Ruth Fulton Benedict (New York, 1887–1948) was an American writer and anthropologist who began her professional life writing poetry, but soon discovered anthropology; during her studies she befriended anthropologist Margaret Mead; however, his mentor and teacher was Franz Boas. Boas’ disciples were responsible for spreading relativistic ideas in anthropological discipline. In addition, Ruth Benedict’s studies bridged the gap between psychology and anthropology by belonging to the current known as culture and personality.
Given the time he lived, the life of Benedict XVI was not one of the most common, the world of research was composed exclusively of men. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, access to university education was mostly relegated to men.
- For this reason.
- Ruth Benedict became a fundamental figure of the last century.
- Not only for her contributions to anthropology.
- But for the exceptional character of her existence: she was a woman of humble origin.
- Throughout this article we will know your contributions and learn more about your life and your work.
Ruth Benedict’s academic life and career violated the standards set for women of her time. Ruth’s father was a surgeon and died when she and her sister were still young. The family moved from the city to the countryside to live with Ruth’s grandparents. herself to teaching, but the financial situation of the family was not entirely stable.
Ruth and her sister were very good students and, as a result, received scholarships that allowed them to go to higher education. Despite her situation, Ruth Benedict managed to enter college and graduated in 1909 from Vassar College, specializing in English literature. She then became a high school teacher for three years.
When he was about 30 years old he enrolled at Columbia University to study philosophy and anthropology, his motivations being to give a social and intellectual meaning to his life, in addition to literature, there he met the great American anthropologists of the time: Franz Boas, Robert Lowie and Alfred Kroeber.
“What really unies people is their culture, ideas and standards that they have in common. “Ruth Benedict.
Ruth did her first fieldwork in the summer of 1922 on the mountain, an ethnic group residing in two indigenous reserves in Southern California, at the time she was under the direction of Alfred Kroeber, her first anthropology courses gave them with Franz Boas to a group of university students between 1922 and 1923, the following year she moved to Colombia , where he began working as an assistant and finally assumed the teaching role from 1930.
The beginning of Ruth Benedict’s career represents the progressive empowerment of women in North America in the early 20th century. He has worked away from home, done a lot of fieldwork throughout the country and has edited scientific journals, among other activities. An example of empowerment that, unfortunately, was not the norm at the time.
His doctoral thesis was published in 1934 under the title: Standards of Culture, this work is now considered a classic of anthropology, all the ideas that Benedict XVI exhibits remain in force today, being widely accepted, although at that time they also had the novelty factor.
In Patterns of Culture he proposes that cultures favor certain personalities more and reject others, forming certain models of culture, so that these models of culture directly influence the formation of the personality of each member of a society.
During World War II, Ruth Benedict discovered a new field of study for her time, applied anthropological thinking to the study of contemporary and modern societies through interviews and written documents, and not so much in the field.
During this period of conflict, Ruth Benedict used her knowledge and experience to remotely study Romanian, Zionist, German, and Dutch societies. Near the end of the war, she became interested in Japan and, therefore, a book entitled The Travelanthemum and the Sword was born, a text that is now also considered a classic, analyzed the most characteristic models of Japanese culture of the time.
These experiments in the practice of remote anthropology led to the creation of a manual on the subject: The Study of Distance Culture. In the spring of 1947, he was responsible for a major project on contemporary cultures in France, Germany, Poland, Russia and China.
Due to her original and unrestricted career, Ruth Benedict became president of the American Association of Anthropology (AAA), a powerful institution within anthropological discipline, in 1946.
In her book Patterns of Culture, Ruth Benedict points out that the really important thing for shaping individual behavior is culture, not biological aspects, so the differences in behavior between different societies are due to their culture, which forms different models. , compared three different cultures to each other:
After describing in detail each of the three cultures, Ruth Benedict reflected on several theoretical issues, such as culture as an object of study in anthropology, the importance of cultural diversity and the complex relationship between the individual and the collective, that is, between the personality of each member and models of culture within a society.
“A culture, like the individual, is a more or less coherent model of thought and action. “Ruth Benedict.
Benedict XVI concludes that cultures are the configurations of beliefs, attitudes, knowledge and emotions that characterize a society; it is not a simple accumulation, but an interdependent whole that sets up particular models of culture.
Benedict was a woman ahead of her time, who had romantic relationships with women and lived what she loved most, her studies are still in force today. Moreover, when he saw the threat of Nazism, he tried to help deal with it through education.
Educating and understanding the great diversity of cultures is a powerful tool in the fight against racism.