Sociology views gender as something we “do” or “perform,” not something we “are.” This topic involves observing and analyzing public gender performances. You may do this in an actual live setting or on social media. Either way you will need pen, paper, and about 30 minutes to observe before writing up your analysis
Option 2: Observe gender performances on social media. Pick a social media platform and study your feed systematically: Look at the first 20 posts from people of one sex, watching closely for online behaviors that indicate gender in subtle or obvious ways, such as types of pictures posted, characteristics of written comments, use of emoticons, etc. Take notes on these. Then observe the first 20 posts from the other sex, again taking notes, and then do the write-up.
Write-up: Briefly describe your setting or social media platform. Then summarize the gender-related behaviors you observed, comparing masculine and feminine behaviors.
Then pick a specific behavior (of either gender) to discuss in detail: What was it? How does it comply with gender role norms? How did other people in the setting respond to it? If someone of the other sex behaved that way, how would people respond?
