Gender matters - Studying globalization and social change in the 21st century

This introductory article is aimed at promoting transformative scholarship and research that emphasize the centrality of gender in studying social change associated with the process of globalization locally, nationally and regionally. Six major interrelated themes of this special issue are identified. These themes all emphasize globalization as a gendered phenomenon, studying how gender is embodied in the logic of globalization and embedded in its process and structure. The themes examine how globalization shapes gendered institutions; how it constructs gender differentially in women's and men's access to and control of resources, values, identities, choices, role behaviors, and gender power relations; and how it affects the societies and cultures in which women and men live. The themes also address the dialectics of globalization as results of conflicting interaction between global and local political economies and sociocultural conditions, yielding mixed outcomes for women and men. Throughout, the emphasis is on the development of strategy for effective social change.