What are strengths and weaknesses of symbolic interactionism in relation to gender?

Answer 1

Symbolic interactionism is the idea that -- when interacting with someone -- we are not responding directly to their action but to our *intepretation* of their action.

But our interpretations are derived from previous interpretations of those same actions by other people or by our prior relationships.

In other words, there's a cycle here -- our interpretations of someone else impacts what we do, impacting them and our future interpretations.

Reading someone through the "gender lens" automatically means we are reacting to some level of stereotype -- "this person is a man, so he must mean THIS" and vice versa. Or "she is a female, and thus I should treat her this way, and expect these certain roles and behaviors from her."

(So I no longer see what the other person is actually doing or meaning to project -- I see what I expect to see and interpret their behavior according to my prior ideas of them.)

Our social identities are always being constructed by our interactions with each other, based on our interpretations of each other. Personal identity becomes a creative and joint effort.

Gender is not the only large area that SI impacts -- the large categories of race, religion, age, etc., all impact how we interpret other people and their actions.

One problem: It's very difficult to quantify things in Symbolic Interactionism (i.e., test the theory), because SI deals with interpretations and is thus subjective by nature. Except for very sexist behavior, it's hard to determine if someone is reacting to a stereotype or acting "naturally" -- there is no way to have a pure "control group" because we are all socialized by the act of living together in a society from birth.

Answer 2

Wow good question. There's a lot of stuff that's symbolic of male or female for example "truck", "tractor","doctor", did you think male or female? How 'bout "secretary", "nurse" or "cook."

It's hard to pin point everything, but I recommend looking at the Spanish language since everything is either masculine or feminine. Use the "language dictates reality" argument for that one. I believe it was Sapir Waorf who theorized that.

I guess you could say that gender symobolism puts expectations on certain areas of our lives. Some say it's sexist, others say it's gender specific. It depends on how it's used, though.