'Doing Gender' By West And Zimmerman

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In this article it is argued by West and Zimmerman that the traditional understanding of defining gender is by looking at the biological traits, however according to the authors that is not enough to comprehend the term gender. Therefore, the authors came with a theory ‘’Doing Gender’’: ‘’Doing gender means creating differences between girls and boys and women and men, differences that are not natural, essential, or biological. Once the differences have been constructed, they are used to reinforce the ‘essentialness’ of fender.’’ (p. 137) West and Zimmerman presented a new framework that distinguishes between sex, sex category and gender. West and Zimmerman introduce the three definitions that are essential to comprehend gender. ‘’Sex is a…show more content…
By the way a person does their daily actions, society will put the individual in the appropriate sex category. West and Zimmerman argue that gender is rather ‘done’ than an aspect of a personas nature. Moreover, the authors conclude that we cannot avoid ‘doing gender’. West and Zimmerman provide the reader with case studies supporting their theory, such as the example of Agnes, which will be discussed later in the analysis. Another example to support their theory was by looking at the division of labor, and inequality, these examples show we have always been ‘doing…show more content…
Often women do the more housework than man, for instance, cooking, cleaning and washing up. Whereas making sure a family is financially stable is a men’s job. This division of household labor is often seen in the Western culture between married couples, even though when both individuals have the same jobs, the wives are still expected to do the household. Moreover, West and Zimmerman explore the example of a workingwoman in a male dominated company. To become better at her profession, she must engage in unfeminine behavior, she will be assessed as either feminine or not. It shows that because of social interaction an individual is thought to be masculine or feminine., which clearly support their point: ‘structure of normative expectations attached to work as gendered’’. West and Zimmerman explain that there is a dominant status of the sex categories, which is the man and this can often be seen throughout profession or sports. West and Zimmerman believe by ‘doing gender’ it will eliminate

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