Sociology 2241E Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Role Theory, Grammatical Gender
9 Jan 2017
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Chapter 5 - doing gender by candace west and don h. zimmerman. Viewing gender as an accomplishment rather than a property of an individual, we conceive gender as something that emerges from social situations, not individual discovery. Sex: a determination made through the application of socially agreed upon biological criteria for classifying persons as males or females. Gender: the activity of managing situations using behaviour that is prescribed from ones sex category. Western society views men and women as naturally defined categories with distinct psychological and behavioural tendencies: these tendencies can be predicted from their reproductive functions. This ideology aligns with role theory; considers most of everyday activity to be the acting out of socially defined categories (men and women have certain roles which they must perform) But, the problem with this theory is that it is focused on situational roles, rather than master identities, which cut across situations. Born with male reproductive parts, but identified as a female.
