Margaret Mead: biography of this anthropologist and gender researcher.

Margaret Mead is known for studying the nature of gender in isolated tribes.

Margaret Mead was one of the pioneers of American cultural anthropology and feminism in the second half of the 20th century. Among other things, she studied how social norms about sexuality, childhood and adolescence differed across cultures, which served to challenge the biologistic perspectives that dominated the understanding of human development.

In this article we will look at Margaret Mead's biographySome of her contributions to American anthropological thought, as well as the works with which she was recognized as one of the most representative exponents of contemporary social sciences.

Margaret Mead: a biography of a pioneer in anthropology and gender

Margaret Mead (1901-1978) was a cultural anthropologist who maintained an important gender perspective in her studies, and is also considered one of the forerunners of the American feminist movement. one of the forerunners of the American feminist movement..

She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and was the eldest of 4 siblings. Although her parents were also social scientists, who had greatly inspired her professional career, Mead defined her most decisive influence as that of her parents. defined her paternal grandmother as her most decisive influence.She recognized her paternal grandmother as a very empowering woman.

In 1923, Margaret Mead graduated from Barnard College, a women's school affiliated with Columbia University. She had taken most of her courses in psychology, a career she was very interested in and which motivated her to study child development.

He later trained with Franz Boas, professor of anthropology at Columbia, and was finally convinced to study and practice this discipline. She obtained her doctorate degree in anthropology in 1929 from Columbia University.

Margaret Mead's academic world and private life.

One of Margaret Mead's convictions was that cultural conditions are more determinant than genetic characteristics in human behavior. This she quickly transferred to the analysis of gender roles and human development.

From this she compared various cultures that were considered "primitive" with the North American culture. Given the cultural conditions of the time in the American West, his thinking was very innovative, although at the same time it elicited negative responses.

In general terms, Mead had a very liberal perspective on sexuality, which was visible not only in her academic works, but also in her relational experiences. That is to say, her academic and private perspective was very close to cultural relativism and moral relativism on sexuality, which also placed her at the center of many moralistic criticisms and controversies in the academic world.

Despite this, her academic rigor soon made her a prestigious woman. She joined the American Museum of Natural History in New York as a curator, and taught at Columbia University, New York University, Emory University, Yale University, and the University of Cincinnati. He eventually founded the anthropology department at Fordham University..

She also became president of the American Anthropological Association, among other well-known institutes of applied anthropology. Among other things, she promoted the creation of a national archive of ethnographic films that would serve to preserve the important work and legacy of anthropology.

Human development and gender roles in New Guinea

During her work, Mead refuted the idea of "primitive" societies, where the inhabitants were considered as children, or as if they were genetically determined to develop "less advanced" psychological states. She argued that human development depends on the social environment.

From this, Mead observed that gender roles were very different in different societies, which led her to the conclusion that these roles depended much more on culture than on biology.

He made visible, for example, that women were dominant in some tribes in Papua New Guinea, without causing any social problems.without causing any social problems. There were tribes where women and men were more pacifist and lived in more cooperative societies than the American, for example in Arapesh.

In other tribes, as in Tchambuli, men and women had differentiated roles, but very different from the Western ones. Men were closer to the sensible level, and women led public activities.

The opposite was found in societies such as Mundugumor, where he saw that men and women had very different roles than in the West.where he saw that men and women had developed more explosive and conflictive temperaments, with the result that children were also brought up in a harsher manner.

By comparing studies among these societies, Mead came to the conclusion that culture shapes human behavior. Hence one of his most famous phrases: "human nature is malleable".

Gender perspective

For Mead, masculinity and femininity reflect cultural conditions, and gender differences are not entirely determined by biology.and gender differences are not entirely determined by biology. Her perspective on gender roles was very radical for its time and helped to break down many taboos surrounding sexuality in mid-20th century American society.

Although she did not call herself a "feminist," her theoretical developments not only impacted academia, but she was quickly recognized as an activist and pioneer of the feminist movement.

She defended freedom of sexual practices, criticized traditional family structuresShe defended the freedom of sexual practices, criticized traditional family structures, criticized parenting based on gender-dissymmetrical models, and finally, pushed for the transformation of moral values related to sexuality.

Main works

Some of her major works include Coming of Age in Samoa, a 1928 book that resulted from her Ph.D. dissertation in which she studied primarily Polynesian adolescent girls in relation to norms about sexuality in the Polynesian islands. studied mainly adolescent girls from the Polynesian islands in relation to the norms about sexuality that circulated there. that circulated there. In addition, she drew some comparisons about the transition to adulthood with the North American culture and the emotional effects on young people.

With this work, Mead positioned herself as one of the great influences on the anthropology of her time. He later continued to study the relationship between childhood, adolescence and American families, emphasizing the value of comparative and interdisciplinary work.

Other important works include Growing Up in New Guinea: A Comparative Study of Primitive Education (Growing Up in New Guinea: A Comparative Study of Primitive Education; and the film Trance and Dance in Bali, Learning to Dance in Bali, and Karba's First Years. Margaret Mead also participated in other film productions that addressed the theme of different care and nurturing practices in different cultures.