Gender as Structure

Title

Gender as Structure

Description

This web, constructed by sociologist and gender studies scholar Barbara Risman, displays what she identifies as the three structures of gender: individual, interactional, and institutional.

In her work, Risman states that, "The gender structure differentiates opportunities and constraints based on sex category and thus has consequences on three dimensions: (1) at the individual level, for the development of gendered selves, (2) during interaction as women and men face different cultural expectations even when they fill the identical structural positions; and (3) in institutional domains where both cultural and logics and explicit regulations regarding resource distribution and material goods are gender specific" (Risman and Davis 2013, p. 744).

Double-sided arrows connect all of the structural frames to one another, demonstrating the notion that the relationships between each of them deeply shape both human behavior and existing theories surrounding gender.

Risman uses text in her diagram to expand on her ideas of the three terms individual, interactional and institutional. In doing so, she provides readers with the clarity necessary to understand how gender permeates multiple levels of societal functioning. Risman's diagram is a simple and digestible introduction to principles of gender theory.

Designer

Barbara Risman

Bibliographic Citation

Risman, B. (1998) "Gender Vertigo: American Families in Transition" Yale University Press

has attribute

Arrow

Solid Line

depict things of type

Typological or Classification