West and Zimmerman

Doing Gender

1. An article whose main contribution is its reconcepualization of gender as not so much a set of traits residing with individuals, but as something people do in their social interactions. As such, gender is fundamentally about social interaction and relationship - it is embedded in every aspects of everyday interactions that one's actions in doing gender simultaneously produces, reproduces, sustains and legitimates the social meanings accorded to gender. Here, the key concept is that of accountability - that, insofar as society is structured according to sex categorization of male/female dichotomy, people come to be required to be accountable for every action they perform to be appropriate to one's sex category. In this sense, the authors argue that gender is extremely fundamental in all aspects of social relationships in the sense that one cannot avoid doing gender if one wants to make actions accountable.

2. The authors argue against the notion that gender is a role, or that it is a display. It is not merely a role, for while roles are situated identities, gender is a master identity that cut across situations. Further, to characterize gender as display is also misleading, as display implies something not so fundamental and limited aspect of human interaction.

3. The authors also argue that to fully appreciate what is involved in asserting gender as a fundamental guiding principle embedded in all aspects of everyday interaction, three analytically distinct yet empirically overlapping concepts must be distinguished clearly. They are the concepts of sex, sex category and gender. Sex is a determination made through the application of socially agreed upon biological criteria for classifying persons as females or males. Sex category, while achieved through application of sex criteria, acts as a proxy for categorization based on "sex" in everyday life and thus it is established and sustained by the socially required identificatory displays that proclaim one's membership in one or the other category. It is important to note that it is possible to claim membership in a sex category even if one lacks the required traits based on biological "sex". Gender, then, is the activity. It is the activities of managing situated conduct in light of normative conceptions of attitudes and activities appropriate for one's sex category. Drawing upon Garfinkel's "Agnes" study, the authors provide for an example of this distinction of concepts. Basically, the argument seems to be that while sex categorization depends on the commonsense categorization, in the sense that people are categorized into either male or female sex category automatically insofar as certain traits grossly contradict that categorization, gender involves far more complex set of recipes for activities that must be modified subtly according to different situations.

4. Once again, gender is so fundamental that any type of social ineractions and activities are potentially subject to "doing gender" - that is, making one's actions accountable in terms of their appropriateness to sex category. The authors call these situations as "resources" for doing gender - several specific empirical examples of this doing gender are noted in pp. 137-40. By doing gender, it in turn has the effect of reinforcing the notion of "essential difference between females and males". That is, these gendered activities are not so much expressions of natural gender differences but the very act of the production of these differences. In fact, the fact that gender differences are made to appear natural and essential through "doing gender" is crucial in maintaining the status quo of subordination of women to men, the authors state. Though such conclusion is of course not new, the authors state that in order to attain effective change modification in cultural and institutional aspects of sex category, as well as at the interactional level, are necessary.