Gender Relations Among the Masai in Comparative Perspective1. Masai women have lower status in their society. They do a lot of work; they takecare of cows and do the milking while their husbands do nothing. Masai is apolygynous society. Women should not be jealous of co-wives, or their husbands willbeat them. In Masai society, women are always beaten by their husbands if they don’tobey their husbands. Moreover, the women who have no children will be physicallyabused by the sons of their husbands’ co-wives after their husbands die. Also, thewomen would be mistreated at home by their brothers. All these facts show that Masaiwomen have very low position in their society.2. Masai women do not jealous. If they jealous, they would be beaten by theirhusbands. Plus, in the Masai society, having co-wives brings benefit to them. Masaiwomen have too much works but their husbands and children do not help them at all.Therefore, co-wives can help them to finish all the chores and works. For example,when rains, women need to take care of cows, do the milking, and smear the roof, soco-wives are useful to do those work together and finish it.3. In Masai, women are men’s servants. They just serve their husbands and have nopositions. They must be obedient. They need to do all the works and look after childrenwhile men do nothing. Besides, women cannot own animals and even their lives. Onlymen can own cows. Cows mean property in Masai. Owning more cows means that theyare in higher status. Since women have nothing, they are supposed to become men’sservants. Sadly, these conditions place women in an inferior status. In contrast, in !Kungnad Iroquois, women enjoy relatively high status. For the !Kung women, they are alsoassociate in tasks including heavy labor. Such as Masai women, !Kung women contributemost of food but they wave greater say in band. In Iroquois, women were cultivators, theyowned property, and had much power to influence in tribal affair. Iroquois women havethe considerable authority in the longhouse they live. It was also the women’s share thatcontrol allocation of the food they produced. Iroquois women also involved themselves inselecting religious leaders, although they do not have political status. They can be alsoinvolved in the selection of council members. Considering the social situation of eachtribe’s women, both of the !Kung and the Iroquois women have better social status thanMasai women do.4. In fact, whereas women all over the world are nowadays in a process ofempowering themselves, Masai women are clearly inferior to the men and have littleopportunity for advancement without help. The inferiority is exemplified by severaltraditions. First, in an age of sixteen, the girls are traditionally sold by their parents fora price in between 5-50 cows to a mostly older husband. Thereby, men who have a lotof animal property or a superior task in the community as chiefs can have as manywomen as they want. Up to 20 wives are thereby not rare. Then, the women have tobuild their own hut, where she will be distributed among the women. Once married,there is rarely a way out, due to the fact that divorces are in general not accepted.5. Clitoridectomy removes source of sexual pleasure. For female, often, parts of vulvaare sewn afterward to ensure virginity. It is a ritual cutting or alteration of the femalegenitalia. It is the ceremony that initiates young Maasai girls into adulthood throughritual circumcision and then into early-arranged marriages. Women who will becircumcised wear dark clothing, paint their faces with markings, and then cover theirfaces on completion of the ceremony. For male, circumcision is one rite of passagefrom boyhood to the status of junior warrior. It is performed without anaesthetic. Thisritual is typically performed by the elders, who use a sharpened knife and makeshiftcattle hide bandages for the procedure. The boy must endure the operation in silence.6. The Masai have always had separate categories of sexual partners. Women havehad a husband and additional friend(s), each with their own specific purposes. Wheremarriage is a duty, a relationship with a friend is an act of love and compassion. Inthis way, Masai social structure is arguably more stable through arranged marriageand the understanding that as a woman your role is to go make your and listen to whatyour husband says but that you will also have sexual relationships with friend(s),which you have obtained through your own agency. A girl is expected to accept thehusband her father chooses for her; it is in this way that she can become a mother andbirth the new generation of Masai. However she chooses her friend(s) herself,exhibiting empowerment over that aspect of her sexual and emotional life.Christianity requires that the many roles typically fulfilled by husbands and friend(s)respectively, all come from the same, single husband. Furthermore, Masai women area part of a community of the many wives of one man. In this way they cancollectively are for the children of the boma, share work and chores and care for eachother.7. In the myth, women used to own a lot of animals. One day, the woman got up earlyto slaughter an animal, and every woman said, “My son won’t go herding today, hewill stay to eat kidney”. Because of kidney, and because no child went herding,animals all went off. Now men own cows, so women became their servants. Becausewomen’s cows went off on their own, they neglected the herd and so they becameservants of men, and they own nothing. All they own now are their ground to milkinto. 8. From our personal perspective, jealousy would exist because they also human. Masaiwomen are in fact jealous to their co-wives if they are in love with their husbands.However, they are not allowed to express it because if they show their jealousy, theirhusbands would violate them. In a society which women have low status, they do not dareto speak for themselves. They are also human who feel jealous, but they have to swallowit in order to keep their marriage, to stay at a house, to void mistreating. On the otherhand, people who get married are not necessary in love with each other in Masai. SinceMasai women cannot choose their husband by themselves, they might not be in love withtheir husband.