Outline for Anthro Fieldwork

For my fieldwork assignment I am thinking about going to look into norms behind gender roles in today's society. I am going to look into monogamous relationships such as marriage as well as other relationships without this title. More specifically I am going to look into the function of the female partner or female head of house, such as the wife. I am not going to limit my wording, by saying only marriage, because it has been brought to my attention that times have changed and many people do not participate in the religious or traditional ceremony of marriage, but still do function in a monogamous relationship as if they were married. I would like to research what the expectations of these women are and what their daily lives seem to be like. I think it would be interesting to interview a woman who stays at home and is a "housewife" and also to interview a woman who goes to work every day and compare each life, not to see which one may be harder or easier because each may be equally as difficult, but to define the differences between them. Some readings that I may touch upon that may help me with my fieldwork project would be "Chapter 7: Families, Kinship, and Marriage" by Kottack as well as "The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles" by Emily Martin. Also Judith Lorber's "The Social Construction of Gender" may help me out with my studies.

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