Women across Cultures
Common Issues, Varied Experiences

This Element examines the issues women have in common across cultures, despite differing contexts.

Hilary M. Lips (Author)

9781108812788, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 25 February 2021

75 pages
22.9 x 15 x 0.5 cm, 0.13 kg

Psychology's study of women has revealed some themes that span cultures and countries, yet women's lived experiences in different cultures can be dramatically different. This Element explores, from a psychological perspective, women's issues in cultural contexts. Beginning with the question of public and private identity (i.e., who 'counts' as a woman), it goes on to examine embodiment, sexuality, reproduction, family roles, economic participation and power, violence, leadership, and feminist activism. It concludes with a brief discussion of women's complicated relationship to culture: as both keepers and sometimes prisoners of cultural traditions - particularly in the context of migration to different cultures. Running through the Element are two general themes: the pervasiveness of a gender hierarchy that often privileges men over women, and the ways in which women's lived experience varies within cultures according to the intersection of gender with other categories that affect expectations, norms, power and privilege.

1. Introduction
2. Who Counts as a Woman: Public and Private Identity
3. Embodying Femininity: Issues of Beauty, Strength, Youth
4. Sexuality and Reproduction
5. Motherhood, and Family Roles
6. Economic Participation and Power
7. Violence
8. Leadership, Power, and Feminist Activism
9. Conclusion: Women as Shapers, Keepers, and Prisoners of Cultural Traditions?.

Subject Areas: Social, group or collective psychology [JMH], Psychology [JM], Gender studies: women [JFSJ1], Cultural studies [JFC]