Inconspicuous sources of behavioral control: The case of gendered practices.

Abstract

Until recently, behavior analysts have remained conspicuously silent on the topic of gender. Understood as a case of socially constructed knowledge maintained by social contingencies in verbal communities, gender related processes are a pervasive aspect of our cultural fabric. Yet, the control exerted by gendered practices is subtle and typically defies detection. A deeper understanding of the control exerted by gendered cultural practices would enrich the field of behavior analysis. At the same time, a behavior analytic approach brought to bear on the analysis of gender related social processes would represent a fresh and unique perspective particularly as it might apply to the analysis of social contingencies and reinforcement patterns within verbal communities. ********** Gender is a topic about which behavior analysts have historically remained conspicuously silent. Recent treatments of the topic by behavior analysts (Biglan, 1995 Guerin, 1984, Ruiz, 1995, 1998, Vogeltanz, Sigmon and Vickers, 1998) are promising evidence that our field is beginning to join an important conversation that has been taking place for quite some time. A behavior analytic perspective applied to the study of gender as a case of socially constructed knowledge shaped and maintained by social contingencies and reinforcement patterns within the verbal community may contribute unique insights to the current literature. At the same time, exploring the rich an complex issues involved in the study of gender related process could potentially enrich our discipline's understanding of sources of control that impact the behavior of those we work with as well as our own. There is an extensive literature that raises important and challenging questions about sex and gender that could be of interest to many behavior analysts. In this paper I offer a behavior analytic conceptualization of gender, and discuss several findings of interest including: the discriminative control of gendered practices and the interaction of sex, gendered practices and interpretive repertoires. I conclude with a discussion of some of implications of this work for behavior analysts. When We Speak of Gender Sociologists Candace West and Don Zimmerman (1987) coined the phrase 'doing gender'. Many feminist psychologists favor this phrase over plain 'gender' and use it to designate how sex is a salient social and cognitive category through which information is filtered, selectively processed, and differentially acted upon to produce self-fulfilling prophecies about men and (Crawford, 1995 p. 2). The cognitive slant notwithstanding, feminist psychologists want to emphasize that gender is not a personal attribute, but rather that gender organizes people into groups categorically, and characterizes social relations. Behavior analysts would agree that gender should not be construed as a characteristic of the individual. We might also find the phrase 'doing gender' to be more useful, though for different reasons. From a behavioral perspective 'doing gender' or gendering may be a reasonable way of speaking about a class of cultural practices that have come to be associated with sex as a biological category. How the two come to be conflated is worth elaborating if only briefly. The foundation of the conceptual framework at work in our culture includes a series of important dualisms. The person environment split is a dualism that is foundational to our culture's belief in individualism and the self as locus or agent of action. A second dualism at work in our culture is based on sexual designations as separate and distinct biological categories. Thus individuals are characterized as women or men by virtue of their sex. The biological designations have given rise to the development and elaboration of complex cultural practices associated with sexual status. It is this collective of cultural practices, including and perhaps most importantly verbal practices, that we tact when we speak of 'doing gender' or gendering. …