Martha C. Ward - A World Full of Women

A WORLD FULL OF WOMEN

Martha Ward

Edelstein Monica

First published 2014, 2009, 2006 by Pearson Education, Inc.

Published 2016 by Routledge
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Copyright 2014, 2009, 2006 Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved.

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Credits and acknowledgments borrowed from other sources and reproduced, with permission, in this textbook appear on appropriate page within text.

ISBN: 9780205872800 (pbk)

Cover Designer: Suzanne Behnke
Cover Image: Superstock

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ward, Martha Coonfield.
A World Full of Women/Martha Ward, University of New Orleans, Monica
Edelstein, University of New Orleans.SIXTH EDITION.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-205-87280-0 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-205-87280-8 (alk. paper)
1. Womens studies. 2. WomenCross-cultural studies. 3. Feminist
anthropology. I. Edelstein, Monica. II. Title.
HQ1180.W37 2013
305.4dc23
2012051027

Dedication

LOVE AND THE WORK OF CULTURE: Ruth Benedict and
Margaret Mead

BLOOD AND MILK: Biocultural Markers
in the Lives of Women

EVERYDAY POWER: Womens Agency, Authority,
and Influence

A TWO-BODIED WORLD: Cultural Systems for Separating Females
and Males

WHO OWNS HER BODY? Challenges to Cultural
Relativism

INVISIBLE WORKERS: Women as the Earths
Last Colony

A World Full of Women, Sixth Edition, addresses the lived experiences of women throughout the globe. The text combines descriptive ethnography with gender theory and international statistics to present a comprehensive picture of the lives of women in societies and cultures both present and past. The ethnographic and chronological depth of the text offers students the opportunity to better comprehend and contextualize women s issues and experiences in todays world. World Full of Women, sixth edition, addresses a broad range of topics, including the multifaceted experiences of work in a globalizing world; the bodily and ritual experiences of the life cycle and healing; sexuality and the construction and performance of gender; family structures and cross-cultural marriage practices; social and political organization, accommodation, and resistance; and the complexities of exploitation and physical abuse, as well as womens own forms of power, authority, and agency.

This sixth edition of A World Full of Women builds upon previous editions with up-to-date information incorporated into every chapter. We have refined the organization of some chapters in order to present information more clearly. Several new sections cover significant topics that have risen to the forefront of Anthropology, Womens Studies, and Gender Studies in recent years. These changes are highlighted below:

Introduction: reorganized to place womens agency at the forefront, clarify the concept of gender, and introduce the ethnographic method.

(Whats for Dinner Honey?: Work and Gender): restructured and streamlined to clarify the concepts of womens work and gendered divisions of labor.

(Blood and Milk: Biocultural Markers in the Lives of Women): expanded with new material on menstrual rituals, reproductive technologies and surrogacy, breastfeeding, and aging cross-culturally.

(Patterns of Partnering from Romance to Resistance): updated with new sections on single motherhood and same-sex partnerships and families.

(Everyday Power: Womens Agency, Authority, and Influence): enhanced with a new opening vignette illustrating the use of womens power in a Free Trade Zone in Malaysia.

: (Third Sex?: Gender as Alternative or Continuum): updated with clarification of the terms transgender and cisgender and expanded discussions of same-sex relationships and sexuality in different cultures, including new sections on female-female relationships (mati work) in the Surinamese diaspora and tomboi-femme relationships in Indonesia.

: (Who Owns Her Body?: Challenges to Cultural Relativism): revised tables and charts reflecting the latest in international statistics and analysis addressing physical violence, female genital cutting, and daughter discrimination.

: (Invisible Workers: Women as the Earths Last Colony): added new tables and charts based on the most up-to-date approaches to gathering and interpreting data about paid and unpaid labor and maternal mortality, as well as updated information on the progress being made by womens grassroots movements and international development agencies.

In addition, at the end of each chapter, the sixth edition features:

What Do You Think?: a new feature composed of critical thinking questions to assist students in integrating and engaging with the material presented in the chapter; these can be used to launch class discussions, generate written assignments, and as study aids.

Recommended reading lists: fully updated and annotated lists guide students toward further reading on topics presented in the chapter, assist students in developing research papers, and offer suggestions for titles to enhance the course.

Please visit the companion website at www.routledge.com/9780205872800

We would like to offer our gratitude to those who have generously reviewed World Full of Women: Sharla Blank, Washburn University; Jessica Bodoh-Creed, California State University, Los Angeles; Diana Fox, Bridgewater State College; and Sarah Orndorff, George Washington University. Your input has been invaluable in guiding the direction of this text. We are incredibly thankful to our editor at Pearson, Nancy Roberts, for supporting and encouraging the continued growth of this work. We would also like to thank Renee Eckhoff and Jennifer Jacobson of Ohlinger Publishing Services for their editorial care in bringing this edition to publication.

Rigoberta Mench Tum grew up in a mountainous, agricultural region of Guatemala. She survived a period of increasingly violent dictatorship, genocide, and insurrection, which decimated the region in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It is estimated that over one hundred thousand people were killed. Hundreds of Maya villages were destroyed. More than 1 million people became refugees. Members of Rigobertas family, friends, and neighbors were horrifically raped, tortured, and murdered.