SOC 1101 Lecture Notes - Sut Jhally, Grammatical Gender, Erving Goffman

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 1101
• Professor: Willow Scobie

Document Summary

The codes of gender identity + performance pop culture. Our ability to recognize someone as either male or female is absolutely fundamental to our ability to interact with them. It is based on signals that position people in categories, that make sense to us. If we can"t properly understand/read those signals, the it is almost impossible to proceed to any other social interaction. Those people who present themselves as androgynous pose a challenge to a cultural system that is dependent on those categories being clear: if clarity is not achieved, then things will fall apart. If we want to fit in and function normally, we have to learn how to send out the right signals and how to read the signals that are being sent out by others. One of the richest tools for understanding the way our visual culture links up with larger issues of gender and power comes from the work of late sociologist erving goffman.