Shirley G. Ardener is a pioneer of research on women (doing women’s studies more-or-less avant la lettre) and a committed anthropological researcher working with Bakweri people in Cameroon since the 1950s, initially with her husband Edwin Ardener (1927–1987).
Her work as editor has seen the publication of many key texts such as Perceiving Women, 1975.
This collection also includes her essay Sexual Insult and Female Militancy, a foundational text demonstrating how the personal can be made deeply political.
She helped found and was the founding director of the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research on Women (CCCRW) at Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford informally since 1973, formally since 1983 (Davies and Waldren 2007: 252).
The CCCRW has now become the International Gender Studies Centre (IGS) based at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.