From Role Compliance to Interpretative Sovereignty in Gender Identity Maintenance and the Reconfiguration of Power Across Generations

Contemporary shifts in gender roles have made the meaning of behaviour increasingly unstable, challenging traditional assumptions about identity and power within relationships. While existing theories explain how gender roles are formed, they often assume that the meanings attached to behaviour remain fixed. This study addresses this limitation by examining how individuals interpret gendered behaviour in role-reversed situations and how these interpretations shape power and identity. Using qualitative responses from 30 participants across different generational groups, the analysis identifies three interconnected processes: the interpretation of behaviour, the construction of power, and the maintenance of identity. The study employs a purposive sampling strategy to capture diverse perspectives across generations, with recruitment through community organizations and social media platforms. The findings show a clear generational shift from fixed interpretative systems, where behaviour carries stable symbolic meaning, to more flexible systems in which meaning is actively constructed. Based on these findings, the study introduces the concepts of Gender Identity Maintenance and interpretative sovereignty to explain how individuals preserve identity coherence through reinterpretation rather than strict role adherence, drawing on and extending symbolic interactionist traditions which emphasize the ongoing construction of meaning in social interaction. The results further demonstrate that power is increasingly understood as relational and context-dependent rather than tied to gendered positions. A table is developed to illustrate how generational context shapes interpretative systems, which in turn influence power and identity outcomes. The study contributes to gender research by positioning interpretation as the central mechanism linking social change, identity stability, and relational dynamics while acknowledging that generational differences may be moderated by individual, cultural, and contextual factors.