The Turn from “What” to “How”: Garfinkel's Reach Beyond Description

Fenstermaker, Sarah

doi:10.1002/symb.222

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…These findings illuminate a range of strategies that people utilize to negotiate gender attribution within the gender binary system. A video abstract is available at http://tinyurl .com/y7odrxbd.In 2016, Symbolic Interaction published a symposium on trans issues; however, all three of these articles featured binary transgender (transman/transwoman) case studies (Fenstermaker 2016;O'Brien 2016;Schilt 2006). Such a homogenous focus is problematic because binary transgender experiences do not represent the full complexity and rich diversity of transgender experience; and yet, research on nonbinary transgender individuals remains relatively scarce.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Doing Gender Beyond the Binary: A Virtual Ethnography

Darwin

2017

Symbolic Interaction

111

108

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This article advances the “doing gender” framework by highlighting some unique interactive challenges that nonbinary individuals encounter within the binary gender system. In order to access testimony about these experiences from a large group of people, this study turns to a genderqueer community on the social media site Reddit. Discourse analysis of discussion threads and content analysis of selfies reveal various symbolic mechanisms through which nonbinary people do, redo, and undo gender. These findings illuminate a range of strategies that people utilize to negotiate gender attribution within the gender binary system. A video abstract is available at http://tinyurl.com/y7odrxbd.

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confidence: 99%

Doing Gender Beyond the Binary: A Virtual Ethnography

Darwin

2017

Symbolic Interaction

111

108

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“…West and Zimmerman begin with Goffman’s (1976) gender displays but go beyond by adding Garfinkel and the EM concept of accountability (Fenstermaker 2016:298); that is, people are always relationally (1) giving accounts and (2) held accountable by others. Doing gender is a relational, negotiated activity, constantly in production in situations (West and Fenstermaker 2002; West and Zimmerman 2009), which posits gender as in motion and malleable over time (Crawley and Green 2021).…”

Section: Ethnomethodology Reduxmentioning

confidence: 99%

Queering Doing Gender: The Curious Absence of Ethnomethodology in Gender Studies and in Sociology

Crawley

2022

Sociological Theory

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“Doing Gender,” Candance West and Don Zimmerman’s famous 1987 article, has become a folk concept—a trope or commonsense resource within the sociology of gender. Yet at the same time, most gender scholars overlook its ethnomethodological premise, visible in both poststructuralist misunderstandings of its argument outside the discipline of sociology and what I term a realist misunderstanding of it in the study of structures and identities within the discipline. Reading West and Zimmerman queerly while clarifying ethnomethodology’s ontology, I refocus attention for critical scholarship on ethnomethodology’s analytic sensibilities for research on gender, race, and sexuality, among other embodiments. Specifically, ethnomethodology reframes a vision of actors as relational, practical actors; repositions gender as accountable, jointly produced social relations, not individual identity; and foregrounds resistance in addition to conformity. Hence, my gender (race/class/sexuality) is not mine; it is ours. Ethnomethodology’s ontological shift in temporality to reality-in-production enables interpretive-materialism: a queer, anti-racist, intersectional sociology that is future-facing and in motion.

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“…These findings reveal that transgender women accomplish gender under conditions of "contradictory embodiment," which refers to a disparity between the gendered presentation of self and the known "facts" of sex category (Connell, 2012). Jenness andFenstermaker's (2014, 2016;Fenstermaker, 2016) analyses make clear that whatever femininity is embraced, undertaken, and presented by transgender women in prisons for men, it is accountability to a putative sex category-femalethat is sought. Through the pursuit of what transgender women in prisons for men refer to as the "real deal," gender expectations remain and demand that the transgender prisoner's behavior reflect an inherent femininity-"as if" one were really and truly female.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Jenness and Fenstermaker’s (2014, 2016; Fenstermaker, 2016) analyses make clear that whatever femininity is embraced, undertaken, and presented by transgender women in prisons for men, it is accountability to a putative sex category—female—that is sought. Through the pursuit of what transgender women in prisons for men refer to as the “real deal,” gender expectations remain and demand that the transgender prisoner’s behavior reflect an inherent femininity—“as if” one were really and truly female.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Feminization of Transgender Women in Prisons for Men: How Prison as a Total Institution Shapes Gender

Jenness

Gerlinger

2020

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

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In this article, we investigate the degree to which prison shapes transgender women’s perceptions of themselves as gendered people in prisons for men. Drawing on original data collected from 315 transgender women in 27 prisons for men in California, a mixed-methods analysis reveals that transgender women in prisons for men report higher levels of self-perceptions of femininity while incarcerated, especially for those who report sexual victimization by other prisoners. The implications of these and other findings are discussed in light of recent calls for more theory and research on femininities as well as the policies and practices that undergird prisons as one of the most sex-segregated institutions.

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The Turn from “What” to “How”: Garfinkel's Reach Beyond Description

Cited by 5 publications

References 19 publications

Doing Gender Beyond the Binary: A Virtual Ethnography

Doing Gender Beyond the Binary: A Virtual Ethnography

Queering Doing Gender: The Curious Absence of Ethnomethodology in Gender Studies and in Sociology

The Feminization of Transgender Women in Prisons for Men: How Prison as a Total Institution Shapes Gender

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