Culture anthropology is the study of how people lead their way of life and thus helping interpret the meaning of human ethics, behavior, beliefs, law, and customs. This branch of social sciences helps tame our curiosity for learning and understanding all the cultures. One of the ways in which one can study and appreciate the values of another culture is using the insider’s perspective of cultural relativism. This concept suggests why it is imperative to examine cultures within their contexts. Understanding other cultures in an emic perspective is always a difficult task as there is a tendency for one to favor their own culture, having views that it is superior as compared to others. Thus, to root out the ethnocentricity and biases, it is imperative to assess our own culture through the lenses of an outsider. In this paper, I will discuss the cultural aspect of women in the business world in America from an etic point of view, and describe how women in white-collar jobs in China are viewed from an emic perspective.
Part I
In this section, I will assess the cultural state of American women in business using an etic evaluation. According to Crapo (2013) in the textbook Cultural Anthropology , “etic models invariably describe each culture in ways that seem alien to its own participants but that facilitate comparisons between cultures and the discovery of universal principles in the structure and functioning of cultures.” The evaluation of American beliefs and customs from this perspective would be helpful to understand how the culture is poised to the outside world as being exotic or even obscure. Anthropology helps the insider look into the customs from outside looking in to obtain the knowledge that the beliefs they have always held purpose to themselves. One benefit of using the etic perspective to look into the American way of life is that it helps us understand the human nature that we innately share.
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This stand is mutual with author Miner’s (1956) article entitled “Body Ritual among the Nacirema.” In this seminal work, Miner describes the various facets of Nacirema culture, particularly dental hygiene, using an etic viewpoint. The purpose of the paper is to detach the show the details that are so disturbing and strange to the reader. At some point, one may become ethnocentric and ask which society is this that carries out these practices and they may be inclined to pass a biased judgment. However, as the reader continues into the article, they realize that the Nacirema are actually Americans. Through his astounding composition, Miner (1956) creates a notion in the minds of the readers that from an outsider’s view, any culture can be as strange or unusual as other practices appear to one before they obtain the understanding of the cultural context in which the practices are based.
Examining the cultural impact of women in business in America from an etic perspective is astounding. American business world has always been considered a male-dominated arena ( Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015) . In history, the number of women who have penetrated the business arena has remained quite low as compared to that of men. This has been brought about by the mainly patriarchal society of the American world (Scott, 1998). The stereotypes that were directed to the female gender encroached up to the corporate world as the companies made part of the American society. As much as the country boasts as one of the freest and liberal, several biases still grapple and makes it lag behind in terms of female involvement in business. One of the negative narratives that surrounded the female gender is that they lacked what it takes to be in the corporate society.
The history of American women has been shaped through theoretical formulations that have limited the gender. This is despite the fact that women actually existed in the economic exchanges in the 19 th and 20 th centuries (Scott, 1998). The common history narratives overlooked their contribution and only marvelled at the ones made by the males. The recording of women in the history of business leads to the view of market segmentation that also includes that based on sexes. The American women were found rarely outside their domestic duties and if they did, they were in “petty” entrepreneurship (Scott, 1998). This makes them a marginalized lot, regardless of their contribution to the business world. The 19 th and 20 th century saw the specialization and segmentation of markets to promote capitalistic notions (Scott, 1998).
For instance, women were mostly found in the cosmetic and textile industry as that is what was thought of as being close to their domestic chores (Scott, 1998). This comes with the fact that dressmaking was mainly women’s job in American history of spinning wool. By running millineries, women were exposed to sales of products, a segment that was dominated by males. However, while it is evident that females were present in economic development, it is quite difficult to connect their touch with other business fields outside their domestic ones (Scott, 1998). Current statistics still show that women lag behind men in American corporate society, particularly leadership roles. The contrast can be seen in some countries that are considered culturally conservative like China.
Part II
This section entails the assessment of a culture of women in business in the Chinese society from an emic perspective. According to Crapo (2013), “An emic description or analysis—that is, an insider’s or native’s meaningful account—may be written for outsiders but portrays a culture and its meanings as the insider understands it.” In this regard, it is thus possible for the cultural anthropologist to apply this perspective to learn about the culture that would otherwise remain foreign through and etic approach. In an article by Laurie Duthie (2005), entitled White Collars with Chinese Characteristics: Global Capitalism and the Formation of a Social Identity , the author defines the cultural identity of China’s white-collar workers. Through an emic analysis of Duthie’s first-hand interviews, one is able to understand the Chinese executives and corporations in the wake of the increasing global capitalism.
In the long history of China, there is stratification through most social categories such as gender, race, and ethnicity. However, the market economy makes a clear difference among the white-collar executives and workers. Duthie (2005) offers the readers a view into the inner workings of the Chinese employees as she articulates the effects of global capitalism on which the country has embarked. She also offers the impact of conflicting ideologies that come with the stereotypes that are associated with the different cultures.
The history of China reveals the strategies the country took to solve the soaring unemployment in the 50s and 60s. The Red Guard youths were sent to the rural areas to offer their labor in a bid to reduce the congestion in the cities (Duthie, 2005). With the persistence of the unemployment past the 70s, the consumer economy was created but the youths resorted to stealing the goods. Several reforms were made to encourage the accommodation of the displaced youths by businesses. This led to the spring of businesses that attracted even the state-owned workers. With many players jumping in the entrepreneurial bandwagon, employment processes changed and favored the higher education and higher skill set. Graduates were lured with large salaries, training abroad, and house payments (Duthie, 2005). Job-hopping became a norm in the Chinese society as the benefits became lucrative. This gave rise to the white-collar employees who lived a lavish lifestyle that most people wished.
One crop of employees that is rampant in this category is women. In China, women made a huge percentage of white-collar workers due to their multi-language ability (Duthie, 2005). They attract interest from multinational corporations and are poised for better access to corporate decisions. This is because they enter the labor force as personal assistants to the top management and hence creates a stronger network (Duthie, 2005). The high management of multinational companies required assistance in languages such as English, French and Japanese, and women were better at gaining these as compared to their male counterparts (Duthie, 2005). Even as executives were brought from countries in the Western Hemisphere to China, they came with the mentality that women were better poised to become assistants than their male counterparts did and that one of the determining factors was that they meet the dual language requirement. In the end, this raised the white-collar women in the country (Duthie, 2005). The only shortcoming to this sprawl of successful women in the business world is that they lacked people in the same social class to marry as the white-collar men saw them as their equals or even professional threats.
Throughout this paper, it is imperative to acknowledge that anthropology offers us various tools that can be employed to overcome ethnocentrism. Through the approach of cultural relativism, it is possible to gain an understanding of why certain practices happen in different cultures while not trying to pass biased judgments. The etic view on your culture can help achieve an outsider’s view of the practices we have normalized through our enculturation. The etic assessment of the American women in business shows a struggle that has grappled a race from the society to the documentation of economic contribution. This evaluation makes it possible to see how there is segregation of markets, which is also connected to that of sexes. On the same note, looking at the Chinese business class from an emic view, it is evident that women are successful and makes a larger percentage of the white-collar executives and in fact having a competitive advantage as compared to their male counterparts. Thus, in taking emic and etic views of different cultures, it is possible to see that what one may consider “abnormal” is someone’s way of life.
References
Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2015). Labor force statistics from the current population survey.
Crapo, R. H. (2013). Cultural anthropology [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/
Duthie, L. (2005). White collars with Chinese characteristics: Global Capitalism and the formation of a social identity. Anthropology of Work Review, 26(3), 1-12. Retrieved from the AnthroSource database.
Miner, H. (1956). Body ritual among the Nacirema . American Anthropologist, 58 (3), 503–507. Retrieved from https://www.msu.edu/~jdowell/miner.html
Scott, J. (1998). Comment: Conceptualizing Gender in American Business History. Business History Review, 72(2), 242-249. doi:10.2307/3116277
