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In this round-table discussion, four social science researchers working on ancient Greece, the colonial Americas, contemporary Africa and modern slavery, reply to questions from the editor of the special issue on the different definitions of slavery currently in use. The aim is not so much to choose one definition over another as to discuss the relevance of the different criteria employed (property, social death, forced labor) through the prism of gender. A second series of questions deals with the notion of a slave society, i.e. a social formation largely shaped by slavery. The goal is similarly to ascertain whether gender enables us better to grasp the historical diversity of such societies and the varied ways in which slavery informed social experience within them.