Cultures Are Male Dominate and Patrilineal

Cultures are male dominate and patrilineal.

* Property, resources and wealth passed from father to sons

* Need to assure father that son is of father's bloodline

* Fear of the likelihood of female adultery

HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATES

* Oppose such practices

* Such practices infringe on basic human right--control over one's body and one's sexuality

* Some African nations have banned such practices

* What about infant male circumcision?

* Distinguish between moral and methodological relativism

Human rights invokes a realm of justice and morality that is beyond and superior to the laws and customs of particular countries. Unlike Human Rights Cultural Rights are vested not in individuals but in groups, such as religious and ethnic minorities and in indigenous societies. CR include the right to preserve its culture, to raise its children in their cultural traditions, to continue its language and have economic rights.

4 step process when confronting the culturally unfamiliar

1. React emotionally/ethnocentrically (openly if one has the freedom to do so or in thought)

2. Suspend judgment, investigate the situation and try to understand it in a culturally relative way

3. Reach a considered, personal judgment (e.g. you may come to approve of what at first seemed peculiar or wrong, you may be glad that your culture doesn't follow such a practice but be able to appreciate why the other culture does, you may still not understand but recognize that members of that culture deem it important and you respect that, you may decide that the practice is morally reprehensible to you)

4. Try to look at your own culture's practices from the standpoint of the culture you have been considering. What would they find strange/immoral/perplexing?

Conclusion

Most ethnographers (anthropologist who do fieldwork) strive to be objective, accurate and sensitive in their studies of other cultures. However, objectivity, sensitivity and a crosscultural perspective don't mean that anthropologists have to ignore international standards of justice and morality