Gender

Simone de Beauvoir claimed, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” Corresponding to this, one is not born, but rather becomes, a man. Beauvoir's claim is important because it is among the first statements in modern feminism to draw attention to “woman” as a social, rather than natural, category of being.

In the broadest sense, gender has been employed by social theorists to denote a distinction between the biological categories of female and male and the socially constructed categories of woman and man (or girl and boy). In this juxtaposition, while sex is assumed to represent a biological difference, gender is used to define those socially constructed feminine and masculine modes of behavior considered normal and natural for females and males. Thus, gender varies dramatically across societies and throughout human history.

The analysis of gender involves studying the normative conduct associated with males and females, the relative valuations of masculinity and femininity, and the social processes whereby males and females learn normative behaviors. Gender constructions thus relegate female and male bodies to discrete and often intensely regulated masculine and feminine types. Indeed, feminist studies have exposed the typically rigid constructions of masculinity and femininity. For example, within the United States, especially in studies focused on the white middle class, research has revealed that femininity demands that girls and women be passive, caring, sensitive, and gentle. Conversely, masculinity demands that boys and men be aggressive, individualistic, and rational. The bodies of females and males exhibit femininity and masculinity through both actions and culturally appropriate clothing and adornment. Gender is revealed to involve the management of situated conduct in adherence with normative conceptions of masculinity and femininity. Gender is thus seen as a highly significant dimension for understanding how the body becomes a social fact.

Interactionists such as Candace West and Don Zimmerman argue that males and females actively do gender. From their perspective, gender is a set of complex activities that, when routinely accomplished, are cast and experienced as expressions of masculine and feminine natures. Yet, while social theorists treat gender as a social construction, studies reveal that gender is experienced by many people in everyday life as natural and essential, not as put on or performed. Gender theorists have tried to understand how and why gender is experienced as natural. Their attention focuses on socialization practices. For instance, research has revealed that in the United States, at birth, a male baby is immediately referred to as a boy or girl, wrapped in a gender-coded blanket, given a name that is gendered, and described using gender-specific language such as “handsome and smart,” or “sweet and fragile.” All of these activities seem natural, and insofar as they are done over and over again, the “boying of the boy” and “the girling of the girl” are normalized and naturalized.

In addition to studying the socially produced differences between masculinity and femininity, sociologists also study how these differences are linked to inequality, power, and domination. Feminist sociologists are interested in revealing whether, why, and how feminine qualities, practices, and accomplishments are socially and historically subjugated or valued, celebrated or negated. R. W. Connell has argued that while there is no single form of masculinity or femininity, there are culturally dominant normalizations of gendered identity that he characterizes as hegemonic. Significant work among feminist sociologists has revealed the ways in which gender constructions relegate women into subordinate and unequal social relations with men, thereby instantiating the belief that men “naturally” possess a superior nature in comparison with females. Masculine bias has been exposed in dominant ways of knowing, experiencing, and acting. Dorothy E. Smith has been particularly concerned with the consequences of women's intellectual subjugation. She points out that women have been systematically excluded from doing the intellectual work of society. For example, most sociology and history are constructed from the standpoint of men and are largely about men. There are relatively few women poets, and the records kept of those few are haphazard. In comparison with how men's intellectual history is recorded and taught, relatively little is known about women visionaries, thinkers, and political organizers. By examining gender relations, feminist sociologists, activists, and writers produce strategies to challenge the negative conceptions and invisibility of women's intellectual accomplishments.

...