Does anybody know what is the point of view of Eleanor Leacock about women in egalitarian societies?

Question

Does anybody know what is the point of view of Eleanor Leacock about women in egalitarian societies?

Answer 1

Eleanor "Happy" Leacock was born in 1922 in New Jersey. Her mother Lily was a mathematician, and her father was a notable writer, Kenneth Burke. Leacock did her undergraduate work at Radcliffe and completed her graduate training at Columbia University. She married film maker Richard Leacock in 1941. She is known for her ethnographic work in Labrador with the Montagnais-Naskapi people, influenced by William Duncan Strong. During this 1950 study, Leacock found the Montagnais-Naskapi's life was changed due to the fur trade.

Though she now has the status of a "classic" anthropologist, Leacock struggled to get a full time job. She taught as an adjunct for decades before taking a full time job at City College in 1972. Her appointment occurred after writing her celebrated introduction to Frederick Engels' The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State.She single-handedly resuscitated Engels' theory that linked female domination to the rise of classes and the state in which he termed as "the historic defeat of the female s*x."

One of Leacock's most fruitful contributions to the field of anthropology was her essay entitled, "Interpreting the Origins of Gender Inequality: Conceptual and Historical Problems" (1983). In this piece, she argues the importance of male and female relationships. Leacock also brings up the difference between s*x (biological), and gender (culturally prescribed norms for s*x). Leacock uses a Marxist approach to her ethnographies, blaming capitalism for the result of female subordination. (McGee & Warms Anthropological Theory 4th ed. McGraw Hill: 2008).

further reading:http://anthropology.usf.edu/women/leacoc...

http://www.indiana.edu/~wanthro/theory_p...

http://www.intellectualconservative.com/...

Answer 2

Leacock, being a Marxist intellectual, saw things through " red " colored glasses.

Lewontin, Gould, Rose and Kamin also have this bias and proudly say so. Science is not done that way.

Answer 3

Leacock's essay "Women In Egalitarian Societies" was published as chapter one of Becoming Visible, a textbook used in Womens History classes (Bridenthal and Koonz, eds). One of her principal examples of a supposedly nonpatriarchal society (i.e., one where leadership does not rest primarily with the male) was the Montagnais-Naskapi Native Americans of the Labrador peninsula of Canada. Now, the Montagnais-Naskapi of today (on whom she had done field work) are clearly patriarchal, so she cites the 17th century accounts of Jesuit missionaries to make a claim that this society was once gender-equal, but was subsequently "completely transformed" by their contact with Western colonial powers. Leacock also cites the supposedly nonpatriarchal 17th century Montagnais-Naskapi as one of the principal proofs in her book, Myths of Male Dominance.

Go here for the full story  http://www.fathermag.com/9607/Leacock/  

It amazes me how many people don't try google, this was the first thing that came up and I think it covers it all if you read the link.  Good luck!