1980s
In 1988 Henrietta Moore published Feminism and Anthropology, an argument for a feminist anthropology conscious of the way gender difference relates to other markers of social difference, including class, ethnicity, and race. Moore contended that anthropology, even when carried out by women, tended to " the world into a male idiom because researchers are either men or women trained in a male oriented discipline". Anthropology's theoretical architecture and practical methods, Moore argued, were so overwhelmingly influenced by sexist ideology (anthropology was commonly termed the "study of man" for much of the twentieth century) that without serious self-examination and a conscious effort to counter this bias, anthropology could not meaningfully represent female experience.
Moore argued too, though, that there was nothing self-evident or determinant about gender, and that anthropology - with its capacity to understand how differently cultures around the world conceive of gender and sex - could not treat the idea of womanhood as straightforward and unproblematic.
Read more about this topic: Feminist Anthropology