Gender Performance

Symbolic Interactionism: Gender Displays

Sociologist Erving Goffman developed a symbolic interactionist approach to social interaction. Symbolic interactionism is a sociological perspective that views social reality as a product of the meaning-making of individuals during interaction with others. Goffman outlines a dramaturgical approach to social interaction wherein he likens social interaction to performances by actors onstage. He sees individuals as creative players in social interaction, influenced by the performances of other actors as well as specific audiences.

Gender is expressed during social interaction through a form of interactive performance that Goffman terms gender displays. Gender displays help define what will occur during a social interaction and how the interaction will be organized. Goffman likens gender displays between women and men to the roles of domination-subordination characterized by the parent-child relationship: the relationship between women and men is unequal, with women positioned as the dependent and subordinate child. For example, a male's masculine gender displays in interaction with a woman will likely position him as an initiator and leader; the woman then conducts herself in a gender display appropriate to femininity so that she follows the man's lead.

Though Goffman recognizes biological differences between women and men in the form of reproductive capabilities, he argues against the common interpretation of gender displays as being demonstrative of the inherent nature of female or male individuals. Goffman asserts that different behaviors of women and men are instead rooted in culture, rather than biology and that gender displays create the notion of gender difference. He uses the term sex-class to refer to women and men as distinct social classes, clearly defining the social inequality between women and men as a social (as opposed to biological) design.

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