Woman, Culture, and Society

Woman, Culture, and Society

Paperback edition
Author	Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo Louise Lamphere
Language	English
Subject	rethinking anthropology by centering women
Genre	Anthology of scholarly papers
Publisher	Stanford University Press
Publication date	1974
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print
ISBN	978-0804708517
OCLC	890898
Dewey Decimal	301.41/2
LC Class	73089861

Woman, Culture, and Society, first published in 1974 (Stanford University Press), is a book consisting of 16 papers contributed by female authors and an introduction by the editors Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere. On the heels of the 1960s feminist movement, this book challenged anthropology's status quo of viewing studied cultures from a male perspective while diminishing female perspectives, even considering women as comparatively imperceptible. It is considered to be a pioneering work. ^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]}

The book features a number of widely cited essays including:

• In "Family Structure and Feminine Personality," Nancy Chodorow offers a psychoanalytic explanations for gender differences in personality, based on mother's primary role in raising small children and socializing girls into their gendered roles.
• In "Is female to male as nature is to culture?," first published in Feminist Studies, ^[6] Sherry Ortner argues that the universal (or near universal) subordination of women across cultures is explained in part by a common conception of women as "closer to nature than men" (73). The title describes a structuralist analogy between deep cultural structures, in the sense theorized by Claude Lévi-Strauss. ^[7] It described cultural oppositions including culture/nature, man/woman, mind/body, public/private, civilized/primitive, and active/passive. ^[8] In 1996, Ortner remembered it as "my first piece of feminist writing and my second professional publication." ^[7]

The title of the book alludes to the gendered nature of a prior anthropological text, Man, Culture, and Society.

See also

• Nature, Culture and Gender

References

1. Heider, Karl G. (2007). Seeing Anthropology: Cultural Anthropology through Film (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education. p. 372. ISBN   978-0-205-48355-6.
2. Schrijvers, J. (Fall 1975). "Woman, Culture, and Society by Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo; Louise Lamphere". Urban Anthropology. 4 (3). The Institute, Inc.: 285–289. JSTOR   40552692.
3. Gonzalez, Nancie L. (Oct 4, 1974). "Sex Roles and Cultural Domains". Science . 186 (4158). American Association for the Advancement of Science: 43–44. doi:10.1126/science.186.4158.43. JSTOR   1738552.
4. Chiñas, Beverly (Mar 1975). "Woman, Culture, and Society. Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo; Louise Lamphere". American Anthropologist . 77 (1). American Anthropological Association: 92–93. doi: 10.1525/aa.1975.77.1.02a00180 . JSTOR   674082. Alternate title on Wiley-Blackwell website (click DOI): General, Applied and Theoretical: Woman, Culture, and Society. Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere, eds
5. Martin, M. Kay (March 1976). "Woman, Culture, and Society by Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo; Louise Lamphere". Contemporary Sociology. 5 (2). American Sociological Association: 133–134. doi:10.2307/2062931. JSTOR   2062931.
6. Ortner, Sherry B. (1972). "Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?". Feminist Studies. 1 (2): 5–31. doi:10.2307/3177638. hdl: 2027/spo.0499697.0001.202 . ISSN   0046-3663. JSTOR   3177638.
7. Ortner, Sherry B. (1996). "So, Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?". Making gender: The politics and erotics of culture. Boston: Beacon Press. pp. 173–80. ISBN   978-0-8070-4633-3.
8. Geller, Pamela L.; Stockett, Miranda K. (2006). "Feminist anthropology: Perspectives on our past, present, and future". Feminist anthropology: Past, present, and future. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 6. ISBN   978-0-8122-2005-6.