Twenty years of thinking about gender

Abstract

Abstract The author presents the conceptual theoretical learning obtained through 20 years’ work in the field of gender studies on the basis of a review of the evolution of this term and experience in two areas: empirical research and the coordination of a gender studies center, which involved theoretical, ethical and political issues. The starting point of this reflexive exercise is a review of what the term “gender” means or is intended to mean, and then to explain what it has become today; its usefulness, abuses, explanatory potential, limits and perverse effects. It concludes by putting forward a number of theoretical questions that open up new lines of reflection in the field of work.