The examination of the cultural and linguistic production of gender and of gender relations in society has had a serious impact on the study of labor history over the past twenty years. Work on the role of gender has linked culture and ideas to politics and policies and has shown how ideas about masculinity and femininity shaped notions of the wage, skills, and work, as well as labor and employer practices, union strategies, and labor struggles. But this important methodological move and the new knowledge it has produced has had a limited impact on the field. The tendency to think of gender as a synonym for women has obscured the more radical potential of gender as an analytical tool. The problematic status of gender outside of North America and some parts of Western Europe, as well as the role that labor history itself plays in national histories, has also limited its impact. New research on the intersection of race and ethnicity with gender (including masculinity) and class—instead of treating gender, race, and class as distinct variables—has the potential of moving these investigations forward, especially in the European context.