The purpose of this article is to advance a new understanding of gender as a routine accomplishment embedded in everyday interaction. To do so entails a critical assessment of existing perspectives on sex and gender and the introduction of important distinctions among sex, sex category, and gender. We argue that recognition of the analytical independence of these concepts is essential for understanding the interactional work involved in being a gendered person in society. The thrust of our remarks is toward theoretical (...) reconceptualization, but we consider fruitful directions for empirical research that are indicated by our formulation. (shrink)

“Doing Gender,” West and Zimmerman's landmark article, highlighted the importance of social interaction, thus revealing the weaknesses of socialization and structural approaches. However, despite its revolutionary potential for illuminating how to dismantle the gender system, doing gender has become a theory of gender persistence and the inevitability of inequality. In this article, the author argues that we need to reframe the questions to ask how we can undo gender. Research should focus on when and how social interactions become less gendered, (...) whether gender can be irrelevant in interaction, whether gendered interactions always underwrite inequality, how the institutional and interactional levels work together to produce change, and interaction as the site of change. (shrink)

The book constitutes a reconsideration of her earlier view on gender performativity from Gender Trouble. In this work, the critique of gender norms is clearly situated within the framework of human persistence and survival.

This article examines the limitations of the sociological research on feminist identities and ideologies that ignores the intersection of race and gender. Drawing from multiracial feminist theorizing, the author asks, Is self-identification as feminist a biased indicator of the salience of feminism in African American women's lives? Do women's racial statuses mediate the relationship between particular life events and experiences and the extent to which they embrace feminism? and To what extent are racial differences important when considering what women understand (...) feminism to be? To answer these questions, the author conducted multiple group analyses of structural equation models to analyze data from the 1996 General Social Survey. Her findings are consistent with multiracial feminist theories and suggest a need to rethink traditional approaches to feminist research so that women's differences are no longer marginalized. (shrink)