ABSTRACT
At the present stage of the comparative study of constructions of gender, I see five main challenges. The first is to put aside the axiom that women are everywhere subordinated to men (Ortner and Whitehead 1981). This assumption may be perfectly justifiable on an abstract level of analysis and from a specific social and historical vantage point. The main question, however, is not whether the assumption of global subordination is tenable or not, but whether it is a fruitful guideline for empirical investigations. In my view, the axiom of global subordination assumes what should be examined, and reduces the ability of the analyst to uncover the subtleties, complexities, contradictions and ambiguities of gender relations in different contexts. The relations between the genders have dimensions other than power and prestige—such as love, sexuality, spiritual communion, dependency—and the analyst should constantly be open to new experiences, new vantage points and new research questions to be asked.
