Women\'s Role and Status : Gender Politics, Rites of Passage, Reproduction, Prostitution, Women Careers, Conflict

Contents: Introduction/Subhadra Channa. 1. Politics, sexual and non-sexual, in an egalitarian society/Richard Lee. 2. Rituals, service castes, and women: rites of passage and the conception of auspiciousness and inauspiciousness in Northern India/Yuko Yagi. 3. Women and the reproduction of the Jain community/Josephine Reynell. 4. Brothels, baths and babes. Prostitution in the Byzantine Holy Land/Claudine Dauphin. 5. The professional careers: women pioneers and the male image seduction/Rachel Finnegan. 6. The State vs. Midwives: a battle for body and soul/Carolyne Pion. 7. Caring, nurturing, and cooperating: women\'s way to deal with conflict in the workplace/Brigitte Aflalo. 8. Women, men, and environmental change: the gender dimensions of environmental policies and programs/Justine Sass. 9. Women and post-conflict reconstruction: issues and sources.