Peter -
Thanks for the reference. I inexplicably overlooked it. Placing an order
for the book today. Yet, although it's another issue, I'm still
troubled by the gender differences you mentioned. There's alot implied
in this type of behavior about inequality, power relations, etc.
You wrote:>All of the recent exchanges about prolepsis have been quite
>stimulating. I find myself wondering if there has been any
>work looking at the degree of prolepsis in relation to gender,
stephanie: I recently read this from Mike Cole's chapter, "Context,
modularity, and the cultural constitution of development" in Winegar and
Valsiner's Children's development within social context, Vol. 2 (1992, Erlbaum):
Of crucial importance to understanding the contribution of culture
in constituting development is the fact that the parents' projection of
their children's future becomes a fundamentally important cultural
constraint organizing the child's life experiences in the present. This
process is called *prolepsis*, from the Greek term meaning the
representation or assumption of a future act or development as if presently
existing or accomplished. As copious research has demonstrated, even adults
totally ignorant of the real gender of a newborn will treat it quite
differently depending on it symbolic/cultural gender. Adults literally
create different material forms of interaction based on conceptions of the
world provided by their cultural experience and expectations. For example,
they bounce "boy" infants (those wearing blue diapers) and attribute "manly"
virtues to them whereas they treat "girl" infants (those wearing pink
diapers) in a gentle manner (Rubin, Provezano, & Luria, 1974). (p. 21 in Cole)
if it starts in the cradle......
Endquote
(Note: first paragraph is Peter quoting from my message)
What I was wondering about in my posting was if the use of prolepsis,
in speech or otherwise, is more frequent in either males or females.
and a question to Mike Cole:
Was there also a comparison to the way infants were treated if
both (unidentified) girls and boys were all wearing white
diapers? Did women and men reinforce cultural expectations
equally?
And why is our usage still predominantly men and women, boys and
girls, etc. Why aren't more of us (in general - not meant as
a question specific to list members) comfortable with either
male before female or female before male? If we could get
past that we might get past the second term being considered
inferior to the first, as Derrida pointed out.
stephanie urso spina
ex