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Fashioning Males and Females: Appearance Management and the Social Reproduction of Gender
Author(s) -
Cahill Spencer E.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
symbolic interaction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.874
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1533-8665
pISSN - 0195-6086
DOI - 10.1525/si.1989.12.2.281
Subject(s) - socialization , reproduction , gender studies , class (philosophy) , social class , sociology , social reproduction , developmental psychology , psychology , social psychology , social science , epistemology , ecology , political science , social capital , philosophy , law , biology
The author examines the part played by appearance management in both the intergenerational and everyday reproduction of gendered identities in contemporary American society. The author empirically explores the contributions of appearance management to young children's gender socialization by drawing upon observation in preschools, informal interviews with children's parents, as well as others' observations and findings. That analysis indicates that sex‐class related appearance management invests infants with gendered identities, promotes children's sex‐class related identification of others, and encourages them to embrace behaviorally their own ascribed sex‐class identities. Sex‐class related appearance management is of fundamental importance to both the intergenerational and interactional reproduction of the seemingly natural and moral order of gendered person that characterizes our society.