Gender impacts on every major social issue from rights to social policy, from ethnicity to poverty, this work is a comprehensive overview of the subject, examining trends in gender over history until the present. The authors draw on a wide range on theoretial analyses as well as their own field of work to illuminate the importance of diversity in gender in Latin America, as well as more traditionally held concepts of class, ethnicity, the urban-rural divide and age and peer groups. Debunking traditional universalizing stereotypes, this text charts contemporary changes gender roles, relations between the genders, and gender- and sexuality-based identities. Chapters are arranged around broad themes, including gender and poverty, gender and health, gender and sexuality and gender and employment. Each chapter begins with an introduction to the core issues the debates and theoretical work in the relevant field, and case studies. The authors also make reference to the continually expanding literature on the subject, including work on men and masculinity, fatherhood and sexuality.

Sylvia Chant is a professor of Developmental Geography at the London School of Economics and Political Science and is the Programme Director of the Urbanisation and Development Programme at the LSE's Department of Geography and Environment