Historical and sociological studies of gender have pursued the plethora of ways in which cultural concepts of gender impact social life, especially insti­ tutions such as the family, the church, the workplace, and the state. Of crit­ ical importance to all gender research is the idea that gender ideologies are closely linked to the management of social asymmetries. As Marie Withers Osmond and Barrie Thorne (1993:593) concisely put it, /IGender relations are basically power relations./I Notions of patriarchy, male authority, male domi­ nation, and gender hierarchy have gained considerable intellectual vitality within feminist argumentation. The import of gender pervades all levels of analysis, from historical and ethnographic studies of gender ideologies, struc­ tures, and customs to interactional studies of gendered activities and actions. From a poststructuralist perspective, we need both macro-and microanaly­ ses to illuminate continuity and change in the rights, expectations, and oblig­ ations vis-a-vis the conduct, knowledge, understandings, and feelings that constitute the lived experience of being female or male in society.