Vernacular Gender

In: Alternatives: global, local, political, Band 8, Heft 3, S. 381-448

Abstract

Industrial society, or the regime of scarcity, is contrasted with the regime of gender that existed before it. In industrial society, human beings are defined as neutral entities on which the characteristic of sex has been superimposed; in all such societies, women are relatively disadvantaged. This is true equally in the reported economy, the unreported economy, & the nether economy of household production. It does not appear possible to end sexual inequality within industrial society. In preindustrial society, in contrast, almost no work existed that could be done by both men & women; the two did not even use the same tools. This is part of a category that can be called gender, which is distinct from sex & establishes two parallel social realities of men & of women. Vernacular culture is wholly organized around gender differences; this encompasses tools, economies, kinship, & marriage. Both space & time are divided between genders. The modern environment, in contrast, does not make allowance for separate realms of men & women, & in particular does not allow birth to take place in a separate domain of women. Interpretations of these past societies, insofar as they are based on sex rather than on gender, are unavoidably misleading. There appears to be no way in which industrial society's destruction of gender can be reversed, but the loss needs to be recognized if accurate social thought is to be possible. W. H. Stoddard.