Summary Of The Controversy Between Margaret Mead And Derek Freeman

When it comes to the field of Anthropology, the debate between Margaret Mead and Derek Freeman regarding teenage sexual practices has caused great controversy over the years. Margaret Mead spent time in Samoa doing ethnographic fieldwork among the Samoan people, especially the young females, in order to come to the conclusion that teenagers in Samoa have pre-marital sex, and it is not frowned upon. She also argued that relationships between Samoan teenagers and their parents do not hold as much conflict as in other places, and that this lead to less stressful lives for the young people. Though many praised her work, there were those who opposed it, including Derek Freeman who went on to write two books refuting her findings and claiming that

Freeman explained that this was a form of entertainment for the Samoan people, and so they would find humor in lying to outsiders. He explains that maybe this was the case when she was interviewing Fa’apua’a and Fofoa , “In Samoa…it is not acceptable, in ordinary conversation, ‘to discuss sexual matters publicly.’ And so, in their embarrassment at Mead’s brashness, Fa’apua’a and Fofoa, having conspiratorially pinched one another, blandly agreed with all she has suggested to them…” (Freeman 139). It is possible that perhaps Mead was lied to by these women as a result of her embarrassing them with her questioning of their sexual promiscuity. In his work, Freeman also mentions a “smoking gun” letter from Mead to Boas from March 14, 1926, which he believed solidified his idea that Mead had only interviewed Fa’apua’a and Fofoa, and thus would prove to be evidence of

Freeman, I side more with Mead. I think that perhaps she had some faults with her research, but I do not think that her findings were falsified or that her work is a hoax. I feel as though there is evidence to explain my position in the letter correspondence between Mead and Boas. These letters were written for the sole purpose of communicating amongst the two of them, so I feel that this is where the evidence is the most raw and unfabricated. In a letter from Mead to Boas, Mead explained her methods of research, “For my particular study I have 66 children…About 30 percent of these children I know intimately and am acquiring new intimacies every day” (MEAD LETTER). This letter, from February 15, 1926, illustrates the fact that she has selected the group of subjects that she will be studying, and that she has already begun interviewing and studying 30% of them at that point. In the same letter, she goes on to explain some of the information that she has gathered from that 30%, “The material which I have been able to collect on sex so far indicates a minimum of sexual activity before puberty and great promiscuity between puberty and marriage, coupled with a normal amount of laxity in the married state” (MEAD LETTERS). This one letter alone expresses the idea that Mead had already begun her work studying these young women and that through the first 30% of them she had gathered knowledge of promiscuity and sexual activity among girls