Summary Of Margaret Mead's Coming Of Age In Samoa

Mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, aunts, uncles, grandparents, pimps, prostitutes, straight people, gay people, lesbian people, Europeans, Asians, Indians, and Africans all have once thing in common: they are products of sexuality. Sexuality is the most common activity in the world, yet is considered taboo and “out of the norm” in modern society. Throughout history, people have been harassed, discriminated against, and shunned for their “sexuality”. One person who knows this all too well is activist and author, Angela Davis. From her experiences, Davis has analyzed the weakness of global society in order to propose intellectual theories on how to change the perspective of sexuality. This research paper will explore the discussions of

Young women exploring their sexuality are often stigmatized by various factors in society. Latina girls are no exception and are, in fact, finding themselves placed in a negative spotlight more often that their peers. In Respect Yourself, Protect Yourself, Lorena Garcia looks into a group that has been labeled as “at risk” youth by interviewing a group of Latina girls between the ages of thirteen and eighteen who engage in safe sex. She also interviews some of their mothers. Her findings contradict the negative stereotypes that follow these young women because of their sexual activity. In doing so, she discovered that the statistics do not tell their entire story, making it difficult to understand why and how they go about their sexual activity.

One of the norms Kincaid questions is virginity, whether sex is actually meaningful, that it could be enjoyable without the feeling of love. As a nineteen-year-old girl, Lucy is new to what a sexual relationship could have

At an early age many children are oblivious to issues in society like race relations, and they are easily influenced by their parents. The book Coming of Age by Anne Moody, takes place during the civil rights era in the United States. All of the white children stop playing with Anne after an incident in at the movie theater. These kids were influenced by their parents who didn’t want them interacting with African Americans. Anne Moody’s learns about the significance of race in American social life as well as the differences between the lives of blacks and whites through her experiences at home, school and work. These experiences help prepare Anne to join the civil rights movement. At home, Anne experienced firsthand the poverty many African Americans faced, she experienced discrimination and intimidation in the work employer Mrs. Burke and at the diner by white customers, and she also dealt with segregated schooling.

Through Margaret Mead’s ethnography, in the book Coming of Age in Samoa, we learn about the lives of women in Samoan culture. Young girls of Samoan culture have very little freedom in the beginning of their lives. Girls are expected to take care of the infants in their families until there is a younger and more capable girl that can provide care. Taking care of the babies in the family is a Samoan girl’s main responsibility as a child. The author further explains, “She also develops a number of simple techniques. She learns to weave firm square balls from palm leaves, to make pin-wheels of palm leaves or Frangipani blossoms…But in the case of the little girls all of these tasks are merely supplementary to the main business of baby-tending” (Mead 20). At a young age women are expected to attain skills in certain household tasks that help provide towards their Samoan families.

To do so, Levy turns to the experiences of several young women whom she interviews. From her interpretations of these experiences, Levy reaches the conclusion that these women’s sexual nature revolves around their need

Virginity isn't exactly a dinner table conversation in most households. Many parents see "the talk" as a way to share with their children the ins and outs of their bodies and the ways they will change during puberty. However, many parents hide these talks with a shroud of fear, claiming only that sex is bad and that waiting until marriage is the only option. Enforced with religion, these statements are not all untrue, but the lack of any further discussion beyond abstinence is where problems arise. Consequently, children taught only abstinence seem to grow up with a constant negative perception of sex and fear of failure. Jane Villanueva, a character in the CW's "Jane the Virgin," feels these abstinence pressures throughout her life that seem

American Samoa would be a perfect location for an open market. The weather is warm and tropical with an average temperature of 87 degrees fahrenheit. American Samoa has a population of 54,157 people. I can set up my market anywhere that seems like a good location. My open market can sell goods grown locally on the island or import goods that most likely haven’t been owned by local people such as raw materials like sugar and salt etc.

Confronting the reality that their children are no longer children, terrifies and paralyzes many parents around the world, yet, it is still a reality. Denial does nothing to ameliorate their feelings or the situation

Human sexuality is defined as the capability of individuals to experience their sexuality and be able to express themselves as sexual beings (Hyde & DeLameck, 2006). Our interest in this topic is because with time, there has been a change in rules that control human sexual behaviour. The status quo in our contemporary society is much different as compared to an earlier state of conditions, and the change has, as a result, brought the evolvement in human sexuality. People 's view on virginity has changed greatly with a decrease of importance in regards to its preservation. Sexuality is essential to the economic, cultural, social and political organization of society or country. Our sexuality plays a fundamental role in all our lives regardless of age, sex or race. It forms a basic part of our personality and the decisions we make in what we do. One’s sexuality also consumes much of their time through behaviour or thoughts; at times every aspect of our lives seems to revolve around our sexuality. Studying sexuality is very important since human sexuality majorly contributes to social as well as personal problems. A lingering question concerning this topic is to what extent is virginity determined by the status quo and the rules that control human behaviour?

Throughout history, definitions of sexuality within a culture are created and then changed time after time. During these changes, we have seen the impact and power one individual or group can have over others. In the Late Nineteenth Century into the Early Twentieth Century, we see multiple groups of people and or authorities taking control over the idea of sex and how they believe society is being impacted by sex. At this point in time, society had groups of people who believed they had the power to control how society as whole viewed and acted upon sex. Those particular groups and ideas changed many lives and the overall definition of sexuality within that culture.

This construction reinforces control over young women’s sexual expression. Faus highlights how it forces women to partake in this patriarchal culture where women’s bodies are under control

Margaret Mead’s book “Coming of Age in Samoa” is an anthropological study of a “primitive” group of people under completely different cultural conditions than people of western society, namely America. She chose to study a group of adolescents in the South Sea Island of Samoa, a place where one might study a people: “Whose society has never attained the complexity of our own.” Mead attempts to determine whether or not the experience of turbulence and difficulty during the time of puberty and adolescence was universal, based mostly on biological changes, or were those experiences mostly influenced by environment and culture.

Through it, people were given a look at a society not affected by the problems of 20th century industrial America. She illustrated a picture of a society where love was available for the asking and crime was dealt with by exchanging a few mats. This book helps one to realize the large role played by social environment. One of Mead’s biggest challenges was probably the fact that her fieldwork was done entirely in the Samoan language. In Samoa, few, if any natives spoke English.

Samoan culture plays a large part in the lives of those with Samoan heritage. Samoan culture is kept strong in a Samoan house hold by keeping the culture alive. This is done by keeping family unity, the art of traditional tattooing, and eating traditional foods and cooking traditional ways.