miss independent

This week in Cultural Anthro we are reading Nisa, by Marjorie Shostak. This is my first experience reading an ethnography and I had no idea what to expect. I must admit I was a little worried that it would be boring or difficult to understand, but I feel that Shostak does a wonderful job of intermixing her discoveries from field research with the !Kung and Nisa’s account of her life as a member of the !Kung. Through the reading I have learned a lot about the !Kung culture and have, in turn, begun to think about the similarities and differences between Nisa’s culture and my own.

Obviously American culture and the !Kung culture are different in many ways. I don’t collect water with ostrich eggs and I don’t sleep in a hut. Likewise, Nisa doesn’t drive an Audi A6 and most likely doesn’t pick up milk and shampoo from Target. But I do find it interesting that both our cultures value independence, especially independence as a woman.

In the !Kung culture women’s roles are valued and acknowledged. Their main job is to gather food, which is undoubtedly important. They provide up to 80% of the food that is eaten by the family. They truly are resources for the community because they have the knowledge to survive. They know how to gather food, pull water from roots, and maintain a household – while they are also birthing and raising children.

Not only do they have independence in their daily lives but also in their relationships with men, specifically their husbands. Women in the !Kung culture have a say in their marriage to a man/boy. Although they marry at a young age, they can choose to not sleep with their husbands, they can choose to take lovers and can also choose to divorce their significant other. !Kung women have a lot of power, and because they are allowed the opportunity to speak their mind or make their own decisions they are women with self-possession.

After reading Nisa, I have realized that my pre conceived notions of the !Kung culture were pretty incorrect. To be honest, I guess I had this idea that most “un-civilized” cultures (I’m pretty sure I’m being politically incorrect by using that word…) placed the majority of control and power in the hands of men and very little in the hands of women. But in the !Kung culture this is not true. Although men have leadership roles in the community, there is little distinction between the sexes - women are seen as equals.

Now I’m not saying that American culture doesn’t value women, because I do believe women are valued and encouraged to be independent, but I think we as a culture make a distinction between women and men, women’s jobs and men’s jobs, women’s roles and men’s roles. And with the help of Shostak and Nisa I have realized that perhaps that distinction isn’t necessary.

it's okay to be messy

For a part time job at school, I babysit for a professor. I absolutely love little kids and really enjoy spending time with them; so babysitting to make some extra money during the school year is a perfect job for me. The family I sit for has two children, ages 4 and 1. They are adorable children and always keep me busy.

I would like to say that I have a lot of experience with children because I have spent a large portion of my life with them. And although I am obviously not prepared to be a mother I have learned many skills from the parents of children that I watch. The family that I am working for now has taught me a great deal about raising children. And I have witnessed first hand how our culture has affected how these children are being raised.

This family is extremely organized and controlled; the children’s eating, sleeping, and playing times are all scheduled down to the minute. They are extreme germaphobes and are constantly washing their hands. The kids are afraid to be messy, color outside the lines or go outside in bare feet. And although they are extremely precocious children their imaginations and ability to be creative have diminished.

After the first discussion in anthropology about culture I immediately thought about these kids. We discussed that “human behavior does not carry meaning in and of itself” (Lassiter) and that it is learned. And I realized that these children act the way they do because they have grown up in an environment that promotes it.

Our culture today encourages parents to push their kids to their full potential. To teach them to read at age one, to teach them different languages, to sign them up for piano lessons at age 3 and to send them to pre-pre school. Our culture doesn’t emphasize the importance of a child’s imagination. Our culture doesn’t say, “go play in the mud’ or “its alright if you just hang out in your pajamas and read books all day” or “its okay to be messy.”

In class we also talked about how knowledge is what people think they know. And what people think they know is shaped by culture. What these parents know is what our culture is telling them; that it’s not okay to not have everything figured out and in order all the time. And knowledge has real consequences, and in my opinion their children are suffering because of this “knowledge.”

Now, I don’t want you to think that they are not good parents, because they are. They are not mean to their children, they are involved in their lives, and they love them more than anything. I just feel that our culture has pushed them to emphasize the importance of intelligence and not imagination and creativity.

Obviously there is some enthocentrism going on here. I was raised in an environment where messy was okay (although it was definitely not chaotic). And there is a tendency to view the world from the basis of your own experience. So obviously, I am slightly biased. But either way, I have realized that culture does play a huge role in our lives, even if we are unaware of it.