Male and Female
A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World
Mead, Margaret
Date Written: 1949-01-01
Publisher: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., New York, USA
Year Published: 1949
Pages: 445pp Resource Type: Book
Mead draws on an account of sex and gender roles among the Pacific peoples to provide insight into the sexual patterns at work in the United States.
Abstract:
Mead starts with an explanation of her own approach to this study of the sexes. She then employs knowledge gained on her many field trips to the South Pacific--to Bali, to Samoa, to New Guinea and the Admiralty Islands--to show what very different roles have been played by men and women in other cultures. She reports societies where sexual intercourse is considered delightful--and to those where it regarded as a necessary eveil; societies where men envy and try to emulate the roles of women--and a society where a woman's place is not in the home; societies where childbearing is hateful--and societies where children are prized possessions.
From this account of sex roles among the Pacific peoples, her book proceeds to a provocative analysis of the sexual patterns at work in the United States.
[From publisher]
Table of Contents:
Introduction for the Edition of 1967
Introduction of the Edition of 1962
Part One: Introductory
I. The Significance of the Questions We Ask
II. How an Anthropologist Writes
Part Two: The Ways of the Body
III. First Learnings
IV. Even-handed, Money-minded, and Womb-envying Patterns
V. Fathers, Mothers, and Budding Impulses
VI. Sex and Temperament
VII. Basic Regularities in Human Sex Development
Part Three: The Problems of Society
VIII. Rhythm of Work and Play
IX. Human Fatherhood is a Social Invention
X. Potency and Receptivity
XI. Human Reproductivity
Part Four: The Two Sexes in Contemporary America
XII. Our Complex American Culture
XIII. Expected Childhood Experience
XIV. Pre-courtship Behaviour and Adult Sex Demands
XV. Sex Achievement
XVI. Each Family in a Home of Its Own
XVII. Can Marriage be for Life?
XVIII. To Both Their Own
Notes to Chapters
Appendix I: Background and Bibliographical Material on the Seven Pacific Island Cultures: Samoa; Manus; Arapesh; Mundugumor; Iatmul; Tchambuli; Bali
Appendix II: The Ethics of Insight-giving
Appendix III: Sources and Experience in Our American Culture
Index of Personal Names
Index of Subjects
Subject Headings
