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At 12/24/05 04:05 AM, cheesemold wrote: Females choosing their mates... was this a fairly universal social trait among nomadic cultures?

I'd imagine so. It's a common primate behavior and if there wasn't males competing for mating rights, then I don't think we would have survived this long.

Apparently, females still choose their mates to this day, but on a much lesser scale. Did you hear about the research on males who like to dance? (Sorry I have no link, it was in a French newspaper). Apparently, they have a more symmetric body - symmetry usually means better genetics because disease and deformities result in unsymmetrical bodies- and this appeals more to females, so basically they get chosen more than other males. Weird stuff...

At 12/21/05 10:56 PM, PCHoliday wrote: To what extent are they socially constructed, and to what extent are they natural?

well, some of them are natural, like women not being as strong as men (not all women), so they stayed in the kitchen and cooked while the men went out and cut down trees and plowed the flield. most of them are social like women not being able to vote, or go to a movie (that was only 100 years ago).

At 12/21/05 10:56 PM, PCHoliday wrote: To what extent are they socially constructed

It's all based on the needs of a society. For example, in Tibet, there is still a group that seems odd to us but makes perfect sense. Land is scare there, and dividing up the farmland would take too much time and be nearly impossible to do. That is why in the family, the brothers all marry one woman. She becomes the head of the household, in a sense.

The Iroquois women were looked on as important members of society, not just trophy wives and homemakers. It isn't uncommon for women to have a more powerful position in society than men, but they tend to be as follows: men hunt and fight, women take care of the homestead. Why? Men are naturally stronger than women, on average. Heck, even Lions run things that way, but the females still rule.

and to what extent are they natural?

I think as the basis, the women are more stable, which is why we sent men out to fight. But their importance in society always varies from one to another. If you're afraid that your child will not be your own, you keep your woman at home. That's what happened in Euro-American society and culture, for the most part.