Essay on FEMALE TO MALE AS NATURE IS TO CULTURE?

In the article Is female to male as nature is to culture? Sherry B. Ortner explores the origin of socially adopted secondary status of women on the one hand and their human potential on the other hand. While there are different angles in the problem (culturally attributed second-class status, social structural arrangements and objective contributions), the author concentrates on the first matter which is associated with the universal devaluation of women.

First of all, the basis of such devaluation is found in biological determinism. Naturally dominant sex is genetically inherited by males, while females get used that they is something lacking in them and feel satisfied with their secondary position. In fact, their maternal experiences make up the sense of life for them, but Ortner stresses that each human body is not just a physical body. There is also a non-physical mind in each individual; therefore she offers to look for the answer somewhere outside natural conditions and questions of survival. On the other hand, the role of a woman is naturally justified by reproduction, but at the same time in each culture there is some determinant that contributes to devaluation of women, as Ortner shows it. Hereby, the author equates the terms of culture and human consciousness and articulates that “every culture makes the statement that proper relations between human existence and natural forces depend upon culture’s contributing its special powers toward regulating the overall process of the world” (Ortner 11). She makes a parallel between women and nature as opposed to men and culture, and while culture aims at transformation of nature, and nature becomes subordinate to culture, women as a part of nature share this subordinate status too. According to de Beauvoir, women are the prey of the species and their animality is more manifest.

However, another point is the social roles of women resulting from their physical peculiarities and natural functions. The author stresses that it is not reasonable to associate women with nature completely, because they are also full-fledged human beings with human consciousness. Symbols and values as well as categories are generated and communicated by them in the same way and to the same extent as by men, if not even more. Levi Strauss notes that women should even be recognized as generators of signs, not only regular exploiters of signs. It comes out that being biologically destined for reproduction women do not see reasons for being in life itself, while these reasons turn to be even more important that life is. Physiological functions of women tend to restrict their social movements, so they are bound to domestic family group. In any social system there is a conflict between family and society, and the difference between men and women is clearly seen in the domestic/social opposition. A family is a lower-level social and cultural organization; it is subordinate to the greater organization which the society is. And while women are the embodiment of a family and private sphere, her role becomes subordinate towards men whose sphere is public and more associated with the society. Utilizing the example of cooking, Ortner shows that “in the area of socialization women perform lower-level conversions from nature to culture, but when the culture distinguishes a higher level of the same functions, the higher level is restricted to men” (Ortner 20).

Further on, controversial is the notion concerning the differences in psychic structure of men and women. Female socialization experience is believed to generate psychic structure, but Ortner argues that in fact traditions throughout world tend to reveal women as more practical and pragmatic than men because the first tend to deal with concrete, not abstract entities and things. Personalism and particularism instead of irrationalism and emotionality thus make up the psyche of women. Besides, ego qualities of women, according to Chodorow, have more flexible ego boundaries and subjectivity together with present orientation is dominating in them. What is more, Chodorow finds the source of the feminine personality in social structural arrangements, not in innate differences. Relations with objects are more direct for women, while men tend to interact with them in a more mediated way.

Departing from the theses reflected above, Ortner comes to the conclusion that the role of a woman in the society and culture is ambiguous, because highly personal and relatively unmediated commitment women personify challenge the solidarity of the group and make fragmentary potential of individual loyalties prerogative. On the one hand, personal loyalties are transcended by social categories, but on the other hand there must be ultimate moral unity to embrace all those social categories too. And these are women who seek communion directly and personally with others, thus standing at the highest levels of cultural processes. In this way, answering the question whether female refers to male as nature refers to culture, Ortner sums up that a woman takes intermediate position between nature and culture. It means that she belongs to both of these spheres and at the same time is a mediator between them.