ESSAY TOPIC
Are we ever not doing gender? From the moment we wake up until we go to 
bed, it seems like we are constantly doing gender. For this essay, I 
want you to walk me through a small segment of your day (when you wake 
up, when you walk to class, when you eat lunch, when you shop, when you 
drive or ride the bus, when you go out on a date, when you attend 
religious ceremonies, when you watch movies with friends, etc). Do not 
describe your whole day, but rather, choose some small segment (a strip) 
of your life to describe. During that small segment of your day, in what 
ways are you doing gender? How are you displaying your gendered 
identity? Given the situation you find yourself in, how are you 
conforming — or not — to gendered expectations of behavior? As you 
write up your response, please reference and integrate into your essay 
the reading by West and Zimmerman “Doing Gender” and/or Judith Lorber’s 
“Night to His Day”