You clearly don't understand what a gender role is. It's not about what will happen, it's about what's expected to happen. In some societies, subgroups within societies, and even individuals hold these expectations more dearly than in others. These expectations still exist, however, irrespective of whether they're fulfilled or not in the pursuit of 'prosperity and survival'.

Before I head to work, I can write something small and then I'll write something bigger.

Hausaland is a very well studied location in the world.  Its in Africa.  Look it up.  There gender roles and separation are perhaps more clearly defined than anywhere else.  There's a section of the home, sometimes even an entirely separate home, for the woman.  The woman will actually make a contract verbal at times, sometimes written down, when it comes to marriage.  Women are the movers and shakers when it comes to News (at least they were in the 50s, but even then western ideals were moving in to remove that from them too).  They had, in a way, some manner of voluntary movement among friends and families but could not enter the 'male' area of the home.  Old women were the ones who ran the bazaar and women who made crafts got to keep whatever was sold, but that money wouldn't enter into the man's hands with exception of if she wanted it to do so (usually for expenses that could not be afforded otherwise).  There is a high pressure for men to get married, so women have a lot of control in marriage contracts, and get to choose one of three kinds which each have various subtle alterations.

This group of people have been studied multiple times, we can talk with them, they are humans too ya know?  We learn their language, listen to what goes on, and quite clearly see a gender divide.  Men go to work outside the home and women stay inside of it, with the exception of old women who go to work at the bazaar if they like.  Such extremes are easy to put together, and its a place we've studied multiple times and come to similar conclusions from various groups. 

Sociology was founded to study the European world to better it, and there's a lot of jumping around in Sociology where they don't wanna just say something.  There's a lot of this or that going on.  But, when we enter into cross cultural studies, hopefully facilitated by multiple people from both cultures, we can make a much clearer understanding of what goes on.  I can find you the name of the tribe where both women were not supposed to knit (its pretty famous because of one of the first women sociologists in the 1800s writing about them) as well as the bear ovary tribe.  I just have to find my articles, but I'll prolly just end up googling them again.

As for gender being fluid, it does change... yes, over time the roles and requirements of each gender shift.  However, you go up to a guy who's big and awesomely strong and tell him that he's being very feminine today.  He'll pull back.  You go over to my friend's house where his little brother wouldn't drink tea because he believed it to be a Woman's drink... and then you start to see.  Hell, go to kindergarten and look at little kids pretend to be their parents.  Its fun, cause sometimes the little girl gets to be the dad.  But they show off the clear roles each of them have taken in their house, and then you look at some crazy statistics, like, 70%+ women do most of the chores in the house in America despite working full time jobs more regularly then ever before in history.  You look at japan and you find that an overwhelming majority, something near 80% of women get to control the finances coming into the house because its tradition in japan that the wife is the caretaker of the home.  And you can watch over the past 10 years even how japanese men are moving into that more and more, that the 80% is less than it was and its going down.  And then you can easily see that SOMETHING is going on, and its very clearly along the lines of gender.  Despite whether or not gender is made up, or if its ACTUALLY fluid.  Gender divides, very strongly in our society and for many thousands of years before us across the continent.

Just read a book about the greeks.  Look at what men did, and women, what they could do and couldn't.  Read the greeks who wrote ABOUT the greeks.   So its not even our modern western analysis of incorrect sociologisms going at them, its THEM.  Very easy to see that SOMETHING must be going on, and that something most clearly and effectively translates to a gender divide.  I'll find another group of people and post it, hopefully during my lunch, where they had two different scythes to do field work.  One for the women, and one for the men.  Gender is about the tools people use to perform the duties people have.  And its real.  If a bit less clear than 2+2... and in that regard sociologists need to be VERY CAUTIOUS when making observations.

Quit yer jabberin' and bake me a pie.

No pie. Only cookies.

Anyways, as an aside, I thank Gamble for finding the article a lot, and I look forward to re-reading so I can possibly post an argument for or against whatever the author is attempting to say, or maybe just about what is being said.  Haven't had time to even read it since my last post, or do much googling but there's a lot that can be found just by googling some of the information I posted.  I'll prolly write an email to my old sociology teacher to get copies of the articles, I've wanted them for sometime anyhow but just didn't have the lack of lazyness.

As another aside, I don't really bake.  But I'd like to try more often, so cookies and pies both sound fantastic ideas.  If they are good, I'll eat them, if they are bad just give me a mailing address and I'll send them along if my room mates don't want them.  I'm always willing to send a bad batch of cookies away, else my cat might eat them.

Blah blah blah blah blah...

Shut up Bruce. Lest I fly out of my tree and latch onto your face with my many tentacles.

I'd like to thank NES for appreciating my contribution.  Oh and my branch of sociology involves nightsticks, guns and badges and if you think sociology is screwed up, give criminal justice a whirl.

Nobody's going to argue about the validity of your science when you beat them with a stick.

I would..I would need to see the control group, and need to know what his variables were. Just beating someone with a stick proves nothing, and so is bad science.

*whack!*  There's your control group!  *whack!* There's your variables!  *whack!*  And that's for your old man!

Ouch, your old man sucks...

http://www.prisonexp.org/

I think that link says it all.

Side note, if you have a college education you damn well better know of that experiment.

Yep, it's shit like that that makes us go through "human subjects review" now.  Damn you, nutty college professors!