ABSTRACT
Culture is a central concept in sociological analysis, providing an important link between the individual and society. It has been a key concern of feminist sociology. As Michele Barrett pointed out, ‘cultural politics are crucially important to feminism because they involve struggles over meaning’ (1982, p. 37). Although the cultures found in all parts of the world and even within the same societies and social settings differ in many ways, what sociologists think of as ‘cultures’ seem, as Macionis and Plummer (2002, pp. 100-107) outline, to be built on five major components. These are:
1 symbols (anything that carries a particular meaning recognised by people who share the same culture);
2 language (a system of symbols that allows members of a society to communicate with one another);
3 values (the beliefs that people have about what is good and bad); 4 norms (social rules and expectations which guide behaviour); and 5 material culture (the tangible objects that sociologists term artefacts).
