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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.
Michelle Rosaldo presents an ethnographic interpretation of the
life of the Ilongots, a group of some 3,500 hunters and
horticulturists in Northern Luzon, Philippines. Her study focuses
on headhunting, a practice that remained active among the Ilongots
until at least 1972. Indigenous notions of "knowledge" and
"passion" are crucial to the Ilongots' perceptions of their own
social practices of headhunting, oratory, marriage, and the
organization of subsistence labor. In explaining the significance
of these key ideas, Professor Rosaldo examines what she considers
to be the most important dimensions of Ilongot social
relationships: the contrasts between men and women and between
accomplished married men and bachelor youths. By defining
"knowledge" and "passion" in the context of their social and
affective significance, the author demonstrates the place of
headhunting in historical and political processes, and shows the
relation between headhunting and indigenous concepts of curing,
reproduction, and health.
Theoretically oriented toward interpretive or symbolic
ethnography, this book clarifies some of the ways in which the
study of a language -- both vocabulary and patterns of usage -- is
a study of a culture; the process of translation is presented as a
method of cultural interpretation. Professor Rosaldo argues that an
appreciation of the Ilongots' specific notions of "the self" and
the emotional concepts associated with headhunting can illuminate
central aspects of the group's social life.
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