Thursday, February 17, 2011

Book Reading 19 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 6 - The Girl in Her Community
Summary

Mead explains the girl’s role in the community.  Women have very specific roles, while men also have their own specific roles.  For the most part, these are strictly kept separate.  The treatment of various actions, such as adultery, are treated very differently depending on whether or not a woman or man committed it.

Discussion
While we do have unspoken but not concrete roles for males and females (not in a sexist way, but just understood stereotypes), the Samoans seem to take this to an extreme.  The types of labor men and women can do are not only kept separate, but each sex must not mingle within the other’s labor.  They even go as far as to have the men hold out in a house somewhere to stay far away from the women when they are performing some of the tasks.  It’s interesting how normal this is for them but how odd it would be for any of us to see this here.

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