A New Psychology of Women: Gender, Culture, and Ethnicity [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Hilary M. Lips (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1559343346 | ISBN-13: 978-1559343343 | Publication Date: January 8, 1999

This is the fi rst inclusive psychology of women textbook that explicitly presents an in-depth introduction to the diversity of women in cross cultural perspective. This text describes ways in which cultures, including American culture, shape women's experiences. An important focus of the text is research carried out by scholars outside of the United States or outside the mainstream within the United States; by including such research, the text allows student to see what issues and approaches are considered important within other cultures.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Title of related interest also from Waveland Press: Crawford-Unger, In Our Own Words: Writings from Women's Lives, Second Edition (ISBN 9781577664901). --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From the Back Cover

"A wonderful global focus. I liked the learning activities, discussion questions, and Web resources." -- MaryBeth Ahlum, Nebraska Wesleyan University --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 413 pages
• Publisher: Mayfield Pub Co (January 8, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559343346
• ISBN-13: 978-1559343343
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #794,825 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A well written introduction to female psychology diversity., March 3, 2000

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A New Psychology of Women: Gender, Culture, and Ethnicity (Paperback)

A New Psychology Of Women: Gender, Culture, And Ethnicity is the first in-depth introduction to the psychological diversity of women from a cross-cultural perspective. Using a narrative approach, Hilary Lips describes ways in which cultures (including contemporary American culture) shape women's experience. In addition to the essential topics in a psychology of women survey, A New Psychology Of Women includes a strong focus on the diversity and the commonality of women's experiences; research carried conducted by scholars outside the U.S. and outside the mainstream within the U.S.; as well as chapters examining aging, leadership, and power. Each chapter opening presents a narrative bringing the chapter topic into personal and cultural perspective. A New Psychology Of Women is an ideal, and particularly well written, introduction that will prove of immense interest to students of psychology and women's studies.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Biased, misleading and manipulative., September 24, 2011

By 

Tyler - See all my reviews

This review is from: A New Psychology of Women: Gender, Culture, and Ethnicity (Paperback)

I'm taking "Psychological Perspectives on Gender" at my University for a course, and I've read a few other texts on GWS, but this text is sexist at times and uses surveys to create a propaganda like textbook. My biggest complaint throughout the text is Lips will make claims without citations. She'll make statements like on page 105 of the third edition "In some cultures, women take control of the birth process, and the woman giving birth is viewed as a traveler on a difficult journey or a warrior going through a challenging rite of passage." No citation is given, but seems to fuel this underlying message of woman supremacy. Then sometimes when facts are given, information is manipulated, magnifying an issue to an extreme, "Removal or reshaping of all or part of the clitoris, called clitoroplasty, by modern surgeons, happens about five times a day in the United States (Coventry, 2000)." My problem is with this, when calculated out means according to this information about 1825 clitoroplasty operations occur in the United States. When compared with the July 2009 US Census Bureau Population survey, we discover 1825 people out of 307,006,550 have this surgery performed on them. When using this information Lips tries to persuade people toward underlying viewpoints on gender. Also, at times she'll provide surveys that are special cases to try to disprove issues. Such as on page 100, she uses research from Marjori Shostak in 1981 that focuses on eight !Kung women being studied across two menstrual cycles to disprove the idea that hormone levels during Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) did not affect mood, but rather blames on much more powerful influences such as the behavior of husbands, relatives, and friends, or the availability of food and water or minor illness (Lips, 100). The amount of women surveyed is too small to represent the billions that exist on this planet, let alone the demographic for !Kung women. This sort of biased information is from chapter three and ranges throughout the book. Instead of taking small studies from special cases that disprove ideas, Lips needs more thorough research to try to prove her points. Stay away from this book, unless it is required by a GWS coarse. For a better book, I recommend "Sexual Fluidity", by Lisa M. Diamond. It does a better job than this text.

3.0 out of 5 stars Lips did her best..., January 12, 2012

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B. Evans "Relentless Reader" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: A New Psychology of Women: Gender, Culture, and Ethnicity (Paperback)

I will say that Hilary Lips is an innovator for the fact that she is one of the few psychologists to attempt to take a multi-cultural approach to addressing the psychology of women; however, I found some of her information misleading & at times, I felt that she was writing only what she wanted to about particular women from different backgrounds. For example, she took the time to address the matter of some Black women bleaching their skin because Black men view having a lighter partner as a social asset (Lips,2010), but she didn't take the time to investigate the reasons why women of European descent go tanning at such a high rate, even though tanning is more common among Euro-American women than bleaching is among African-American women. I also found that she did a lot of man-bashing throughout the text; I understand the feminist approach & wanting equality between sexes, but not all men are as dreadful as they are portrayed in the text. I think that some of the studies that she cited were bull-crap as well. Still, there is a lot of insight in this text & Lips does acknowledge the fact that what we call "facts" are really best just best guesses. I still believe that another psychologist should try a multi-cultural approach to women's psychology & address all of the issues at hand equally with regards to women all of the ethnicities being discussed.