Beyond the Numbers: How Participants Interpret Nonbinary Gender Measures in Surveys

• In Event: Sociology of Sex and Gender Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 2. Measuring Gender Beyond the Binary

Abstract

Key tenets of feminist methods include breaking down binary distinctions and balancing often extractive forms of quantitative analysis with more interpretive approaches that center study participants own narratives and meaning making. This study combines these approaches by: 1) presenting survey respondents with gradational scale measures of femininity and masculinity that do not treat these categories as zero-sum and 2) asking open-ended follow-up questions about how they came to select the answers they chose. Our analysis draws on both quantitative and qualitative data from a sample of nearly 1,500 people designed to be nationally representative of U.S. adults and recruited in May 2023. Less than 20 percent of participants reported seeing their femininity and masculinity in traditionally polarized or opposite terms. Their open-ended reflections also highlight important aspects of gender and gendered experience—from people’s hobbies and occupations to their relationships and inner feelings—that similar scale measures with narrower prompts are likely to miss.

Authors

• Aliya Saperstein, Stanford University

• Via Lipman, Stanford University