The social roles of women, as those of men, are subject to biological, social, economic and cultural factors. Such roles are not the same among clans of hunters, tribes of rice growers, or complex urban societies. They are not the same in urban Kabul and in urban Las Vegas. Some societies allow more variability than others. A collection of papers facing thousands of years and different societies, by authors from various parts of the world, is provoking a healthy thinking on variable realities.