This book offers an analysis of the conceptual efficacy of ‘gender’, both as a mode of analysis and as a basis for envisioning the emancipatory transformation of society. It should be pointed out at once, however, that whilst its title suggests that ‘gender’ has a future, not all the volume's contributors are persuaded that this is the case.

Today, the terms ‘gender’ and ‘sex’ are deployed indiscriminately – or, to be more precise, ‘gender’ is increasingly being used to cover both terms. It is, then, worth re-establishing the traditional difference between the two concepts. As proselytized from the late 1960s, ‘sex’ is deemed a category of analysis which relates to the identification of an individual by biological endowments and functions. ‘Gender’ is concerned with the ascription of social characteristics such as ‘womanly’, ‘manly’, ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’, all of which can be seen as culturally variable and not necessarily associated with the sex of an individual. Whilst this distinction is admittedly rough around the edges, its general acceptance since the 1970s has heralded a rare, albeit minimal, consensus across mainstream academia: that the concept of sex is inadequate for the description of social identities. Previously, ‘sex’ invoked an analysis of men and women based upon an a priori set of assumptions about how each sex behaves. In an attempt to overcome what was seen as cultural bias, the term ‘gender’ was introduced as a way of classifying individuals socially rather than just biologically.