Page "Margaret Mead" Paragraph 29

Another influential book by Mead was Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies.

This became a major cornerstone of the feminist movement, since it claimed that females are dominant in the Tchambuli ( now spelled Chambri ) Lake region of the Sepik basin of Papua New Guinea ( in the western Pacific ) without causing any special problems.

The lack of male dominance may have been the result of the Australian administration's outlawing of warfare.

According to contemporary research, males are dominant throughout Melanesia ( although some believe that female witches have special powers ).

Others have argued that there is still much cultural variation throughout Melanesia, and especially in the large island of New Guinea.

Moreover, anthropologists often overlook the significance of networks of political influence among females.

The formal male-dominated institutions typical of some areas of high population density were not, for example, present in the same way in Oksapmin, West Sepik Province, a more sparsely populated area.

Cultural patterns there were different from, say, Mt.

Hagen.

They were closer to those described by Mead.