3
Gender in Interactions
and Institutions
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
•Critically evaluate the main elements of interactionist approaches to
gender, including ethnomethodology, status characteristics theory,
and homophily research
•Critically evaluate the main elements of institutional approaches to
gender
•Discuss the major differences between individual, interactionist and
institutional approaches to gender
Have you ever found yourself the only woman (or man) in a group of
people, such as a discussion group for a course or perhaps as a member of
a work team? Now, think about situations where you were surrounded by
others just like you – all women or all men. Did you feel differently in each
situation? How did being a member of the majority or the minority (with
respect to sex category) affect how you behaved and how others behaved
toward you? These are among the issues explored by proponents of the
frameworks presented in this chapter.
Recall that gender is a system of social practices that constitutes people
as different and that organizes relations of inequality. Thus far, we have
looked at gender from the point of view of individuals and have focused
on the social practices that produce the gendered person. But the social
practices that constitute gender do not operate strictly at the individual
level. These social practices also shape social relations and interaction pat-
terns, and they operate as part of larger entities, such as organizations and
institutions.
In this chapter, we will explore these alternative frameworks. They
include interactional approaches, which attend to social relations; and
institutional perspectives, which highlight the structure and practices of
organizations and social institutions. In contrast to individualist
approaches, which focus on internalized and relatively stable characteris-
tics of individuals, the two frameworks examined here emphasize social
forces operating external to the person.
The perspectives examined in Chapter 2 share a belief that people are
gendered – that is, that the distinction between masculine and feminine is
one that is expressed in individuals. In addition, most agree that sex dis-
tinctions are a primary reason for this. Sex, then, is a source of gender and
sets limits on the traits, behaviors, and identities of people. Further, because
gender is part of the person, it is assumed to be relatively stable – internal
and unchangeable. People do not put on and take off gender as they move
from place to place, situation to situation, group to group. This claim is
disputed by the next set of perspectives we will examine.
INTERACTIONIST VIEWS OF GENDER
Interactionist approaches to gender focus less on individuals and more on
the social context within which individuals interact. Although these per-
spectives acknowledge that women and men may differ in some of the ways
noted by individualists, interactionist approaches place greater attention on
forces operating outside the individual. In contrast to individualists, who
assume people’s traits and abilities are relatively stable, interactionists argue
that people’s reactions and behaviors vary in response to the social context.
The social context includes the other participants in a setting and features
of the environment where the interaction takes place. These approaches,
as Deaux and Major (1990: 91) explain, “presume[s] a repertoire of pos-
sibilities from which individual men and women choose different responses
on varying occasions with different degrees of self-consciousness.” For
example, this view would suggest that women might be more nurturant
when interacting with others who expect women to behave this way than
when interacting with people having fewer gender expectations. Women
might also behave in a more nurturant manner in social contexts where
women have been traditionally defined as caretakers than when they are in
social contexts where women have traditionally held other roles.
In this chapter, we examine three types of interactionist approaches.
While they differ in important respects, they all view social categorization
54 CONCEPTUAL APPROACHES
as essential to social interaction. Social categorization refers to the processes
through which individuals classify others and themselves as members of
particular groups. Virtually everyone agrees that sex category is an
extremely important social category (Aries 1996). For some, as we will see,
it is the most important social category. There are many other social cate-
gories, however, such as those based on racial or ethnic distinctions, age,
ability, etc. All of these social categories may be relevant for social interac-
tion in particular situations and settings.
Social categorization is important because it sets into motion the pro-
duction of gender differences and inequality. The three perspectives exam-
ined below differ somewhat in their understanding of how and why that
occurs, however. The first interactionist approach – “doing gender” – argues
that social interaction is the vehicle through which people present them-
selves to others as women or men. Status characteristics theory takes a
different view, emphasizing the ways in which sex categories become the
basis for people’s expectations about others’ competence. The third inter-
actionist perspective – what I call the homophily approach – emphasizes
the consequences of people classifying others as similar or different from
themselves. This perspective generally assumes that being different from or
similar to others is more important in shaping interaction than how one
differs or is similar.
Ethnomethodological views: “doing gender”
Sociologists influenced by the ethnomethodological tradition offer an
interaction-based view known as “doing gender” (West and Zimmerman
1987). These theorists disagree with those who see gender as a stable
set of personality traits or behavioral capacities. Instead, from a “doing
gender” perspective, gender – or, rather, the belief that the world is
divided into two, mutually exclusive categories – is understood as an
“accomplishment” – a product of human effort.
Like the previous interactionist accounts, ethnomethodologists believe
that sex categorization is a habitual, virtually automatic, and rarely ques-
tioned aspect of social interaction. Sex categorization both reflects and con-
tributes to “the natural attitude” regarding gender (Garfinkel 1967; see also
Chapter 1). Ethnomethodologists believe that sex categorization and the
“natural attitude” are social constructions rather than biological or physi-
cal realities. Understanding how social interaction produces a gender–
differentiated world is the central goal of these approaches.
West and Fenstermaker (1995) recently extended this view: “Doing dif-
ference” is their attempt to describe the exercise of power and production
of inequality more generally, not just in relation to gender. West and
GENDER IN INTERACTIONS AND INSTITUTIONS 55
Fenstermaker argue that the same dynamics that “accomplish” gender in
interaction also produce other forms of inequality and power differentials,
such as those stemming from social class and race. This implies that not
only gender, but race and social class as well, are products of social inter-
action, not essential characteristics of people. “Doing difference” is West
and Fenstermaker’s way of explaining multiple types of inequality with a
single analytic framework.
From an ethnomethodological perspective, gender is “done” in virtually
all social situations. Ethnomethodologists claim that because sex categories
are always present, they are always available as a basis for interpreting
others’ behavior. “In short,” as West and Fenstermaker explain, “persons
engaged in virtually any activity can hold themselves accountable and be
held accountable for their performance of that activity as women or as
men” (1993: 157; emphasis in original). This claim – that gender is being
“done” always and everywhere – distinguishes ethnomethodological
approaches from other interactionist accounts.
Ethnomethodologists, in general, are somewhat skeptical of broad
theoretical accounts, preferring instead to show how gender (and other
forms of difference) is produced and maintained in particular social encoun-
ters. In some people’s eyes, this unwillingness to generalize makes their
approach more descriptive than explanatory. Further, some believe that eth-
nomethodologists go too far in emphasizing the fluidity and variability of
gender. For example, Thorne (1995) argues that ethnomethodologists’ pre-
occupation with gender as a “performance” or as something that is “done”
in social interaction underemphasizes the factors that shape or constrain
people’s ability to produce gender displays. Extending the metaphor of the
performance, we could say that ethnomethodologists focus on each per-
formance’s unique details to the exclusion of how performances differ sys-
tematically and how these differences may be shaped by the theatre, the
stage, and the props that form its backdrop. To fully understand these
influences, we turn to other interactionist accounts.
Status characteristics theory: the importance of expectations
How does social interaction help produce gender distinctions and inequal-
ities? Status characteristics theory (also referred to as the theory of “expec-
tation states”) offers a straightforward answer to this question: Because
interaction requires that people orient themselves to one another, it is
necessary to have some basis for categorizing others vis-[ag]-vis oneself
(Ridgeway 1997). In Risman’s words: “Gender is something we do in order
to make social life more manageable” (1998: 33).
56 CONCEPTUAL APPROACHES
Sex categorization serves this purpose better than any other categoriza-
tion system, according to Ridgeway and other status characteristics
theorists. Continuing reliance on sex categorization as a way to organize
interaction, however, tends to create gender expectations and stereotypes.
People learn to expect certain kinds of behaviors and responses from others,
based on their sex category. These expectations serve as cognitive reminders
of how we are supposed to behave in any given situation. Risman refers to
them “as accurate folklore that must be considered in every interaction”
(1998: 32). People thus respond to others based on what they believe is
expected of them and assume that others will do likewise.
To explain why and how categorizing others by sex produces gender
expectations and stereotypes, these theorists introduce the idea of a status
characteristic. A status characteristic is “an attribute on which individuals
vary that is associated in a society with widely held beliefs according greater
esteem and worthiness to some states of the attribute (e.g., being male) than
others (being female)” (Ridgeway 1993: 179). Gender in American society
– and in most contemporary societies – is clearly a status characteristic.
Men are generally regarded more positively than women. Once a charac-
teristic like sex category has status value, it begins to shape expectations
and form the basis for stereotypes.
Gender is not the only basis on which people differentially assign power
and status, however. For example, age is also a status characteristic; adults
are generally ascribed more status and power than children. Similarly, racial
distinctions may also operate in this way. Gender thus is not unique or dis-
tinctive as a status characteristic. Further, expectation states theory recog-
nizes that multiple status characteristics may be activated in any given
situation.
Status characteristics theory was developed to explain goal-oriented
interaction, such as occurs in workplaces, classrooms, or in any group
oriented toward a collective end. In these kinds of settings the important
expectations are those relating to performance. That is, group members
assess how competent each is and how much value to attach to each other’s
contributions. People form their expectations about others’ competence by
weighing each status characteristic in terms of its relevance to the task at
hand. This weighting process is not assumed to be conscious or precise;
rather, expectation states theorists believe that people seek cues as to how
others will perform in a particular situation and use status characteristics
to assess this. These performance expectations tend to disadvantage those
with lower status value (in the case of gender, women). Women are expected
to be less competent than men and their contributions are expected to be
less valuable.
Status characteristics theory recognizes that the effects of gender on
social interaction may vary from situation to situation. This is why this
GENDER IN INTERACTIONS AND INSTITUTIONS 57
theory provides a contextual account of gender: It assumes that status
characteristics such as gender are more likely to be “activated” (i.e., central
to people’s awareness) in some situations than others. Ridgeway expects
gender to be most influential when two conditions hold: when the interac-
tants are members of different sex categories, and when gender is relevant
to the task or purpose of the interaction.
Many kinds of social interactions meet these conditions. For example,
consider a meeting of a student group attended by both women and men.
According to the status characteristics approach, how women and men
interact in this setting context will depend in part on the nature of their
task. If the group works on a task that the larger culture strongly identifies
with men (e.g., organizing a softball tournament), we would expect men to
display interactional styles associated with power and competence (e.g.,
more talking, speaking longer, etc.). If the task is more closely associated
with women, however, then women would be more likely than men to
behave in these ways.
Contrast this interactionist approach with one focusing on gender social-
ization. A socialization account would emphasize how women and men
learn to behave in dominant or assertive ways. The interaction styles asso-
ciated with dominance thus would be treated as personality characteristics,
and these styles would undoubtedly be viewed as more typical among men
than among women. Status characteristics theory instead treats interaction
styles as less a matter of individual personality and more a function of the
setting, including the group’s sex composition and task orientation. In this
view, the fact that men may interact in dominant ways more often than
women has less to do with men’s personalities or socialization and more to
do with the types of settings where women and men typically encounter
each other.
Like the ethnomethodological approach, status characteristics theory
suggests that gender differences emerge out of more general processes that
shape interaction. Their methods for studying social interaction differ con-
siderably, however. Ethnomethodologists prefer fine-grained, qualitative
studies of particular settings and tend to resist abstract theorizing. By con-
trast, status characteristics theorists have developed their ideas primarily
through laboratory experiments. Further, these theorists aim to create a
formal theory of status processes. Through these efforts, status character-
istics theory is constantly being refined and expanded. Researchers work to
better understand the kinds of situations that activate gender and other
status characteristics (Ridgeway 1993; Ridgeway and Diekema 1992).
For status characteristics theorists, a group’s sex composition helps to
determine how gender will shape the group’s interactions. The third inter-
actionist approach focuses explicitly on the role of sex composition. From
this perspective, the meaning and impact of one’s own sex category depends
58 CONCEPTUAL APPROACHES
on the sex composition of the group. A person’s own sex category is less
relevant to any particular interaction than the sex category memberships of
those with whom she is interacting.
Opposites attract – or don’t they? Homophily and gender
We are probably all familiar with the adage “opposites attract.” Like many
forms of conventional wisdom, however, this one is not accurate. In fact, a
better description of social relations is “birds of a feather flock together.”
Similarity tends to be a much stronger source of interpersonal attraction
than difference. Indeed, much research suggests that social ties of all types
tend to be organized according to the homophily principle: Social ties tend
to be between people who are similar on salient sociodemographic dimen-
sions (Popielarz 1999).
There are at least two reasons why this occurs. Partly, it reflects people’s
preferences. Homophily, then, is a term used to describe people’s prefer-
ence for sameness, a preference that is expressed in their interpersonal
relations. In addition, however, the homophilous social ties experienced in
everyday life are reinforced – and developed – in the groups to which people
belong. Groups include such things as the neighborhoods where people live,
the clubs and organizations they belong to, or their church membership. As
GENDER IN INTERACTIONS AND INSTITUTIONS 59
