The Straddlers

This chapter analyzes respondents called straddlers because they straddle the gender structure. They try to meet gender expectations because they fear the consequences but don’t necessarily believe in gender inequality. A few are transgender Millennials, straddling the gender structure by rejecting the sex category assigned at birth and so rejecting essentialist notions of material bodies but not necessarily stereotypes themselves. All the straddlers give contradictory answers from one question to another. The chapter begins at the interactional level of the gender structure because one of the few commonalities these respondents share is their concern with gender expectations others hold for them around masculinity and femininity. Sometimes they work hard to conform, and sometimes not. But this concern for the expectations and confusion as to what expectations currently exist is a hallmark of this group.