In every society, children learn from their parents the concept of "feminine" and "masculine" and what that means in a given culture. After all, much about these conceptions is not biological at all but cultural. The way we tend to think about men and women and their gender roles in society constitute the prevailing paradigm that influences our thinking. This may change over time, and in the last forty years or so we have seen the concept undergo considerable change in the face of the feminist movement and related efforts to challenge traditional attitudes and ideas with something more egalitarian.
At the same time, as we can all see in our own family situations, there are certain gender roles and attitudes that do not change that much. Men and women are differentiated biologically by sexual function and by the general role of women as nurturers of children, something that no amount of male parenting shift will ever change fully simply because it cannot be changed. Men and women are more likely to work together in equal situations, but men and women are still differentiated by dress, attitudes, and some behaviors.
Obviously, what we identify as gender roles in Western societies have been changing rapidly in recent years, with the changes created both by evolutionary changes in society, including economic shifts which have altered the way people work and indeed which people work as more and more women enter the workforce, and by pressure brought to make changes because of the perception that the traditional social structure was inequitable. Gender relations are part of the socialization process, the initiation given the young by society, teaching them certain values and creating in them certain behavior patterns acceptable to their social roles. These roles have been in a state of flux in American society in recent years, and men and women today can be seen as having expanded their roles in society, with women enterin...