Voyageurs and Cowboys

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Lecture 7

• Voyageurs and Cowboys

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Things

• Trouble accessing readings?
• If your name is not on todays attendance list,
  please let me know.
• Mid Term Paper
• Participation Timeline sheets
• Lectures 5-8 will be posted to my Pers. Webpage
  at the end of this week

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Today

• Office hours Mondays Burke 314 1130-1230 or
  email
• Presentation(s)
• Review of last three weeks
• Paper
• Many have begun e.g. sociology of tanning bed
  use male and female dominance in heterosexual
  relationships
• Other ideas posters from last years students
  (shown with their permission)
• I prefer if you work from research questions
  instead of research statements
• Put yourself in the paper if you wish trust your
  experience
• Lecture Voyageurs and Cowboys
• End of Class Next four on attendance list
  receive your presentation artifacts

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Presentations
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Main topics of last three weeks

• Next three slides

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WEEK 1

• It is impossible to agree on humans place in
  nature we are part of naturewe are not part of
  naturewe are sometimes part of nature(handouts)
• Since historical reports are generally exclusive
  to some groups of people and their interests, we
  cannot conclusively trust that we know what
  happened in society until now
• Like history, sociology has many shortcomings
  ethnocentric bends toward natural science in
  many respects did not question previous or other
  cultures relationships with nature has often
  considered success level or development level
  of societies according to a stereotyped gaze of
  overcoming the natural world around/in those
  societies. THIS HAS LED TO IDEAS OF PROGRESS
  BASED ON THE ABILIBITY OF INDIVIDUALS TO MAKE
  MONEY, GET AHEAD
• Nature, then, became to be socially constructed
  including mother nature.
• DO NOT MEMORIZE SLIDES 44-61

• Gender, sex, sexuality, nature, and even
  sociology are most often taken for granted. They
  have various definitions depending on in whose
  interest is the definition.
• Sociology and its interest in the natural world
  (one explanation of many)
• Comte (and Spencer) umbrella discipline we
  might understand society once we understand the
  wider natural laws seen through a positivist
  gaze society is like an organism
• Durkheim disagreed we might understand society
  once we identify patterns and themes of social
  facts wider natural laws are inadequate to
  understand society, but it is important to
  understand how the natural world is mediated
  socially be familiar with slides 21 and 22
• Marx took a critical look at industrialized
  European society and how natural materials
  figured into the production line, family
  dynamics, and city life
• Robert E. Park Human Ecology School emerged in
  the 1920s out of U. of Chicago because it was now
  agreed that human can either have a competitive
  relationship with nature but also a communicative
  one within certain groups this began an official
  sociology of space
• Environmental Sociology from a western
  perspective, has grown since the 1970s with most
  universities now offering related courses

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WEEK 2

• Handout Lecture 3 on sex characteristics, Marx,
  and Smith expect a question from the bottom of
  the handout (or a similar one) Do not memorize
  High Heels presentation
• Roughgarden
• Diversity in society
• Definition Gray areas in defining sex and gender
  is prevalent in both social definitions and
  scientific ones
• Sex and gender are not inherent (at least in all
  social contexts) it is through INTERACTION that
  we construct how we understand sex and gender
• Dozier Doing Sex
• Social interpretation of male/masculine and
  female/feminine is easily distorted when looking
  at experiences of some people, such as
  transsexuals its not necessarily what we expect
• The body plays a huge role in the social
  interpretation of masculinity and femininity
• Slide 13 example of Joe there are more
  pressures once judged as male pressure to
  conform to misogyny at work, for example. This is
  compounded by homosexuality, effemininity, race
  or ethnicity.
• West and Zimmerman Doing Gender
• Doing gender simultaneously produces,
  reproduces, sustains and legitimates the social
  meanings accorded to gender This introduces the
  concept that we are ACCOUNTABLE for each act we
  perform that is appropriate to ones sex
  category.
• Deutsch Undoing Gender
• If interaction is the site of doing gender, it
  can be the site of undoing it.
• Exam expect a question similar to those on Slide
  22

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WEEK 3

• Culture know definitions on Slide 12 place
  where interaction/
• socialization of gender, sex, and sexuality
  takes place
• Some claim that nature and culture are polar
  opposites that the first happens naturally
  outside of culture, and the second is constructed
  independent of nature

• Recall your timeline on when you were in nature
  and the cultural punctuations that affected this
  on the final exam, you could be given a timeline
  and asked to identify ideal, material, and
  practical aspects that could have potentially
  affected ones relationship to the natural world
• Strathern
• Poses the idea that there are no such things as
  nature or culture that researching one in
  comparison to the other sets up a false dichotomy
• Uses Hagen society to show that definitions and
  practices around culture and nature are not clear
  cut, but that they often are related to other
  perceived polar opposites female and male,
  domestic and wild
• Womens sexuality is often viewed as something
  closer to nature/wild and in need of being
  controlled through cultural norms
• Many researchers impose these dichotomous
  assumptions onto cultural research, based on
  their own interpretation of female/male,
  wild/domestic so, be careful and critically look
  at all research for biases
• Be familiar with Slides 23-30 (know at least
  three of Stratherns nine points)
• We begin to form our interpretations of gender,
  sex, sexuality, and nature as children as we
  gather social facts from out culture
• Rousseau
• Rousseau Father of Romanticisim Romantic
  notions of educating children involved heavy
  doses of the natural world, unlike the
  philosophies of many before him
• Form a general idea of the challenges to Emile on
  Slides 15-23 one sex is superior to another
  females are natural pleasers of males and must
  accept this females and males should not receive
  the same education (this is a prevalent idea
  still today) females should enjoy the natural
  world, but in a different way from males females
  should focus on developing their charms and
  creative skills females need to learn how to be
  under the power of others from an early age
  females are the ones to be taught the artistic
  endeavors, such as music and dancing

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End of review
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Mid Term Paper

• Ideas from posters of last years students

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(Ideal-ized) Men in Nature Voyageurs

• A Castor canadensis played a huge role in
  changing the social and gender dynamics of early
  North America? What is it? Hint How are the two
  images in the next slide related to each other?

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Think back to High School History

• What can you recall in general?
• What about men in nature? Women in nature?
  Culture?
• Think back to geography. What do you recall?
• Did you enjoy history and geography?
• Why/not?
• Previous photos http//www.nps.gov/archive/voya/h
  istory/futr/intro.htm www.kdwp.state.ks

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VOYAGEURS Gender implications in history are
often obscure if we take history for granted

• Who were the Voyageurs?
• What were some physical requirements to be a
  voyageur?
• Generally, who were the canoe-builders and
  paddlers? Why?
• Could women have been voyageurs? What would have
  had to change socially for that to happen? What
  might Canadian history and herstory look like if
  women had been able to take the male role in that
  part of the construction of the country?
• Voyageurs suffered largely from hernias and heart
  attacks. Could women, physically responsible for
  the reproductive element in sustaining society,
  have achieved those requirements?
• Ojibwe
• (photo of Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota
  upload.wikimedia.org/
• wikipedia/commons )

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Voyageur Fur Trade said to be the first
international business (westernized claim) first
Canadian unit of the economy

• Generally, Voyageurs were Ojibwe men, short
  (under 5 5), stout, short-legged, wide
  shoulders, able to leave home for months at a
  time (How many males in this class fit the bill?
  Females?)
• Male children, in those times, were born into
  being a potential Voyageur to help with the
  family
• They paddled 14 hours a day for months at a time.
• Two packs were carried by each Voyageur each
  pack weighed about 90 pounds. They carried these
  and the canoes on portages up to 9 miles long.
• Birch bark canoes light, but easily punctured in
  shallow/rocky waters
• (Most Voyageurs could not swim so, is swimming
  ability natural?)
• Voyageur culture still with us today in many
  ways coinage icon (beaver tokens first made
  about 160 years ago several beaver pelts one
  token) dress/costume pattern site
• Consider the gender differences in clothing
  compare that to the art weblink of children in
  nature in the last lecture

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From internet reading The Voyageurs, the
Backbone of the Fur Trade

• note woman (Dorothea Calverley) wrote it in
  reference to male identity He/his/him why?
• What was the animal fur behind the fur trade in
  Canada and beyond?
• In England, peoples fashion sense was changing
  to include function and beauty. The fur trade
  played a huge part in that. Fur hats were a
  status symbol there European fur animals had
  been trapped to near extinction the same thing
  happened here, but intervention saved them from
  complete annihilation.

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(http//people.ucsc.edu/kf
einste/
furtrade_files/p58-98.jpg)
WHICH GENDER WORE THESE?These hats went
out of fashion when silkbecame more desirable
and readily available
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• 1
  12
• Or one gallon of rum(FIREWATER).
• OR one pound of tobacco.
• How would this trade be implicated in gender
  and the natural environment, and what about
  health?

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So, Canadian aboriginal people of the day hit
the jackpot with pelts, even though theyd been
without that European trade for thousands of
yearsbut

• Europeans also had something that these First
  Peoples desired what was that?

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Wool.

• By the 1700s,
  remember that
• 
  industrialized textile production
• in Europe
  was booming
• Back in Canada, pelt fur and leather got wet
  and stayed wet ? people were cold and wet for
  long periods, developing pneumonia and
  rheumatism.
• Hudsons Bay Company formed in 1666 1684
  famous for Hudsons Bay Point Blankets
• The name point blanket comes from the fact that
  each blanket was given a grade, or point,
  depending on its size and weight. One point
  measured 5 ½ inches (about 14 cm). A one point
  blanket measurements were 2 feet, 8 inches by 8
  feet (about 81 cm by 2 m, 44 cm) and weighed 3lbs
  1 oz (about 1.4 kg, or 1400 g)
• (quote and photos http//www.canadiana.org/hbc/st
  ories/produits1_e.html)
• --- womens jobs of preparing beaver pelts as
  clothing and other items was giving way to the
  European woolen market, changing one huge aspect
  of their interaction with natural resources. How
  would European women have been affected? The
  European farm family?

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Calverley (p. 1) Few women came to the New
World in the early years. The men were lonely
many of the Indian girls were pretty. No better
way of securing Indian friendship could be found
than to form an alliance with a native wife. In
fact, it would not be judicious for the explorer
to refuse the offer of a powerful chief of his
daughter. The men of less high standing needed a
woman to provide and prepare the food that the
new land afforded, and to mend or make his
clothing. Indian girls, brought up to serve their
men-folk, were shy, quiet, soft-voiced and
obedient unlike the average working class
white woman. Mixed marriages were inevitable.
They were also reasonable.1. HOW MUCH HAS
CHANGED IN THOSE GENDER ROLES, DICTATED BY THE
SOCIAL USE OF THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT? Do you
consider that the women played a supportive role
in the Voyageur history, or a central one?
Why?2. Are any men in the class willing to go
back to be a Voyageur today? Why? Why Not?3. Any
women in the class want to sign up?
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Can you think of a womencanoingnature social
fact accepted and prevalent today?Consider fur
trade remains a huge social fact in the world
today, including both exotic (to locals) and
what we consider domestic animals, such as dogs
and catsHow far away from that kind of fur
trade is the wool trade who here has on woolen
clothes? What ideals are in place for you to have
these material goods?
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Calgary Stampede

• Looking back
• Link what ideals are at work in the 2007 Calgary
  Stampede theme slogan Tough enough to wear
  pink.
• Wrangler Jean Company some proceeds given toward
  breast cancer research

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http//cs.calgarystampede.com/imageviewer.php?pic
/upload/sidebar_image/113/02/tough04_rt16.jpgalt
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Next Class Readings

• (1) SMUO Bye, C.G. (2004). I like to hoe my own
  row A Saskatchewan farm womans notions about
  work and womanhood during the great depression.
  Frontiers A Journal of Women Studies, 26 (3),
  135-67.
• (2) CP Louv, R. (2005). Last child in the woods
  Saving our children from nature-deficit disorder
  (pp. 27-35). Chapel Hill, NC Algonquin Books of
  Chapel Hill.