Although women have played a vital role in the history of the discipline of anthropology, it was not until the early 1970s that the field of anthropology and gender, or anthropology, emerged feminist. Sex and gender roles have always been a vital part of any ethnographic study, but contributors to this theory began to address the androcentric nature of anthropology itself. The substantial gap in information regarding the study of women was perceived as a male bias, a bias made more evident because what little female-focused fieldwork was being done received insufficient attention from the academic community. Although anthropology was considered one of the most egalitarian fields of study, it was dominated by white Western males who primarily focused on the study of men within a society. Women observed in fieldwork were simply identified based on their specific gender roles, something these feminist anthropologists hoped to correct. Those women deserved to be portrayed accurately for the role they played in the human experience. The 1960s and 1970s belonged to a tumultuous period in American history, characterized by a series of social and political movements including anti-Vietnam War activism, the origin of a “counterculture” that fought for social liberation , the civil rights movement and the rise of feminism (McGee & Warms 2011: 396). Women began to question the limits of their gender, mobilizing to promote their rights and interests. Women's liberation has been subsumed across a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, exploring cross-culturally found themes such as patriarchy, discrimination, and objectification. In addition to the cultural anthropological focus on gender inequality, feminis...... at the center of the paper...... and visions of the societies studied. Basic anthropological assumptions were challenged when it became apparent that the male-centered field had neglected to document women and gender as important aspects of social life. While it is clear that several feminist anthropologists have sought to correct the imbalance of knowledge by focusing exclusively on women and their significant impact on the development of humankind, the theory has evolved to focus on gender in relation to power, class, social construction and equality. sexuality among others. Works Cited Kuklick, Henrika. 2008 Women in the field in the twentieth century: revolution, involution, devolution? A new history of anthropology. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Pub.277-292McGee, R. Jon and Richard L. Warms. 2011 Culture and personality. Anthropological theory: an introductory history. New York: McGraw-Hill. 396-436