New Categories Will Not Solve Old Problems: Rethinking Sex and Gender Measurement in Social Surveys

• In Event: 596 - Section on Sex and Gender Paper Session. (Re)Theorizing Gender

Abstract

This paper is part of a larger project examining the role that survey research plays in producing – and reproducing – particular visions of the social world. Through a systematic study of questionnaires, manuals and other technical materials from four of the largest and longest-running national surveys (the ANES, PSID, GSS and NLSY), we analyze trends in how U.S. social surveys have operationalized sex and gender over the past 60 years and highlight how the measurement of these concepts shapes the knowledge researchers can produce in their own studies. We find, as predicted, that the treatment of sex and gender in major social surveys does not align with current social science theory or with lived experiences. Surveys continue to: conflate sex and gender; treat sex/gender as obvious, static and binary; rarely use self-identification; ignore diversity within categories; and construct a hyper-gendered world filled with hidden moments of categorization. Yet, these practices are in sharp contrast to how the same surveys treat other categories of difference, including race and ethnicity. We conclude by offering alternative measures of sex and gender to better align survey data collection and analysis with contemporary theories of sex and gender as well as lived gendered realities.

Authors

• Laurel Westbrook, Grand Valley State University

• Aliya Saperstein, Stanford University