SOCI 118 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Grammatical Gender
Document Summary
W&z sex, sex category, and gender: three socially constructed, analytically separate categories. Sex: application of socially agreed upon criteris for classifyinf humans as biologically female or male. Sex category: established and sustained by the socially required idenitificatory displays that proclaims one"s membership in one of the socially agreed upon two sexes. Gender: activity of managing situated conduct in light of normative rules about attitudes and activities appropriate for the sex category. A case study of agnes born a biological male and raised as a boy. Age 17: adopted the sex categorization of female. Full-time acting apprenticeship to learn how to do gender. Strove to be 120% female but had to be careful not to overdo the display. Secured her sex categorization of female and her accomplishment of doing femininity to mismatch her born sex. Aided by others" commonsense categorization- cognitive process. In everyday life we assume that gender and sex category are consistent with sex.
