摘要：In a recent Teleconference on women and violence in Newfoundland, a woman from a small, rural community broke into a discussion of the extent and origins of This violence to comment: "I1's the patriarchy!" A concept that has become almost passé in today's complex maze of feminist thinking had resonated with This woman's experience. Someone farniliar with recent feminist research on fishery economies, like that of rural Newfoundland, might be surprised by This resonance. Feminist researchers have made sorne important contributions to our understanding of fishery economies. They have critiqued the androcentrism of pre-198ü analyses. In the process of developing This critique, They have introduced new concepts to better document women's active participation throughout fishery economies, as weil as the diverse gender relations and differing sexual divisions of labour that can be found within Them. Feminist accounts have also challenged male anthropologists' common assumption of universal patterns of male dominance and female passivity within fishing households and communities (Allison et al., 1989; Cole, 1991; Nadel-Klein and Davis, 1988; Neis, 1988a; Porter, 1983; 1985). Porter (1985) provides significant evidence to support the view that a rigid sexual division of labour did not imply, in any simple sense, male dominance. Wives of boatowners in inshore fishing communities seem to have exercised considerable control within the spheres of their kitchens and, in the past, shore-based work. These conclusions are also supported by other accounts (Davis, 1983, 1988; Murray, 1979). However this multifaceted feminist critique has tended to rely on data collected from groups of women with the most power, and contexts where women's power is strongest and most visible. The wives of boatowners as opposed to crewmen; women who live in endogamous communities where they are in close proximity to their female kin; women employed in unionized as opposed to nonunionized fish plants; and moments of protest as opposed to quiescence predominate in existing accounts (Cole, 1991; Davis, 1983; 1988; Murray, 1979; Neis, 1988a; Neis and Williams, 1993; Porter, 1988).
