review
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF GENDER
Bodies, Interaction, Large-Scale Social Structures
AS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION, GENDER MEANS….
“MASCULINITY” AND “FEMININITY” or “Men and Women”
Socially invented system of difference
Socially invented system of stratification which determines the inequitable distribution of rights, responsibilities, and resources.
Performance
Defining feature of institutions (not just bodies)
INTERACTIONAL PROCESS: something we “do,” together.
Lorber: Night to His Day
Gender as a social institution organizes:
Predictable division of labor
Allocation of scarce goods
Responsibility for carework
Common values and symbolic production
Gender is DIFFERENCE: it is learned and consistently manufactured.
“Gendered and social arrangements are justified by religion and cultural productions, and backed by law, but the most powerful means of sustaining the moral hegemony of the dominant gender ideology is that the process is made invisible: any possible alternatives are virtually unthinkable”(p.6)
“DOING GENDER”- West & Zimmerman
Gender is a routine accomplishment embedded in everyday interaction. Not a state of “being”- more a state of “doing.”
We often do gender in a repetitive way that makes it appear that we are simply and automatically enacting our essences/natures.
Gender is not individual property- it is what emerges in interaction.
Previous theories about gender
In common understanding, gender differences are rooted in essential, biological differences. Social structure is taken to be a reflection of enduring biological differences between men & women.
Role theory: problematic. GENDER IS MORE OF A MASTER IDENTITY
GENDER DISPLAY/PERFORMANCE: also problematic.
SEX, SEX CATEGORY, GENDER
SEX: genitalia are hidden from public inspection- yet we continue to believe that we can observe a world of two naturally distinct sexes.
SEX CATEGORY: the presumption that essential biological criteria exists (sex actually has nothing to do with how we make determinations about sex categorization. We take for granted that by knowing the “sex category” we can deduce the “sex.”). We usually use secondary sex characteristics and gender comportment to categorize sex.
The “if-can” test in everyday interaction: if people can be seen as members of relevant categories, then we can categorize them that way.
SALIENCE OF GENDER
It is of the utmost importance that we always know one’s sex category. We are always assessing it, and we assume others are displaying for us.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SEX CATEGORY AND GENDER: woman can be seen as “unfeminine” but can still be seen as “female.”
ACCOUNTABILITY: “if we do gender appropriately, we simultaneously sustain, reproduce, and render legitimate institutional arrangements based on sex category. If we fail to do gender appropriately, we as individuals, NOT THE INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS, may be called to account.”
GENDERED ORGANIZATIONS- Acker
Most studies of organizations, especially of workplaces, do not see gender as a significant component of organizations. But…
The gender segregation of work, including divisions between paid and unpaid work, is party created through organizational practices.
Income and status inequality between genders is also partially created through organizational practices.
Organizations are one arena in which widely disseminated cultural images of gender are invented and reproduced. SITE OF CULTURAL PRODUCTION.
Some aspects of individual gender identity, particularly masculine identity, are also products of organizational processes and pressures.
Rethinking organizations as gendered could make large-scale organizations more democratic and more supportive of humane goals.
The abstract gender-neutral “worker” is really a (social) man
“In organizational logic, filling the abstract job is a disembodied worker who exists only for the work. Such a hypothetical worker cannot have other imperatives of existence that impinge upon the job. Too many obligations outside the boundaries of the job would make a worker unsuited for the position. “
“The closest the disembodied worker doing the abstract job comes to a real worker is the male worker whose life centers on his full-time, life-long job, while his wife or another woman takes care of his personal needs and his children.”(149).
WOMEN WORKERS DON’T ALWAYS “FIT” WITH THIS ABSTRACT JOB
THUS, THE CONCEPT OF A “JOB” IS IMPLICITLY A GENDERED CONCEPT, even though organizational logic presents it as gender neutral. “A job” already contains the gender-based division of labor and the separation between the public and the private sphere.”
Those who are committed to paid employment are “naturally” more suited to responsibility and authority; those who must divide their commitments are in the lower ranks."
SO WHAT IF WE MADE IT SO THAT WORKPLACES/ORGANIZATIONS ARE NOT GENDERED EXCLUSIVELY MASCULINE?
“The rhythm and timing of work would be adapted to the rhythms of life outside of work. Caring work would be just as important as any other.”(155).
Hierarchy would be abolished, and workers would run things themselves.
Taking care of a baby or sick mother would be just as valued as building an automobile.