Gender and Embodiment as Negotiated Relations

Abstract

Gender pervades every part of life, from identity and embodied practices to institutional and transnational social order. An interactionist approach recognizes that gender is constituted by pervasive, thoroughgoing, situational organizing practices of meaning-making pervading our worlds, which are always relational and emergent among people in institutional contexts at historical moments. Gender identities are not a feature of “types” of individuals but, rather, comprise negotiated relations between and among us—which can be normalizing or resistant. This chapter examines the development of sociological theory on gender and embodiment. It begins by looking at a brief timeline of the last 150 years of the everyday (US) “queer” lexicon to demonstrate how academic concepts seem to intertwine with the proliferation of everyday identities in the mundane world. The chapter then outlines its beginnings in microsociology, the connections between micro and macro theorizations, and emergent masculinities, femininities, transgender, and non-binary identity practices, pointing to various paradigm shifts along the way including feminisms, intersectionality, and queer theory. Constantly in production for everyone, gender proliferates as negotiated relations, made especially visible by resistance identities. We conclude briefly with future directions.