A World Full of Women

by Ward, Martha C.

• ISBN13: 9780205281350
• ISBN10: 0205281354
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-07-01
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Summary

This thorough revision of A World Full of Women will appeal to instructors or students in anthropology, or any discipline looking for a global approach to the study of women. Written by an anthropologist who has taught undergraduates for twenty-eight years and designed the first official Women's Studies course in Louisiana, this book has been forged in the classroom and fueled by the explosion of research on women since the 1970s. This text is a perfect choice for anthropologists who have been looking for an up-to-date, lively book for their gender course!

Table of Contents

Introduction	viii
Old Words and New Realities	ix	(1)
Where I'm Coming From	x	(1)
Some Books That Changed Our Lives	xi
1. "What's for Dinner Honey?" Work and Gender	1	(40)
Work: The First Fact of Life	2	(2)
Tender Trap or SuperWoman: Some Theoretical Controversies	4	(2)
Being Bicultural	5	(1)
Talking Troubles and Carrying Conversations	6	(5)
Involvement, Cooperation, and Dominance	8	(2)
Loss and Lamentations	10	(1)
Off to Work We Go	11	(11)
Home-Work	12	(2)
Mother-Work	14	(2)
Kin-Work	16	(1)
Sex-Work	17	(2)
Marriage as Work	19	(1)
Body-Work	20	(1)
Work and a Revolution	21	(1)
Value, Valued, and Valuable	22	(2)
"What's for Dinner?": Gender and Practical Economics	24	(6)
Hunting, Gathering, and Being Human	25	(1)
The Pot-Luck Principle	26	(1)
Honey, Meat, and Babies	27	(2)
Tools with a Feminine Twist	29	(1)
Planting and Harvesting: The Next Revolution	30	(7)
Digging Sticks	31	(1)
Plows	32	(1)
Distaffs	33	(1)
Peasants	34	(3)
Interpreting Food, Work, and the Facts of Life	37	(2)
A Few of the Many Books You May Want to Read	39	(2)
2. Love and the Work of Culture	41	(28)
More Than Personal Lives	42	(2)
The Personal Is Professional	44	(5)
Husbands, Lovers, and Fieldwork	46	(1)
More Love, Husbands, and Fieldwork	47	(2)
Sex and Temperament	49	(8)
The Arapesh	50	(2)
The Mundugumor	52	(4)
The Tchambuli	56	(1)
Situations on the Sepik	57	(2)
Daughters of Sex and Temperament	59	(2)
Beyond the Sepik	61	(2)
Intimacy and the World Stage	63	(2)
Conclusion: Their Last Great Work	65	(1)
So Many Books: Where Can I Start?	66	(3)
3. Blood and Milk: Biocultural Markers in the Lives of Women	69	(28)
Where Biology and Culture Meet in the Bodies of Women	70	(6)
Moonstruck Maidenhood: Taboo and Meaning	71	(3)
Prime Time or Dirty Old Ladies	74	(2)
Desire and Control	76	(12)
Techniques and Methods	77	(1)
Recipes and Recommendations	78	(4)
Pilgrims for Pregnancy	82	(2)
Abortion	84	(1)
Infanticide and Social Birth	85	(3)
Comparative Childbirth	88	(4)
Midwife and Mother	88	(2)
More Facts of Life-Giving	90	(2)
Breast or Bottle: The Big Controversy	92	(2)
Social Women in Biological Bodies: Some Conclusions	94	(1)
Some Very Important Books to Read	95	(2)
4. Primates Are Us: Monkeys, Mothers, and "Nature"	97	(22)
Studying Chimpanzees	99	(9)
Jane Goodall	101	(1)
Flo	101	(3)
The Dating Game	104	(1)
Mothers and Daughters	104	(2)
Sons, Lovers, and Others	106	(2)
Studying Baboons	108	(4)
Maternal Care and Friendships	108	(2)
Primate Kinfolk	110	(1)
More About Friendships	111	(1)
Studying the Human Nature of Women and Men	112	(2)
Studying the Social Life of Primatologists	114	(2)
Some Evolutionary or Revolutionary Books to Read	116	(3)
5. Patterns of Partnering from Romance to Resistance	119	(24)
Varieties of Arrangements	121	(18)
The Five Fires of the Longhouse	121	(3)
"Mother-Centered" Models in the Caribbean	124	(4)
Variations on the Virgin Mary in Latin America	128	(3)
Duties and Obediences in China	131	(3)
A Circle of Wives: African Experiences	134	(5)
Questioning Romance	139	(2)
Reading from Romance to Resistance	141	(2)
6. A Two-Bodied World: Cultural Systems for Separating Females and Males	143	(28)
Amazon: Women of the Forest and the Flutes	145	(6)
The Mythic Past of the Mundurucu	146	(1)
The Ethnographic Present	146	(3)
The Future Arrived	149	(2)
Melanesia: Birth and Semen	151	(9)
Blood Fears and Womb Envy	152	(2)
Looped String Bags	154	(3)
Wok Meri: "Mothers of Money"	157	(1)
Female Initiations: Complementarity--Not Conflict	158	(2)
Islamic Middle East: Veiled Separations	160	(8)
Bedouin Veils	162	(2)
Female Faces and Female Spaces	164	(2)
Harems and Other Female Worlds	166	(2)
Conclusions: What Do Systems of Separation Mean?	168	(1)
Check Out These Books	169	(2)
7. A Third Sex? Gender As Alternative or Continuum	171	(30)
Making Out and Making Up Sexes and Genders	173	(4)
Biological Sex and Intersexes	173	(2)
Social and Cultural Genders	175	(1)
Objects of Our Desires	176	(1)
Crossing Over and Cross-Dressing	177	(2)
Military Maids	177	(2)
Intersexed Children: A Case for Consideration	179	(3)
When Boys Will Be Girls	182	(4)
Neither Woman nor Man: Hijras of India	182	(4)
Two-Spirits in Native North America	186	(5)
Females, a Man-Woman, and Zuni Pueblo	187	(4)
A Fourth Sex? Cross-Gendered Females	191	(6)
Gone-to-the Spirits	192	(2)
The Cultures of Women-with-Women	194	(2)
The Friendships of Women	196	(1)
Conclusion Beyond the Categories of Sex, Gender, and Desire	197	(2)
Important Books Beyond the Natural Attitude	199	(2)
8. Life's Lesions: Suffering and Healing	201	(30)
Womens Wounds	203	(1)
Instition or Authority, Magic or Science	204	(2)
Gendering Religions	206	(3)
Qualities and Characteristics of Women's Religions	209	(1)
Healers and Healing	210	(4)
Midwifery	211	(2)
A Healer by Trade	213	(1)
Visiting Spirits	214	(6)
Ritualized Rebellions and Extraordinary Emotions	216	(2)
From Housewife to Shaman	218	(2)
Wombs and Wounds	220	(3)
Liquid Life	223	(3)
Women and the New Spirits	226	(2)
To Conclude	228	(1)
A Field Full of Books to Read	229	(2)
9. Who Owns Her Body? Challenges to Cultural Relativism	231	(30)
Human Rights and Cultural Relativism	233	(2)
The "Nature" of Violence	235	(1)
A Worldwide Case: Wife Beating and Wife Battering	235	(4)
Another Worldwide Case: International Sexual Services	239	(7)
Sexual Tourism	241	(3)
Female Sexual Slavery	244	(2)
Case Study Number 1: Rape on a University Campus	246	(1)
Case Study Number 2: The One-Child Policy in China	247	(3)
Case Study Number 3: Dowry Deaths in India	250	(2)
Case Study Number 4: An Ancient Operation in Africa	252	(2)
Conclusions: Can We Live Together?	254	(3)
A Room of One's Own: The Politics of Separation	255	(1)
Dual-Sex Political Systems	255	(1)
The Feminine Principle	256	(1)
Some Powerful Books to Empower Us	257	(4)
10. Jnvisible Workers: Women As the Earth's Last Colony	261	(31)
Characteristics of Women's Lives in the Last Colony	263	(4)
Forever Working	264	(2)
Death and Poor Health	266	(1)
International Strategies for Solving the Problem(s) of Women	267	(4)
High Fashions for Low Incomes	268	(2)
Work and Housewifization	270	(1)
Global Perspectives on Women's Work	271	(4)
Housework Revisited	272	(1)
Working Daughters: The Feminization of Factories	273	(2)
A Marxist-Feminist Thinks About Women and Work	275	(4)
Eleanor Leacock	277	(1)
Women's Autonomy Through Time	278	(1)
Women's Powers as the Roots of Grass	279	(6)
Mothers, Family Values, and the Military	280	(2)
Self-Employed, Organized, and Cooperative	282	(3)
Conclusions in the Post-Modern Manner	285	(5)
Reading, Writing, and Resistance	290	(2)
Glossary	292	(11)
Bibliography	303	(13)
Index	316