Young Woman: Life as a Paradox

In their 1987 work Doing Gender, Candace West and Don H. Zimmerman pose that gender is not defined by a set of traits but rather a constant process of social ‘doing’ (West & Zimmerman, 1987). Within this context I will analyse my own experience of ‘doing’ gender, with specific focus on the ways in which my ‘doing’ of gender deviated from the social norms of my environment. In this piece I will first examine the ways in which I was taught to ‘do’ gender, and my response to these teachings. I will then analyse the reactions I faced, particularly within my peer group. 

West and Zimmerman developed this standpoint partly in opposition to the theory of ‘gender socialization’, which asserted that children were exposed to the societal expectations of gender at a young age and developed a fixed gender identity from this (West & Zimmerman, 1987). West and Zimmerman took particular issue with the notion that a child would have internalised these expectations by the age of five. Indeed, the notion of ‘doing’ gender did not occur to me until age seven, when I met my stepmother. She took it upon herself to become my role model and teach me how to ‘do’ gender in a traditionally feminine sense through painting my nails and styling my hair. However, as I neared puberty, new expectations were introduced; in particular, I came under increasing pressure to shave my body hair. Simone de Beauvoir famously wrote that “one is not born, but rather becomes, woman” (de Beauvoir, 1949, p.146). I felt that my feminine identity was one that had to be constructed and maintained through the constant ‘doing’ of gender, though I had no concept of the effort that went into maintaining masculine identity (West and Zimmerman, 1987) and viewed masculinity as a default upon which femininity had to be constructed through the alteration of my body from its natural state. As Raewyn Connell notes in Gender: A World Perspective (Connell, 2002), the widely accepted biological differences between sexes are often illusions maintained by “disciplinary practices” such as the removal of body hair, dieting or cosmetic surgery.  

In hindsight, I feel that this pressure came from a place of caring. My stepmother was committed to helping my brothers and I to become mature adults – however, I was the only one to have a particular gender expression pushed so emphatically onto me. West and Zimmerman theorise that the conflation of gender performance with maturity is manifested in early childhood, when a binary is drawn between dependent ‘babies’ and socially competent ‘big boys/girls’ (West and Zimmerman, 1987). West and Zimmerman argue that this causes young children to claim gender identities as they perceive it as linked to their maturity (West and Zimmerman, 1987). However, Barbara Hudson (1984) illuminates the way in which this idea is perpetuated by society towards older girls during puberty, stating that “adolescence is subversive of femininity” (p.31). Hudson argues that the idea of childishness is used to undermine girls’ efforts to become young women, since the qualities of irresponsibility and rebellion, inherent to our cultural understanding of what it means to be an adolescent, are discouraged in women. Therefore, traditional archetypes of adolescence are “masculine constructs” (Hudson, 1984) that not only exist in contrast to ideas of femininity but pose an active threat to them. It is then understandable that my stepmother pushed me into her ideas of ‘doing’ femininity to legitimise my maturity and social competence in the eyes of society.  

My understanding of ‘doing’ femininity was inherently therefore linked to the idea of limitation, whilst the fiction I consumed presented the ‘masculine’ narrative of adolescence as a period in which exploration and hedonism was crucial. Due to my exposure to these warring concepts, I chose the one which I viewed as freer and more enjoyable: fulfilling expectations of adolescence over femininity. My desire to experience this ‘proper’ adolescence led me to emulate male teenage archetypes through wearing ‘masculine’ clothing and employing ‘masculine’ mannerisms. 

I found that my subversion of ‘femininity’ and new method of ‘doing’ gender encountered the most backlash within my own peer group in school. As a girl who ‘did’ gender unconventionally, it is perhaps unsurprising that I befriended those who also subverted norms of gender and sexuality. As a member of this group I was often the target of sexual harassment, objectification and homophobic hate speech from boys in my year. In The Making of Men, Mairtin Mac an Ghaill (1994) provided a case study of an English school to analyse how masculinity is constructed as a collective identity within such an institution. He found that boys employed compulsory heterosexuality, misogyny and homophobia to embody their gendered and sexual power. Whilst Mac an Ghaill analysed the homophobia directed towards gay male students to assert difference and dominance, he noted that he and his contemporaries found nothing on attitudes towards queer women (Kitzinger, 1990 in Mac an Ghaill, 1994). However, in my experience, girls who subverted norms of gender or sexuality faced a more intense intersection of homophobia and misogyny. I would speculate that, as the presence of queer women threatened the boys’ ability to assert their masculinity through compulsory heterosexuality, they used sexual objectification to deny the girls’ identities that threatened their collective affirmation through expression of sexual power (Mac an Ghaill, 1994).  

It is clear that my ‘doing’ of gender has not only been shaped by others, but has in turn shaped their behaviour towards me. Through Hudson and De Beauvoir, I have come to understand how my ‘doing’ of gender was called into question by the expectations of adolescence. I can now see the context within which my untraditional ‘doing’ of gender came into conflict with the construct of ‘masculinity’. My subversion of gender norms was not the result of a situated identity but a process of gender expression influenced by my experience within my environment (West and Zimmerman, 1987). 

Bibliography 

Connell, R.W. (2002) Gender : In World Perspective. Cambridge: Polity. 

de Beauvoir, S. (2015) The second sex. Translated from the French by C. Borde and S. Malovany-Chevallier. New York City: Vintage Books. 

Hudson, B. (1984) ‘Femininity and Adolescence’ in McRobbie, A. and Nava, M. (ed.) Gender and Generation. London: Macmillan, pp. 31-53 

Mac an Ghaill, M. (1994) The making of men : masculinities, sexualities and schooling. Buckingham: Open University Press. 

West, C. and Zimmerman, D. H. (1987) ‘Doing Gender’ in Reger, J. (ed.) Gender & Society, London: Sage Periodicals Press, pp. 125-151