teacher), but have not altered the rules of kinship and family patterns, indicate to me that it is biology that is mutable, whereas the social is fat more intractahle. In actuality, in human life, there is little that is not social, and so the sex-gender difference is more semantic than actual.
Tackling this problem of conceptualization and terminology, the first article of this issue elaborates on the components of sex and gender. West and Zimmerman propose distinctions among sex (birth classification), sex category (social membership), and gender (pro-cessual validation of that membership). In their view, gender is fundamental, institutionalized, and enduring; yet, because members of social groups must constantly (whether they realize it or not) "do" gender to maintain their proper status, the seeds of change are ever present.
The other three articles in this issue focus on the necessity of further refining the concept of gender—by race, ethnicity, and age. The data that Chilton and Datesman, Riessman, and Gillespie and Spohn present indicate that crime, marital breakup, and political attitudes cannot be understood by reference to only two categories.
More and more, we have to realize that sex and gender are not dichotomous, nor are they global variables. Careful research design and analysis must use more accurate groupings and must opera-tionalize variables in ways that will give us valid answers. But before we can.decide whom to compare with whom, first we must ask, what do we really want to know?
JUDITH LORBER
New York City February 20, 1987
DOING GENDER
CAN DACE WEST
University of California, Santa Cruz
DON H. ZIMMERMAN
University of California, Santa Barbara
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.
In the beginning, there was sex and there was gender. Those of us who taught courses in the area in the late 1960s and early 1970s were careful to distinguish one from the other. Sex, we told students, was what was ascribed by biology: anatomy, hormones, and physiology. Gender, we said, was an achieved status: that which is constructed through psychological, cultural, and social means. To introduce the difference between the two, we drew on singular case studies of hermaphrodites (Money 1968, 1974; Money and Ehrhardt 1972) and anthropological investigations of "strange and exotic tribes" (Mead 1963,1968).
Inevitably (and understandably), in the ensuing weeks of each term, our students became confused. Sex hardly seemed a "given" in
AUTHORS' NOTE: This article is based in part on a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Chicago, September 1977. For their helpful suggestions and encouragement, we thank Lynda Ames, Bettina Aptheker, Steven Clay man, fudith Gerson, the late Erving Goffman, Marilyn Lester, Judith Lorber, Robin Lloyd, Wayne Mellinger, Beth E. Schneider, Barrie Thome, Thomas P. Wilson, and most especially, Sarah Fenstermaker Berk.
GENDER & SOCIETY, Vol. 1 No. 2, June 1987 125-151 * 1987 Sociologists for Women in Society

123
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the context of research that illustrated the sometimes ambiguous and often conflicting criteria for its ascription. And gender seemed much less an "achievement" in the context of the anthropological, psychological, and social imperatives we studied—the division of labor, the formation of gender identities, and the social subordination of women by men. Moreover, the received doctrine of gender socialization theories conveyed the strong message that while gender may be "achieved," by about age five it was certainly fixed, unvarying, and static—much like sex.
Since about 1975, the confusion has intensified and spread far beyond our individual classrooms. For one thing, we learned that the relationship between biological and cultural processes*was far more complex—and reflexive—than we previously had supposed (Rossi 1984, especially pp. 10-14). For another, we discovered that certain structural arrangements, for example, between work and family, actually produce or enable some capacities, such as to mother, that we formerly associated with biology (Chodorow 1978 versus Firestone 1970). In the midst of all this, the notion of gender as a recurring achievement somehow fell by the wayside.
Our purpose in this article is to propose an ethnomethodologically informed, and therefore distinctively sociological, understanding of gender as a routine, methodical, and recurring accomplishment. We contend that the "doing'' of gender is undertaken by women and men whose competence as members of society is hostage to its production. Doing gender involves a complex of'feocially guided .perceptual, interactional, and micropolitical activities that cast particular pursuits as expressions of masculine and feminine "natures."
When we view gender as an accomplishment, an achieved property of situated conduct, our attention shifts from matters internal to the individual and focuses on interactional and, ultimately, institutional arenas. In one sense, of course, it is individuals who "do" gender. But it is a situated doing, carried out in the virtual or real presence of others who are presumed to be oriented to its production. Rather than as a property of individuals, we conceive of gender as an emergent feature of social situations: both as an outcome of and a rationale for various social arrangements and as a means of legitimating one of the most fundamental divisions of society.
To advance our argument, we undertake a critical examination of what sociologists have meant by gender, including its treatment as a role enactment in the conventional sense and as a "display" in Goffman's (1976) terminology. Both gender role and gender display
tocus on benaviorai aspects oi üeing k woínan*o. aman^, JppoiĽ ., for example, to biological differences between the two). However, we contend that the notion of gender as a role obscures the work that is involved in producing gender in everyday activities, while the notion of gender as a display relegates it to the periphery of interaction. We argue instead that participants in interaction organize their various and manifold activities to reflect or express gender, and they are disposed to perceive the behavior of others in a similar light.
To elaborate our proposal, we suggest at the outset that important but often overlooked distinctions be observed among sex, sex category, and gender. Sex is a determination made through the application of socially agreed upon biological criteria for classifying persons as females or males.1 The criteria for classification can be genitalia at birth or chromosomal typing before birth, and they do not necessarily agree with one another. Placement in a äftx category is achieved through application of the sex criteria, but in everyday life, categorization is established and sustained by the socially required identificatory displays that proclaim one's membership in one or the other category. In this sense, one's sex category presumes one's sex and stands as proxy for it in many situations, but sex and sex category can vary independently; that is, it is possible to claim membership in a sex category even when the sex criteria are lacking, feertdeif, in contrast, is the activity of managing situated conduct in light of normative conceptions of attitudes and activities appropriate for one's sex category. Gender activities emerge from and bolster claims to membership in a sex category.
We contend that recognition of the analytical independence of sex, sex category, and gender is essential for understanding the relationships among these elements and the interactional work involved in "being" a gendered person in society. While our primary aim is theoretical, there will be occasion to discuss fruitful directions for empirical research following from the formulation of gender that we propose.
We begin with an assessment of the received meaning of gender, particularly in relation to the roots of this notion in presumed biological differences between women and men.
PERSPECTIVES ON SEX AND GENDER
In Western societies, the accepted cultural perspective on gender views women and men as naturally and unequivocally defined
categories of being (Garfinkel 1967, pp. 116-18) with distinctive psychological and behavioral propensities that can be predicted from their reproductive functions. Competent adult members of these societies see differences between the two as fundamental and enduring— differences seemingly supported by the division of labor into women's and men's work and an often elaborate differentiation of feminine and masculine attitudes and behaviors that are prominent features of social organization. Things are the way they are by virtue of the fact that men are men and women are women—a division perceived to be natural and rooted in biology, producing in turn profound psychological, behavioral, and social consequences. The structural arrangements of a society are presumed to be responsive to these differences.
Analyses of sex and gender in the social sciences, though less likely to accept uncritically the naive biological determinism of the view just presented, often retain a conception of sex-linked behaviors and traits as essential properties of individuals (for good reviews, see Hochschild 1973; Tresemer 1975; Thorne 1980; Henley 1985). The "sex differences approach";(Thorne 1980) is more commonly attributed to psychologists than to sociologists, but the survey researcher who determines the "gender" of respondents on the basis of the sound of their voices over the telephone is also making trait-oriented assumptions. Reducing gender to a fixed set of psychological traits or to a unitary "variable" precludes serious consideration of the ways it is used to structure distinct domains of social experience (Stacey and Thorne 1985, pp. 307-8).
Taking a different tack, role theory has attended to the social construction of gender categories, called "sex roles" or, more recently, "gender roles'/ and has analyzed how these are learned and enacted. Beginning with Linton (1936) and continuing through the works of Parsons (Parsons 1951; Parsons and Bales 1955) and Komarovsky (1946, 1950), role theory* has emphasized the social and dynamic aspect of role construction and enactment (Thorne 1980; Connell 1983). But at the level of face-to-face interaction, the application of role theory to gender poses problems of its own (for good reviews and critiques, see Connell 1983, 1985; Kessler, Ashendon, Connell, and Dowsett 1985; Lopata and Thorne 1978; Thorne 1980; Stacey and Thorne 1985). Roles are situated identities—assumed and relinquished as the situation demands—rather than master identities (Hughes 1945), such as sex category, that cut across situations. Unlike most roles, such as "nurse," "doctor," and "patient" or "professor" and "student," gender has no specific site or organizational context.
it, Zimmerman / <DOIN
H     /Wl/f*   ŕWHŕy^WM, Zimmerman / kölNG GENDER        129
Moreover, many roles are already gender marked, so that special qualifiers—such as "female doctor" or "male nurse"—must be added to exceptions to the rule. Thorne (1980) observes that conceptualizing gender as a role makes it difficult to assess its influence on other roles and reduces its explanatory usefulness in discussions of power and inequality. Drawing on Rubin (1975), Thorne calls for a reconceptu-alization of women and men as distinct social groups, constituted in "concrete, historically changing—and generally unequal—social relationships" (Thorne 1980, p. 11).
We argue that gender is not a set of traits, nor a variable, nor a role, but the product of social doings of some sort. What then is the social doing of gender? It is more than the continuous creation of the meaning of gender through human actions (Gerson and Peiss 1985). We claim that gender itself is constituted through interaction.2 To develop the implications of our claim, we turn to Goffman's (1976) account of "gender display*'" Our object here is to explore how gender might be exhibited or portrayed through interaction, and thus be seen as "natural," while it is being produced as a socially organized achievement.
GENDER DISPLAY^
sGpffman contends that when human beings interact with others in their environment, they assume that each possesses an ^essential/ nature'-'—a nature that can be discerned through the "natural signs given off or expressed by them" (1976, p. 75). Femininity and masculinity are regarded as "prototypes of essential expression-something that can be conveyed fleetingly in any social situation and yet something that strikes at the most basic characterization of the individual" (1976, Pv7^The means through which we provide such expressions are "perfunctory, conventionalized acts'" (1976, p. 69), which convey to others our regard Tor them, indicate our alignment in an encounter, and tentatively establish the terms of contact for that social situation. But they are also regarded as expressive behavior, testimony to our "essential natures."
Goffman (1976, pp. 69-70) sees-äisplays ás highly conventionalized behaviors structured as two-part exchanges of the statement-reply type, in which the presence or absence of symmetry can establish deference or dominance. These rituals are viewed as distinct from but articulated with more consequential activities, such as performing tasks or engaging in discourse. Hence, we have what he terms the

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SÉ^^VA^S" of display's at junctures in activities, such as the rjegmning or end, to avoid interfering with the activities themselves. Goffman (1976, p. 69) tormulates^endej display ás follows:
If gender be defined as the culturally established correlates of sex (whether in consequence of biology or learning), then gender display refers to conventionalized portrayals of these correlates.
These gendered expressions might reveal clues to the underlying, fundamental dimensions of the female and male, but they are, in QQffTOft^y.'^y.' PP'ional performances. Masculine courtesies may or may notbe offereďarid, if offered, may or may not be declined (1976, p. 71). Moreover, human beings "themselves employ the term 'expression', and conduct themselves to fit their own notions of expressivity" (1976, p.  75).  Gender depictions are less a consequence of our;
Í "essential sexual natures" than interactional portrayals^pf what we/ would like to convey about sexíľai natures, using conventionalized 5*|estüres:'Our human nature gives us the ability to learn to produce ', I  and recognize masculine and feminine gender displays—"a capacity [we] have by virtue of being persons, not males and females" (1976, p. ;   76).
Upon first inspection, it would appear that Goffman's formulation offers an engaging sociological corrective to existing formulations of gender. In his view, gender is a socially scripted dramatization of the \ culture's idealization of feminine and masculine natures, played for an audience that is well schooled in the presentational idiom. To , continue the metaphor, there are scheduled performances presented in special locations, and like plays7tney constitute introductions to or time out from more serious activities.
! There are fundamental equivocations in this perspective. By segregating gender display from the serious business of interaction, I Goffman obscures the effects of gender on a wide range of human activities. Gender is not merely something that happens in the nooks and crannies of interaction, fitted in here and there and not interfering with the serious business of life. While it is plausible to contend that gender displays—construed as conventionalized expressions—are optional, it does not seem plausible to say that we have the option of being seen by others as female or male.
It is necessary to move beyond the notion of gender display to consider what is involved in doing gender as an ongoing activity embedded in everyday interaction. Toward this end, we return to the distinctions among sex, sex category, and gender introduced earlier.

r» -;.,...-       *_•„_,       fei—i,       ft,.,.. GORVi ANDQjENDER
Garfinkeľs (1967, pp. 118-40) case study of Agnes, a transsexual raised as a boy who adopted a female identity at age 17 and underwent a sex reassignment operation several years later, demonstrates how gender is created through interaction and at the same time structures interaction. Agnes, whom Garfinkel characterized as a "practical methodologist," developed a number of procedures for J^ítijfäsťa/ ^Sŕnjäij natural female" éoth prior to and after her surgery. She had tne practicaT task of managing the fact that she possessed male genitalia and that she lacked the social resources a girl's biography would presumably provide in everyday interaction. In short, she needed to display herself as a woman, simultaneously learning wliai it was to be a woman. Of necessity, this full-lime pursuit look place at a time when most people's gender would be well-accredited and routinized. Agnes had to consciously contrive what the vast majority of women do without thinking. She was not "faking" what "real" women do naturally. She was obliged to analyze and figure out how to act within socially structured circumstances and conceptions of femininity that women born with appropriate biological credentials come to take for granted early on. As in the case of others who must "pass," such as transvestites, Kabuki actors, or Dustin Hoffman's "Tootsie," Agnes's case makes visible what culture has made invisible-^the accomplishment of gender.
Garfinkeľs (1967) discussion of Agnes does not explicitly separate three analytically distinct, although empirically overlapping, concepts—sex, sex category, and gender.
S« \
....
Agnes did not possess the socially agreed upon biological criteria
for classification as a member of the female sex. Still, Agnes regarded herself as a female, albeit a female with a penis, which a woman ought not to possess. The penis, she insisted, was a "mistake" in need of remedy (Garfinkel 1967, pp. 126-27, 131-32). Like other competent members of our culture, Agnes honored the notion that there are "essential^ biological criteria that unequivocally distinguish females from males. However, if we move away from the commonsense viewpoint, we discover-that the reliability of these criteria is not beyond question ((Money and Brennan 1968; Money and Erhardt 1972; Money and Ogunro 1974; Money and Tucker 1975). Moreover,
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132        GENDER & SOCIETY / June 1987
other cultures have acknowledged the existence of "cross-genders" (Blackwood 1984; Williams 1986) and the possibility of more than two sexes (Hill 1935; Martin and Voorhies 1975, pp. 84-107; but see also Cucchiari 1981, pp. 32-35).
More central to our argument is Kessler and McKenna's (1978, pp. 1-6) point that genitalia are conventionally hidden from public inspection in everyday life; yet we continue through our social rounds to "observe" a world of two naturally, normally sexed persons. It is (Jíte presumption that essential criteria exist and would or should be There if looked for that provides the basis for sex categorization. Drawing on Garfinkel, Kessler and McKenna argue that "female" and "male" are cultural events—products of what they term the "gender attribution process"—rather than some collection of traits, behaviors, or even physical attributes. Illustratively they cite the child who, viewing a picture of someone clad in a suit and a tie, contends, "It's a man, because he has a pee-pee" (Kessler and McKenna 1978, p. 154). Translation: "He must have a pee-pee [an essential characteristic] because I see the insignia of a suit and tie." Neither initial sex assignment (pronouncement at birth as a female or male) nor the actual existence of essential criteria for that assignment (possession of a clitoris and vagina or penis and testicles) has much—if anything— to do with the identification of sex category in everyday life. There, Kessler and McKenna note, we operate with a moral certainty of a world of two sexes. We do not think, "Most persons with penises are men, but some may not be" or "Most persons who dress as men have penises." Rather, we take it for granted that sex and sex category are congruent—that knowing the latter, we can deduce the rest.
Sex Categorization
Agnes's claim to the categorical status of female, which she sustained by appropriate identificatory displays and other characteristics, could be discredited before her transsexual operation if her possession of a penis became known and after by her surgically constructed genitalia (see Raymond 1979, pp. 37,138). In this regard, Agnes had to be continually alert to actual or potential threats to the security of her sex category. Her problem was not so much living up to some prototype of essential femininity but preserving her categorization as female. This task was made easy for her by a very powerful resource, namely, the process of commonsense categorization in everyday life.
West, Zimmerman / DOING GENDER        133
The categorization of members of society into indigenous categories such as "girl" or "boy," or "woman" or "man," operates in a distinctively social way. The act of categorization does not involve a positive test, in the sense of a well-defined set of criteria that must be explicitly satisfied prior to making an identification. Rather, the application of membership categories relies on an "if-can" test in everyday interaction (Sacks 1972, pp. 332-35). This test stipulates that if people can be seen as members of relevant categories, then categorize them that way. That is, use the category that seems appropriate, except in the presence of discrepant information or obvious features that would rule out its use. This procedure is quite in keeping with the attitude of everyday life, which has us take 'appearances at face value unless we have special reason to doubt (Schutz 1943; Garfinkel 1967, pp. 272-77; Bernstein 1986).' It should be added that it is precisely when we have special reason to doubt that the issue of applying rigorous criteria arises, but it is rare, outside legal or bureaucratic contexts, to encounter insistence on positive tests (Garfinkel 1967, pp. 262-83; Wilson 1970).
Agnes's initial resource was the predisposition of those she encountered to take her appearance (her figure, clothing, hair style, and so on), as the undoubted appearance of a normal female. Her further resource was our cultural perspective on the properties of "natural, normally sexed persons." Garfinkel (1967, pp. 122-28) notes that in everyday life, we live irfä world of two—and only two—sexes. This arrangement has a moral status, in that we include ourselves and others in it as "essentially, originally, in the first place, always have been, always will be, once and for all, in the final analysis, either 'male* or 'female'" (Garfinkel 1967, p. 122).
Consider the following case:
This issue reminds me of a visit I made to a computer store a couple of years ago. The person who answered my questions was truly a salesperson. I could not categorize him/her as a woman or a man. What did I look for? (1) Facial hair: She/he was smooth skinned, but some men have little or no facial hair. (This varies by race. Native Americans and Blacks often have none.) (2) Breasts: She/he was wearing a loose shirt that hung from his/her shoulders. And, as many women who suffered through a 1950s' adolescence know to their shame, women are often flat-chested. (3) Shoulders: His/hers were small and round for a man, broad for a woman. (4) Hands: Long and slender fingers, knuckles a bit large for a woman, small for a man. (5) Voice: Middle range, unexpressive for a woman, not at all the exaggerated tones some

gay males affect. (6) His/her treatment of me: Gave off no sign's that would let me know if I were of the same or different sex as this person. There were not even any signs that he/she knew his/her sex would be difficult to categorizeand I wondered about that even as I did my best to hide these questions so I would not embarrass him/her while we talked of computer paper. I left still not knowing the sex of my salesperson, and was disturbed by that unanswered question (child of my culture that I am). (Diane Margolis, personal communication)
What can this case tell us about situations such as Agnes's (cf. Morris 1974; Richards 1983) or the process of sex categorization in general? First, we infer from this description that the computer salesclerk's purificatory displa^jwas ambiguous, since she or he was not dressed or adorned in an unequivocally female or male fashion. It is when such a display fails to provide grounds for categorization that factors such as facial hair or tone of voice are assessed to determine membership in a sex category. Second, beyond the fact that this incident could be recalled after "a couple of years," the customer was not only "disturbed" by theambiguity of the salesclerk's category but also assumed that to acknowledge this ambiguity would be embarrassing to the salesclerk. Not only do we want to know the sex category of those around us (to see it at a glance, perhaps), but we presume that others are displaying it for us, in as decisive a fashion as they can.
Gender
■
Agnes attempted to be "120 percent female" (Garfinkel 1967, p. 129), that is, unquestionably in all ways and at all times feminine. She thought she could protect herself from disclosure before and after surgical intervention by comporting herself in a feminine manner, but she also could have given herself away by overdoing her performance£ígp^;té"g0^
are not the same- Agnes's categorization could be secure or suspect, but did not depend on whether or not she lived up to some ideal conception of femininity. Women can be seen as unfeminine, but that does not make them "unfemale." Agnes faced fcrqngoing. task of -being a Woman—something beyond style of dress (an iďentíficatory display) or allowing men to light her cigarette (a gender display). Her problem was to produce configurations of behavior thai would be seen by others as normative gender behavior.^
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Agnes's strategy of "secret^apprenticeship," through which she learned expected femirríné~~äecorum by carefully attending to her fiance's criticisms of other women, was one means of masking incompetencies and simultaneously acquiring the needed skills (Garfinkel 1967, pp. 146-147). It was through her fiance that Agnes learned that sunbathing on the lawn in front of her apartment was "offensive" (because it put her on display to other men). She also learned from his critiques of other women that she should not insist on having things her way and that she should not offer her opinions or claim equality with men (Garfinkel 1967, pp. 147-148). (Like other women in our society, Agnes learned something about power in the course of her "education.")
Popular culture abounds with books and magazines that compile idealized depictions of relations between women and men. Those focused on the etiquette of dating or prevailing standards of feminine comportment are meant to be of practical help in these matters. However, the use of any such source as °^^^M^oí procedure requires the assumption that doing gender merely involves making use of discrete, well-defined bundles of behavior that can simply be plugged into interactional situations to produce recognizable enactments of masculinity and femininity. The man "does" being masculine by, for example, taking the woman's arm to guide her across a street, and she "does" being feminine by consenting to be guided and not initiating such behavior with a man.
Agnes could perhaps have used such sources as manuals, but, we contend, doing gender is not so easily regimented (Mithers 1982; Morris 1974). Such sources may list and describe the sorts of behaviors that mark or display gender, but they are necessarily incomplete (Garfinkel 1967, pp. 66-75; Wieder 1974, pp. 183-214; Zimmerman and Wieder 1970, pp. 285-98). And to be successful, marking or displaying gender must be finely fitted to situations and modified or transformed as the occasion demands. Doing gender consists of managing such occasions so that, whatever the particulars, the outcome is seen and seeable in context as|Éfender-äppropriäté or, as the case may be, gender-mappropnate, that is, accountable.
<<£ÉNDER?AŇDÄCCOÜN'FABlIdTY
As Heritage (1984, pp. 136-37) notes, members of society regularly engage in "descriptive accountings of states of affairs to one another,"
i
and such accounts are both serious and consequential. These descriptions name, characterize, formulate, explain, excuse, excoriate, or merely take notice of some circumstance or activity and thus place it within some social framework (locating it relative to other activities, like and unlike).
Such descriptions are themselves accountable, and societal members orient to the fact that their activities are subject to comment. Actions are often designed with an eye to their^cpuntability/that is, how they might look and how they might oe characterized. The notion of accountability also encompasses those actions undertaken so that they are specifically unremarkable and thus not worthy of more than a passing remark, because they are seen to be in accord with culturally approved standards.
Heritage (1984, p. 179) observes that the process of rendering something accountable is interactional in character:
"J
i [This] permits actors to design their actions in relation to their ( circumstances so as to permit others, by methodically taking account of J circumstances, to recognize the action for what it is-
The key word here is^g8Z?ržaSBŕf£gčŕ One circumstance that attends virtually all actions lstnesex^cafegory of the actor. As Garfinkel (1967, p. 118) comments:
[T]he work and socially structured occasions of sexual passing were obstinately unyielding to [Agnes's] attempts to routinize the grounds of daily activities. This obstinacy points to the oynňifělevaňče of "sexual &a'řuV to affairs of daily life as an invariant butunnoticed background in the texture of relevances that compose the changing actual scenes of everyday life, (italics added)
If sex category is omnirelevant (or even approaches being so), then a person engaged in virtually any activity may be held accountable for performance of that activity as a woman or a man, and their incumbency in one or the other sex category can be used to legitimate or discredit their other activities (Berger, Cohen, and Zelditch 1972; Berger, Conner, and Fisek 1974; Berger, Fisek, Norman, and Zelditch 1977; Humphreys and Berger 1981). Accordingly, virtually any activity can be assessed as to its womanly or manly nature. And note, to "do" gender is not always to live up to normative conceptions of femininity or masculinity; it is to engage in behavior attyfie'ŕišk off lossessmeňt. While it is individuals who do gender, the
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enterprise is fundamentally'|ri"teraction"ál and lnstitütiönäEin character, for accountability is filature of social relationships and its idiom is drawn from the institutional arena in which those relationships are enacted. Ifthis be thecase, can we ever not do gender? Insofar as a society is partitioned by "essential aifferencesbetweeh women and menjmd^placement in a sex category is both relevant aiub enforced,^c&gjender is unavoidable,.'                                            '-'.'
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RESOURCES FOR DOING GENDER
Iföin^'genäer/means creating differences between girls and bovs   ^     , ,-/- and women and men, differences that are not natural, essential, or í, biological. Once the differences have been constructed, they are used ^>LCU f to reinforce the "essentialness"of gender. In a delightful account of $the "arrangement between the sexes," Goffman (1977) observes thefA&xíľ \ creation of a variety of institutionalized frameworks through which    /ic^i our "natural, normal sexedness" can be enacted. The physical features of social setting provide one obvious resource for the expression of our "essential" differences. For example, the sex           J
segregation of North American public bathrooms distinguishes "ladies" from "gentlemen" in matters held to be fundamentally biological, even though both "are somewhat similar in the question of waste products and their elimination" (Goffman 1977, p. 315). "Iwd These settings are furnished with dimorphic equipment (such as      ~ /i urinals for men or elaborate grooming facilities for women), even      A though both sexes may achieve the same ends through the same means (and apparently do so in the privacy of their own homes). To be stressed here is the fact that:
The functioning of sex-differentiated organs is involved, but there is nothing in this functioning that biologically recommends segregation; that arrangement is a totally cultural matter ... toilet segregation is presented as a natural consequence of the difference between the sex-classes when in fact it is a means of honoring, if not producing, this difference. (Goffman 1977, p. 316)
Standardized social occasions also provide stages for evocations of the "essential female and male natures." Goffman cites organized sports as one such institutionalized framework for the expression of manliness. There, those qualities that ought "properly" to be associated with masculinity, such as endurance, strength, and com-
petitive spirit, are celebrated by all parties concerned^participants, who may be seen to demonstrate such traits, and spectators, who applaud their demonstrations from the safety of the sidelines (1977, p. 322).
Assortative mating practices among heterosexual couples afford still further ŕ^gn£ť^create''äň^;ÄäifitainvdifférencjÄ between women and men. For example, even though size, strength, and age tend to be normally distributed among females and males (with considerable overlap between them), selective pairing ensures couples in which boys and men are visibly bigger, stronger, and older (if not "wiser") than the girls and women with whom they are paired. So, should situations emerge in which greater size, strength, or experience is called for, boys and men will be ever ready to display it and girls and women, to appreciate its display (Goffman 1977, p. 321; West and Iritani 1985).
Gender may be routinely fashioned in a variety of situations that seem conventionally expressive to begin with, such as those that present "helpless" women next to heavy objects or flat tires. But, as Goffman notes, heavy, messy, and precarious concerns can be constructed from any social situation, "even though by standards set in other settings, this may involve something that is light, clean, and safe^GoffmanJ^977, p. 324). Given these resources, it is clear thaupiy/ |in^gräciionaljsi.tuat.ion sets the stage for depictions of "essenaal" iexual natures. In sum, these situations "do not so much allow for the ipression of natural differences as for the production of that "itself" (Goffman 1977, p. 324). (any situations are not clearly sex categorized to begin with, nor is what transpires within them obviously gender relevant. Yet any asocial encounter canbe pressed'into service in die interests of doing g^näéffThus, Fishman's (1978) research on casual conversations found an asymmetrical "division of labor" in talk between heterosexual intimates. Women had to ask more questions, fill more silences, and use more attention-getting beginnings in order to be heard. Her conclusions are particularly pertinent here:
Since interactional work is related to what constitutes being a woman, with what a woman is, the idea that it is work is obscured. The work is not seen as what women do, but as part of what they are. (Fishman 1978, p. 405)
i-aj-.-._>-
We would argue that it is precisely such jaboifthat helps to constitute the essential nature of women as women in interactional contexts
(West and Zimmerman 1983, pp. 109-11; but see also Kollock, Blumstein, and Schwartz 1985).
Individuals have many social identities that may be donned or shed, muted or made more salient, depending on the situation. One may be a friend, spouse, professional, citizen, and many other things to many different people—or, to the same person at different times. But we are always women or men—unless we shift into another sex category. What this means is that our identificatory displays will provide an ever-available resource for doing gender under an infinitely diverse set of circumstances.
Some occasions are organized to routinely display and celebrate behaviors that are conventionally linked to one or the other sex category. On such occasions, everyone knows his or her place in the interactional scheme of things. If an individual identified as a member of one sex category engages in behavior usually associated with the other category, this^c^iřtizMBfy is challenged. Hughes (1945, p. 356) provides an illustration of šuch a dilemma:
[A] young woman . . . became part of that virile profession, engineering. The designer of an airplane is expected to go up on the maiden flight of the first plane built according to the design. He [sic] then gives a dinner to the engineers and workmen who worked on the new plane. The dinner is naturally a stag party. The young woman in question designed a plane. Her co-workers urged her not to take the risk—for which, presumably, men only are fit—of the maiden voyage. They were, in effect, asking her to be a lady instead of an engineer. She chose to be an engineer. She then gave the party and paid for it like a man. After food and the first round of toasts, she left like a lady.
On this occasion, parties reached an accommodation that allowed a woman to engage in presumptively masculine behaviors. However, we note that in the end, this compromise permitted demonstration of her "essential" femininity, through accountably "ladylike" behavior. Hughes (1945, p. 357) suggests that such contradictions may be countered by managing interactions on a very narrow basis, for example, "keeping the relationship formal and specific." But the heart of the matter is that even—perhaps, especially—if the relationship is a formal one, gender i^SUjygn^e^ingqne^is^c^untablefor. Thus a woman physféttrffnotice the special qualifier in her case) may be accorded respect for her skill and even addressed by an appropriate title. Nonetheless, she is subject to evaluation in terms of normative conceptions of appropriate attitudes and activities for her sex
í40        GENDER & SOCIETY / June 1987
category and under pressure to prove that she is an "essentially" feminine being, despite appearances to the contrary (West 1984, pp. 97-101). Her sex category is used to discredit her participation in important clinical activities (Lorber 1984, pp. 52-54), while her involvement in medicine is used to discredit her commitment to her responsibilities as a wife and mother (Bourne and Wilder 1978, pp. 435-37). Simultaneously, her exclusion from the physician colleague community is maintained and her accountability as a woman is ensured.
In this context, "role conflict** can be viewed as a dynamic aspect of our current "arrangement between the sexes" (Goffman 1977), an arrangement that provides for occasions on which persons of a particular sex category can "see" quite clearly that they are out of place and that if they were not there, their current troubles would not exist. What is at stake is, from the standpoint of interaction, the j ^management of our "essential" natures,, and from the standpoint of the individual, fhe continuing accomplishment of gender. If, as we have argued, sex category is omnirelevant, then any occasion, conflicted or not, offers the resources for doing gender.
We have sought to show that sex category and gender are managed properties of conduct that are contrived with respect to the fact that others will judge and respond to us in particular ways. We have claimed that a person's gender is not simply an aspect of what one is,
s___v     but^more fundamentally, it is ?Sme*thing that one does, and does
rttfei recurrently, in interaction with others.
• nkx^) "kaTare the consequences of this theoretical formulation? If, for (U> example, individuals strive to achieve gender in encounters with others, how does a culture instill the need to achieve it? What is the relationship between the production of gender at tne íeveľol interaction and such institutional arrangements as the division of labor in society? And, perhaps most important, how does doirig gender contribute to the subordination of women by men?       . •      -/
RESEARCH AGENDAS                               fô
^
To bring the social production of gender under empirical scrutiny,
we might begin at the beginning, with a reconsideration of the
process through  which  societal  members acquire  the requisite
categorical apparatus and other skills to become gendered human beings.
»- /a-jM  — o
West, Zimmerman / DOING GENDER        141
Recruitment to Gender Identities
The conventional approach to the process of becoming girls and boys has been sex-role socialization. In recent years, recurring problems arising trom this approach have been linked to inadequacies inherent in role theory per se—its emphasis on "consensus, stability and continuity" (Stacey and Thome 1985, p. 307), its ahistorical and depoliticizing focus (Thorne 1980, p. 9; Stacey and Thorne 1985, p. 307), and the fact that its "social" dimension relies on "a general assumption that people choose to maintain existing customs" (Connell 1985, d. 263).   ( ULĺLu?Iu>^  ,   MfudJ.^c )
In contrast, Cahill £1982,1986a, 1986b) analyzes the experiences of preschool children using a social model of recruitment into normally gendered identities. Cahilí argues that categorization practices are fundamental to learning and displaying feminine and masculine behavior. Initially, he observes, children are primarily concerned with distinguishing between themselves and others on the basis of social competence. Categorically, their concern resolves itself into the opposition of "girl/boy" classification versus "baby" classification (the latter designating children whose social behavior is problematic and who must be closely supervised). It is children's concern with being seen as socially competent that evokes their initial claims to gender identities:
During the exploratory stage of children's socialization ... they learn that only two social identities are routinely available to them, the identity of "baby," or, depending on the configuration of their external genitalia, either "big boy" or "big girl." Moreover, others subtly inform them that the identity of "baby" is a discreditingone. When, for example, children engage in disapproved behavior, they are often told "You're a baby" or "Be a big boy." In effect, these typical verbal responses to young children's behavior convey to them that they must behaviorally choose between the discrediting identity of "baby" and their anatomically determined sex identity. (Cahill 1986a, p. 175)
Subsequently, little boys appropriate the gender ideal of "efficaciousness," that is, being able to affect the physical and social environment through the exercise of physical strength or appropriate skills. In contrast, little girls learn to value "appearance," that is, managing themselves as ornamental objects. Both classes of children learn that the recognition and use of sex categorization in interaction are not optional, but mandatory (see also Bern 1983).
142        GENDER & SOCIETY / June 1987
UM  ^
Being a "girl" or a "boy" then, is not only being more competent than a "baby," but also being competently female or male, that is, learning to produce behavioral displays of one's "essential" female or male identity. In this respect, the task of four- to five-year-old children is very similar to Agnes's:
For example, the following interaction occurred on a preschool playground. A 55-month-old boy (D) was attempting to unfasten the clasp of a necklace when a preschool aide walked over to him.
A: Do you want to put that on? D: No. It's for girls.
A: You don't have to be a girl to wear things around your neck. Kings wear things around their necks. You could pretend you're a king. D: I'm not a king. I'm a boy. (Cahill 1986a, p. 176)
As Cahill notes of this example, although D may have been unclear as to the sex status of a king's identity, he was obviously aware that necklaces are used to announce the identity "girl." Having claimed the identity "boy" and having developed a behavioral commitment to it, he was leery of any display that might furnish grounds for questioning his claim.
In this way, new members of society come to be involved in a ''self-regtiláiing pročésšas they begin to moni tor their own and others' conduct with regard to its gender implications. The "recruitment" process involves not only the appropriation of gender ideals (by the valuation of those ideals as proper ways of being and behaving) but also gender identities that are important to individuals and that they strive to maintain. Thus gender differences, or the sociocultural i shaping of "essential female and male natures," achieve the status of objective facts. They are rendered normal, natural features of persons and provide the tacit rationale for differing fates of women and men within the social order.
Additional studies of children's play activities as routine occasions for the expression of gender-appropriate behavior can yield new insights into how our "essential natures" are constructed. InDartic-ular, the transition from what Cahill (1986a) terms 0PBfŠS.tiíe í participatioji" in the sex-segregated worlds that are common among.. '/ elementary school children £tč£ ''bona fide participation" in the heterosocial world so frightening to adolescents is likely to be a keystone in our understanding of the recruitment process (Thorne 1986; Thorne and Luria 1986).
T
.       .--..              ....-•   ■             i       a U.'              UJ  lil
Wist, Zimmerman / DOING GENDER       143
Gender and the Division of Labor
Whenever people face issues of allocation—who is to do what, get what, plan or execute action, direct or be directed, incumbency in significant social categories such as "female" and "male" seems to become pointedly relevant. How such issues are resolved conditions the exhibition, dramatization, or celebration of one's "essential nature" as a woman or man.
1^1^.(1985) offers elegant demonstration of this point in her investigation of the allocation of household labor and the attitudes of married couples toward the division of household tasks. Berk found little variation in either the actual distribution of tasks or perceptions of equity in regard to that distribution. Wives, even when employed outside the home, do the vast majority of household and child-care tasks. Moreover, both wives and husbands tend to perceive this as a "fair" arrangement. Noting the failure of conventional sociological and economic theories to explain this seeming contradiction. Berk contends that something more complex is involved than rational arrangements for the production of household goods and services:
Hardly a question simply of who has more time, or whose time is worth
more, who has more skill or more power, it is clear mat a complicated
relationship between the structure of work imperatives and die
structure of normative expectations attached to work as gendered
determines die ultimate allocation of members' time to work and
home. (Berk 1985, pp. 195-96)
She notes, for example, that the most important factor influencing
wives' contribution of labor is the total amountof work demanded or
expected by the household; such demands had no bearing on
husbands' contributions. Wives reported various rationales (their
own and their husbands') that justified their level of contribution
and, as a general matter, underscored the presumption that wives are
essentially responsible for household production.
Berk (1985, p. 201) contends that it is difficult to see how people "could rationally establish the arrangements that they do solely for the production of household goods and services'^much less, how people could consider them "fair." She argues that our current arrangements for the domestic division of labor support two production processes: household goods and services (meals, clean children, and so on) and, at the same time, gender. As she puts it:
*■
l.fiMM-.KVMHll-   I   \     /   June   n*.S/
? Simultaneously, members "do" gender, as they "do" housework and child care, and what [has] been called the division of labor provides for the joint production of household labor and gender; it is the mechanism by which both the material and symbolic products of the household are realized. (1985, p. 201)
It is not simply that household labor is designated as "women's work," but that for a woman to engage in it and a man not to engage in it is to draw on and exhibit the "essential nature" of each. What is produced and reproduced is not merely the activity and artifact of domestic life, but the material embodiment of wifely and husbandly roles, and derivatively, of womanly and manly conduct (see Beer 1983, pp. 70-89). What are also frequently produced and reproduced are the dominant and subordinate statuses of the sex categories.
How does gender get done in work settings outside the home, where dominance and subordination are themes of overarching importance? Hochschild's (1983) analysis of the work of flight attendants offers some promising insights. She found that the occupation of flight attendant consisted of something altogether different for women than for men:
As the company's main shock absorbers against "mishandled" passengers, their own feelings are more frequently subjected to rough treatment. In addition, a day's exposure to people who resist authority
in a woman is a different experience than it is for a man___In this
respect, it is a disadvantage to be a woman. And in this case, they are not simply women in the biological sense. They are also a highly visible distillation of middle-class American notions of femininity. They symbolize Woman. Insofar as the category "female" is mentally associated with having less status and authority, female flight attendants are more readily classified as "really" females than other females are. (Hochschild 1983, p. 175)
In performing what Hochschild terms the "emotional labor" necessary to maintain airline profits, women flight attendants simultaneously produce enactments of their "essential" femininity.
Sex and Sexuality
What is the relationship between doing gender and a culture's prescription of "obligatory heterosexuality" (Rubin 1975; Rich 1980)? As Frye (1983, p. 22) observes, the monitoring of sexual feelings in relation to other appropriately sexed persons requires the ready
West, Zimmerman /  DOING GfcNiifcK        145
recognition of such persons "before one can allow one's heart to beat or one's blood to flow in erotic enjoyment of that person." The appearance of heterosexuality is produced through emphatic and unambiguous indicators of one's sex, layered on in ever more conclusive fashion (Frye 1983, p. 24). Thus, lesbians and gay men concerned with passing as heterosexuals can rely on these indicators for camouflage; in contrast, those who would avoid the assumption of heterosexuality may foster ambiguous indicators of their categorical status through their dress, behaviors, and style. But "ambiguous" sex indicators are sex indicators nonetheless. If one wishes to be recognized as a lesbian (or heterosexual woman), one must first establish a categorical status as female. Even as popular images portray lesbians as "females who are not feminine" (Frye 1983, p. 129), the accountability of persons for their "normal, natural sexedness" is preserved.
Nor is accountability threatened by the existence of "sex-change operations"—presumably, the most radical challenge to our cultural perspective on sex and gender. Although no one coerces transsexuals into hormone therapy, electrolysis, or surgery, the alternatives available to them are undeniably constrained:
When the transsexual experts maintain that they use transsexual procedures only with people who ask for them, and who prove that they can "pass," they obscure the social reality. Given patriarchy's prescription that one must be either masculine or feminine, free choice is conditioned. (Raymond 1979, p. 135, italics added)
The physical reconstruction of sex criteria pays ultimate tribute to the "essentialness" of our sexual natures—as women or as men.
GENDER, POWER, AND SOCIAL CHANGE
Let us return to the question: Can we avoid doing gender? Earlier, we proposed that insofar as sex category is used as a fundamental criterion for differentiation, doing gender is unavoidable. It is unavoidable because of the social consequences of sex-category membership: theallocation ot power and resources not only inThe« domestic, economic, and political domains but also in the broad arena of interpersonal relations. In virtually any situation, one's sex category can be relevant, and one's performance as an incumbent of that category (i.e., gender) can be subjected toevaluation. Maintaining
146        GENDER ?< SOCIETY / June 1987
such pervasive and faithful assignment of lifetime status requires 'legitimation f
But doing gender also renders the social arrangements based on sex category accountable as normal and natural, that is, legitimate ways of organizing social life. Differences between women and men that are created by this process can then be portrayed as fundamental and enduring dispositions. In this light, theffisütuüonal,arrangementSof a society can be seen as responsive to the differences—AKeí social order , being merely an accommodation to the natural oräeŕl"Thus if, in doing gender, men are also doing dominance and women are doing deference (cf. Goffman 1967, pp. 47-95), the resultant social order, which supposedly reflects "natural differences," is a powerfulTZin^ ? forcer ana legitimator of hierarchical arraiigements/Frye observes:
For efficient subordination, what's wanted is that the structure not appear to be a cultural artifact kept in place by human decision or custom, but that it appearingtural—that it appear to be quite a direct consequence of facts about the beast which are beyond the scope of
human manipulation----That we are trained to behave so differently
as women and men, and to behave so differently toward women and men, itself contributes mightily to the appearance of exueme čiimor-i phism,/but also, the ways we act as women and men, and the ways we      % act toward women and men, mold our bodies and our minds to the shape of subordination and dominance. 'We d& become what: we practice bein|/(Frve 1983, p. 34)
ŕ   ' " '    "
If we do gender appropriately, wc simultaneously sustain, reproduce,   ,-li and render legitimate the institutional arrangement that are based on sex category. "If we fail to do gender appropriately, we as individuals—not the institutional arrangements—may be called to account (for our character, motives, and predispositions).
Social movements such as feminism can provide the ideology and impetus to question existing arrangements, and the social support for individuals to explore al ternatives to them. Legislative changes, such as that proposed by the Equal Rights Amendment, can also weaken the accountability of conduct to sex category, thereby affording the possibility of more widespread loosening of accountability in general. To be sure, equality under the law does not guarantee equality in other arenas. As Lorber (1986, p. 577) points out, assurance of "scrupulous equality of categories of people considered essentially different needs constant monitoring." What such proposed changes

West, Zimmerman / DOING GENDER       147
can do is provide the warrant for asking why, if we wish to treat women and men as equals, there needs to be two sex categories at all (see Lorber 1986, p. 577).
The sex category/gender relationship links the institutional and interactional levels, a coupling that legitimates social arrangements based on sex category and reproduces their asymmetry in face-to-face interaction. Doing gender furnishes the interactional scaffolding of social structure, along with a built-in mechanism of social control. In appreciating the institutional forces that maintain distinctions between women and men, we must not lose sight of the interactional validation of those distinctions that confers upon them their sense of "naturalness" and "rightness."
Social change, then, must be pursued both at the institutional and cultural level of sex category and at the interactional level of gender. Such a conclusion is hardly novel. Nevertheless, we suggest that it is important to recognize that the analytical distinction between institutional ;and interactional spheres does not pose an either/or choice when it comes to the question of effecting social change. Reconceptualizing ^defnot as a simple property of individuals but äs änlntegŕál dyriarnic'drsoa                           a new perspective on
the entire network of gender relations:
[T]he social subordination of women, and the cultural practices which help sustain it; the politics of sexual object-choice, and particularly the oppression of homosexual people; the sexual division of labor, the formation of character and motive, so far as they are organized as femininity and masculinity; the role of the body in social relations, especially the politics of childbirth; and the nature of strategies of sexual liberation movements. (Connell 1985, p. 261)
Gender is a powerful ideological device, which produces, reproduces, and legitimates the choices and limits that are predicated on sex category. An understanding of how gender is produced in social situations will afford clarification of the interactional scaffolding of social structure and the social control processes that sustain it.
NOTES
1. This definition understates many complexities involved in the relationship between biology and culture (Jaggar 1983, pp. 106-13). However, our point is that the

45       GENDER & SOCIETY / June UN»?
determination of an individual's sex classification is a social process through and through.
2.  This is not to say that gender is a singular "thing," omnipresent in the same form historically or in every situation. Because normative conceptions of appropriate attitudes and activities for sex categories can vary across cultures and historical moments, the management of situated conduct in light of those expectations can take many different forms.
3.  Bernstein (1986) reports an unusual case of espionage in which a man passing as a woman convinced a lover that he/she had given birth to "their" child, who, the lover, thought, "looked like" him.
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Candace West is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her past work includes "Against Our Will: Male Interruptions of Females in Cross-sex Conversation," "When the Doctor Is a 'Lady': Power, Status and Gender in Physician-Patient Encounters," and "Gender, Language and Discourse" (with Don H. Zimmerman).
Don H. Zimmerman is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His other work on gender, also coauthored with West, includes "Sex Roles, Interruption and Silences," "Women's Place in Everyday Talk," "Small Insults: A Study of Interruptions in Cross-Sex Conversations Between Unacquainted Persons," and "Gender, Language and Discourse."