User:Burreaux5/Doing gender

Concept
West and Zimmerman proposed that the two main aspects of “doing gender” are gender performance and accountability. Hollander’s 2013 work focuses on accountability, where she argues that it has three parts: “orientation", "assessment", and "enforcement”. Hollander describes orientation as self-accountability to biological sex. Assessment is explained as the process of measuring an individual’s way of doing gender in comparison to their sex. Hollander states that assessment holds people accountable to themselves and others. The third part is enforcement, which is when someone is actively held accountable to societal norms.

This description of gender’s interactive nature is supported by Joshua and Kristin Smith (2016) where they explore what factors impact the process of “doing gender”.

Westbrook and Schilt (2014) support West and Zimmerman’s (1987) suggestion that determining gender relies upon cues provided through “doing gender”. A 2016 article by J. Smith and K. Smith references the role of accountability and states that the act of “doing gender” is verified according to established standards for a specific circumstance. Determining gender is regarded as a subjective behaviour based on an individual’s personal views and experiences, according to the aforementioned sources.

Responses and critiques
A 2009 article by Kristen Schilt and Laurel Westbrook expands upon West and Zimmerman’s (1987) initial framework for “doing gender” by emphasizing how it is impacted by heteronormativity. They found that heterosexual norms were disrupted when biological sex and “doing gender” differed, due to the perception of a natural way to be male or female. The argument that arose based on these findings was that biological sex instructs people on how they should do gender. Sonny Nordmarken (2019) supports this argument by suggesting that people learn to express themselves based on the social expectation that gender and biological sex must match. He also discusses how people are taught to use physical appearance, such as secondary sex traits, to determine other people’s gender. Schilt and Westbrook (2009) suggest that the binary sex system and hierarchical gender system lead to the process of “doing inequality” through “doing gender”, with masculinity and heterosexuality being anointed as the desired, therefore privileged identities. They also explain that various time periods and regions of the world have different standards and norms according to how the sex and gender systems have been enacted there.

Helana Darwin (2017) extends the “doing gender” framework to include challenges faced by nonbinary individuals within the binary gender system. The author references West and Zimmerman’s (1987) and Hollander’s (2013) focus on accountability. She states that their proposed systems of accountability are used to justify the argument that “doing gender” is compulsory, however, Darwin contends that they fail to consider the impact of social change. Additionally, she critiques the focus on the gender binary in the original framework and other responses. The author furthers Connell’s (2010) framework by focusing on nonbinary gender identities rather than binary transgender identities. Darwin suggests that using the term “transgender” to encompass both binary and nonbinary transgender people fails to account for their different experiences in society, particularly in regard to the gender binary. She argues that binary transnormativity prevents authentic gender expression for nonbinary individuals. Through her research, Darwin concluded that there are a multitude of ways one may “do nonbinary gender”, largely due to the many different nonbinary gender identities. She discovered that some nonbinary individuals intentionally use conflicting binary gender signals to fluctuate between these binary categories. Much of Darwin’s studies focused on genderqueer individuals, who she deemed disruptive to the accountability component of the “doing gender” framework. She argued that genderqueer people refute the belief that everyone holds themselves accountable to the gender binary.

Nordmarken (2019) proposes the idea that social interactions are not only significant in “doing gender”, but also in “undoing gender”. In drawing upon West and Zimmerman (2009) and Barbara Risman (2009), he acknowledged their argument that for gender to truly be undone would be for it to have no meaning. Both articles suggest that reproductive expectations associated with biological sex would remain intertwined with gender identity. Due to this, they discuss the idea of “redoing gender” instead. Nordmarken critiques these works for failing to consider “doing gender” outside of a hegemonic framework, which excludes populations who do not hold themselves accountable to binary ideals. The author explored “doing gender” through a “queer trans paradigmatic” lens where he observed people being allowed to inform others of their identity, rather than having others making assumptions based on body-related cues. In particular, he reported the impact of pronouns on “doing gender”. He suggested that using pronouns de-emphasize people’s accountability to gender-related social standards, lessening the importance of gender norms and assumptions. He references the replacement of the body by pronouns for doing and interpreting gender as the queering of “doing gender”. Nordmarken’s focus on pronouns has added another layer of accountability to the “doing gender” framework where individuals are held accountable for proper pronoun usage. This directly opposes accountability to societal norms, providing a more collaborative, fluid approach to the “doing gender” framework.

Doing difference
This theme has been further addressed by Karen Pyke and Denise Johnson (2003) where they integrated the concept of “doing gender” with the study of race. They explain that being part of racially or ethnically marginalized communities can lead to conflicting gender expectations from society and their own cultural values. The authors state that white society manufactures and normalizes racialized gender stereotypes for non-white populations. They reference how the aggressive images associated with Black women lead to the belief that they are not feminine enough, whereas the submissive representation of Asian women results in their hyperfeminization. The authors suggest that white dominance is reinforced using these derogatory representations of racialized individuals to manipulate them into “doing gender” in a way that emulates the idealized, white standards. Pyke and Johnson (2003) conducted a study with one section focused on how Asian American women do gender differently depending on their setting. These respondents viewed white femininity as the standard, with many citing mainstream guidelines which frequently glorify white femininity compared to Asian femininity. The authors also discovered how the hypermasculine representation of Asian men allow white men to be viewed as less oppressive. Pyke and Johnson (2003) focused on the influence internalized oppression has on how racially and ethnically marginalized populations “do gender”.