What to read after Women in Between?

Prés. de l'éd.: Male-female relations have occupied a prominent place in the analysis of traditional New Guinea societies. This is the first full-length work dealing explicitly with women's status and relations between the sexes in the New Guinea Highlands. Dr Strathern evaluates dogmas and examines the attitude of the Hagen people towards female. Hagen women are important as primary producers and as intermediaries in the system of ceremonial wealth-exchange through which political competition between clans is expressed. But although men recognize these crucial functions, they exclude woman from moral participation in politics. They do this in spite of fears that women might wield private influence and have secret power. Case-studies of marriage arrangements, divorce and traditional settlement of disputes are cited and are used to illustrate women's status in Hagen society. Comparisons with other peoples of the Guinea Highlands elucidate features peculiar to Hagen. Antagonism between the sexes is shown to mesh with the conflicting notion and attitudes to which women's somewhat ambiguous position gives rise. Women are able to manipulate this situation to some personal advantage. There is a war between the sexes in Hagen, and one which has the result of allowing women, within the terms of the system, a degree of independence. Previous works on New Guinea Highlands have tended to concentrate on the activities of men: Women in Between is concerned with what women do, how they see themselves end the rights they demand in a world where most affairs of "significance" are dominated by males. This important study will be welcomed by social anthropologists and by the general reader with an interest in New Guinea. For those involved with women's rights, it offers an insight into the politics of sex in a non-Western community