Gender and Social Roles.

This chapter attempts to analyze some of the revolutionary changes in pervasive gendered identities of both social persons at the center of social roles and of members of their social circles that provide resources and rights, and receive these from the person. The author begins by presenting and stressing her definition of social role. Next, she analyzes gendered roles, mainly in the complex of U.S. society, using the definition of social role and related concepts. She then discusses racial, ethnic, religious and social class variations that exist in the roles of wife and husband, mother and father and are complicated by the intertwining of these aspects and by change over time.