Abstract
The article discusses anthropological debates on gender from the late 1960s until today and explores their significance for understanding recent developments in the post-communist world. Three different phases of development are distinguished in anthropological theorizing on gender: First, the question of universal female subordination is set in focus, then the second phase, when eyes are opened for "the differences of the difference", and a third deconstructivist phase where multiple genders, floating gender boundaries and the body become the key issues of interest. It is argued that, rather than being mutually exclusive, the different theoretical perspectives provide useful insights into different kinds of phenomena, and that one perspective should therefore not be allowed to overrule the others. Their capacity to generate different kinds of questions is demonstrated in a discussion of three empirical phenomena: the double-burden problem of East European women, the relation between Western and Eastern academic feminism, and the "Westernization" of bodies and appearances.
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