Practice question · Multiple choice
West and Zimmerman argued in 1987 that gender is something people do rather than something they have. How does that reformulation change what a sociologist looks for?
Hints
- Ask where the phenomenon is located if it is an accomplishment rather than a property.
- If gender is done, it must be done somewhere, in front of someone.
Show the answer
D. Directing attention to interactions producing gender over internal traits
Why
Locating gender in interaction makes the research site a conversation, a workplace or a queue rather than a questionnaire item. The distractors reflect common misreadings: conflating gender with biological sex, treating the performance as entirely unconstrained rather than normatively accountable, or assuming interactionism ignores structural power.
Practise Family, Gender and Sexuality
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