Does the Construction of Gender Differ in the East and West?

Abstract

The central question as to how gender is repeatedly reconstructed is the focus of the collection at hand. The authors’ objective of examining what influence the location of people along a spatial and social spectrum has on the construction of gender is particularly engaging. Is being a woman or man different in the east than in the west? In order to further investigate this question the authors utilize the analytical potential of biographies as key to understanding an individual’s active effort in his or her self-construction; biographies capture how people produce and change their gender in relation to others and in dialogue with the structural determining factors of gender. The book Geschlechterkonstruktion in Ost und West (Constructing Gender in the East and the West) thus offers an interesting point of departure for further discussion, particularly through its presentation of different empirical studies..