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GENDER IDEOLOGY AND PRACTICE IN MANDE SOCIETIES AND IN MANDE STUDIES Barbara G. Hoffman Inthequestionsstratificationthirtyyearshaveandsincethegrownconditionstheearlymoredaysincomplexwhichofgendertheyandexist,studies,sophisticated.arestillourbasiccentralHierarchy,researchtoboth questionshavegrownmorecomplexandsophisticated.Hierarchy, stratificationandtheconditionsinwhichtheyexist,arestillcentraltoboth ethnographicandethnologicallinesofresearch.Ideally,dataandtheoryoperate iteratively-eachethnographicanalysisoffersfurtherdatatoincorporateintoour theoriesabouthowhumans'biologicalcommonheritage,everywherelargelythe same,cancoexistwithsocialpracticesthataresovaried,sodistinctive,thathumans cangroupthemselvesintoethnicities,tribes,nationalities,clans,andlineages,with diverseformsofmarriageandfamilies.We'velearnedthatwhileallhumans reproducewithinfamilies,thekindoffamilygroupings,howtheyarestructured, whethertheyemphasizethemother'slineorthefather'sorboth,aswellashowwe allocatethetasksofeverydaylife,includinghowwegetourfood,tomenandto women,haveagreatdealtodowiththecharacteristicsofhowmenandwomenrelate tooneanother.Certaincombinationsofkinship,divisionoflabor,andfoodacquisitionpracticeslendthemselvestomoreegalitariangenderrelationswhile othersfosterstratificationanddominanceofonesexovertheother. Inthe1970s,thequestionwaswhetherwomenwereeverywheredominatedby men.Nowwelookatsocietiestoseewheremaledominanceispervasiveandwhere itismerelystipulatedinparticulardomainsofsociallife.Innosocietydoallwomen holdacompletelysubservientpositionrelativetomen;byimplication,innosociety domentotallydominatewomen.Eveninthemostclearlystratifiedcultures,women havebeenseentodominateimportantspheresofsociallife:theproductiveand reproductivelifeofthefamilyisalmostalwayslargelyinthehandsofwomen. Wehavelearnedthatthereiseverywherearelationshipbetweenhowpeople maketheirlivinganddegreesofgenderstratification,butthatthe'same'economic practices(e.g.pastoralism)thatwereoncesaidtounderpinmaledominationmay contributetoextremeformsofmaledominanceinsomepastoralistsocieties,suchas theWodaabe,butnotinother,evenneighboring,pastoralgroupssuchastheTuareg (Rasmussen2000).Gender,whileintegraltomuchofwhatiscentraltolifein society-kinship,religion,politics,labor-isnotnecessarilyall-encompassing:certain aspectsofsociallifemaybemarkedforgenderwhileothersarenot.1 Whetheraparticularculturaldomaincanbesaidtobegenderedornotdepends largelyonhowrelevanttheculture'sideologiesaretoitspractices.Ideologyand practicearerelationally-defined;oneisunderstoodtobeinoppositiontotheother,but inrealitytheyareinseparableinthatideologycannotbesaidtoexistwithoutsome practicestoofferevidenceofit.Eventhen,ideology'sconnectiontopracticeisnot alwaysself-evident. Practiceistheeasierofthetwotodocument-itismuchsimplertosaywhat peopledothantodemonstratewhytheydoit.Ideologyishardertopindown:itmay MandeStudies4(2002)pp.1-20 2 Barbara G. Hoffman be expressed overtly through action (as in w may be articulated symbolically, as in verba practice, in forms variously accessible to diff those individuals attend to the symbolic mess them is another question, one that is particula if this is part of the reason why gender issues Mande studies. We who spend our profession complexities of the societies whose origins lie northeastern Guinea known as the Mande(n) intricacies of gendered ideology and practice i has spawned. The papers in this issue of M interplay of ideology and practice and the r symbolic systems in mostly Mande soci Casamance region of Senegal. My introductory paper offers a discussion distinguishing and analyzing gender ideology. both gender ideology and practice from lin perspectives. Kassim Koné examines linguis interchangeability in gender roles incompa among the Bamana. An anthropological acc demonstrates multiple levels of meaning and unique event, getting married is offered by gender and the political roles of jeliya in Ma interaction of economy, religion, and gende data on gendered masking traditions amon Senegal are the topic of Kirsten Langeveld's lack of exploration ofboth the constructed nat that construction and calls for recognition of Further questioning of androcentric bias assessment of previous analyses of the Djenn discussion of analyses of gender and smithin Dieterlen compared with the perspectives o Smith, reminds us that the perspective of t Together, these papers offer an overview o scholarship today. Ideological Male Dominance: Real One of the central issues that needs to be disc male dominance. There is no question that societies, from the Bamana to the Kuranko. Bu is it an englobing phenomenon? Whe counterbalanced with domains of women's p For some time now, both the notion and th dominance has been in dispute (Sanday 1981 Gender Ideology and Practice 3 Whitehead 1981, Ortner 1996). Patterns of dominance have been seen socioeconomic, political, religious, and other prestige structures. The male domination to occur increases where the division of men's and women's labor is more rigid and where women are excluded from the most prestigious activities of the community. Highly marked divisions of labor and exclusion of women from public spheres of authority and power are regularly found in most, but not all, pastoral and agricultural societies. The question remains, however, whether the designation of this pattern of gender segregation is rightfully referred to as 'male domination.' Rogers 1975, Leacock 1981 and Sanday 1981 have indicated unease with the term, offering the label 'mythical male dominance' as an alternative for those societies in which males demonstrate dominating behaviors against women, but women nevertheless hold social and economic power and/or political authority. Sanday (1981: 80,181) makes a bold, but largely unexplained claim, that the Bamana constitute such a group, along with the Mundurucu of the Amazon and the Kikuyu of Kenya. She derives this notion about the Bamana from the work of Viviana Paques, whose work suggests that there may be more for western-trained scholars to understand about Mande gender systems than appears at first glance. This paper examines issues of male dominance and female power in the blended Mande societies of urban Bamako. It is based on field work conducted during a four and a half year period in the mid-1980s and several months of fieldwork in 1999200 1 . The focus of that research- the relationship between social status and language use (Hoffinan 1995, 1998...
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