paper #3

Jacqueline Martinez
Contemporary Sociological Theory
Response paper #3- “Doing Gender”

The article “Doing Gender” by Candace West and Don H. Zimmerman is based on how average women and men accomplish gender which is broken down in three categories: sex, sex category, and gender. A main point that the authors make is that doing gender emerges from social interaction. For each topic the authors utilize Agnes as an example. Agnes is a transsexual who adopted a female identity at age 17 and many years later got a sex change operation done.
Under the sex category they West and Zimmerman explained that Agnes did was not born with the biological criteria to be classified as a female and yet still regards herself as one. Agnes claimed to be under the category of female but had issues convincing others to categorize her as such. She constantly had to be alert for threats that would jeopardize her place in a female category. When it comes to gender Agnes faced another problem because although she considers herself to be 120% female her true sex could be given away if she over plays her femininity, therefore doing gender for Agnes will always be more complicated.
The text goes on and points out the resources necessary for doing gender which is basically the differences that we create between men and women. The differences are especially noted in standardized social occasions and assortative mating practices among heterosexual couples. The last question that the article refers to is: can we avoid doing gender? And the answer is no because of the social consequences of sex category membership