Sixteen women anthropologists analyze the place of women in human societies, treating as problematic certain questions and observations that in the past have been ignored or taken for granted, and consulting the anthropological record for data and theoretical perspectives that will help us to understand and change the quality of women's lives.The first three essays address the question of human sexual asymmetry. Recognizing that men's and women's spheres are typically distinguished and that anthropologists have often slighted the powers and values associated with the woman's world, these essays examine the evidence for asymmetrical valuations of the sexes across a range of cultures and ask how these valuations can be explained. Explanations are sought not in biological "givens" of human nature, but in universal patterns of human, social, psychological, and cultural experience-patterns that, presumably, can be changed.The remaining papers explore women's roles in a wide variety of social systems. By showing that women, like men, are social actors seeking power, security, prestige, and a sense of worth and value, these papers demonstrate the inadequacies of conventionally male-oriented accounts of social structure. They illuminate the strategies by which women in different cultures achieve a surprising degree of political power and social recognition; and investigate, from case-oriented and comparative perspectives, the social-structural, legal, psychological, economic, ritual, mythological, and metaphorical factors that account for variation in women's lives.

Bringing together distinguished scholars and original voices from anthropology's diverse subfields, Feminist Anthropology: Past, Present, and Future probes critical issues in the study of gender, sex, and sexuality. Contributors offer significant reflections on feminist anthropology's winding trajectory. In so doing, they examine what it means to practice feminist anthropology today, at a time when the field is perceived as fragmented and contentious. By uniting around shared feminist concerns, Feminist Anthropology establishes a common ground for varied practitioners. A holistic perspective allows for effective and creative dialogue on such issues as performativity, pedagogy, heteronormativity, difference, and identity. In addition, the volume provides a vital assessment of the history and current state of feminist theorizing within the discipline as a whole by identifying three issues central to future feminist analyses: the critical reenvisioning of old interpretations, the political and practical aspects of the academy, and the critique of heteronormativity. Throughout the volume, these topics are explored, deconstructed, and transformed. The enduring contribution of Feminist Anthropology book lies in its contributors' efforts to place their work within the larger context of social theory, while acknowledging and focusing on the realities of anthropological practice and politics.

Situated Lives brings together the most important recent feminist and critical research that illuminates the living experience of ordinary women and men. Focusing on gender and culture, these essays situate gender in relationship to the historical and material circumstances where gender, race, class and sexual orientation intersect and shape everyday interaction.

Through ethnographic research, sociologists and anthropologists explore the interaction of America's newcomers with established residents in six cities. Their analysis highlights the importance of class and power as immigrants interact in the workplace, at home, at school, and in community organizations.

Louise Lamphere met Eva Price in 1965 in Sheep Springs, New Mexico, on the eastern side of the Navajo Reservation, while Lamphere was doing fieldwork for her dissertation in social anthropology at Harvard University. Over the next forty years, Lamphere developed a strong friendship with Price that expanded to include Eva's daughter, Carole Cadman, and granddaughter, Valerie Darwin.

When Price expressed her desire to pass along her teachings about Navajo life to her children and grandchildren, Lamphere saw an opportunity to pursue her own interest in writing a book on Navajo women that would encompass their transformative experiences through the twentieth century. Lamphere collaborated with Price, Cadman, and Darwin to create a narrative that highlights the voices of three generations of Navajo women, placing them within the context of the larger American society rather than presenting the Navajo as an isolated indigenous culture. Emphasizing the vibrancy and strength of Navajo culture, "Weaving Women's Lives" illustrates the process of incorporating new practices and ideas while retaining distinctive Navajo beliefs, values, and orientations. As individual threads are woven to create a unique pattern, so have Navajo women pulled together elements of Navajo and Anglo culture to create a new blueprint for their lives.

The recession of the 1980s triggered important economic and cultural changes in the United States, and working women were at the center of these changes. Sunbelt Working Mothers compares the experiences of Mexican-American and white mothers employed in apparel and electronics factories in Albuquerque and illuminates the ways in which individual women manage the competing demands of two roles. Authors Lamphere, Zavella, Gonzales, and Evans show how these mothers-without the economic resources of highly paid professional women-find day care, divide economic contributions and household responsibilities with spouses or roommates, and obtain emotional support from kin or friends. After an overview of the recent industrialization of the Sunbelt economy, the authors consider how new participative management techniques have given greater flexibility to some women's work lives. Drawing on interviews with married couples and single mothers, they offer an engaging account of representative women's home lives, and conclude that working families are changing. This timely book will be welcomed by students and scholars in the fields of anthropology, sociology, labor studies, women's studies, and social history.