Edited by Ruth Behar and Deborah Gordon, the book collects work from female anthropologists such as Louise Lamphere, Faye V. Harrison, Lila Abu-Lughod, Catherine Lutz, Kirin Narayan, Aihwa Ong, and Anna Tsing.

It brought a feminist perspective to anthropological theory, teaching of the history of the discipline, and the practice of ethnographic observation and writing.

These were organized, in part, in response to the 1986 book Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, edited by James Clifford and George E.

[citation needed] Behar intended the book to raise awareness about the marginalization of the exclusion of the female contributors' works.

She stated that the book was "multivoiced, and includes biographical, historical, and literary essays, fiction, autobiography, theater, poetry, life stories, travelogues, social criticism, fieldwork accounts, and blended texts of various kinds.