The problem of gender categorisation: addressing dilemmas past and present in gender and education research

Abstract

Developments in the field of gender theory as applied to education since the 1970s are briefly reviewed in order to highlight key challenges and debates around gender categorisation and identification in gender and education. We argue that conundrums of categorisation have haunted, and continue to haunt, the field of gender theory, and empirical applications (such as the case of education) in particular. We explain how we have attempted to address some of the conundrums arising in our own theoretical work, and analyse remaining challenges that we feel the field of education needs to address in order to advance theoretically. Identifying two key tensions underpinning this empirical dilemma of gender categorisation – the tension between agency and determinism in gender identification, and that between gender deconstruction and gender analysis – we seek to weave a path through some of these complex debates, and to indicate ways in which they may be addressed in future work. We argue that in order to avoid essentialism and reification of gender distinction, we need to apply a ‘three-fold’ analysis that incorporates three different elements in our categorisation of gender: spectator perspective; respondent perspective and social context.

Keywords:

• gender theory
• social theory
• gender categorisation
• masculinity
• femininity
• power

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. There are exceptions, including the notable attempt by Fox and Alldred (2013) to apply Deleuzian theory to the construction of sexuality (relevant to, and by implication applicable to, the related construction of gender).

2. See, for example, Imperato-McGinley et al. (1979), Gordon and Lahelma (1996), Nespor (1997), Gallas (1998), Nanda (1999), Prendergast (2000), Gard (2001), Kehily (2001), Davies (2003), Paechter (2003b, 2003c, 2003d, 2006b, 2007), Blaise (2005), Renold (2005), Kelly, Pomerantz, and Currie (2005), Evans et al. (2008), Rich and Evans (2009), Clark (2010) and Martin (2011).

3. We recognise that those people with ‘intersex’ bodies include a range of identifications, sometimes including binarised gender identities, while others actively identify as Intersex.

4. The lack of empiricism in Deleuzian accounts often limits analysis of assemblages/machines to speculation; bereft of methods to assess which elements of an assemblage have enabled or constrained outcomes (or indeed what these multifarious ‘molecular’ elements might be).

5. See BBC 2013, reporting that Germany has created a new category of ‘indeterminate’ (or leaving gender category items blank) on children's birth certificates to cater for Intersex. This in turn has proved contentious; see, for example, coverage by OLL Australia, https://oii.org.au/23183/germany-third-gender-birth-certificates/