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GENDER AND SOCIAL CHANGE: NEW FORMS OF INDEPENDENCE FOR SIMBU WOMEN
Author(s) -
Brown Paula
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
oceania
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.356
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1834-4461
pISSN - 0029-8077
DOI - 10.1002/j.1834-4461.1988.tb02315.x
Subject(s) - elite , dominance (genetics) , gender studies , politics , westernization , ethnic group , independence (probability theory) , rural area , sociology , political science , economic growth , modernization theory , law , biochemistry , chemistry , statistics , mathematics , economics , gene
Simbu women were prepared in their youth for a life of sexual segregation, domestic independence and hard work for their husband's agnates in gardens and raising pigs. During the Australian colonial period in highlands Papua New Guinea more men than women had opportunity for education, occupations and travel. Men's elite society retains its competitive style as it becomes stratified; political and economic success depend upon rural support. Today, as a few women become economically independent they move out of rural women's roles. Thus there is a continuity of rural‐urban ties for men in political affairs and economic achievement, while ties of urban women to their families and rural communities are personal, not based upon political and economic relations.