• An English umbrella term Indigenous people adopted to describe a range of gender and sexual identities within their own nations' traditions
• An ancient word from one Indigenous language, translated into English by outside observers
• A label outside researchers created to classify Indigenous communities
• A Samoan term for a documented case of gender diversity in Samoa

What did Mead (1935), Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies, argue?

Select one.

• That temperament is fixed by sex in the same way in every society, whatever its history, so none of it is learned
• That temperament linked to sex differs across societies, so much of it is learned
• That gender roles never change within a society over time
• That the three societies she studied had no gender roles at all

In the illustrative kinship set (Dataset B), the parents' generation has 5 married couples. Under matrilocal residence, which partner moves in each couple?

Select one.

• The wife, because the couple lives near the wife's mother's kin
• Neither partner, because under this rule the couple sets up a new home of its own, apart from both partners' kin
• The husband, because the couple lives near the wife's mother's kin
• Whichever partner is older, because residence rules follow age

At the market's family-run stall (Dataset A, illustrative), the founding grower directs, her son, his wife, and her daughter hold the second generation's 3 working roles, and her granddaughter and grandson hold 2 more. The stall has 6 working roles in all. What percent of the working roles sit in the second generation?

Select one.

• 37.5 percent
• 50 percent
• about 17 percent
• about 33 percent

A student reads about fa'afafine in Samoa and wants to follow cultural relativism as a method. What should the student do first?

Select one.

• Describe the case in the community's own terms before making any judgment
• Decide that no judgment of any kind is ever possible across cultures
• Judge the case by the student's own culture's categories
• Translate the term into the closest word from the student's own language and use that instead

An illustrative workplace rewrote its dress code from 2 lists, one for men and one for women, into 1 list for everyone, and some staff wanted the change while others did not. Which characteristics of culture does this case show?

Select one.

• That culture is inherited biologically and cannot change
• That culture is the arts and high culture
• That culture is uniform, so everyone in a group agrees
• That culture is learned, shared but never uniform, and changing