Talk:Gender in Maya society

Cleanup

Adjusted references to Wikipedia:Footnotes, sectioned text and jigged it around a bit. Still not entirely sure what the article is about though. - FrancisTyers 00:55, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

The Other

This article needs to be merged with Maya society pronto since it's mostly just about run-of-the social history. The rather obvious fact that the category "women" is separate from the rest of the articles on Mayan culture is rather telling. It's basically a type of "othering", a portrayal of women as something diverging from an unspecified norm. And the norm is in this case, as usual, male.

Peter ^Isotalo 17:35, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Agree that some of the points should be mentioned/integrated into the overall society article; however, I do not think a complete merger is the way to go. I can see what you are getting at, but since gender studies is a valid and published subfield of Mesoamerican scholarship (eg [1]) the material can usefully stand on its own. It would perhaps be better, as has been suggested elsewhere, to change the focus and title of this article to one which covers gender concepts and roles in general, such as Gender in Maya society. We also currently have Gender roles in Mesoamerica (in similarly poor shape) as a cross-referencing, or even upmerge, target.--cjllw ʘ TALK 01:50, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah... everyone has known for a while that this particular article was in need of a little fixing-up. But I for one am not see this as an example of Othering; more like an article that is in need of a little sharpening/focusing from some committed editors. :-) -- Ling.Nut 01:55, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

And the fact that there's no Maya men is just a coincidence I suppose...

Peter ^Isotalo 21:55, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

The article was created essentially as-is by a drive-by, one-time-only contribution from some anon ip, not by any of us here. It was rescued from AfD since it contained some valid information and sources, with an intention to fix up the scope, content and presentation issues. This improvement, obviously, has not really happened. As mentioned earlier, the focus of the article should more properly be the perception, portrayal and reality of gender in Maya society, so when I make some time I'll move it to a title better describing the scope.--cjllw ʘ TALK 05:49, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, the page is now moved to new title(Gender in Maya society). Gender roles in Mesoamerica was also moved to Gender in Mesoamerican cultures, since the (as yet unrealised) scope should be about more than 'roles', but include identity, portrayals, relations, &c. The content changes will have to come later, no guarantee I'm going to get to this quickly.--cjllw ʘ TALK 09:39, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Moving the article was an improvement, I agree. I think I can add a little something about the division of labor when it came cooking practices from Coe's America's first cuisines. Believe it or not, it seems as if Mayan males were the ones who were expected to prepare the barbacoa and cook the meat while the women handled the preparation of tamales and all that. I can't help being reminded of that episode of Friends where the guys show up with barbecue utensils and proclaim "Men are here!"

Peter ^Isotalo 06:47, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Biased towards Women

This article is biased towards Women, if an article such as this needs to to be written then I suggest moving it to Women in Maya society.--Joewski 00:24, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Pls see the earlier discussion above, this article actually used to be at Maya women, but it was determined that the subject area was more appropriate to be covered under the current Gender in Maya society title. However, the article still awaits a substantial rewrite and cleanup to reflect. So not a case of 'bias', per se.--cjllw ʘ TALK 05:19, 23 July 2007 (UTC)