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Gender: Still a Useful Category of Analysis?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Joan Wallach Scott*
Affiliation:
Institute for Advanced Study

Abstract

This paper traces the history of uses of the word “gender”. It suggests that though “gender” has been recuperated and become commonplace, many issues persist around the way “women” and “men”, and the power relations between them, are defined and are evolving. Provided it still allows us to question the meanings attached to the sexes, how they are established and in what contexts, gender remains a useful, because critical, analytical category.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2010

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