Margaret Mead

American cultural anthropologist who became the most famous public intellectual in America — popularizing cultural relativism and the idea that personality and gender roles are culturally determined.

Coming of Age in Samoa: Samoan adolescence is less troubled than American — argued that the stormy adolescence is not biologically universal but culturally determined. Sex and Temperament in Three Primitive Societies: gender roles are not biologically fixed. Made anthropology a household term through popular writing and television.