Critique of West and Zimmerman's Doing Gender
Discontent with previous theories
of gender, in 1987 Candace West and Don Zimmerman introduced the concept of
“doing gender” in an article of the same name. In this paper, informed by
ethnomethodology, they centre interaction as the place where gender is produced
and reproduced. In doing this they defined gender as an “ongoing activity” and
shifted focus from “matters internal to the individual” (West & Zimmerman,
1987). Since its publication, “Doing Gender” has inspired much academic
production in the field of gender studies (Nentwich & Kelan, 2014), rendering
it one of the most important contemporary pieces of this body of theory
(Deutsch, 2007). However, some key aspects of the theory warrant
re-examination. This essay will examine and critique West and Zimmerman’s
conception of “doing gender”.
The first section of the essay will outline West and Zimmerman’s theory
of doing gender. It will discuss the various bodies of work the authors draw
from to argue the interactional nature of gender. Subsequently, within this
first section, a brief analysis will be made of the valuable insights offered
by this interactional approach. The essay will then go over and analyse the
perceived gaps in the theory. This analysis will be carried out in two parts.
Firstly, the second section of the essay will look at the issues that pertain
to gender as an identity category. This will involve discussions of trans
embodiment and gender recognition as oppositional to West and Zimmerman’s
theory. Secondly, the following section of the essay will look at the issues
that pertain to wider social structures, such as the relationship between the
micro and the macro, the effect of institutions, and power dynamics. Finally,
the fourth and last section of the essay will discuss integrative theories of
gender. This discussion will attempt to include the valuable insights of “Doing
Gender” in a wider theoretical framework that better accounts for the
individual and structural aspects of gender brought up in the essay.
What is doing gender?
In Doing Gender, West and
Zimmerman voice concern over the fact that prevailing theories of gender saw “man
and woman” as fundamental and enduring categories, naturally divided by
essential biological differences. They contend that theories that reduce gender
to biology, a role, or a display, preclude analysis of the work involved in
doing gender and how gender is then used to structure society. Against these
pitfalls, they argue that gender is a “routine, methodical and recurring
accomplishment” that “involves a complex of socially guided perceptual,
interactional and micropolitical activities” that legitimises “one of the most
fundamental divisions of society” by casting “particular pursuits as
expressions of masculine and feminine natures” (West & Zimmerman, 1987, p.126).
Key to West and Zimmerman’s definition of gender is Garfinkel’s case
study of Agnes. As a transgender woman, Agnes had to learn how to navigate
everyday social interactions in ways which would be deemed appropriately
feminine. In doing this, Agnes made explicit how gender is accomplished. From
Garfinkel’s descriptions of Agnes’s experiences, West and Zimmerman contend
that sex, sex category, and gender, are analytically distinct categories. Sex
consists of the socially agreed upon criteria used to classify people as
members of a sex category. However, because genitalia are usually hidden from
others, these criteria do not influence the everyday sex categorisation social
beings engage in. Social beings categorise one another into the sex categories
of male and female through an “if-can” test. If we can see people as belonging
to a sex category, through external insignia of sex such as deportment, dress,
and bearing, we categorise them that way (West & Zimmerman, 2009).
The relationship between sex category and gender rests on the fact that
we see the world as being formed of two sexes (Garfinkel, 1967). Because we see
ourselves and others as “essentially, […] either male or female” (Garfinkel,
1967, p.122), our sex category is omnirelevant. In this framework, doing gender
consists of managing any occasion so that the outcome is seen as
gender-appropriate for our sex category. Failure to do so, results in being
held accountable. West and Zimmerman draw from Heritage’s notion that people
carry out “descriptive accountings of states of affairs” (Heritage, 1984,
p.136) that are serious and consequential, to establish accountability in doing
gender. Because their actions will be characterised by others, members of
society may self-regulate their behaviours to be in accordance with cultural
standards so as to not be judged. This self-regulation contributes to the legitimisation
and naturalisation of the male/female dichotomy. West and Zimmerman
exemplify this process with Fishman’s research on conversations in heterosexual
couples where women often had to “ask more questions, fill more silences, and
use more attention-getting beginnings to be heard” (West & Zimmerman, 1987).
This additional “interactional labour” is seen not only as something women do,
but as part of who they are (Fishman, 1987).
In summary, Doing Gender observes that individuals create
differences between men and women through interaction. Although these
differences are not rooted in any natural, essential, or biological conditions,
they are used to justify the essential nature of gender as a category. Which in
turn justifies the diverging positions of men and women within the social
order. Doing gender appropriately, means sustaining, reproducing, and legitimising
the oppressive social arrangements that are based on sex category (West &
Zimmerman, 1987).
The interactional formulation of gender proposed by West and Zimmerman
is a clear improvement on previous conceptions. The main advantage of the
theory is that it better accounts for the dynamism of gender. This has allowed
theory to move towards discussions of various femininities and masculinities
composed of a multiplicity of experiences that will vary depending on the
social context (Connell, 1995). As Deutsch points out, gender production and
expression are different among Asian American blue-collar labourers, Black
doctors, and White software developers (Deutsch, 2007). Furthermore, “doing
gender” better accounts for changes through time. What society considers appropriate
gendered behaviour does not remain stable through time, and individuals tend to
adapt to these changes (Thorne, 1995). If theories of socialisation were
correct, change would only occur when a new generation gets socialised
differently (Risman, 1998).
However, West and Zimmerman did not simply shed light onto the
interactional aspect of gender, they reduced gender to interaction (Collins,
1995). In defining gender purely within social constructionism, the authors
obscure internal as well as structural dimensions of gender (Brickell, 2006). While
other critiques could be made of the theory,[1]
the limited word count demands a reduced scope. Therefore, the following
sections of the essay will examine the issues stemming from the omission of the
other dimensions of gender.
Gender as an identity that pre-exists
interaction
The first issue stemming from West and Zimmerman’s theory is their
rejection of the existence of an “a priori” gender identity (Nentwich &
Kelan, 2013; Kelan, 2010). This generates a number of issues - such as
overlooking that femininity and masculinity are contextual (Kelan, 2013), or
implying that individuals do not have a gender outside of social situations
(Cromwell, 1999). However, most notably, by rejecting gender identity and
defining gender as the performance an individual is
accountable for based on their sex category, the doing gender model morphs
back into a reconceptualization of sex roles theory (Risman, 2009). In essence,
West and Zimmerman argue that gender is socially constructed, yet they define
it rigidly by the sex category of an individual (Dozier, 2005).
This has the ironic consequence of erasing trans people, despite having
based their analysis on a trans woman. A prime example of this erasure is West
and Zimmerman’s explanation of what gender identity is and how someone comes to
be “recruited” into a gender identity. West and Zimmerman’s account of how we
acquire a gender identity is simply that when we are children we wish to be
seen as socially competent, so we learn how to perform the gendered behaviours
corresponding to our sex category and claim the gender identity that
corresponds to those behaviours (West & Zimmerman, 1987, pp.141-142).
However, this does not adequately account for trans people. If Agnes had wanted
to be seen as socially competent, she would not be transitioning nor would she
have the gender identity of a woman, as this does not correspond to her sex
category.
While they do not state this in Doing Gender or in any subsequent
articles, I would argue that West and Zimmerman were potentially justifying
Agnese’s identity through a pathologized view of transsexuality. In the 1960s
and 1970s, it was widely accepted that a main cause of transsexuality was
imbalances in prenatal hormones which affected brain development (Montague,
1973; Benjamin, 1969). Since the brain then developed in the opposite direction
to the body, trans individuals desired to live in accordance with their brain
sex and rejected the incorrect physiological sexual characteristics they
possessed (Levine, 1966; Hanis, 1964).[2]
While these were accepted truths at the time, the notion that there are male
and female brains is highly contested and has been deemed pseudoscientific
(Fine, 2010; Becker et al., 2016) and hormonal issues during pregnancy have not
been accepted as the cause behind transsexuality for several decades (Coleman
et al., 1989).
In opposition to West and Zimmerman’s stance, authors such as Cromwell
(1999), Dozier (2005) and Rubin (2003), argue that trans people evidence the
existence of an underlying gender identity. In a discussion of the complex
gender embodiment trans people experience, Dozier (2005) stated that for them
gender “takes on a solidity and immutability that is not dependent on social
interaction” (pp.300-301). Similarly, Nordmarken (2019)
further claimed that trans paradigms demonstrate that identity is separate from
interaction. He argued that because the gender identity of trans people is not
dependent on their “assigned sex, physical appearance, or another person's
perception of them”, the “actual sign of gender truth” (Nordmarken, 2019,
pp.40-41) lies in an individual’s knowledge of it, that is, in their identity.
Therefore, acknowledging identity as separate from and pre-existing interaction
allows for the adequate consideration of a wider range of gendered experiences.
Finally, the acknowledgement of an underlying gender identity does not
negate the interactional and constructed aspect of gender. On the contrary, it
allows for a different and complex reading of Doing Gender. If we concede that
it is both true that there is such a thing as an a priori gender identity and
that gender is constructed in social situations, recognition becomes the
central feature of gender in interaction (Connell, 2009). Recognition plays a
fundamental role in identity formation as identity is “partly shaped by
recognition or its absence” (Taylor et al., 1994, p.25). Consequently, individuals
modify their behaviour and appearance to be recognised as members of the groups
that match their identities (Brumbaugh-Johnson & Hull, 2019). In the case of transgender people such as Agnes it
is a desire for identity verification what prompts the ‘doing’ of gender.
The effect of power on interaction:
The second set of issues stemming from West and Zimmerman’s purely
constructionist account concern the authors’ failure to adequately discuss
power. This section will examine their claims regarding how their theory links
micro and macro levels of analysis and where power fits into this framework.
It has been argued that social constructionist approaches are not well
suited to theorise systematic social inequality (Brickell, 2006). Furthermore,
ethnomethodology in particular can be criticised for lacking grounded analysis
and underplaying macro-social relations of power (Webber, 1995; Winant, 1995;
Brickell, 2006). This can be seen in West and Zimmerman’s focus on difference
in Doing Gender. Throughout the article the authors state that “doing
gender means creating differences between girls and boys and women and men” and
that these “gender differences, […] provide the tacit rationale for differing
fates of women and men within the social order” (West & Zimmerman, 1987,
pp.137, 142, 146). What West and Zimmerman seem to be claiming here, is that
the difference men and women “do” in everyday interactions is the main source
of the production of gender inequality (Schippers, 2008).
A number of issues emerge from this account, such as the implication that
without liquidation of difference inequality will continue (Winant, 1995; Du
Bois, 1897). However, I will focus on those that concern power and structure. By
centring difference in interaction, West and Zimmerman manage to discuss gender
inequality without considering patriarchal power dynamics. In a critique of
Doing Difference (1995), Hill Collins similarly argues that in reducing gender
to interactions, gender becomes “a never ending string of equivalent relations
all containing […] gender in some form, but a chain of equivalencies devoid of
power relations” (Collins, 1995, p.493). Furthermore, individuals interact
within the constraints of a given political, financial, and social context that
pre-exists interaction (Maldonado, 1995). However, West and Zimmerman do not
give space to such ongoing institutional dimensions because for them “structure
is only that which can be shown to be constantly reproduced from moment to
moment” (Winant, 1995). Thus, Doing Gender ignores the very real
institutional and legal mechanisms that privilege some over others, in this
case men over women.
At this stage it is evident that West and Zimmerman’s theory does not
clarify the workings of power and how sexism comes to be maintained (Weber,
1995). In a later article, Candace West acknowledges this fact stating that “we
have not fully articulated how the accomplishment of gender […] actually links
the realms of institutional and face to face interaction” (West &
Fenstermaker, 1995, p.512). This essay argues that this issue could be solved by
centring structure and power rather than interaction. Authors such as Risman
(2004) and Connell (2012) have discussed how actions and practices start from
and are regulated by social structure. For example, Crompton and Harris (1999) studied the division of household labour in
Norway, Britain, and the Czech Republic, and found that national legislation on equal pay
and equal parental leave was the main cause of equal division of household
labour. This is a clear instance of institutional arrangements patterning
interaction rather than interaction creating structure. It is not that men
participating in household labour led to a change in legislation, but a change
in legislation improved the social position of women and gave them power to
determine household labour division. Such an analysis is not possible without
focus on power and structure.
Finally, much like in the previous section, this critique does not
render West and Zimmerman’s work useless. On the contrary, structural accounts
require of the use of interactional approaches. The gender structure will
sometimes be salient in interaction as individuals are bound to reproduce it.
Indeed, when properly contextualised, West and Zimmerman’s theory has proven
useful for empirical studies on gender inequality. Hall’s (1993) examination of
gender differences at work for waiters and waitresses, Katila and Meriläinen’s
(1999) analysis of women adopting professional masculinity in academia, Powell
and others’ (2009) study on the ‘coping strategies’ used by women working in
engineering, and Bettie’s (2003) assessment of the reproduction of gender, race,
and class structures in high schools are a few examples of the value of Doing
Gender for empirical work.
A defence of
integrated approaches:
Thus far, the essay has attempted to highlight the dimensions of gender
that West and Zimmerman did not account for, namely identity and structure.
However, this analysis is not meant to undermine gender as a doing; it is an
attempt at completing the theory. While the internal, structural, and
interactional dimensions of gender have been portrayed as analytically
incompatible (Risman, 1987; Fuchs Epstein, 1988; Feree, 1990; Bem, 1993), this
incompatibility is an illusion (England & Browne, 1992; Risman 2004). As
argued in the previous two sections, even if gender exists a priori as an
individual identity, this identity is expressed in interaction to gain
recognition from others, and it exists within a patriarchal system that
regulates it (Ridgeway & Correll, 2004; Thorne, 1995). In agreement with
this notion, gender has been recently conceived within integrative approaches
(Connell, 2002; 1987; Lorber, 1994; Risman, 2004; Martin, 2004).
Integrative approaches are not restricted to any theoretical foundation.
For example, Lorber and Martin define gender as a social institution, and
Connell and Risman draw from Giddens (1984) to define it as a social structure.
While there may be significant differences between the theories, the analysis
of which does not fall within the scope of this essay, the common theme among
them is that they seek to integrate internal, interactional, and structural
accounts. In doing this, they are adding the dynamism missing from West and
Zimmerman’s purely interactional theory. Barbara Risman (2004) discusses this
dynamism in terms of firstly, adding depth to the analysis of gendered
phenomena, such as change or rejection of gendered norms, which allows for
serious investigation of it. For example, Connell’s (1987) reflections on
structure and practice allow for a historically aware reading of the
organisation of gender relations, wherein meanings are not just reproduced, but
continuously challenged and changed (Thorne, 1995). Secondly, diversifying the
explanations for change and resistance. Changes in individual identities may
change interactional expectations and institutional arrangements through group
action and vice versa. Because change may originate at any level, any given
theory of gender should not isolate one dimension from the rest.
From all of the above arguments it can be concluded that West and
Zimmerman’s premise in “Doing Gender” did not successfully grasp the
complexities of gender. While their ethnomethodological approach added a much-needed
interactional perspective to previous conceptions of gender (Deutsch, 2007),
the authors’ failure to consider other dimensions left us with an incomplete
account. Both in terms of what gender is and how conceptualising gender as a
doing links micro and macro levels of analysis. In the words of Barry Thorne: “gender
extends deep into the unconscious and the shaping of emotions and outward into
social structure and material interests” (1995, p.499). This critique is
particularly necessary because of the effect “Doing Gender” has had. Not only
has this theory essentially changed the field of gender studies, but Candace
West, together with Sarah Fenstermaker, rehashed the issues presented here when
they put forward an ethnomethodological account of social inequality in “Doing
Difference” (1995) (Brickell, 2006). The merits of conceiving gender as a
“doing” are many and should not be disregarded. However, as shown in this
paper, such merits are better understood within an integrated framework.
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[1] See generally: contextuality of gender (Kelan, 2013), resistance and
contradictory embodiment (Deutsch, 2007; Vidal-Ortiz,
2009; Connell, 2010), issues with Garfinkel’s work (Rogers, 1992), or contemporary
gender practices (Nordmarken, 2019).
[2] I infer West and Zimmerman’s position on this matter from their focus on
Agnes’ rejection of her anatomy, particularly her penis, both in Doing Gender
and in later work (West & Zimmerman, 1897; 2009). Additionally, when
discussing variations in the category of “sex” West and Zimmerman use
references such as: Money 1974 "Prenatal Hormones and Postnatal
Sexualization in Gender Identity Differentiation"; Money and Brennan 1968
"Sexual Dimorphism in the Psychology of Female Transsexuals" Journal
of Nervous and Mental Disease; and Money and Ogunro 1974 "Behavioral
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Pubertal Androgenization".