Publication of the week: Dr Jocelynne A. Scutt

Scutt, J.A. (ed.), Women, Law and Culture: Conformity, Contradiction and Conflict (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). xvii + 319 pp. ISBN: 978-3-319-44938-8.

This book explores cultural constructs, societal demands and political and philosophical underpinnings that position women in the world. It illustrates the way culture controls women’s place in the world and how cultural constraints are not limited to any one culture, country, ethnicity, race, class or status. Written by scholars from a wide range of specialisms in law, sociology, anthropology, popular and cultural studies, history, communications, film and sex and gender, this study provides an authoritative take on different cultures, cultural demands and constraints, contradictions and requirements for conformity generating conflict.
Women, Law and Culture is distinctive because it recognises that no particular culture singles out women for ‘special’ treatment, rules and requirements; rather, all do. Highlighting the way law and culture are intimately intertwined, impacting on women – whatever their country and social and economic status – this book will be of great interest to scholars of law, women’s and gender studies and media studies.

Dr Jocelynne Scutt was a Senior Fellow in the Law School at Buckingham. As well as editing the book she wrote the introduction and conclusion. One of the chapters was written by Buckingham’s Professor Susan Edwards.

Dr Scutt’s introduction observes that although both law and culture play a major role in social organisation and political structure, with both impacting substantially on women, despite women’s greater likelihood of being in legislatures, the judiciary and associated professions, even today women are not major players in determining the construction, interpretation or application of laws. Women remain almost wholly outside law-making institutions in some countries. In her conclusion, “Up From Under – Women, Law, Culture”, Dr Scutt draws together the themes of the chapters and the book. She shows how, from popular television and film culture (Big Brother, The Apprentice, Borgen, Woman as Cabbage) to women in Indian dance culture, in the market place of Thailand, The Philippines, and India, wearing or removing the veil, niqab, burqah or suffering violence in the home and on the streets whether of the United Kingdom or India, law and culture dictate women’s identity, place and personal integrity. Nonetheless, she concludes, women have ever engaged in the struggle for equal rights and personhood, and continue to do so.