"I'm Not the Great Hunter, My Wife Is": Iñupiat and anthropological models of gender [Research article]
By Barbara Bodenhorn
Hunther-gatherer societies have often been used to support theoretical discussions about gender relations. This article examines four models, widespread in the anthropological literature, about the relative position of men and women (men hunt; men dominate Inuit societies; men control the public sphere; men "work"). The ethnography of the Alaskan North Slope shows that none of these models works with the Inupiat as they are based on unexamined assumptions about the meaning of hunting, marriage and gender. For example, hunting cannot be reduced to the catching and slaughtering of animals, but rather includes a whole set of activities, both technical and symbolic, in which the interpedence of men and women is fundamental.