There are many ways in which to view the concept of gender. Many people define "gender" a dichotomy between male and female, but it becomes more complex with theory. In Judith Butler's Performative Acts and Gender Constitution, she claims that a gender is an act that is repeated, reenacted and re-experienced (p 906). It is a performance that is imposed on individuals by many outside sources throughout history such as the society. She also adds that society molds us into how we view "men" and "women" should act or behave. We were raised to behave in specific ways that our parents believe were traits of a proper lady or a gentleman because they too were raised with the same understandings.
             Identity is how we see ourselves and how others see us. Therefore, identity is both formed by ourselves and others. Butler believes that gender is not a conscious choice and "neither is it imposed or inscribed upon the individual, as some post-structuralist displacements of the subject would content" (p 906). Butler describes gender as being performative in the sense that it is not a natural act but something that is both artificial and baseless. The acts cause gender to materialized and came into existence by repetition. This repetition then inscribes gender ideologies in everyone. Having a set of ideology what "men" or "women" are capable of doing limits everyone to what they are capable of doing.
             For example, the gender role ideology leads to the social structure that masks what the men can do and or get away with as in the case of The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston. As the men of China immigrate to America looking for work to send money home to their families, the women are expected to uphold the home front. "They expected her alone to keep the traditional ways, which her brothers, now among the barbarians, could fumble without detection....The work of preservation demands that the feelings are playing about in one's guts not be turn...