Prayers for Women, Dominoes for Men: Gender and
Power in San Francisco de Macanao, Venezuela
Patricia C. Marquez,
IESA POBA International1
During the summer of 1990, Amadeo Salazar died in San Francisco, a small town of
two thousand people on the Macanao Peninsula of Margarita Island, Venezuela. Seventy years
old, Amadeo was a beekeeper, an owner of tough cocks, and a well-known political figure on the
Macanao Peninsula. After the funeral I went to his house to give my condolences to his wife
Modesta. It was a Saturday evening, and the outside of the house was crowded with tables
(borrowed from the local bar) where men were playing cards and dominoes. As I entered the
house I noticed there were many women and young children I knew. They were sitting around
as if waiting for something to happen. The women of the house offered me some coffee and
invited me to participate in the prayers for the soul of Amadeo. Without knowing it, I was about
to engage in a Margan'tan wake.
A Margaritan wake is carried out, night after night, for fifteen days after a burial. Each
evening, I returned to the Salazar's house, and each evening the patio was crowded with women
and little children waiting for eight o'clock to come in order to participate in the first set of
prayers (the second set began at ten o'clock). Often when I entered the lining room, many women
had come early, already choosing their seats. The older women, surrounded by flies attracted by
the candle lights, sat close to the altar, while the younger women sat by the wall. Young girls sat
wherever they wanted until the older women pushed them out. The female relatives were either
in the kitchen preparing coffee and guarapo de Santa Maria (a type of tea) or sitting elsewhere.
The Margaritan wake consists mainly of prayers. Every night, two middle-aged women
altemated the leading of prayer sessions.  With loud dramatic voices, each created a
characteristic rhythm with their prayers to the Savior, the Virgen del Valle (Virgin of the Valley),
the doors of hell, the soul of the bereaved, and others; the remaining women responded in a
chorus with similar prayers. When I first began to experience the wake, I was nervous. It was
intimidating to sit in a room full of women repeating prayers in unison while expressing
themselves through their bodies and their voices. Often then, I was silent, not knowing what
prayers to repeat, and I listened to both the prayers and the sound of domino chips being thrown
on the tables outside the house. At almost every session, I saw older women use "dog face"
expressions to reprimand women who had brought their badly behaved children to the prayers.
I also noticed how women whom I knew did not like each other struggled with one another to
show their mastery of the prayers. Perhaps most interesting, however, were the ways in which
women began talking about daily life immediately after the prayers as if they had not been
ardently praying to the soul of the beloved Amadeo only minutes before. They talked about
issues such as marriage, cooking, gardening, soap operas, health, men and other local gossip
every night.
1 P.O. Box 02-5255, Miami, FL, 33102-5255
Pravers for W7omen, Dominoes for.Men
In the celebration of wakes it is apparent that women and men belong to different social
networks. First, thev are spatially separated. While women remain inside for prayer, male
relatives sit outside playing dominoes with other men from the communitv. Except for some
occasional joke shared between men and women. the two sexes remained physically apart and
seemed very comfortable with members of their own sex. Second, the wake seems to serve
different functions for different genders. For women. the ritualized praver of the Margaritan
wake provides a site for subtle power battles between women in the community. It is here during
the wakes that women find wav's of expressing themselves within the limitations and
opportunities imposed by the ritual. In addition, the wakle provides a way for women to interpret
daily life. When the pravers end, women come together to gossip and interpret daily life;
afterwards, thev proceed to play cards with each other. Finally, the wak-e provides a site where
women, despite their disagreements, find comfort and support amongst each other. Outside the
house or in the kitchen, women show obvious bereavement, but the celebration to honor the soul
of the deceased also seems to be a joyful, perhaps even therapeutic event for women. In contrast.
for men the wake seemed to be used as an opportunity to socialize. A young man called Pelicano
echoed the sentiments of many other men on the peninsula when he described the wake to me as
a tvpe of partv where men plaved dominoes and cards while joking and talking. Pelicano saw
the wakes simply as an opportunity to get together with his friends and to have a good time.
According to Olsen (1982), in the sexual segregation expressed in different domains of
action for women and men, the former find certain freedoms denied to women in "non-sexually-
segregated societies." This paper will examine how San Francisco women of different
generations interpret what it means to be a woman in evervday activities in the context of
segregation, and how they deconstruct and reconstruct notions of gender while living in what
appears to be a hegemonic patriarchal system. The objective is not to romanticize gender
resistance. but to demonstrate that in San Francisco, women are not merely subordinated to men
but are active within particular spaces in the transcript of a Venezuelan patriarchal ideology.
The opening images demonstrate many aspects of the celebration of a Marganitan wake
in the town of San Francisco. In this place, hidden in the foothills of the Macanao mountains,
women pray while men play dominoes. The wake reflects the existence of a gender segregation
beyond the realm of labor. What is more, this informal segregation demonstrated by the wake
entails the existence of unique female and male network-s which are almost impenetrable to the
members of the opposite sex. This type of segregation at wakes is, of course, not unique to San
Francisco (McCorkle 1954, Brandes 1981, Danforth 1982). Indeed, segregation in San
Francisco not only occurs at particular events such as wakes, but also is part of evervday
practices and daily discourse.
What is the meaning of this gender segregation? Is it merely imposed by men to assert
domination? Is it imposed by the dogma of a patriarchal system limiting the conditions of life
of the people in San Francisco? Or are women engaged, through segregation, in constituting
their own subjectivitv in being a particular kind of person?
Gender segregation has often been explained in terms of the subordination of women
(Rosaldo and Lamphere 1974, Bourque and Warren 1981). Furthermore, in some cases, female
segregation has been understood in terms of women operating in spheres which are undervalued
in their societies. Scholars have often proposed oppositions such as public and private, and
.11larq ue z
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Pravers for Women, Dominoes for Men
formal and informal spheres (Rosaldo 1974, Ortner 1974. Reiter 1973). Considenrng that gender
is a cultural construction in flux within a historical context (Ong 1986: 4), such oppositions are
not completely useful in the examination of segregation and networks in women's evenrday
practices in the town of San Francisco. Oppositions such as subordinate/dominant, public/
private. and informal/formal tend to skew anv understanding of gender dynamics, and to gloss
over critical differences in meaning attributed to gender segregation.
What is of interest here is to understand the processes and purposes that create unwritten
gender segregation in this community.2 In this case, it is necessar to look at what sort of things
gender networks either allow or do not allow to happen. Then, in order to comprehend
segregation and networks in San Francisco three main set of questions emerge. First, what sorts
of events are created and maintained through segregation?; second, what concepts of gender
identity emerge out of practices in relation to networks and segregation?; third, what are the
dialectical relations between practices of segregation?; fourth, how do these relations allow an
understanding which they do not necessarily articulate but are articulated?; and finally. since San
Francisco is not onlv part of an island undergoing rapid changes, but also of a larger, dynamic
world. what is the impact of change in relation to a larger socio-cultural (national) system?
The Relativism of Subordination
The subordination of women is often addressed in the literature on "Third World"
women. Bourque and Warren (1981), in their study about women in two Andean communities
in Peru, define subordination as, "not simplv a status or a social state ... it is the product of social
processes and structural relations between men and women .. . While subordination need not be
collectively perceived or understood by its victims, it is categorically imposed by larger social
processes"' (981: 48).
Bourque and Warren's definition of subordination is dynamic and takes into account the
hegemonic system affecting people's lives. However, as they proceed with their analysis of
subordination, Bourque and Warren appear to propose universal criteria, based on degrees of
sexual hierarchy and parity, to measure the subordination of women. Their categories are
problematic since they believe it is possible to speak comparatively of the women in one societv
being more subordinate than women in other societies or communities (1981: 48). This approach
to subordination establishes an unclear relation between women's subordination to men and their
institutions in the two villages of Chiuchin and Mavobamba, and gender subordination through
larger processes (such as access to health care, education and law) existing bevond the village.
In San Francisco de Macanao, both women and men are part of a larger system. The
people in this community, lik-e those in Chiuchin and Mayobamba, are subordinated to the
conditions of life which impose limitations on what both women and man can do. For example,
many people in San Francisco do not pursue further studies after high school due mainly to the
long distances, the lack of transportation, and the economic pressure to work. It is often the case
2.  By unwritten segregation I mean that, unlike in parts of the Islamic world, segre-
gation in San Francisco de Macanao is not part of the written law or religious codes.
.W6rquez
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Kroeber Anthropological Societv Papers
that few unmamred women have a better chance of continuing their education since. depending
on the circumstances. their work- is not considered as important for supporting the familv.
The degree of subordination in these societies will not emerge bv the determination of
a sexual hierarchy by a social scientist, or by contrasts based on sexual parity. The subordination
of women, just as that of any human being, exists, but what is considered subordination is
subjected to the projection the social scientist makes of her own society. Looking at women
through the lens of subordination can lead to fiction or to fixing relationships that are dynamic
and contested. Subordination in Bourque and Warren's argument perpetuates the idea that
women are always in positioned more precariously than men. In San Francisco, dailv activities
can range from taking care of the home to fishing for several months on a boat. Therefore, it is
important to question the context and the criteria by which subordination is measured.
Power and the Myth of Male Dominance
Confusion concerning the ways in which women are subordinated to men within a
particular community, as opposed to a larger patriarchal system, has led to the discussion of
diverse forms of power available to women. Literature on diverse forms of female power such
as informal, symbolic, domestic. and reproductive power, is extensive. Many notions of
women's power in different communities has led to the conclusion that perhaps men do not truly
dominate or have absolute control over women.
Rogers, for instance, recognizes the extent of women's power by arguing that male
dominance in some peasant society is a myth. The myth of male dominance is expressed. "In
patterns of public deference toward men, as well as their monopolization of positions of authority
and prestige" (1975: 729). Roger believes the myth of male dominance exists in peasant
societies ". . . to maintain a non-hierarchical power balance between the categories, male and
female" (Ibid.: 746). For the author, men and women recognize the mvth in order to maintain
their own power, that of women being explicit in the domestic sphere. She admits, however, that
there are societies. like hers, where male dominance is not mvthical (Ibid.: 749), implying that
peasant societies are isolated from global hegemonic forces.
Rogers' "myth of male dominance" is an attempt to break awav from the idea of
women's subordination at a local level.3 However, it does not recognize that even in so-called
"peasant societies" male dominance does not come simply from the power being exerted by
peasant men on women. Male dominance refers to a particular order of things, perhaps
patriarchal dogma, which is not just particular to a village. Localizing male domination and
perceiving it as a myth shows two things. First, women are not merely subordinated to males in
their societies or even to the system. for they are able to exert power through particular tactics
which shape and reshape gender constructions. Second, restricting the analysis of male
dominance to the local level fails to address the relationship between male dominance and
hegemonv.
3  A critique of Roger's argument has been presented by Harding (1975).
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Pravers for Women, Dominoes for Men
The confusion is thus between, on the one hand. men as agents of male domination, and.
on the other, the patriarchal ideology acting on both men and women. This confusion seems
related to a lack of understanding of the complex relation of hegemony and patriarchy.
Power and Resistance
In examining the "powers of the weak," Janeway (1981) looks at resistance as the
survival techniques that people employ to oppose tvranny. According to her. women do not plan
for the future because their oppression allows them little opportunitv to say much about it.
Janewav thinks that the lives of women in different societies in historical contexts, "mak-e up a
dictionary of survival techniques" (1981: 210) such as avoidance of shock. Along the same lines
James Scott proposes to look at the "weapons of the weak," studying everyday forms of peasant
resistance. In this case, the Malay peasant of Sedaka counter dominant groups, such as those
who seek to extract labor, food, taxes and interest from them, by, svmbolic manipulation
expressed in acts such as dissimulation, desertion, false compliance, feigned ignorance and
gossip (Scott 1985).
These works shed light on the wavs in which resistance manifests itself in people's
evervday lives. For Scott, peasant resistance in Sedaka is the struggle maintained by social
actors in the theater-like stages of village life. However, neither Janeway's nor Scott's
arguments about the relationship between power. which they see as dominant forms of social and
economic control, and resistance, which they perceive as individual and collective acts involving
symbolic manipulation, are convincing. Each falls into what Abu-Lughod (1990) terms, "the
romantization of resistance."  She argues against looking at resistance "as signs of the
effectiveness of systems of power and of the resilience and creativity of the human spirit in its
refusal to be dominated" (1990: 42). Abu-Lughod's suggestion is to look at resistance as a
diagnostic of power.
In analyzing forms of resistance among Bedouin women, Abu-Lughod perceives the
work-ing of the power relations in which women and men are enmeshed. She reverses Foucault's
notion: "Where there is power, there is resistance, and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance
is never in a position of exteriority to power" (1978: 95-96) saying instead, "where there is
resistance, there is power" (Abu-Lughod 1990: 42). However, Foucault's assertion that, "Power
is everywhere; not because it embraces evervthing, but because it comes from everywhere"
(1978: 93) further problematizes the use of resistance as a diagnostic of power. In this case it
might be more useful to turn to hegemonic forces exerted by dominant groups, forces which are
interpreted at certain level by those subordinated to them.
Both Foucault and Abu-Lughod agree that power takes many forms, and that the
network of power relations are interwoven, forming a dense web. As Abu-Lughod points up, "If
the svstems of power are multiple, then resisting at one level may catch people at other levels"
(1990: 47). In this manner, how is one supposed to distinguish between the different forms of
power? If resistance is a diagnostic of power, what distinguishes it from power? What is the
relationship between power and resistance? If power entails both resistance and hegemonic
forces, how is one to look at everyday practices and distinguish between the three? How do we
talk about relationships between forms and acts of power? Is there are way of linking points of
resistance to other than particular power structures?
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When faced by a traffic inspector a woman in Venezuela might be able to avoid a fine
by crying, acting innocent, or charming the officer (almost always a man). A man might be able
to escape payment bv either intimidating or bribing the inspector. Then again, neither the woman
nor the man might be able to get away without paving the fine. Are these examples of local
gender actions to avoid a fine? Or are they forms of power that men and women possess to
handle the system? If these are gender-specific powers, how can they be measured or even
defined when the consequences are not always predictable, for "the weak must continuallv tum
to their own end forces alien to them" (de Certeau 1984: xix). Whatever women and men in
San Francisco can win with tactics to take advantage of dominant notions of gender expectations.
they cannot keep. They must constantly manipulate events "in order to tum them into
'opportunities"' (Ibid.: xix).
The points at which power becomes resistance depends on how the researcher decides
to interpret those terms as analytical categories. Resistance is not extenor to power, as they are
implicated in each other. The point is that power and resistance represent two faces of the same
coin. Distinguishing between the two to comprehend gender constructions and manipulations in
practices of everyday life is a matter of perspective. The reasons for choosing to think- in terms
of one or another must lie in their usefulness in understanding gender relations. In this case,
resistance is useful to understand the significance of women's networks and segregation in San
Francisco de Macanao.
San Francisco de Macanao
In order to relate the theoretical discussion to ethnographic specifics, it is necessary to
contextualize San Francisco de Macanao within its national setting San Francisco is a town of
approximately two thousand people on the Macanao Peninsula of Margarita island (OCEI 1992).
The island is located twenty miles from the northeastern cost of Venezuela, and together with
two smaller islands forms the state of Nueva Esparta. There are two sides to this island. the
eastern side, which is currently being exploited as a big tourist center, and the western side which
is the Macanao Peninsula.4
The island of Margarita has been in contact with other people since pre-conquest days,
when the native Guaiqueri Indians of the island were exposed to people from the mainland.
Since the advent of the first Europeans in 1500 the people from this island have interacted with
them. Until recently, the main channel of communication with the larger world has been thrugh
the sea. This implies that men who went fishing to other regions were the ones who had more
opportunities to come in contact with other people. However, a bridge connecting the peninsula
to the eastem side of the island was built in 1963 facilitating interaction among other people.
Major changes occurred on the peninsula in 1971, when it was declared duty free. In
1974 it was also declared a free port. This has meant a great increase in population.5 Since then,
other Venezuelan, Italians, Arabs, Spaniards and others have been developing commercial
4 This western side was described by McCorkle who did his thesis research in the
fifties as, ". . . sparsely inhabited and of slight historical importance" (1954: 1).
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Pravers for Women, Dominoes for Men
establishments. Consequently, in the last ten years Marganrta island has suffered from the
malaise of rapid and uncontrolled development.
On Being a Woman
In trving to understand the meaning of gender segregation I asked Goyita. a forty vear
old woman from San Francisco, the reason whv only women prayed at wakes while men played
dominoes. After she had been talking for a while, Romulo, her oldest son, impatiently
interrupted her, "Men don't pray because they are men." I ask-ed Romulo just as impatiently,
"What does that mean?", to which he replied, "Aren't you a woman?"
Obviously, coming as I do from Caracas, the capital city, there were impressions about
being a woman I did not share with the people in the Macanao Peninsula. The meaning of
Romulo's answer puzzled me as much as it can puzzle the reader. In San Francisco the concept
of "being a woman" (ser mujer) also differed among women, especiallv among those of different
generations. It appeared too, that many attitudes and behaviors, even the most trivial ones, were
explained by gender categories; e. g., "I am a woman." For example, when during my field work
in San Francisco in 1991, I found that Mari, a fourteen year old female whom I had met several
times in school was always at home. When I asked her why she was out of school she said,
"because now I am a woman." This response stopped me from asking more questions, since a
more obvious reason seemed to be that her mother wanted help with her other nine children. The
questions are then: How are women shaping the concept of "woman"? What purposes and
processes are involved in the ways in which the concepts of "being a woman" are applied in their
evervday practices? And finally, How do definitions of being a woman differ among various
women?
Different Generations
One weekday afternoon, Humberta Main was running down the path to her conuco
(plot of land). I followed her, watching as she pointed out her tobacco plants, her husband's
goats, and the ways she could still jump over the small nrver beds. Behind us was her twenty year
old daughter Chela who occasionally complained about having to walk all the way to the conuco.
Humberta talked with delight about working the land, all the while showing me many
of the plots around her. Most of these plots belonged to the older women. Right next to her plot
was that of Sofia, her mother. In her conuco, Humberta grew papayas, melons, other fruits and
vegetables, which she sold locally. Also, in one side of the plot there was a small shack that had
she and one of her ten children had recently built. There, she took her break-s and met daily with
Sofia who, despite being seventy-five years old and toothless, still cultivated her plot. According
to Humberta, the two of them were best friends, feeling there are many things one can not
converse with men. Humberta talks about her problems and illnesses with Sofia because she
says, "Me da pena contarle eso al hombre" (I am embarrassed to tell that to the man).
5. The population was 75,899 in 1950, and by 1981 it had increased to 250,000
(OCEI 1992).
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For many of these women of an older generation. to be a woman is defined not only in
terms of having a man and children. To be a woman is in part to related to a natural environment;
that is, to work- the land, to catch iguanas, or to get honey from the mountain. Part of being a
woman is to assert your space outside the home, and to be able to have your own shack or a plot
of land as a "room of vour own." The older women are proud of hard physical work-, and most
of them boast about their strength and their good health. Even older women who now stav
mainly at home love to describe their energy, associating it with their diets (especially honey and
tea of local herbs called bebeizo) and with hard physical work. The older generation of women
grew up close to each other in an environment they describe as "difficult and austere."
Chela. in contrast to Humberta and Sofia, went to grammar school. She and her sister
Lela are the ones responsible for washing, cleaning, and doing most of the cooking. Despite
Humberta's complaints about the melons rotting. neither of them is interested in having anything
to do with the conuco. The daughters prefer to spend their free time watching telenovelas (soap
operas) on television. At the same time, Chela and Lela say that there is not much else to do
when they get bored since their parents do not let them go out.
For the older generation there appears to be a closer bond between mothers and
daughters. In the past, the mothers would watch out for their daughters' experiences such as their
first menses and pregnancies. As Juanita, another older woman, told me: "Before, the mothers
looked at the daughters' clothes an then would go and ask them if 'this and that' had happened to
them." Then, the mothers would talk with their daughters and the bond between them would
grow closer. Now she says, "la gente no cree en eso" (people don't believe in that). According
to the older generation, young girls leam "those things" in school, with other friends, or through
the television.6
Since the bridge and a paved road were built in the early sixties, connecting the
Macanao Peninsula with the rest of the island, an ever-changing concept of womanhood has been
and continues to be transformed. For younger women, the female network- is also changing. The
bond between mothers and daughters is not as powerful. Women of the older generation have a
vertical mother/daughter network- revolving around activities outside the home, where women
can talk away from men. The younger women's network appears to be more oriented toward
horizontal friend/peer networks and revolving around the school, the wage-workplace, and/or the
home.
6. More data is presented on older women because talking to them was easier than
talking to younger women. Often when I went into households the older women
tended to dominate the conversation. When I asked questions to younger women
they answered them with short answers and waited for their elders to elaborate upon
them. Perhaps also the fact that I gathered more data about the activities and con-
versations of older women has to do with my own particular interests. I found
myself more willing to listen to the stories about the history of the place, agricul-
ture, hunting, and healing practices than those about fashion, television, cosmetics,
cooking and finding a husband.
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Pravers for Women, Dominoes for Men
Caution has to be exercised when examining the relationships between different
generations and women's definition of "being a woman. " Older women can see themselves and
define "being a woman" very differently from the ways in which thev would have done it in the
past. Perhaps it is only in old age that the mother/daughter bond is strengthened, and in that the
past their network- was also of horizontal nature. However, women of all generation share the
realities of gender segregation. In many events such as the pulling of beach seines, holiday
celebrations, parties, funerals, and Sundav cookouts (sancochos) that involve members of both
sexes. women gather, talk and share activities mainly with other women. At these events
involving the community women shape appropnrate roles, such as praying at wakes instead of
plaving dominoes, in ways that are culturally consistent with definitions of "being a woman."
The meanings of "being a woman" form a female domain of action and determine women's
relationship to male domains. Through clearly defined social networks, women experience the
freedom of resisting power men could exercise over them. Segregation, as in the case of the
wake, allows for the manipulation of the limitations imposed by the larger svstem of which they
are a part.
Older and vounger women's different definitions of themselves as women, however, are
related to shifting interests of the dominant patriarchal system. As Ong (1987) suggests,
particular demands in women's modes of production involve the production of subjectivity
mak-ing a particular kind of person. Women involved mainly in subsistence agriculture develop
another kind of subjectivity than those in industrial labor or the home. San Francisco women
after the sixties have a lot more contact with people bevond the Peninsula since it is easier to go
to the other side of the island and the mainland. That is not to sav that women in the past were
isolated from the outside world. The exigencies of production brought by the contact with the
larger system confront existent subjectivities, which share different understandings of being a
woman. It is in the clash of gender constructions in the shifting webs of agency and power that
women engage in constituting their own subjectivit.7
Quarrels and Conversations
McCorkle has described the lives of people in a long gone town near the capital of
Marganrta island. He noticed that, "Quarreling at Bella Vista was almost exclusively confined
to disputes between women. These disputes usually arise over small sums of money or over
imputations of unchaste conduct" (McCorKle 1954: 174).
This kind of quarreling has been understood to be a vital part of a set of strategies used
by women to achieve their own goals (Lamphere 1974). According to Lamphere, women quarrel
with each other when it serves their best interest (1974: 112). Her perspective presupposes that
in those societies where quarrels occur among women, they are dominated by men. Her
argument does not distinguish clearly male dominance by men from male dominance from
hegemonic forces of the larger system of which those societies are a part. There is no explanation
7. Ong explains that even if Malay factory women did not question the overall male
dominated system, they still engaged in constituting their own subjectivity through
resistance (1987: 193).
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about how such strategies develop; one is left to assume that thev come from women's individual
creativity and awareness of personal goals. However, what Lamphere calls the "unassigned"
(1974: 99) power of women does not reside in acts such as withholding food or sexual favors.
It manifests itself in those acts, but I argue that it lies in the interpretation and reshaping of the
meaning of "being a woman."
In San Francisco, quarrels and conversations reflect more than individual strategies for
personal gain.  Women's quarrels and daily conversations not only represent forms of
establishing individual positions, but are also a wav of experiencing "being a woman." It is
partly through quarrels and conversations of evervdav life that women maintain segregation
from men; it is through them that women keep the system of network-s functioning.
Conversations and quarrels exist in a cultural, social and historical context shared by the people
in San Francisco. That does not necessarily mean that, ". . . skills of verbal finesses and
subterfuge are a function of, and an adaptation to, women's subordinate and dependent position
with regard to control over resources" (Harding 1975: 293). The context contains constraints
of the patriarchal system; life, however, is more complex than that. Those skills come from
subordination and dependencv, but also from interactions and experiences that women have with
men such as love, friendship, and work-ing relations.
At the wakes the women of Macanao Peninsula listened to my problems and anxieties
and sometimes created new ones with their solutions; at the same time, I heard some of their
troubles and many of their stories. At those wakes I became aware of the importance of
conversation in these women's lives. In a wake I attended, Rutila, a woman in her early forties
with five adult sons and two little girls told me about a pain in her breasts that she had not told
anvone else about. She explained to me that she could neither tell her man (meaning her
husband) nor her boys about it (the girls where too voung to understand) because "they do not
know about women's things" and would unnecessarily worrv about it. She then grabbed my hand
and made me squeeze her breasts to feel where the pain was. She assured me that it was fine to
do so (and I assumed it was since the other women in the room did not seem to even notice it),
saying, "Patricia, there are no secrets between women, everything must be known among them."
This is an example of how women have broken some of the taboos existent in the
culture. In this case, a woman cannot talk with men about a pain affecting sexually charged parts
of her body; therefore, she talks freely to another woman. Neither Rutila nor Humberta feel
comfortable talking with their husbands about many things, but they do with their female friends
and relatives.
Conversations are also used in San Francisco to protect women from men. One day I
was invited by Jose de la Cruz, a fifty five year old fisherman, to pull the beach seines to the
shore. When I arrived at the beach at around seven o'clock there were several people waiting to
start pulling the ropes. Recognizing one of Jose de la Cruz's sons, I sat down next to him and
two other men. Almost immediately Juanita, a sixty year old woman, came to my group talking
and joking, inviting me (dragging me?) to sit with the other women. As we pulled the seines I
noticed that Juanita would not stop talking to me, especially as I got closer to a heavy man
holding the end of the ropes. Ever time I got to the end, the man would flirt with me, and
quickly Juanita would say in a joking manner, "What would she want with you? You are too
fat." Juanita was trying to protect me from his advances. Unlike me, she knew that he was one
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of the richest and most powerful men in the town. Her "weapon" (if such a thing exists) was to
engage in conversation with me, and to let the man know that she was not going to let him get
awav with his comments. Her conversation was based on things that women do and know. Her
jokes were told in ways that older women joke. Neither her conversation nor her jokes allowed
anv space for men to approach me.
Like Juanita, most of the women use conversation as a protection against vulnerability.
Talking and quarreling women establish their terrtorv, hold on to their men, and protect
themselves from men. If a woman gets beaten by a drunken husband, for example, the woman
will scream and talk until evervone knows about what her husband does. Her female relatives
will talk about the events until pressure is exerted on the man to modify his behavior or on the
woman to leave the man.
Quarrels among women are also common in San Francisco. Some quarrels involve
women from different towns, and they are often related to men. In the Macanao Peninsula fights
over a man occur when he has several women in the same or nearby towns.8 If a woman is
attached to a man who has other women, she will talk and scream to establish her territory around
her man. Fabiana, a young woman, would always tell me how she would pull the hair out of any
woman who dared to flirt with Felicio. her man. The first few times she mentioned it I did not
pay much attention to it. The vehemence of her threats seemed to imply that she was worried
about Felicio's fidelity. As I talked to other women who did similar things and witnessed a fight
between two women shanrng the same man a different pattern emerged. Slowly, I realized that
Fabiana saw me as a messenger of her willingness to fight for Felicio. She knew that I was
alwavs visiting the different towns of the Macanao Peninsula.
Looking at a Spanish village, Harding concluded that the lines of women's conversation
were limited to work related to women, gossip, and stories (1975: 296). The conversations of
the women in San Francisco partly take such forms, but to say, as Harding suggests, that this is
all that forms women's scripts presents only a partial view. "Women's scnrpt" encompasses other
realms related to their communitv and outside world, ranging from politics to magic. Contrary
to Harding's conclusion, women do breakl down the structures that frame them through talkLing.
Through conversations and quarrels women are reshaping their own subjectivity of "being a
woman." The conversations and the quarrels are culturally consistent with definitions of
themselves as women, and it is through them that women deal with different fields of power
relations.
Women in San Francisco de Macanao handle power in very complex ways that involve
negotiation, manipulation, and narratives. They, as members of social networks different from
that of men, develop gender-specific tactics that permnit them to manipulate events. This does
not mean, however, that such negotiations and manipulations can be reduced to "resistance"
against male power. San Francisco women's domains of action occur within a historical and
spatial context which is part of a more complex system of events.
8. This is what I call an unrecognized form of polygyny. Only the wife is recognized
by the law, but the other women involved see themselves as wives with certain
rights.
iVlarquez
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8Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers
Conclusion
To understand gender relations it is necessanr to keep in mind the relativity of analvtical
categories such as women's subordination, male dominance, power, and resistance. Whether
power or resistance are perceived in the gender segregation that exists in San Francisco de
Macanao depends on the perspective that is chosen. The complexity and relative nature of these
categories hint at the difficulties of relating theory to sound ethnography on gender. Portraving
women as subordinated to men or as living in subordinate spheres presents only a limited view
of gender relations. To view women's evervday practices and choices as emerging out of
subordination, male domination, and resistance does not encompass the complexities of life.
Such views often do not portray that which can not be placed within these categories. They gloss
over relations between wife and husband, brothers and sisters, fathers and daughters, men and
women which involve cooperation. affection, love, and magic.
Perhaps, it is necessary to move out of present discourses on gender. At that point it
will be expected that the voices and views of manys women and men will be considered to be as
relevant as academics. Instead of understanding their words as reflections of perspectives which
the researcher must explain, scholars may understand these words as explanatory. When the
women of San Francisco explain what it means to be a woman and how that beingness is
experienced, they might be providing a framework- to understand gender relations which we
cannot see because it differs from our own.
Acknowledgments
I thank- the people from San Francisco de Macanao for sharing their evervday lives with
me. I am also indebted to Professors Laura Nader and Aihwa Ong, of the Department of
Anthropology, University of Califomia, Berkeley for encouraging me to wnte about gender
relations in Marganrta island and for making suggestions to improve this manuscript. This article
was conceived from long discussions over dinner with David Eaton who continuouslv
challenged my understanding of gender segregation, power and resistance. This research was
supported bv the Department of Anthropology, Universitv of Califomia, Berkeley's Lowie grant
and funds from the Wildlife Conservation Society.
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