A Neo-Participant Observation of Social Gathering

Differing Actions ,Responses and Attitudes of Women and Men at a Discotheque (Monte Carlo in Nairobi, Kenya and Divonshire Arms in Cambridge, U.K)

Abstract

This paper discusses the behavior patterns of men and women in a social gathering. It is based on research conducted in Kenya ( Monte Carlo, Nairobi) and the U.K. (Devonshire Arms, Cambridge). Although the title of the research is "A non-participant observation of a social gathering", the very concept of "non-participant" can be deceptive since the author attended the sessions and participated in the proceedings. In studies of gender, according to Sterling (1994), it is inherently impossible for any individual to do unbiased research. In this regard, the author takes full responsibility for any bias or lack of scientific presentation in this report. Commenting about studies on gender, the psychologist Julian Sherman (1977) wrote: "It would be difficult to find a research area more characterized by shoddy works, over-generalizations, hasty conclusions, and unsupported speculations". In line with this observation, the author found a lot of difficulties in trying to be an unbiased "researcher" clearly differentiated from a "participant", more particularly on the days he has labeled "Campus nights" in Nairobi and "African nights" in Devonshire Arms. At the beginning of his research, he happened to be part and parcel of the most common conception of the psychology of gender which stipulates that women and men as groups have different traits; different temperaments, characters, outlooks and opinions, abilities: and even whole structures of personality. Some researchers such as Connell (1987) have called these differences "sexual characters". Talcott Parsons (1942) has distinguished this as "instrumental" versus "expressive" traits which are supposed to mark the two sexual characters that correspond to the male and female roles. In theorizing gender, the role theory is the approach to social structure that locates its basic constraints in the stereotyped interpersonal expectations. The basic idea in role theory is that being a man or a woman means enacting a general role definitive of one's sex— the "sex role". There are, accordingly, always two sex roles in a given context, the "male role" and the "female role". Connell (1987) reports that the insertion of individuals into social relations occurs through the process of "role learning", "socialization" or "internalization". The feminine character is produced by socialization into the female role, the masculine character by socialization into the male role, and the deviant character by some kind of failure in socialization (p49). Connell's observation implies that the concept of biology as the character determinant is not sustainable. The author confesses that his orientation in his "gender studies" class was more of "women studies" than it was gender. It is also true that most of the books on gender see things from a feminine perspective rather than from a dualistic standpoint. In case his work falls in this category, he blames his past rather than his intention.