Gender? Responsivity: An Argument for Incorporating a Multilevel Framework

• In Event: Sociology of Sex and Gender Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 1. Feminist Methods and Queering Sociology

Abstract

Once a feminist critique of gendered structures, gender-responsivity has become a female-centered, but not inherently feminist, reform practice. However, by engaging sociological gender theory and applying rigorous feminist methodologies, scholars and practitioners can move beyond essentialist and power-obscuring views of gender. This shift enables a transformative, abolition feminist practice that addresses gender at multiple levels of analysis. Rejecting the framing of cisgender women as inherently ‘unique and deserving’ allows for an intersectional approach that includes transgender, non-binary, and intersex people, and cisgender men. In doing so, gender-responsivity has the potential to transform carceral interventions and provide support for structural changes.

Author

• Mackenzie Niness, University of Delaware