Margaret+Mead

Kathleen Shea **Margaret Mead ** **Overview ** Margaret Mead may not be a name that is recognizable to many. Despite her unfamiliarity, Margaret Mead is a woman who has contributed some very important research regarding sex, race, and gender to the Anthropological field. Among other writings that she has created, __Coming of Age in Samoa__ and __Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies__ are two books that have received much praise and criticism. Her sophisticated ideas put forth after studying men, women and adolescents’ social roles regarding sex in primitive societies challenged Americans’ beliefs that there are sex-limited differences in temperament that are not possible to change (Newman, 1996). Margaret Mead was a woman who refused to accept normative judgments that called for primitives to adopt civilized gender roles (Newman, 1996). **Coming of Age ** __Coming of Age in Samoa __ was Margaret Mead’s first book published in 1928. While she attended Columbia University she was sent on a research project in Samoa to study how much adolescent behavior is physiologically determined and how much is culturally determined (Freeman, 2000). There she studied 856 inhabitants, and learned a wide array of information regarding the sex practices of adolescents (Freeman, 2000). Margaret Mead was informed by the wife of a high chief in the society that virgins left their hair long on top and shaved at the sides. If a girl were to become pregnant or elope, her head was shaved completely so that all would know of her disgrace (Freeman, 2000). Virginity seemed to be held in high regards in this specific society because at the marriage of a Taupou, a person of higher status in the society and a ceremonial virgin, the girl’s virginity would be taken by a representative of the groom, who was permitted to test this woman’s virginity before marriage (Freeman, 2000). Contrary to this information given by a high member of the community and after many interviews with adolescents in the community, Mead learned that both boys and girls of the society regularly spent nights with members of the opposite sex, and were far more promiscuous than originally thought (Freeman, 2000). This finding was ground breaking for Mead. Overall, __Coming of Age in Samoa__ drew several conclusions regarding the inhabitants studied, including: one of the uniform and satisfying ambitions of the Samoan girl is having as many lovers as possible; they try to defer marriage through as many years of casual love making as possible; and that the easy nature of adolescents in Samoa leads to their “freedom of sex,” (Freeman, 2000). **Controversy ** While many critics found Mead’s accounts of adolescents in Samoa to be incredibly interesting and ground-breaking, there was one man who stirred up a lot of controversy over the credibility of Mead’s findings in what came to be known as the “Mead-Freeman Debate,” (Sullivan, 2008). Through historical and ethnographic sources, Derek Freeman argued that Mead’s portrayals of adolescents’ sex lives in Samoa were flawed. He believed that she had been hoaxed by some of the members of the community she studied there, and that they lead her to believe false truths pertaining to their sex lives (Shankman, 2006). By reading through Mead’s personal notes, he learned that two girls from Manu’a accompanied Mead to Ofu and Olosega, different regions of Samoa. While on her trip away from the community she was supposed to be studying, Mead claimed that these two girls confirmed her belief that girls regularly spent nights with boys (Freeman, 2000). Freeman, also familiar with the people of this island group, decided that the two informants with information about this secretive sex life of adolescents must have been partaking in what is known as “Taufa’ ase’e behavior” or better known as recreational lying, a custom performed by Samoans when sexual matters are discussed in public (Freeman, 2000). Freeman’s critique of Mead was that adolescent girls could not have enjoyed sexual freedom because of the “cult of virginity” in Samoa. This fact combined with a low incidence of premarital pregnancy (Grant, 1995). Other scholars proved Freeman wrong by noting that only a select group of young Samoan women aspired to the Taupau (those who were deflowered on their wedding night to prove their virginity to their husbands). Other women of the community were not required to prove their virginity with a defloration ceremony (Grant, 1995). This information would then support Mead’s findings that adolescents were in fact secretly meeting in the night for sexual relations. Freeman’s point about the low incidence of pregnancy in Samoa was again shut-down when further research found that “sex” to adolescents in Samoa was mostly described as oral. Both oral and manual sex took precedence over intercourse, and boys from the community noted that they would go to women who were past menopause for intercourse to ensure that there was no pregnancy, which was highly looked down upon (Grant, 1995). **Sex and Temperament ** Margaret Mead’s second book, __Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive societies__, came out in 1935. This book was thought to be a more radical work than her first by her introduction of variability in primitive sexuality (Newman, 1996). Instead of examining adolescents of a primitive culture like in __Coming of Age in Samoa__, Mead challenged evolutionary beliefs which characterized primitive races as either lacking sexual differentiation (physically) or exhibiting uncontrollable, rampant sexuality. Mead discovered that sexual differences varied so much from one society to another that what is considered ‘male’ and ‘female’ should be understood to be culturally determined, not biologically determined (Newman, 1996). That is to say, the sexual traits of American men and women are not biological, but rather learned from the culture in which the man and woman are raised. **Mead’s Legacy ** Now that some of Margaret Mead’s work has been discussed, it is evident that she was a very important and helpful person in her research on sexual practices of primitive cultures. Her prominent books brought a lot of attention to the public and some scorn within the field of archaeology (Sullivan, 2008). Though her work has often been misunderstood and underappreciated, Mead’s ideas (supported by her findings) were more sophisticated than versions of those same ideas that have followed (Sullivan, 2008). **References ** Freeman, Derek. (2000). Sex and Hoax in Samoa: Was Margaret Mead Misled or Did She Mislead on <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Samoa?. //Current Anthropology: A World Journal of the Human Sciences//, 41(4), 609-614.

Grant, N. J. (1995). From Margaret Mead's field notes: What counted as `sex' in Samoa?. //American Anthropologist//, 97(4), 678.

Newman, L. (1996). Coming of Age, but Not in Samoa: Reflections on Margaret Mead's Legacy for Western Liberal Feminism. //American Quarterly//, 48(2), 233-272.

Shankman, P. (2006). Virginity and Veracity: Rereading Historical Sources in the Mead- Freeman Controversy. //Ethnohistory//, 53(3), 479-505.

Studio portrait of American anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901 - 1978). (Photo by Pictorial Parade/Getty Images) -- Image Date: 1/1/1940 -- Image Date: 1/1/1940. (1940). Retrieved from EBSCO//host//.

Sullivan, G. (2008). Three Boasian Women: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Ruth Landes. //Reviews in Anthropology//, 37(2/3), 201-230.