A World Full of Women (3rd Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Academic text or personal expression?
Review: Though I enjoyed this book, I'm not sure most people are ready for Ward's obvious folding-in of her personal and political beliefs into this thorough work on the experiences of women.

Ward's writing on the work women do and on the wide variety of gender issues explained in the book is certainly interesting and edifying. However, her seemingly definitive pronouncements on political and social matters are at times given without explanation or evidence. In our changing world, some of the "truths" about male/female relationships in our society she takes as a matter of course are holding less and less water. Those familiar with issues in the anthropology of gender, while they may agree with her, will find places where evidence that supports her conclusions is amplified while that which doesn't is minimized or omitted.

Despite her conviction otherwise, I don't agree with her that it's possible to express one's personal opinion in such an otherwise academic context. Inevitably, one is cheapened by the other. That said, the book itself is quite interesting as a look into gender issues in anthropology and the viewpoints of both herself and other greats in the sub-field, like Mead & Benedict. Perhaps my wish though was simply for a more academically rigorous treatment.