Is there something in the basic makeup of human beings that dictates behavior along gender lines? What can we actually know about the gender of the past? How has social "progress" affected gender? Women and Men in World Cultures, a text for courses in anthropology of gender, explores perspectives on the nature of sex and gender throughout the world. This overview begins with a review of theories regarding the role that gender may have played in past societies. The second section focuses on the place of women and men in a wide variety of ways of life--from foragers to members of the global community. Lastly, the third section focuses on topics that are most often of interest to students: how gender constructs work within families, how the gender identities of individuals are created in varied societies, how power affects gender, how supernatural beliefs and religious ideologies affect gender, and how the realities of globalization and transnationalism influence the lives of men and women.