Chopsticks Only Work in Pairs: Gender Unity and Gender Equality Among the Lahu of Southwestern China

by Shanshan Du

Overview

The ideal of "gender equality" seems forever elusive, always tantalizingly over the horizon. Shanshan Du suggests that by shifting our attention away from the various utopian ideals embedded in mainstream feminism, we may be surprised to learn that gender-egalitarian societies do exist. Based on extensive fieldwork, this book explores the Lahu society in Southwest China where practical gender equality has become the byproduct of a potent ideology of gender unity, vividly expressed by the proverb, "chopsticks only work in pairs."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780231119573
Publisher:	Columbia University Press
Publication date:	12/18/2002
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Lexile:	1520L (what's this?)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Shanshan Du is assistant professor of anthropology at Tulane University and winner of the Elsie Clews Parsons Prize of the American Ethnological Society and the Sylvia Forman Prize of the Association for Feminist Anthropology.

Table of Contents

Technical Notes
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: Mythology and Ideology
1. "Everything Comes in Pairs": A Dyadic Worldview
2. Husband-Wife Dyads in the Life Cycle
Part II: Joint Gender Roles
3. "Husband and Wife Do It Together": Unifying Gender in Labor
4. "Male-Female Co-Heads": Unifying Gender in Leadership
Part III: Structure and anti-Structure
5. Unifying Gender in Kinship and Interhousehold Organization
6. The Disfunction and Collapse of Gender Dyads: Divorce, Elopepment, and Love-Pact Suicide
Conclusion: Rethinking Gender Equality
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Peggy Sanday

A fascinating examination of the logic of gender equality among the Lahu of Southwest China.... Du's careful ethnographic mapping is part of a growing body of fine-grained anthropological analyses putting to permanent rest the universal male dominance thesis of early feminist anthropology.

— Peggy Sanday, University of Pennsylvania

Carolyn Sargent

A compelling symbolic and social analysis of a rare society characterized by gender equality. Engagingly written, this book is an important contribution to feminist scholarship and to the theoretical debate on gender asymmetry, offering new ways of thinking about human diversity and promoting equality between women and men in our own society.

— Carolyn Sargent, Southern Methodist University

Sherry Ortner

Shanshan Du has documented a remarkably egalitarian gender ideology among the Lahu people of Southwestern China.... The book is both an ethnographic contribution to the study of the area, and another piece for the puzzle of the question of gender egalitarianism.

— Sherry Ortner, Columbia University

William Jankowiak

A wonderful treatment of one of the central issues in anthropology: the meanings and manifestations of gender equality.... Du has uncovered a marvelously intriguing society that is organized around.... the pair bond.

— William Jankowiak, University of Nevada

Ralph Litzinger

Shanshan Du brilliantly captures the everyday practices of Lahu gender relations and pushes, in one broad stroke, the study of gender equality and inequality in new and compelling directions. It is destined to be a classic.

— Ralph Litzinger, Duke University

Editorial Reviews

This book is delightfully readable and as the same time thought-provoking, full of lively and sensitive ethnography...Finely written.

Asian Folklore Studies - Hayami Yoko

A very powerful ethnography.

Anthropos - Charles F. McKhann

A very powerful ethnography.

— Charles F. McKhann

Anthropos

This book is delightfully readable and as the same time thought-provoking, full of lively and sensitive ethnography...Finely written.

— Hayami Yoko

Asian Folklore Studies