The Differences Within and the Differences Between

A further point concerning the analytical dichotomies which inform the anthropological analysis of gender and gender inequality is that they are always hierarchically or inclusively organized. Thus, culture is superior to nature, and the public world of men encompasses the private world of women (Ortner 1974; Strathern 1981; Collier and Yanagisako 1987b:28). Notions of hierarchy and encompassment, therefore, inform anthropological understandings of gender difference, of the distinction between the categories female and male, of the differences between women’s and men’s world-views, and of the differences between women’s and men’s sociological roles. The problem of hierarchy has been recognized in some recent debates, where both Marxist and non-Marxist scholars have suggested that one of the more notable failures of the anthropology of gender has been the inability to think about difference without implying hierarchy (Leacock 1978; Etienne and Leacock 1980; Bell 1983; Strathern 1987). The chapters in this volume make it very clear that the problems of hierarchy and encompassment still shadow discussions of difference and sameness in anthropological theorizing, and that these problems seriously undermine the ability of anthropologists to comprehend gender equalities, as well as inequalities.