This book is concerned with explaining variation in the status of women. The author, after measuring over 50 aspects of status, first concludes that status is not a unitary concept. Therefore the author looks at 10 different domains of status. Many traditional explanations are not supported; most support is found for the influence of social complexity which generally lowers female status.

This book discusses the role of women cross-culturally. The authors use a cross-cultural sample to examine the differences between men and women in contribution to subsistence as well as the social juxtaposition of the sexes in foraging, horticultural, agricultural, pastoral, and industrial societies.

Textor summarizes cross-cultural findings on the status of women in relation to cultural, environmental, psychological, and social phenomena.

Textor encapsulates cross-cultural findings on marital residence relating to cultural, environmental, psychological, and social phenomena.

Textor summarizes cross-cultural male initiation rites findings pertaining to cultural, environmental, psychological, and social phenomena.

This article offers a critique of Stover and Hope (1984). Gray challenges their findings and suggests that a third variable, sovereign groups, explains the correlation between monotheism and gender status.

Considers the effect of data quality and gender of ethnographer on the relationship between female status and cultural complexity. Suggest that data quality controls clarify the nature of the relationship.

This article examines sex differences in sports and games of strategy and chance. Results indicated large differences in participation by gender, especially for combat and hunting sports and in patriarchal societies. The possible cross-cultural universality of this trend is discussed.

Textor summarizes cross-cultural findings on adolescence gender separation pertaining to cultural, environmental, psychological, and social phenomena.

A materialist approach is used to study the status of women in hunter-gatherer groups. Techno-ecological factors are tested as predictors of women's status.