American Studies scholars use key phrases in the language to describe critical concepts necessary to study our past.  Gender, and the role it plays in critiquing our history and the present, is a key term which is neither fixed nor stable but is in a constant fluid state. In the past gender was, according to Gail Bederman, "assumed to be an unchanging, transhistorical essence, consisting of fixed naturally occurring traits". (16) This understanding of gender has been used to define roles in society and as a justification for power and authority (males), or passive and protected (female). These past assumptions about gender provided that the larger the degree of sexual difference between a man and woman, the higher the level of the civilization. 

Historically, gender has been assigned on the basis of fixed biological anatomy and roles in society were assigned according to that description.  To uncover the truth of gender it needs to be studied as an idealogical process, which is redefined using daily activities, individual ideas, and institutions.  It is constantly shifting and has a different meaning for each person. This fluidity enables individuals to live in society and identify the sociological and gender group to which they feel most comfortable.  Gender, as well as American culture in general, needs to be studied by reviewing the forces which shape our definitions  and how these labels are relevent to society as a whole.

Works Cited

                                        Bederman, Gail. Manliness and Civilization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.