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== Doing difference ==
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'''Doing difference''' is a concept<ref name="West and Zimmerman 2009" /> that grew out of the authors' earlier idea of "doing gender", presented at the American Sociological Association in 1977 by Candace West and Don Zimmerman and published in ''Gender and Society'' in 1987.<ref name="Doing Gender" /> In 1995, Candace West and Sarah Fenstermaker identified gender, race, and class as the three fundamental means of categorizing social difference.<ref name=":02">{{Cite journal|last=West|first=Candace|last2=Fenstermaker|first2=Sarah|date=1995|title=Doing Difference|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/189596|journal=Gender and Society|volume=9|issue=1|pages=8–37|issn=0891-2432}}</ref> They sought to extend the idea of gender as an ongoing interactional process into the realms of race and class by asserting that the intersection of these three categories could not be thought of in strictly a mathematical or hierarchical sense.<ref name=":02" /> That is, equating these concepts to variables in a statistical model tasked with predicting life success in society will result in an inadequate understanding of systemic inequalities based on race, class, and gender.
TheyThe beginauthors byalso assertinghighlight thathow thesimply intersectionplacing ofcommunities thesefacing three fundamental ways to categorizeimmense social difference cannot{{clarify|date=May 2018}} simply be thought of in a mathematical or even strictly hierarchical sense. That isdisadvantages, simply plugging in these conceptssuch as variables in a multiple regression model to predict life success in a particular society provides a simplified way to look at their relative effects, but would fail to provide an adequate basis for even understanding, lesser yet altering systemic inequalities based on race, class, and gender. For instance, poor black women in the United States face immense social disadvantages, but to place them at the bottom of somean abstract listing of vulnerable populations tellsin usthe United States offers little information about how the interaction of race, class, and gender interacted in their [[biography]]constrains and socialdirects milieuvarious toaspects constrain and directof their lives. Their analysis of these core differences from the standpoint ofan [[ethnomethodologyEthnomethodology|ethnomethodological]] turnsstandpoint shifts the focus away from individual characteristics. Instead, they are understood processually as "emergent properties of social situations"<ref name=":02" /> which simultaneously produce systematically different outcomes for social groups and the rationale for such disparities.
The authors assert that the reason [[Race (classification of human beings)|race]] and [[Social class|class]] were not adequately considered in earlier works is because the [[feminist movement]] has historically been the province of white middle class women in the developed world who were not sufficiently affected or attuned to the nature of these corollary oppressions. Furthermore, few women outside this privileged lot were able to gain access to institutions of higher education, which might have permitted them to engage in the academic discourse and activity about such shortcomings. Even if they had, the [[gatekeeper]]s within the academy and at leading journals made this unlikely process even more difficult. Perhaps overt racism and [[classism]] (and [[sexism]]) is less apparent today in these institutions, but the tendency remains for those in positions of power to view the world in a way that discounts the experience of marginalized groups.
The central theme of "difference" herein isthis article meantintends to illustrate how the concepts of race and gender have been falsely conceived as biologically bound predictors of behavior and aptitude among those who areof a certain skin color or sex.<ref name=":02" /> The commonalities within these somewhat arbitrary categories often exaggerated and the behavior of the most dominant group within the category (e.g. rich white men or women) becomes idealized as the only appropriate way to fulfill one social role. This conceptualization is then employed as a means of excluding and stigmatizing those who do not or cannot live up to these standards. This process of "doing difference" is realized in constant interpersonal interactions that reaffirm and reproduce social structure. Experiencing the world through the interaction of these "essentialized" characteristics and especially through dominant group's frame of reference (power interests) produces a pattern of thought and behavior that reproduces these social inequalities. This theme has been further addressed by Pyke and Johnson (2003) where they integrated the concept of “doing gender” with the study of race.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Pyke|first=Karen D.|last2=Johnson|first2=Denise L.|date=2003|title=Asian American Women and Racialized Femininities: "Doing" Gender across Cultural Worlds|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3081813|journal=Gender and Society|volume=17|issue=1|pages=33–53|issn=0891-2432}}</ref> They explain that being part of racially or ethnically marginalized communities can lead to conflicting gender expectations from society and their own cultural values. The authors state that white society manufactures and normalizes racialized gender stereotypes for non-white populations. They reference how the aggressive images associated with Black women lead to the belief that they are not feminine enough, whereas the submissive representation of Asian women results in their hyperfeminization.<ref name=":2" /> The authors suggest that white dominance is reinforced using these derogatory representations of racialized individuals to manipulate them into “doing gender” in a way that emulates the idealized, white standards. Pyke and Johnson (2003) conducted a study with one section focused on how Asian American women do gender differently depending on their setting.<ref name=":2" /> These respondents viewed white femininity as the standard, with many citing mainstream guidelines which frequently glorify white femininity compared to Asian femininity. The authors also discovered how the hypermasculine representation of Asian men allow white men to be viewed as less oppressive. Pyke and Johnson (2003) focused on the influence internalized oppression has on how racially and ethnically marginalized populations “do gender”.<ref name=":2" />
SocialWest and Fenstermaker (1995) state that social science research has rendered dubious any claim that race can simply be conflated with color, or; gender with genitalia, or even; class with paycheckspaycheques.<ref name=":02" Class/> may notThe seemauthors asacknowledge that class appears less prone to ideas about natural social differentiation, but argue that within capitalist societies, it is often assumed that one's economic situation isacts as a more or less direct indication of one's capacity to achieve., further Sinceengraining womensexist and peopleracist of color taken are more often poor, natural disadvantage is at least tacitly assumed by manyassumptions. Given the general observation that powerful groups seemdisplay to relyheavy heavilyreliance on these ideas of natural subordination, many liberationist thinkers came to thehave conclusionconcluded that this essentialism would be a prime rhetorical vehicle to subvert. Thus, the [[deconstruction]] of [[role theory]] and [[Structural functionalism|functionalism]] within sociology was a central theme from the 1960s onward. This still left a somewhat gaping theoretical vacuum, one that continues to be felt by people struggling with thisthe challenge toof fundamentally alteraltering their social cosmology.
[[Social constructionism]] has assumed the major explanatory role in these discussions by positing that the meanings of these supposedly [[ascribed status]]es are in fact situationally dependent on the sort of social context in which we employ them. That is, race, class, and gender aren't just objective scientific facts, but dynamic processes of culturally constructing cues for moral behavior (for which one can be held personally accountable) in a particular circumstance. It is these constantly occurring processes, not somea divinely decreed grand plan, which reproduces social structure. Individuals "do difference" when they acknowledge (knowingly or unknowingly) how their categorization renders them socially accountable to acting in a particular way in a situation. However, when individuals recalibrate "doing difference" to produce alternative ways to conceptualize interaction patterns, it amounts to social change.<ref name=":02" />
==See also==
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