Margaret Mead: Social life and sexuality

Extract

[...] Scope and criticism of the book If the work of Margaret Mead had much impact, at a time when American women began to want to break the shackles of the traditionalist women at home, and the eugenics movement had a number of supporters, it is now strongly criticized. It shows, in fact, Mead's naiveté, and her conclusions to be a bit hasty. This is shown, for example, in the book by anthropologist D. Freeman, in Samoa entitled: The making and unmaking of an Anthropological Myth (1983). [...]

[...] In opposition to the eugenics movement, Mead and Franz Boas argued that, although biology had an influence in some way on personality and behavior of individuals, they were primarily determined by the cultural milieu. Thinkers such as Bertrand Russell also shared this position. Similarly, the psychologist John Watson believed that children are almost completely malleable, and Freud brought to light the influence of childhood trauma on adult personality in the future. Summary: Social life and sexuality in Oceania Mead's first book, Coming of Age in Samoa, was written to demonstrate that the transition from childhood to adulthood is not necessarily a time of tension. [...]

[...] Margaret Mead: Social life and sexuality Margaret Mead (1901-1978), was a famous American anthropologist. She joined Columbia University in the 1920s, where she met the man who became her mentor, Franz Boas (often called "the father of anthropology"). Under his direction, she went to study mores and beliefs of four indigenous tribes in Oceania, the aim being to illuminate the problems of American society, in light of what was happening in other countries. It is through this journey that her two major works, Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), and Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies (1935), became grouped under the title Social Life and Sexuality in Oceania. [...]