UMass Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press

The Kinship of Women

Book Jacket: "Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict" by H. Lapsley

Hilary Lapsley

Winner, Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction
(presented by Publishing Triangle)

A Revealing study of the relationship between two major figures in the history of anthropology.

This book tells the story of the extraordinary friendship between renowned anthropologists Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict. First as mentor and protégé, later as colleagues and lovers, these two remarkable yet temperamentally different women forged a bond that endured for twenty-five years, defying convention as well as easy categorization.

Drawing on a broad range of sources, including recently released correspondence between Mead and Benedict, Hilary Lapsley reconstructs this complex relationship and situates it in the context of its time. She explores the ways in which Mead's and Benedict's professional work grew out of concerns in their own lives—about sexuality and friendship, identity and difference. Lapsley also shows how Mead and Benedict used their anthropological studies to call attention to the cultural foundations of American life, Benedict seeking to make the world more tolerant of deviance and Mead to liberate the individual from the artificial constraints of gender and race.

Overall, the book charts the course of a relationship that persisted in the face of numerous obstacles, including separations of long duration, the competing claims of other partners, secrecy about lesbianism, the tensions of professional rivalry, and the clash of different personalities.

"Anyone who has ever taken an introduction to cultural anthropology course should enjoy this biography. . . . 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. . . . An easily read and enjoyable narrative."

Booklist
"Portrays with originality and provocative detail the development of anthropology, from its earliest days. . . . Once [Mead and Benedict] have met, Lapsley's story becomes a powerful reminder of how friendship and love between women once flourished."

Carolyn G. Heilbrun, Women's Review of Books
"A fascinating, detailed account. . . . What is especially significant about this book is that it approaches Mead and Benedict from a new perspective, one informed by women's studies, feminist psychology, and lesbian studies. . . . The reader gains a wealth of knowledge about the work, relationships, and lives of two of the most influential women in 20th-century social science."

Journal of Lesbian Studies
"Lapsley's book is not simply about two innovative, 'self-actualized' women but also about the 'kinship of women,' its loyalties, its commitments, and the courage required to sustain it, which nurtures collegiality and synergistic collaboration. The professional consequences of this kinship are seldom explored in print. Mead and Benedict encouraged each other for more than 30 years. That such focus, attention, and regard should be thought peculiar, require courage, or be cloaked in secrecy is a question Lapsley implicitly raises in a beautifully documented and crafted text."

Choice
"Lapsley's bookflows along like a well-written novel, complete with heroines and villains, well-developed characters, plots and subplots. It includes descriptions and analyses that anthropologists and psychologists will welcome, as will feminist and gender study readers."

Nathalie Woodbury, columnist and former editor, Anthropology Newsletter
"Lapsley casts a fresh eye on a complex friendship that lasted 25 years. . . . Feminist scholars, anthropologists, and students of that post-WWI era when gender roles were in motion will appreciate this complex tale."

Kirkus Reviews

Hilary Lapsley is professor of women's studies at the University of Waikato, New Zealand.

Biography / Women's Studies / American Studies
376 pp., 16 illustrations
$45.00s cloth, ISBN 1-55849-181-3
$24.95t paper, ISBN 1-55849-295-X (2001)
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