“Gender Policing” and Gender Accountability

When sociologists study gender as a performance, they are also interested in what sorts of factors shape that performance. What causes us to perform gender in one way and not another? What causes us to perform one gender rather than the other? And when West and Zimmerman (1987) originally theorized gender as something we are constantly “doing,” they were equally interested in those social factors that hold us accountable to certain performances rather than others. Sociologists who study this issue sometimes refer to it as gender policing—the enforcement of normative gender ideals associated with the gender binary onto individuals. In many contexts, gender performances consistent with normative “masculinity” or “femininity” are encouraged and rewarded, whereas gender transgressive performances are discouraged through punishment or, more often, negative reactions.

The ways in which gender transgressions are “policed” can range from fairly minor illustrations of disagreement, outrage, or disgust to more serious forms of violence and assault. The methods of gender policing also vary depending, at least partially, on the perceived gender of the individual target. Research has long suggested that boys and men are generally policed more frequently and harshly (Kimmel 1994; Pascoe 2007). And although gender policing occurs throughout our lives and in every social context and institution we encounter, the bulk of the scholarship on gender policing has focused primarily on public contexts and among children and young adults. As with socialization (discussed in depth in Chapter 5), this can lead to the mistaken assumption that gender policing is over in adulthood. But sociologists understand this process as lifelong. Consider two stigmatizing labels that we often imagine are restricted to young people’s interactions with one another: “fag” and “slut.” Sociological research suggests that labels associated with sexuality are among the more ubiquitous insults traded among young people, and they are a primary mechanism of gender policing (Thurlow 2001). Both “fag” and “slut” are simultaneously all about sexuality and have absolutely nothing to do with sexuality at all.

Sociologist C. J. Pascoe (2007) studied the meanings and use of the term fag among high school boys. Employing both ethnographic and interview methods, Pascoe was interested in understanding who used the term, how it was used, and what role it played in the culture of young people in the high school in California she studied. Most of Pascoe’s research participants in her study of the use of fag among boys said that they would never aim the insult at someone who is “actually gay.” Pascoe suggests that this indicates a need for a more nuanced way of understanding sexuality—not as some thing inherent in specific bodies or identities, but as a mechanism of gender policing. “Fag” is a gender-policing label boys apply to one another to delineate the boundaries of masculinity. “Slut” is used in similar ways—as a mechanism of gender policing. And most of the research focusing on either is primarily about gender policing and gender and sexual inequality. But, research shows that both of these forms of gender policing need to be understood intersectionally as well to understand the role they play in racial and class inequality, too.

Pascoe discovered that young men’s use of fag was a process of gender policing primarily concerned with drawing boundaries around acceptable (and unacceptable) masculinity. Boys hurled the insult at each other in jest, sometimes at random, and as a part of a social game—one in which they were incredibly invested. But it was a “game” primarily played among white boys. Black boys and white boys rely on distinct symbolic resources when doing gender. For instance, paying “excessive” attention to one’s clothing or identifying with an ability to dance well put white boys at risk of being labeled a fag according to Pascoe, but worked to enhance black boys’ masculine status. As a group, black boys were much less likely to use the term than white boys; and when they did, black boys were much more likely to be punished by school authorities. Black boys were also the only students reported to school authorities for saying fag by their peers. White boys, in other words, relied on racial hierarchies to control the meaning of fag; it was interpreted as “playful” and “meaningless” when white boys used the term, but “dangerous” and “harassing” when black boys did.

In a separate study of sexuality in college life, Elizabeth A. Armstrong, Laura T. Hamilton, Elizabeth M. Armstrong, and J. Lotus Seely (2014) investigated the meaning of the term slut among college women as a part of a larger research project on party culture in college (Armstrong and Hamilton 2013). Armstrong and colleagues (2014) discovered that slut had a fluid meaning for college women; not all of the women in their study understood the same sorts of behavior as putting someone at risk of receiving the insult. At the institution at which the study was conducted, they found that social status among women fell largely along class lines. “High-status” women were almost entirely upper and upper-middle class. This was at least partially due to the fact that performing the femininity necessary for classification required class resources (joining a sorority, having the “right” kind of body, hair, clothes, etc.). Armstrong and colleagues found that high-status women used slut to refer to a specific configuration of femininity, one they defined as “trashy.” Although high-status women rarely actually deployed classist language, their comments relied on understandings of performance of gender stereotypically associated with less-affluent women and allowed them to situate their own sexual behavior and identities as beyond reproach. Armstrong and colleagues (2014) found that performing “classy” or “preppy” femininity (a performance that is simultaneously gendered, raced, sexualized, and classed) worked to shield high-status women from the slut stigma.

Conversely, the low-status women in Armstrong and colleagues’ (2014) study understood the label slut to be more about sexuality than gender. Lower-class women used slut to stigmatize the sexual behavior of higher-class women (sex outside of relationships). In an analogous way to Pascoe’s findings regarding race and the use of fag, these classed differences involving women drawing moral boundaries around femininity were enforced unevenly. Although both groups reconstituted slut to work to their advantage, casual sexual activity posed little reputational risk for high-status women, so long as they continued to perform a “classy” configuration of femininity in the process. Similar to Pascoe’s research, high-status women here relied on their gendered performances of class to control the meaning of the insult, such that participation in casual sexual interactions took on a different meaning when coupled with “classy” performances of gender. Here, class worked to insulate high-class women from stigma and punishment just as race worked to insulate white boys in Pascoe’s research.

Both studies illustrate important intersections among gender, sexuality, race, and class. Sexual discourses are invoked in a variety of ways throughout social life. They play an integral role in policing gender boundaries. But it is also important to continue to consider the role that sexual discourses play in bolstering boundaries around race and class.