What is the feminist approach in anthropology?

Question

What is the feminist approach in anthropology? How do you react to the concept of women being “invisible” to the anthropologists studying their cultures?

Answer 1

Feminist approach is taking a closer look how women have impacted our culture and because women are largely ignored in terms of written history, this gives them a disadvantage because perception can be flawed in terms of enlightment.

Answer 2

Feminist anthropology emerged as a truly self-conscious field of anthropology during the 1970s. (Although, from the 1870s onward, some have argued that there were nascent feminist anthropologists.)  It coincided with the advent of second wave feminism in the U.S.  During this time period, anthropologists (particularly although not limited to women) began to look at the knowledge being produced about humanity and found that overwhelmingly ethnographers and archaeological accounts had an andro-centric bias and didn't really explain what women in other cultures (and our culture) were doing either cross-culturally or historically.  

To remedy this, early feminist anthropologists began to explicitly look for what women were doing around the world (past and present).  They also sought to answer such questions as "is male domination universal?" and "are there cross-cultural similarities in women's productive, economic, and political roles?"

This intentional and explicit mandate to consider women's as well as men's roles cross culturally and historically is one of the most important aspects of feminist anthropology.  Feminist anthropology also seeks to explicitly explore, analyze, and theorize power relations (including but limited to gendered relations).  

In terms of how I react to the concept of women being invisible to the anthropologists studying their cultures, I would say that this is outdated. While early anthropologists failed to account for women's social, economic, and political contributions, contemporary anthropologists (feminist and non-feminist) are quite attentive. Studying women in certain societies can be more challenging than studying men since they may not have as public of roles; however, I think the concept of "invisibility" is outdated.  

Anyway, today feminist anthropologists study everything from the trafficking of women to women's militarization. Much like every field of anthropology, it includes a wide range of questions.

Here's a link to the Association for Feminist Anthropology's website:

http://sscl.berkeley.edu/~afaweb/

It's a section of the American Anthropological Association.

Answer 3

It goes back thus far:

And God the Father said,  "Let there be man", and there was, and it was good. God then said, "Let there be a woman" and there was, and it was good.

Then the woman rose up and spaketh saying,

"Nah, yous blokes are all wrong, you are all rapists and liars - trying to exploit me!".

And God the Father shook his head and said to Adam, "Look sorry about that mate, how 'bout I make it up to you and give them the periods?"

Answer 4

I can answer that in 4 words.

Men bad, women good.

Answer 5

The feminist approach to anthro generally goes back to an ancient 'Mother Goddess'.  

They ASSUME (but can't prove or disprove) that there was an over archive Female god that everyone worshipped prior to the Male Gods in most ancient mythologies.  They point to the slaying monsters and claim the monsters are male-representations of those female deities (which are slaughtered to make the world, etc).

But- as I said they have no proof.  Their only archaeological proof are female figurines, but since they have no written record with them, nor anything indicating their purpose; its shaky ground (at best).

Women might be invisible to people studying them because often women are not the writers of history; but archaeologically, women leave a greater footprint than males do in many cultures.

In other words, Feminist Anthro is a nice idea; but can't be proven (or disproven).