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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol 36 No. 12. 6 June 1973

"Anthropological Mumbo Jumbo"

"Anthropological Mumbo Jumbo"

Dear Sirs,

Cathy Wylie, in her criticism pi Evelyn Reed's talk, accused Reed of manufacturing myths to suit her own purposes. In the process, Wylie manages to make just as many unfounded assumptions as she attributes to Reed. She takes for granted that present day anthropologists are completely unbiased and has obviously swallowed all the distortions they have felt it necessary to dish out. She asserts, as they do, that primitive societies were male dominated and dismisses the discoveries of pioneer anthropologists such as Morgan and Taylor as unsubstantiated myths. Jeff Wilson (Salient May 20) was right when he called this viewpoint "anthropological mumbo jumbo".

Levi-Strauss and other well-known anthropologists attempts to conceal or discredit the findings of their predecessors in the interests of maintaining the status quo. These eminent "experts", instead of trying to make out a pattern in human history, reduce it to a chaotic muddle. However, according to them, we can be sure of at least one thing, that the oppression of women and the institution of the family are eternal and ineradicable. This is intended to bring a clear message to women: "Don't fight it".

Unfortunately for the "experts" many women, unlike Cathy Wylic, have begun to reject this theory, and are looking to the longsuppressed discoveries of the pioneer scholars to find clues to the cause of their oppression. Feminists like Evelyn Reed are attempting to shed light on a subject which has been muddied and concealed by reactionary anthropologists. By investigating history they are endeavouring to do as Cathy Wylie suggests, to find the "cause of unrest" in the hope of overcoming it.

Gillian Goodger.