Gender & Difference in a Globalizing World

Francis E. Mascia-Lees' ability to synthesize complex ideas rewards readers with a text that clearly conceptualizes how differences of gender, race, class, and sexuality structure today's globalizing world. It exposes the strengths and weaknesses of different theoretical orientations used in anthropology to study gender, difference, power, and inequality including feminist anthropology; black feminist anthropology; lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgendered theory; practice, postcolonial, symbolic, and psychological anthropology; as well as social evolutionism, sociobiology, and evolutionary psychology, among others. Mascia-Lees combines core components of these perspectives with insightful analyses and ethnographic examples to illustrate how global events and transformations have molded and continue to shape gender identities, behaviors, and expectations and produce and sustain worldwide inequalities. This exemplary treatment provides a solid background to understand complex issues and to think critically about remedying uneven degrees of privilege and experiences of oppression both within and across nations.