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The specific term "doing gender" was used in Candace West and Don Zimmerman's article by the same title, originally written in 1977 but not published until 1987. [2] In the article, West and Zimmerman illustrate that gender is performed in interactions, and that behaviors are assessed based on socially accepted conceptions of gender.
Gender is used as a means of describing the distinction between the biological sex and socialized aspects of femininity and masculinity. [9] According to West and Zimmerman, is not a personal trait; it is "an emergent feature of social situations: both as an outcome of and a rationale for various social arrangements, and as a means of legitimating one of the most fundamental divisions of society."
West and Zimmerman maintain that the sex category is "established and sustained by the socially required identificatory displays that proclaim one's membership in one or the other category". [73]: 127 Gender is the performance of attitudes and actions that are considered socially acceptable for one's sex category. [73]: 127
West and Zimmerman argued that the use of "role" to describe gender expectations conceals the production of gender through everyday activities. Furthermore, they stated that roles are situated identities, such as "nurse" and "student," which are developed as the situation demands, while gender is a master identity with no specific site or ...
As such, West and Zimmerman describe these constructs as "doing gender" instead of the speech itself necessarily being classified in a particular category. [25] This is to say that these social constructs, while affiliated with particular genders, can be utilized by speakers as they see fit.
The findings of these studies are mixed, with some finding gender differences, while others did not. Among those that found gender differences are sociologists Don Zimmerman and Candace West, who used male dominance theory to claim that men interrupted women to assert their social dominance over women. Zimmerman and West's work discovered that ...
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Kessler and McKenna's concept of "gender attribution" predated William Zimmerman and Candace West's concept of doing gender and Butler's concept of gender performativity. The Phall-O-Meter by the Intersex Society of North America satirizes clinical assessments of appropriate clitoris and penis length at birth. It is based on work by Kessler.