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Gregory Holmes
Professor Wiewall
Cultural Anthropology
6/3/15
Exam Essay 3 (Question 2)
Anthropology is a very important subject, or even a way of life, that many people can
learn from. Im here today to tell you what I think are the four most important things are. The
first point is that anthropology helps you see how cultures effect one another on a daily basis.
This is especially important for people living in the United States, as the population here often
forgets there are other types of cultures out there, creating a huge egocentrism point of view for a
majority of the average person. Anthropology gives people a chance to look past themselves,
giving them tools to step back, and the information to look at other cultures. Its what is called a
holistic perspective. Hollism is, study of the whole of the human condition: past, present, and
future; biology, science, language, and culture, (Golden Thinking Holistically 15). It is
important because the world isnt just your backyard, or the town you live in. It isnt even the
continent that youre living in. The world is vast, full of so many differing ideas and ways to do
things. It is extremely important that you learn to look at the full picture, and not judge based on
your experience alone.
The second point is the idea of an expanded gender system, and gender overall. Its hard
to clearly fit people into one of two genders, especially with how vastly different individuals are,
and to try and label people based purely on what sexual organs are can be very unforgiving. This
is because people are born with more variety than just XX and XY. For instance, there are people
With XXX, XXY, and XYY. There are people born with both sexual organs, and some born with
neither. This is why people need to be informed that there is a difference between sexuality and
gender. Gender is the social, while sexuality is the biological. To try and change these people
physically, and to try to force them into a preconceived notion of how people of their gender is

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supposed to act is cruel. Many cultures throughout the world do not have such restrictions on
their society. Some cultures have genders based on age, such as a gender for children, one for
each of the fertile men and women, and one for the elders. Many cultures have genders that
represent men who are women and vice-versa. There are also some cultures, especially in Native
American cultures, have the regular male and female genders, but also the genders such as TwoSpirits, which is a gender that is slightly different than the others. For example, there are people
called berdache. A berdache was a male who adopted social roles assigned to women and,
through performance of a third gender, contributed to the social and spiritual well being of the
community, (Kottak 177). This gender is the embodiment of both male and female qualities,
which is where the name two-spirits comes from; they are said to have two spirits inside of them
with both, one male and one female. These differences and greater variety of choices for the
people to identify with gives the societies which have these choices a much greater freedom, and
helps allow them to be more comfortable and become who they truly want to be.
The third point is marriage is not a black and white issue. While I feel like the
traditional idea of marriage is thankfully changing over time to allow the rights of same sex
unions, its especially important to know that there are even more types of marriages out there.
The reason it is important is because marriage is an issue that is very important to societies all
over the world, including ours. It controls many things, especially economic systems, so to
understand marriage is to understand how certain cultures work. As well as heterosexual and
homosexual marriage, there is also polygamy, which involves more than two people. There are
multiple types of polygamy; some involve a man having multiple wives (which is called
polygyny) and the other involved a woman having multiple husbands (which is called
polyandry). It is important to know that many marriages are not done for love, but often times for
economic reasons, like extra hands to work on a farm, or to help raise male heirs. In the article

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by Melvyn C. Goldstein entitled When Brothers Share a Wife, the Tibetan men, usually
brothers, will all share a wife. The reason for this? it prevented the division of his familys
farm (and animals) and thus facilitated all of them achieving a higher standard of living,
(Goldstein 1). Basically, the brothers marry the same wife so that there is less land to divide
between their children, because there will be less children. This helps keep the population under
control, and also helps to stop people from fighting over the land.
The last point I would like to bring up is about the issue of race. As my teacher, Professor
Wiewall, wonderfully put it, There is only one race; homosapien. (Lecture June 2). I feel that
this issue is the most important thing to remember. There have been many times, especially just
recently, where race has been main factor in violence, and it shouldnt be. There is no such thing
as race, at least not as we know it. We are not different because of our skin color; we are all
humans, and trying to categorize each other because of a color our skin has is ridiculous and
unnecessary, and it needs to stop. There is nothing better or worse from having a different shade,
because we all came from the same place, and we can all do the same things. So stop with the
labeling and the hate. Appreciate.