Male and Female: A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World – A Classic Cultural Anthropology of Pacific Island Tribes and Gender

by Margaret Mead

With a new introduction by Helen Fisher, Ph.D., the classic gender study by renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead, which delivers pertinent insights into today's battle of the sexes. Mead's anthropological examination of seven Pacific island tribes analyzes the dynamics of non-western cultures to explore the evolving meaning of "male" and "female" in modern American society. On its publication in 1949, the New York Times declared, "Dr. Mead's book has come to grips with the cold war between the sexes and has shown the basis of a lasting sexual peace." This edition, prepared for the centennial of Mead's birth, features introductions by Helen Fisher and Mead's daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson. Male & Female remains an extraordinary document of great relevance, while Mead's research methods and fieldwork offer a blueprint for scholars in future generations.

Genres: Anthropology, Nonfiction, Sociology, Feminism, Gender, Psychology, Science

496 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1949

About the author

Margaret Mead was an American cultural anthropologist who was frequently a featured writer and speaker in the mass media throughout the '60s and '70s as a popularizer of the insights of anthropology into modern American and western life but also a respected, if controversial, academic anthropologist.

Her reports as to the purportedly healthy attitude towards sex in South Pacific and Southeast Asian traditional cultures amply informed the '60s "sexual revolution" and it was only at the end of her life and career that her propositions were – albeit controversially – challenged by a maverick fellow anthropologist and literate members of societies she had long before studied and reported on. Mead was a champion of broadened sexual mores within a context of traditional western religious life.

Excerpted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Alison Kenney · Rating 3 out of 5]

"We know of no culture that has said, articulately, that there is no difference between men and women except in the way they contribute to the creation of the next generation; that otherwise in all respects they are simply human beings with varying gifts, no one of which can be exclusively assigned to either sex. We find no culture in which it has been thought that all identified traits - stupidity and brilliance, beauty and ugliness, friendliness and hostilty, initiative and responsiveness, courage and patience and industry - are merely human traits. However differently the traits have been assigned, some to one sex, some to the other, and some to both, however arbitrary the assignment must be seen to be (for surely it cannot be true that women's heads are both absolutely weaker - for carrying loads - and absolutely stronger - for carrying loads - than men's),although the division has been arbitrary, it has always been there in every society of which we have any knowledge."

[Chris Gleck]

I bought this book in a used bookstore in Atlanta. It was copyrighted in 1949 and my old-style paperback version was printed in 1973, which includes author's introductions from 1962 and 1967. I am sure I purchased this to continue my education through self-directed reading, and here I am 45 years later doing just that! The topic certainly interests me, and following Mead's anthropological approach to the topic was enlightening for me. She performed direct field study of seven different cultures in the South Pacific and finishes with an analysis of the two sexes in contemporary (1948) America. All of it was pretty fascinating, including my personal observations of what has changed and what remains the same in America. This also compares with other retirement reading I have done, notably The Feminine Mystique and The Second Sex.

[Cindy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an abridged audio book. Mead, the world-famous anthropologist, talks about the roles of men and women in a half dozen different societies around the world. I assume it suffered from being an abridgment (I usually avoid these like the plague, but didn't realize this was an abridgment when I ordered it.) Mead is a little too accepting of some of Freud's nonsense about young children's feelings about gender, but I guess that's to be expected since she wrote this in the 1940s. It was interesting, but not fascinating.

[Paul H. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Daffy, condescending nonsense; the squares knew how sex and relationships worked, Margaret, they just didn’t agree with your Freud/Kinsey noble savage bullshit ... basically Vox-splaining before Vox existed.

[Zsofi · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's one of the most pleasant things in the world to read something after you should have done it. For me (and to many) Margaret Mead represents the heroic age of I-anthropology. I found great pleasure in her marvelous descriptions, her witty remarks and also the material she was working with: the everyday lives of remote tribes. It really reads better than some fiction. If I had to choose some excerpts, I'd pick the first chapter and the last one (the latter especially because it is always nice to see how an anthropologist turns her analytic weapons towards the very culture she was bred in.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Margaret Mead published this first in 1948. It is as relevant for our culture today as it was when she first penned her ideas. It is about developing gender roles and identities in the U.S. as the great melting pot. Her argument that no one in America speaks the same language and as a result marital relationships are more tenuous when compared to more primitive cultures continues to illuminate. I still read it.

[Matias · Rating 3 out of 5]

This piece is necessary to understand the development of post and neofreudianism as well as, and more generally, the foundations of American Ethnography and Anthropology. Mead's conclusions, however, should not be viewed as wholly constructed understandings of a different group but as an attempt to understand the sex-relationship within a group. Overall, I won't read it again, but I'd recommend at least reading it once if you are an anthropologist or anthro student.

[Yupa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Datato e confuso

Libro che risale agli anni Quaranta, e i suoi anni li dimostra tutti.
L'analisi di come i generi sessuali si formino e siano vissuti in sette culture diverse dalla nostra sarebbe anche interessante, ma subisce pesanti influssi psicanalitici (ancora il complesso di Edipo e l'invidia del pene?), evidentemente presi sul serio al tempo della stesura.
Non bastasse questo, l'esposizione è poco lineare, saltabecca continuamente da una cosa e l'altra, fa riferimenti sparsi e disorganici a queste sette culture, ovviamente facili da confondere tra loro per chi non ci abbia passato anni insieme come l'autrice, e poi ci sono continue divagazioni teoriche infilate qua e là, spesso tendente al fumoso.
Ben più interessanti i capitoli finali, in cui si analizza dal punto di vista antropologico la formazione rispetto ai generi sessuali negli Stati Uniti. Sono capitoli più lineari e meglio organizzati dei precedenti, ma anch'essi hanno soprattutto un valore storico, visto che gli anni Quaranta si sono fatti lontani, e davvero tante cose sono ormai cambiate. Inoltre i dati concreti riportati sono pochi, sembra più una serie di impressioni dell'autrice su come funziona(va) la società.
Anche il capitolo conclusivo, in cui, nonostante si prenda atto che ogni società articoli a suo modo maschile e femminile, l'autrice ribadisce, pur tra molti distinguo, che la divisione tra i due generi resta qualcosa di fondamentale, da mantenere e da conservare e che l'auspicio è che entrambi i generi contribuiscano alla società e ogni suo àmbito nelle loro differenze. Un'idea che nei decennî successivi altri e altre avrebbero messo in discussione, anche ferocemente, e che del resto trova scettico anche il sottoscritto.
Nel complesso un libro poco riuscito e più che altro un reperto del suo tempo.

[Giovanna Stellato · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mead un'antesignana dei generi stadies, già più di mezzo secolo fa aveva compreso quanto le differenze sessuali fossero una costruzione sociale e non un dato assoluto .
Mead presenta una panoramica sui modi di vivere il loro genere nelle sette popolazioni dei Mari del Sud attraverso descrizioni dettagliate e coinvolgenti.

[Owen Hatherley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dated, obviously, but this must have been wild to come across at the height of the Cold War - seven highly distinct ways of ordering society and human sexuality presented as having equal and frequently greater ability to provide for human needs and happiness than the American Nuclear Family and capitalist civilisation.

[Ellen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wordy, academic and old fashioned

[Sarah Hamilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

An authoritative tome from the renowned anthropologist.

[Candace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although my ex-partner is of the opinion that Margaret Mead, now long dead, can "go suck a dick", I have to agree with her - American's are lousy lays. Polynesia and France for the win?

Um . . . but seriously she looses me at times with what seems to me to be too much of a focus on child rearing habits; however she more than makes up for this with her insights into American culture.

[Fenixbird SandS]

7 Pacific Islander tribes studied by Dr. Meade

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

academic, but great for anyone interested in gender and/or anthropology. margaret mead was amazing.

[Kelly Palakshappa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mead is an important aspect to anthropology, but this book is written from an early colonist perspective.

[Elizabeth]

different cover
adequate condition

[kat · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dated, but interesting.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting view of male/female relations in America of the 1940s.

[Jamees · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little slow in the beginning. Just read the final chapters.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very intellectual and non-fictiony. But good focus on differences in upbrginging across cultures

[Rishindra Chinta]

xxviii

[Mills College Library]

176 M479m 2001