Week 11 · Readings & resources

Week 11 — Readings & Resources

Cultural Anthropology Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 11 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 11 items (5 readings and 6 videos). Allow 88–102 minutes for everything. Each group points back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (20–23 min total)

① Keeping sex, gender, and sexuality apart

Chapter 11, Section “Keep three ideas apart: sex, gender, and sexuality” · Session 1, Segment 1, “Three ideas, kept apart” · Remember: sex is the body's traits, gender is what a culture builds around them, and sexuality is attraction and its rules.

What is gender? What is sex? — Canadian Institutes of Health Research — a national health research agency's own definitions of sex and gender; set each definition beside the chapter's, and mark any place where the agency's wording goes further than the course's three definitions. Read it as that agency's definitions, the way you read an issuing body's census categories. Use it while completing the Week-11 module overview. (reading, 4–6 min)
How are we culturally taught to perform gender? — AnthroDorphins — an anthropologist's video on how cultures teach people to present their gender and divide work by it; each time it names the body's traits, a gender role or identity, or attraction, pause and say which of the course's three ideas is meant. Its brief accounts of particular peoples are told in the present tense and go beyond what the course pins, so treat them as the video's own and not as course facts. (video, 17 min) (captions: creator)
Theories of Gender: Crash Course Sociology #33 — CrashCourse — a sociology episode on three ways of explaining why societies organize gender, including the view that gender sorts people into complementary roles; compare that view with the functionalist lens from the midterm week and say what each lens shows. The episode also makes claims the course does not key: it calls Two-Spirit a third gender (the course teaches it as an English umbrella term), it takes a side in the hunting debate, and it gives wage figures with no year or source, so treat each as the episode's own claim. (video, 11 min) (captions: creator)

② The debate over who hunted

Chapter 11, Section “Test the classic foraging model: the gendered division of labor” · Session 1, Segment 3, “The gendered division of labor” · Remember: the man-the-hunter model is a model with exceptions, and how often women hunted is debated with no verdict.

The Myth of Man the Hunter: Women's contribution to the hunt across ethnographic contexts — Explaining Human Culture (Human Relations Area Files) — a cross-cultural research database's entry for a study that coded women's hunting across many foraging societies; read the study's hypotheses and note the status the entry now gives them. This is one side of the debate, so read the next entry before you decide anything. (reading, 5–8 min)
Female foragers sometimes hunt, yet gendered divisions of labor are real (a comment on The Myth of Man the Hunter) — Explaining Human Culture (Human Relations Area Files) — the same database's entry for a reply that re-checked the first study's coding; write each side's strongest case in one sentence, and notice what the two entries agree on. (reading, 5–8 min)
The Secrets of Prehistoric Women — TVO Today — an interview with an archaeologist about evidence on women's roles in the deep past, which argues against older stereotypes; treat it as one side of the wider debate, and list one claim you would want to check against a source before trusting it, such as the share of food it credits to women. (video, 22 min) (captions: creator)

③ Gender diversity in communities' own terms

Chapter 11, Section “Describe gender diversity in each community's own terms” · Session 1, Segment 4, “Gender diversity in communities' own terms” · Remember: Two-Spirit is a 1990 English umbrella term chosen by Indigenous people, and each case is described in the community's own terms.

New stamp remembers pivotal moment when the Two-Spirit term was first introduced and adopted — Canada Post — a stamp story about the gathering near Winnipeg where the term was introduced and adopted; find the year, the place, and who chose the term, and compare each with the definition of Two-Spirit you learned this week. (reading, 4–6 min)
What is Two-Spirit identity? — TVO Today — a short explainer on the term and its history; listen for how the video separates the recent English term from the older traditions it refers to. It also calls the term an English version of a word from one language, while the course teaches it as an umbrella term across many nations' traditions, and it gives a health figure with no year or issuing body; note both as the video's own claims. (video, 4 min) (captions: creator)
Two Spirit, from the Injunuity series — Vision Maker Media — Native speakers from several nations describe what the term means to them, in their own words; note how many different nations the video's description lists for its speakers, and why one umbrella term can cover many traditions. What each speaker says about history is that speaker's own view. (video, 4 min) (captions: creator)

④ Gender, authority, and who moves

Chapter 11, Section “Separate gender from authority and descent: who moves at marriage” · Session 2, Segment 6, “Gender, authority, and who moves” · Remember: matrilineal descent is not rule by women, and a residence rule, not the body, decides which partner moves.

Haudenosaunee: Women and Governance — Buffalo Toronto Public Media — Haudenosaunee speakers describe women's roles in governance, including clan mothers; as you watch, sort each point into descent (how membership passes) or authority (who holds which role). The speakers also say the U.S. government drew on Haudenosaunee governance; that claim is outside this course, so note it as the speakers' own view. This builds on Week 9's work with kinship and descent. (video, 4 min) (captions: creator)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

Feminist Perspectives on Sex and Gender, The sex/gender distinction — online Encyclopedia of Philosophy (reference entry) — a reference-work entry; read only section 1, which sets out how the sex and gender distinction arose, and skip the later sections, which take up philosophical debates this course does not argue. (reading, 8–12 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

Provenance: Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com