Cultural relativism is the idea that cultural values, beliefs, behaviors, or any other aspect of a culture must be understood or viewed within the context of the culture that they are a part of. When viewing aspects of a culture different from one's own, it is important to not impose the views and beliefs of one's own culture onto the culture being observed or studied. When viewing the concept of gender in other cultures, one may be tempted to assume that the way society influences gender is universal across all cultures, but the idea of cultural relativism contradicts this idea. Gender is no exception to this idea, as gender roles, norms, ideas about gender, and societal views on gender vary from culture to culture.

While Western cultures have some variance and have changed over time in regards to gender roles and norms, the theme of males being the providers, the "head of the household", and the masculine protector of the family, and females being the homemakers, taking care of children, and other domestic tasks and embodying femininity have stayed quite consistent for a long period, but these ideas and roles are not always consistent with other cultures, as the idea of cultural relativism asserts. ^[1] There are many examples of cultures that stray from some of the Western stereotypical gender norms and ideas such as South Asian Hijra. Hijra's biological sex is typically male, but some are intersex. They are considered neither male nor female, existing outside of the typical gender binary consisting of just men and women. Hijra are often regarded with large amounts of respect, as becoming a Hijra requires one to leave one's home to undergo a ceremony involving castration to join a community of hijra. When India was colonized by Britain in the 19th century, hijra were feared and prosecuted due to the Christian beliefs of the British colonizers, and they were considered criminals. ^[2]

The people of Juchitán's gender roles are tangibly different from that of other cultures, especially other Western cultures such as the United States. Women are considered to be very powerful and are often business owners instead of men. Muxes are men who take on the more "feminine" gender roles, dressing more femininely, and performing work a woman would more typically perform such as embroidery. ^[1]

The Mojave tribe of Native Americans also strays from stereotypical Western gender norms. Both men and women were extensively involved in agricultural practices as opposed to just women. It is common for Mojave Native Americans to view gender and sex as two different concepts, where sex is determined by one's genitals and gender is determined by the roles and behaviors that one takes part in within their society. Prepubescent boys in Mojave tribes who do not act as a typical boy are given a surprise ceremony in which songs are sung by many onlookers. If the young boy dances femininely or like a typical woman would in their tribe, he would take up life as a woman, being given a woman's name, woman's clothes, and woman's role in society. These boys who were assigned to be women through this ceremony are called Alyha and are said to be proficient at healing rituals. ^[1]

In the 1960s and 1970s, the women's movement started the momentum that led to the formation of feminist theory. One of the publications that launched this movement was Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. This book, describing how women were expected to be fulfilled throughout their housework, ^[3] immediately resonated with many women, which ignited a movement. In this movement, known as the women's rights movement or women's liberation movement, women fought for equal rights, and more personal freedom in all aspects of life such as politics, work, family, and sexuality. In June 1966, the National Organization for Women (NOW) was created by women's rights activists Betty Friedan, Pauli Murray, Shirley Chisholm, and Muriel Fox to advocate political and social equality for women. ^[4] Although the organization did not succeed initially, by 1969, NOW was more comfortable with lobbying for women's reform, and in 1972, Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). However, due to criticisms from anti-feminists who argued that the ERA would result in the invalidation of sodomy laws, and would lead to the legalization of same-sex marriage, the proposed Amendment would fall short of being ratified by three votes. This occurred during the second wave of feminism, after the first wave in the 19th century for women's suffrage, and the foundation of early feminist theory. ^[3]

Feminist theory is a broad term for a variety of theories that all emphasize women's experiences and the belief that society is subordinate to women. Early feminist theory targeted sex and gender and the injustices based on these gender categories. However, the early feminist movement was geared towards equality for white middle-class women and excluded other minority women, especially black women. Minority women face different experiences and struggles from white middle-class women, but this idea of intersectionality was largely overlooked at the time. However, this theory allowed for the birth of feminism, which focuses on women's empowerment, freedom, and the enhancement of a woman's sense of self. ^[5] Feminism can be broken into four distinct waves: first-wave from the 19th to early 20th century, second-wave feminism from the 1960s to 1970s, and the third and fourth waves of feminism from the 1990s to now. ^[3] Each wave of feminism had its own goal that focused on the importance of equality among men and women in regard to social, political, and economic equality. ^[6] In the first wave, feminists focused on women's suffrage, or women's right to vote. It was a movement that pushed for political equality so that women could participate in politics. ^[7] The exclusion of minority women in this movement sparked the acknowledgment of minority groups in the second wave; however, the second wave mainly dealt with sexuality and reproductive rights rather than suffrage. ^[7] By the end of the second wave, many began to realize that gender, the idea of what it means to be a "woman", and society's expectations of what a woman is, are socially constructed. This realization led to the rise of third-wave feminism. It focused on debunking the predominant idea society held for women and their position in society. In this movement, the notion of being "girly" or "feminine" is broken down to redefine society's definition of a woman. The boundaries of gender are reconstructed to allow people to experiment with the fluidity of gender. ^[7]

The fourth wave of feminism began in 2013 and centers around sexual harassment, rape culture, and body shaming. One of the major distinctions in this wave is the use of social media and the internet to spread its messages. This wave erupted after a young woman in India died after being brutally gang raped. Another catalyst for this wave of feminism was the election of President Donald Trump in 2016 and remarks he had made in the past about women. One day after President Trump's inauguration, in 2017, about 4.6 million people took to the streets of Washington D.C. for the Women's March to protest gender equality. Also in 2017, the Me Too movement gained popularity, in which women came forward to share their experiences of sexual assault after it became known that Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted women for years in the film industry. This movement grew in only a couple of months to condemn powerful men in business, politics, news, and entertainment for their assaults against women. ^[8]