The expression of gender differs according to space and time.  Throughout the Diaspora, Jewish gender ideals have often varied from those of the majority host culture. This variance in gender role expectations was particularly acute among European Jewish immigrants to North America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  As this Jewish community acculturated, the interplay between Jewish gender expression and the norms of (Christian) secular society produced a literature and politic of particularly Jewish gender policing and resistance that is still with us today.