Barrie Thorne Sparknotes
This paper summarizes and engages a discussion on Barrie Thorne's findings formulated in Gender Play in order to assess their power of conviction and confront her thesis to previous sociological theories. Barrie Thorne teaches Sociology and Women's Studies at UC Berkeley and was previously a Professor at Michigan State University. Her ethnographic methods and work on feminism and interactionism has been widely recognized as her 2002 American Sociological Association prize testifies. Gender Play written in 1993 marked her academic break-through and through the use of ethnography brought children and education to the center of feminist theory. The starting point of this book is to analyze how children and their interactions with each other
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When they cross, take part in mixed-gender activities, cooperate in a classroom project, children share a common experience where gender is not relevant. Crossing designates a situation where a boy or more often a girl seeks access to activities of the other gender in spite of teasing by the same-gender groups. Furthermore, children perceive the notion of gender as a component of their identity in different ways depending on if they are alone, with friends or in large groups. Even though Thorne notices that many boys are tempted to cross, girls succeed more often. Crossing seems even harder for boys who are almost instantly stigmatized with homophobic insults. Crossing, daring to take part into what is not considered as “suitable” for your gender and suffering the teasing of others reminds of the process of deviance through labelling formulated by Goffman. Thus sexist insults of “sissies” or “tomboys” are used to designated the “deviants” as failed boys or failed girls. Yet, some children successfully interact with both girls and boys and embody the notion of gender fluidity such as Jessie, an African-American girl who plays ball with boys and sits at the girl's lunch table. These children act candidly without wondering if they are acting “as a girl” or “as a boy” depending on the situation, they seem to act spontaneously upon what feels natural to
When they cross, take part in mixed-gender activities, cooperate in a classroom project, children share a common experience where gender is not relevant. Crossing designates a situation where a boy or more often a girl seeks access to activities of the other gender in spite of teasing by the same-gender groups. Furthermore, children perceive the notion of gender as a component of their identity in different ways depending on if they are alone, with friends or in large groups. Even though Thorne notices that many boys are tempted to cross, girls succeed more often. Crossing seems even harder for boys who are almost instantly stigmatized with homophobic insults. Crossing, daring to take part into what is not considered as “suitable” for your gender and suffering the teasing of others reminds of the process of deviance through labelling formulated by Goffman. Thus sexist insults of “sissies” or “tomboys” are used to designated the “deviants” as failed boys or failed girls. Yet, some children successfully interact with both girls and boys and embody the notion of gender fluidity such as Jessie, an African-American girl who plays ball with boys and sits at the girl's lunch table. These children act candidly without wondering if they are acting “as a girl” or “as a boy” depending on the situation, they seem to act spontaneously upon what feels natural to