Margaret Mead is one of the most well known women in the field of anthropology. She is known for her book Coming of Age in Samoa published in 1928 as well as for her conflicting views with Derek Freeman. She is so well known that there was a stamp made with her image on it. She was the head of the AAA and one of the three best known women at the time of her death.
Margaret and Derek both studied the women in Samoa. They both came to very different conclusions. Freeman had many good cases built against Mead; at least they looked good until you did some research on your own. Derek accused Mead of being tricked by the Samoan girls. He said that when Mead was asking them what they did at night and they said they were “out with boys” that they were tricking her. Derek went back to Samoa after Mead and found the same girl that Mead interviewed and she said that Samoan girls are “terrific liars”. Upon further research it is discovered that in the Samoan culture you do not talk about things like sex in public or around someone of the opposite sex. The girls said they were joking around because that was what was culturally acceptable.
When another anthropologist, Paul Shankman, decided to look into Derek’s work things started to get ugly. Freeman wrote many letters and cards to Shankman that were mean in nature. When Shankman asked Freeman if he could see him postgraduate thesis and his field notes, Derek refused. It wasn’t until Freeman’s death in 2001 that Paul was able to see them. When Paul went through Derek’s field notes it showed something completely different than what Freeman had been saying. Basically his field notes completely contradicted just about everything he had said about Mead and the Samoans.
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