week 2-Ch1:Preindustrial society classical and contemporary classical theory about gender

Preindustrial Society Functionalists suggest that in preindustrial societies,
social equilibrium was maintained by assigning different tasks to men and women.
Given the hunting and gathering and subsistence farming activities of most
preindustrial societies, role specialization according to gender was considered a
functiona necessity. In their assigned hunting roles, men were frequently away from
home for long periods of time and centered their lives on the responsibility of bringing
food to the family. It was functional for women—more limited by pregnancy,
childbirth, and nursing—to be assigned domestic roles near the home as gatherers
and subsistence farmers and as caretakers of children and households. Children
were needed to help with agricultural and domestic activities. Girls would continue
these activities when boys reached the age when they were allowed to hunt with
the older males. Once established, this functional division of labor was reproduced
in societies throughout the globe. Women may have been farmers and food gatherers
in their own right, but they were dependent on men for food and protection.
Women’s dependence on men in turn produced a pattern in which male activities
and roles came to be more valued than female activities and roles.

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