Week Three

Re-thinking Family

Hegemony - GramsciAccording to Antonio Gramsci the ruling

classes will use whatever means available to ensure its status.

A hegemonic position is legitimized as a “common sense”

This consent is achieved through science and the control of morality in society

Scientific validation is a powerful form of social control that ensures the continuation of hegemonic structures

Weston- Families we chooseThe cultural positioning of gay people

outside both law and nature has generated one type of response which appropriates these terms to prost exclusion from the realm of kinship (pg. 4)

Although people in the US tend to imagine kinship as a discrete and private domain, many ostensibly non-familial arenas are infused with heterosexist presumptions and regulated by kinship

Examples?

Weston: Central QuestionWhy are gay families also called families

we choose? Why is their a distinction between “real”

(marriage and blood) fictive kinship (chosen/non-marriage) relations?

Unlike purely symbolic analyses, this one situates narratives and representations in particular historical contexts, and grounds ideological change in lived experience.

Symbolic AnthropologyCulture is an independent system of

meaning deciphered by interpreting key symbols and rituals (Spencer 1996:535).

2 premises:1. "beliefs, however

unintelligible, become comprehensible when understood as part of a cultural system of meaning"

2. Actions are guided by interpretation. Symbols aid in interpretation.

Marriage, Adulthood and Family

Is Marriage Hegemonic?

Family and State“One of the most fundamental interests of

the state is the establishment and preservation of the family unit. Consistent with this interest is the state’s duty to protect its impressionable youth from influences which are antithetical to this vital interest”

Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)The Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA is a

federal law of the United States passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton on September 21, 1996.

Allows each state to deny Constitutional marital rights between persons of the same sex which have been recognized in another state.

Defines marriage as "a legal union of one man and one woman as husband and wife" A “spouse "refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife."

DOMAThe purpose is to normalize heterosexual

marriage on a federal level and permit each state to decide for itself whether to recognize "same-sex unions."

40 state deny the legal recognition of same-sex marriages, which is more than the needed number of states required to amend the United States Constitution.

Six states currently have established laws recognizing some form of same-sex unions, and twelve states ban any recognition of same-sex unions including civil unions.

Democracy and MarriageOpponents of same-sex marriage assert that the

issue should be decided democratically through the legislative process, rather than through the judicial process.

Gay rights advocates argue that the democratic process denies them a fundamental right.

The system of checks and balances requires that the judiciary protect the fundamental rights of minority groups against the tyranny of the majority

Advocates argue that the judiciary should strike down gender restrictive marriage laws in the same way they struck down racially restrictive marriage laws.

Both supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage accuse the other side of trying to "legislate morality."

San Francisco, 2004The city of San Francisco began issuing

marriage licenses to same-sex couples in February 2004

Preliminary injunction issued by the Supreme Court of California which declared the licenses invalid later that year.

Some states have proactively, by legislation or referendum, determined that they will not recognize same-sex marriages.

In response to the growing number of legal and political challenges, some proponents of DOMA have proposed the Federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

Legal Right to MarryThe Netherlands was the first country to allow

same-sex marriage in 2001. Same-sex marriages are also legal in Belgium, Canada, Norway, South Africa and Spain,

Massachusetts and California all equal marriage.

In 2005, Spain became the first country in the world to recognize same-sex marriage on equal terms while at the same time allowing gays to adopt and receive artificial insemination on the same terms as heterosexuals.

.

Legal Right to MarryConnecticut, the District of Columbia,

Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey and Vermont grant persons in same-sex unions a similar legal status to those in a civil marriage by domestic partnership, civil union or reciprocal beneficiary laws.

Personhood - CarstenPersonhood is related to procreationPersonhood links concepts of house and

genderPersonhood can be used to critique kinship

studiesMarcel Mauss- development of the category

of the self, demonstrates how personhood are culturally and historically produced.

Personhood is embedded within a normative framework. Western equality and quasi-sacred

Research Papers

Your paper must address the following:Apply theories learned in class. How would a particular theorist interpret

specific newspaper and magazine articles or the events described within them?

Choose several concepts from our readings and films apply to your analysis.

Changing ideas. How are new technologies reforming ideas about family, community and kinship?

Short personal reflection. How do the arguments presented in the readings add to or change your own perspective on the issues represented in the media?