Gendering Gender: Introducing Gender Image as a Way to Assess Variation in Gender Expression in Survey Research
摘要
This chapter builds on the important work on measuring gender and focuses on the diversity of gender expressions within gender categories among sexually diverse survey participants. This study argues that gender expression, especially the self-reported perception by others, is a promising component of future research. Research on sexuality has often equated sexual diversity and experiences of marginalization with more diverse gender expressions in queer communities. But the assessment of how one’s gendered self is perceived in the world, above and beyond gender and sexual identity, remains a gap. We use the term gender image to capture how people think they are seen by others regarding femininity, masculinity, and androgyny. Gender image can be a valuable dimension in measuring stereotype-based discrimination, especially in settings lacking other gendered information (i.e., when names, pronouns, sexual identity, gender identity are unknown), when gendered interactions are based on snap judgements. We argue that scholars miss variation in gender expression or, at the very least, gender self-perception by exclusively relying on broad gender identity and sexual identity markers. Collecting specific metrics on gender expression and/or adherence to gender normativity will be more helpful for sexuality studies, and inequality studies more broadly.