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Gregory Holmes

Professor Wiewall

Cultural Anthropology

6/3/15

Exam Essay 3 (Question 2)

Anthropology is a very important subject, or even a way of life, that many people can

learn from. I’m here today to tell you what I think are the four most important things are. The

first point is that anthropology helps you see how cultures effect one another on a daily basis.

This is especially important for people living in the United States, as the population here often

forgets there are other types of cultures out there, creating a huge egocentrism point of view for a

majority of the average person. Anthropology gives people a chance to look past themselves,

giving them tools to step back, and the information to look at other cultures. Its what is called a

holistic perspective. Hollism is, “study of the whole of the human condition: past, present, and

future; biology, science, language, and culture,” (Golden “Thinking Holistically” 15). It is

important because the world isn’t just your backyard, or the town you live in. It isn’t even the

continent that you’re living in. The world is vast, full of so many differing ideas and ways to do

things. It is extremely important that you learn to look at the full picture, and not judge based on

your experience alone.

The second point is the idea of an expanded gender system, and gender overall. It’s hard

to clearly fit people into one of two genders, especially with how vastly different individuals are,

and to try and label people based purely on what sexual organs are can be very unforgiving. This

is because people are born with more variety than just XX and XY. For instance, there are people

With XXX, XXY, and XYY. There are people born with both sexual organs, and some born with

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neither. This is why people need to be informed that there is a difference between sexuality and

gender. Gender is the social, while sexuality is the biological. To try and change these people

physically, and to try to force them into a preconceived notion of how people of their gender is

supposed to act is cruel. Many cultures throughout the world do not have such restrictions on

their society. Some cultures have genders based on age, such as a gender for children, one for

each of the fertile men and women, and one for the elders. Many cultures have genders that

represent men who are women and vice-versa. There are also some cultures, especially in Native

American cultures, have the regular male and female genders, but also the genders such as Two-

Spirits, which is a gender that is slightly different than the others. For example, there are people

called berdache. “A berdache was a male who adopted social roles assigned to women and,

through performance of a third gender, contributed to the social and spiritual well being of the

community,” (Kottak 177). This gender is the embodiment of both male and female qualities,

which is where the name two-spirits comes from; they are said to have two spirits inside of them

with both, one male and one female. These differences and greater variety of choices for the

people to identify with gives the societies which have these choices a much greater freedom, and

helps allow them to be more comfortable and become who they truly want to be.

The third point is marriage is not a black and white issue. While I feel like the

‘traditional’ idea of marriage is thankfully changing over time to allow the rights of same sex

unions, it’s especially important to know that there are even more types of marriages out there.

The reason it is important is because marriage is an issue that is very important to societies all

over the world, including ours. It controls many things, especially economic systems, so to

understand marriage is to understand how certain cultures work. As well as heterosexual and

homosexual marriage, there is also polygamy, which involves more than two people. There are

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multiple types of polygamy; some involve a man having multiple wives (which is called

polygyny) and the other involved a woman having multiple husbands (which is called

polyandry). It is important to know that many marriages are not done for love, but often times for

economic reasons, like extra hands to work on a farm, or to help raise male heirs. In the article

by Melvyn C. Goldstein entitled “When Brothers Share a Wife”, the Tibetan men, usually

brothers, will all share a wife. The reason for this? “…it prevented the division of his family’s

farm (and animals) and thus facilitated all of them achieving a higher standard of living,”

(Goldstein 1). Basically, the brothers marry the same wife so that there is less land to divide

between their children, because there will be less children. This helps keep the population under

control, and also helps to stop people from fighting over the land.

The last point I would like to bring up is about the issue of race. As my teacher, Professor

Wiewall, wonderfully put it, “There is only one race; homosapien.” (Lecture June 2). I feel that

this issue is the most important thing to remember. There have been many times, especially just

recently, where race has been main factor in violence, and it shouldn’t be. There is no such thing

as race, at least not as we know it. We are not different because of our skin color; we are all

humans, and trying to categorize each other because of a color our skin has is ridiculous and

unnecessary, and it needs to stop. There is nothing better or worse from having a different shade,

because we all came from the same place, and we can all do the same things. So stop with the

labeling and the hate. Appreciate.