Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict: The Kinship of Women [Paperback]

Hilary Lapsley (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Anyone who has ever taken an introduction to cultural anthropology course should enjoy this biography of the intimate relationship between two of the discipline's early, modern female pioneers, Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict. From their meeting at Columbia University in the early 1920s until Benedict's death in 1948, Mead and Benedict remained close despite the interruption of marriage, affairs, fieldwork, and jealous colleagues. The book brings to life such prominent anthropologists as Franz Boas, Edward Sapir, and Gregory Bateson as well as poets Leonie Adams and Edna St. Vincent Millay. This account traces the career of Mead as she popularizes ethnographies with her commentary on the people and cultures of the South Pacific and that of Benedict as she fights the misogyny of academia. Author Lapsley, using poetry, dream interpretation, and written correspondence by the two women and their shared friends and colleagues, weaves an easily read and enjoyable narrative. Julia Glynn --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

This book offers both respectable fieldwork and a respectful interpretation of a singular relationship between two world- famous anthropologists. Since Margaret Mead's daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson, wrote a memoir of her parents (With a Daughter's Eye, 1984), the lesbian link between Mead and Ruth Benedict has been no secret. Lapsley (Women's Studies/Univ. of Waikato, New Zealand) casts a fresh eye on a complex friendship that lasted 25 years. Mead and Benedict first met in 1922, when Mead was a student at Barnard College and Benedict was a teaching assistant to famed anthropologist Franz Boas. The two women probably became lovers a year or so later, but their love affair deepened into an intellectual and emotional compatibility that survived Mead's three husbands, Benedict's failed marriage and later lesbian commitments, and even a kind of triangle with linguist Edward Safir. Beginning with the duo's early years, Lapsley echos their professional insights by trying to frame their experiences within the culture that formed them. Part of this includes the accepted ``romantic attachments'' between young women in college prior to marriage and the so-called Boston Marriages of women in womanly careers (social work, teaching) that marked the early 1900s. Lapsley follows Mead to Samoa, New Guinea, and Bali and Benedict in her struggles to establish herself in a chauvinist academic sphere at Columbia/Barnard. Throughout their long history was the need to hide any hints of lesbianism, which, in the climate of the 1920s and even later, would have destroyed careers and reputations. The important question, of course, is, how fundamentally did these lesbian relationships influence the conclusions of their ground-breaking research? Significantly is the answer posed here, at least for Mead. Feminist scholars, anthropologists, and students of that post-WWI era when gender roles were in motion will appreciate this complex tale of two friends who stuck it out. (16 illustrations, not seen) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 376 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Massachusetts Pr (June 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155849295X
• ISBN-13: 978-1558492950
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,687,999 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Special Friendship and Bond, June 28, 2000

By A Customer

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This review is from: Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict: The Kinship of Women (Hardcover)

As a historian of anthropology, I looked forward to reading this book. The relationship between Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead has been subject to much speculation. No scholar has seriously analyzed the impact the relationship had on the two women in question or American anthropology in general. While several biographies are available about Benedict and Mead, none delve deeply into the relationship they shared throughout their lives. Having finished the text in question, I am torn. For, as a historical analysis of Benedict and Mead the text is superficial. The author, Hilary Lapsley, a New Zealand psychologist who teaches women's studies, has a tendency to skate above the surface and does not delve deeply enough into the respective controversies Benedict and Mead became embroiled in during their careers.

This critique however is rather specialized. For the vast majority of readers unfamiliar with the intricacies of the history of American anthropology will be impressed by a sympathetic portrait of two of the most influential women in anthropology to date. The fact that Benedict and Mead were lovers is now well known and their "friendship" is contextualized within women's studies, feminist psychology, and lesbian studies. The author, herself a lesbian, adds great insight into the nature of their relationship for she points out it was not condcuted in isolation. It is her examination of Benedict's and Mead's "friendship cirlces" that I found particularly insightful. By friendship the author is refering to the twentieth century version of what Carol Smith-Rosenberg called "the female world of love and ritual". The author also does not dwell too much on the sexual aspect of their relationship, a trap that might have sold more books but infringed on the dignity of Benedict and Mead.

In short, Lapsley's book is not a biography in any sense but a particularly personal portrait of two women, friends and lovers throughout their lives. As such, she sheds new light on their work and lives for both those interested in the history of anthropology and those with a general interest in Benedict and Mead.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mead and Benedict: Kinship of Women, March 29, 2002

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Mary Bowman-kruhm "marybk" (Frederick, MD United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict: The Kinship of Women (Hardcover)

I found this book extraordinary good reading. It reviews their lives during childhood and moves thru both Mead's and Benedict's lives until Benedict's death in 1948. The last chapter does provide information about what happened to the leading players in the lives of both women in later years. I found it much easier to read than Howard's book, which is completely different, with lots of stories about Mead but very difficult to follow chronologically. The author's background in psychology is evident and I recommend the book highly.