How did feminist scholarship change the anthropological study of kinship?

Feminist scholarship, emerging in the 1960s and 1970s, fundamentally transformed the anthropological study of kinship by challenging the field's male-centric biases and rigid theoretical frameworks.12

Key changes included:

• Inclusion of Women’s Experiences: Early ethnographic accounts often excluded women or relegated them to a private, domestic sphere. Feminist anthropologists, such as Eleanor Leacock, documented women's active roles in labor, trade, and economic life, exposing the limitations of previous male-focused research.12
• Analytical Separation of Sex and Gender: Scholars began distinguishing between biological characteristics (sex) and the social roles and cultural expectations associated with them (gender). This shift allowed for a more nuanced understanding of how different cultures define what it means to be a man or a woman.2
• Critique of "Natural" Categories: Feminist researchers questioned the assumption that institutions like the nuclear family were universal or "natural." They analyzed how these categories were culturally constructed and how they served to reinforce political and economic hierarchies.12
• Re-evaluating Kinship and Gender: The field moved toward examining how kinship and gender are "mutually constituted," leading to a broader questioning of the traditional division of anthropology into discrete domains like politics, economics, and kinship.12