Abstract
This article examines a recurrent theme that emerged during my fieldwork in 1991-93: the cultural perception on the part of many Maasai men and by some Maasai women that women are equivalent to children. I will briefly examine the historical sources of this cultural image of women as children, and, more importantly, how it influences and is influenced by contemporary actions and decisions to not only perpetuate but intensify social inequality between Maasai men and women in two overlapping, changing social arenas: economic production and politics. As a group, women have steadily lost both economic and formal political rights over the past century (Hodgson 1997, 1999a, 1999b), although differences of education, class, and individual circumstances have diversified their experiences and opportunities. In other realms, however, such as religion, women have retained and even enhanced their power (Hodgson, 1999d), and women still exercise substantial authority as heads of the matrifocal households through which production, inheritance and social alliances are mediated (Hodgson 1999a; cf. Hodgson 2000b, 2000c). My purpose is to demonstrate the necessity of embracing both cultural ideas and social action in our understanding of gender relations by showing how they mutually inform and influence each other, and are both essential to an understanding of the modalities and workings of power.