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This paper explores gender roles as they are reflected in the Arapesh and Mundugumor cultures of Papua New Guinea. Bibliography lists 3 sources.
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4 pages (~225 words per page)
File: AM2_PPanthArapesh.rtf
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important, for example, in shaping gender roles. Gender roles, of course, vary according to culture. Consider, for example, the Arapesh and Mundugumor cultures of Papua New Guinea.
Gender roles in these cultures differ significantly from what is typically found in Western cultures. That is because the cultural expectations for each of these cultures differ. Just
as those in Western cultures learn to conform with the cultural expectations for their gender, so too do individuals in the Arapesh and Mundugumor cultures learn to conform with theirs.
These individuals are molded by various cultural traditions throughout their lives. These traditions form and shape their personalities and identities. The cultures of the Arapesh and
Mundugumor have been carefully explored by anthropologists. Margaret Meads examination of these cultures is the most well-known of the various accounts that have been written. Mead described both
males and females in one of these cultures as conforming more to Western expectations for feminine behavior than for male but the other culture was just the opposite (Tuzin, 2003).
Mead (1968) wrote that Arapesh men and women alike were characterized by a personality that was what Western society would see as "maternal in its parental aspects, and
feminine in its sexual aspects" (p. 259). Mundugumor men and women, in contrast, each had personalities that fell more in step with Western cultures precepts of masculinity. Rather
than leaning toward maternal characteristics, these individuals were "ruthless, aggressive" and "positively sexed" (p. 279). Mead (1968) emphasized that men and women alike in Mundugumor culture had
more in characteristic with an "undisciplined and very violent male" from Western culture than they did with any other personality type. Mead presented a somewhat astounding assertion in her study
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