'' Woman, Culture, and Society'', first published in 1974 (

Stanford University Press Stanford University Press (SUP) is the publishing house of Stanford University. It is one of the oldest academic presses in the United States and the first university press to be established on the West Coast. It is currently a member of the Ass ...

), 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 The feminist movement, also known as the women's movement, refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for Radical politics, radical and Liberalism, liberal reforms on women's issues created by inequality between men and wom ...

, this book challenged

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...

's status quo of viewing studied

culture Culture ( ) is a concept that encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, Attitude (psychology), attitudes ...

s from a male perspective while diminishing female perspectives, even considering women as comparatively imperceptible. It is considered to be a pioneering work. Alternate title on Wiley-Blackwell website (click DOI): General, Applied and Theoretical: Woman, Culture, and Society. Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere, eds 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'',

Sherry Ortner Sherry Beth Ortner (born September 19, 1941) is an American cultural anthropologist. She is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology (Emerita) at UCLA. Ortner is known for her contributions to social theory and feminist theory, as well as for ...

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 Structuralism is an intellectual current and methodological approach, primarily in the social sciences, that interprets elements of human culture by way of their relationship to a broader system. It works to uncover the structural patterns tha ...

analogy between deep cultural structures, in the sense theorized by

Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss ( ; ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a Belgian-born French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair o ...

. It described cultural oppositions including culture/nature, man/woman, mind/body, public/private, civilized/primitive, and active/passive. In 1996, Ortner remembered it as "my first piece of feminist writing and my second professional publication." The title of the book alludes to the gendered nature of a prior anthropological text, ''Man, Culture, and Society''.

References

{{reflist Anthropology books Feminist literature American non-fiction books Cultural anthropology Women's studies Feminist theory Ethnographic literature Stanford University Press books 1974 anthologies

See also

References