Doing Gender

Question 1

What is symbolic interactionism?

Answer 1

• 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
• context helps us make meaning out of the situation we are in (setting is important)

Question 2

What is dramaturgical analysis?

Answer 2

• one way to examine the connection between self and others is through dramaturgical analysis, a sociological tool developed by Erving Goffman
• Goffman used the analogy of the theatre to explore the ways people interact
• Dramaturgical analysis is the idea that people’s day-to-day lives can be understood as resembling performers in action on a theater stage

Question 3

What is frontstage versus backstage?

Answer 3

• Our status is like a part in a theatrical performance, and our role is like a script
• Goffman suggested that when we interact with others we are on front stage
• We may be engaged in an activity called impression management: performing for those around us, showing them what we want them to see
• When we are backstage, we no longer need to perform the public role

Question 4

In the beauty pageant babies, what is the front stage presentation, what exemplifies backstage behaviour?

Answer 4

• when the babies are not on stage they are crying, sad, angry, tired. they look miserable
• when on stage they are smiling, look happy, look like they want to be there, there is no fighting happening

Question 5

What are the three components of the sociological drama we perform?

Answer 5

• one’s setting (including props)
• one’s appearance
• one’s manner

Question 6

What are gender displays?

Answer 6

• gender is expressed during social interaction through a form of interactive performance that Goffman terms gender display
• Gender display 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

Question 7

What is ethnomethodology?

Answer 7

• is a type of sociology that seeks to understand how individuals create social life as meaningful through interaction with others

Question 8

What is sex, sex category and gender?

Answer 8

• Sex: is a determination made through the application socially agreed upon biological criteria for classifying persons as male or female
• Sex category: is achieved through application of the sex criteria, but in everyday life, categorization is established and sustained by the socially required identificatory displays that proclaim one’s membership in one of the other category
• Gender: is the activity of managing situated conduct in light of normative conceptions of attitudes and activities appropriate for one’s sex category. Gender activities emerge from and bolster claims to membership in a sex category

Question 9

What does doing gender mean?

Answer 9

• we use categories to make meaning and interact with our world
• doing gender involves a complex of socially guided perceptual, interactional and micropolitical activities that cast particular pursuits as expressions of masculine and feminine ‘nature’
• gender is an emergent feature of social situations: both as an outcome of and a rationale for various social arrangements and as a means of legitimating one of the most fundamental divisions of society

Question 10

What is gender and accountability?

Answer 10

• social prestige and power are awarded to individuals on the basis of their privileged (male) or less privileged (female) sex category status, so stakes are high in the performance of gender
• West and Zimmerman describe individuals as accountable for appropriate gender performance
• that is, individuals are held accountable for clear and representative performances of gender, or else they may face negative social sanctions
• as such performances of gender are mandatory within a society wherein power and resources are allocated on the basis of sex category
• gender performance, then incorporates individuals into social structure

Question 11

What are the three meanings of trans?

Answer 11

• trans as change
• trans as crossing (gender)
• trans as moving beyond (gender)