Another influential book by Mead was Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies. This became a major cornerstone of the feminist movement, since it claimed that females are dominant in the Tchambuli (now spelled Chambri) Lake region of the Sepik basin of Papua New Guinea (in the western Pacific) without causing any special problems. The lack of male dominance may have been the result of the Australian administration's outlawing of warfare. According to contemporary research, males are dominant throughout Melanesia (although some believe that female witches have special powers). Others have argued that there is still much cultural variation throughout Melanesia, and especially in the large island of New Guinea. Moreover, anthropologists often overlook the significance of networks of political influence among females. The formal male-dominated institutions typical of some areas of high population density were not, for example, present in the same way in Oksapmin, West Sepik Province, a more sparsely populated area. Cultural patterns there were different from, say, Mt. Hagen. They were closer to those described by Mead.In brief, her comparative study revealed a full range of contrasting gender roles:
- "Among the Arapesh, both men and women were peaceful in temperament and neither men nor women made war.
- "Among the Mundugumor, the opposite was true: both men and women were warlike in temperament.
- "And the Tchambuli were different from both. The men 'primped' and spent their time decorating themselves while the women worked and were the practical ones – the opposite of how it seemed in early 20th century America." From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Margaret Mead
I wonder, did Margaret Mead ever really visit and understand these peoples or did she just write about them?
Plenty of people write things about which they scarcely understand.
I saw a TV program a few years back in which they interviewed three old women who were 3 of the young girls that Margaret Mead interviewed for her research. They said that she had asked such personal questions that they out and out lied to her telling her that they could have sex before marriage and that they were had liberal sexual mores when the exact opposite was true they in fact had very strict sexual laws. They also said she popped onto the island did some interviews and then left - at no time did she study them or live with them to see how things actually are.
Mel