Casi todos los ensayos incluidos aqui intentan responder, desde distintas posiciones, la misma pregunta: que significa hacer estudio de mujeres? Todos ellos comparten la idea de que los significados humanos se descubren a la vez que se construyen, y que el trabajo intelectual de los estudios de genero/de mujeres es indagar como las distintas sociedades construyeron sus significados, en particular, con respecto al sexo, la sexualidad y el genero.

"These four volumes in this major series... provide a single-source reference to the status of the field of women's history and to ways that the field can be expanded.... A basic set for all academic libraries." Library Journal Academic Newswire

Examining the role of women and gender ideology during the pre-contact and colonial periods in Latin America, Navarro looks at early indigenous societies as well as the Spanish and the Portuguese who claimed the "New World." Sanchez Korrol considers the shifts in women's roles between the 1880s and 1930s and accompanying societal transformations."