Siobhán Mattison

Session: Alumni Panel & Morning Scientific Session - Advances in Social Network Analysis
CSSS Track: Anthropology, 2010
Title: Mosuo social networks do not support universalist theories of gendered social relationships 
Abstract: Gender is often thought to constrain activities and social relationships. Evolutionary theorists link such constraints to gendered differences in payoffs from childcare versus activities focused on politicking and securing additional reproductive partners. According to this “universalist” view, women’s networks should often be smaller, more stable, more focused on dyadic interactions, and less hierarchical than men’s. To investigate these propositions, we collected social network data from Mosuo women and men residing in the Hengduan Mountains of Southwest China. Mosuo people share much in common but reside within two strikingly different kinship systems – a matrilineal one emphasizing the centrality of women and a patrilineal one emphasizing the centrality of men. We show that women’s friendship networks are larger than men’s in matrilineal communities, but smaller than men’s in patrilineal ones. Our results are therefore inconsistent with universal gender differences in social networks and speak instead to flexibility in gendered social interactions. 

This talk summarizes collaborative work. Siobhán Mattison, the speaker, is an associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at the University of New Mexico and Director of the Human Family and Evolutionary Demography Laboratory. She is interested in understanding apparent paradoxes in human family structures and how kinship impacts health. She works in Vanuatu and in Southwest China. Siobhán Mattison's website.