From her doctoral thesis published in 1972 titled "Women in Between" to her more recent publications, Strathern is constantly challenging the definitions and social constructs of gender "norms". In her piece "Self-Interest and the Social Good: Some Implications of Hagen Gender Imagery" (1981), Strathern notes that "ender imagery is… a symbolic mechanism whereby "collective" and "personal" interests are made to seem to be of different orders". As editor of a collection of articles in "Dealing with Inequality: Analysing gender relations in Melanesia and beyond", she also brings to the surface the issue of gender "equality" and what it really means, asking if the definitions of the Western world are in fact correct, or if there is still a sense of patriarchal dominance.