Using Gender to Undo Gender: A Feminist Degendering Movement

Judith Lorber’s “Using Gender to Undo Gender: A Feminist Degendering Movement” stands as one of the most provocative and radical proposals in feminist theory at the turn of the millennium. Published in the inaugural issue of Feminist Theory alongside Terry Lovell’s engagement with Bourdieu, this article challenges the fundamental assumptions of gender reform by proposing not equality within gender categories, but the complete abolition of gender categories themselves.

The Paradox of Gender Progress

Lorber begins with a striking observation: despite enormous improvements in women’s status in the Western world, the revolution that would make women and men truly equal has not occurred. This paradox—significant progress without fundamental transformation—frames her entire argument. She identifies the root cause not in insufficient reforms or backlash, but in the persistence of gender as an organizing principle of society.

The article’s opening sections document the achievements of twentieth-century feminism: legal rights, workplace access, educational opportunities, reproductive freedom. Yet Lorber argues these victories, while important, operate within a system that maintains gender as a fundamental division. Like renovating rooms in a house built on a faulty foundation, these reforms cannot address the structural problem of gender itself.

The Social Construction of Gender Categories

Central to Lorber’s argument is her social constructionist perspective on gender. Drawing on her extensive previous work, particularly “Paradoxes of Gender” (1994), she demonstrates that gender is not a natural or biological given but a social institution that organizes virtually every aspect of human life. Gender, she argues, is “an organizing principle of social orders that divides people into two major categories: ‘men’ and ‘women’” who are then “expected to be different, are treated differently, and so become different.”

This construction process begins at birth—or increasingly, before birth—with the assignment to a gender category. From that moment, individuals are subjected to different expectations, opportunities, constraints, and treatments based on their category membership. These differences accumulate over a lifetime, creating the appearance of natural, inherent distinctions between women and men.

Lorber emphasizes that this is not merely a matter of individual socialization but of institutional structures. Gender is built into legal systems, economic arrangements, family structures, educational institutions, religious organizations, and cultural productions. It operates as what she calls a “social institution”—a fundamental organizing principle that shapes both macro-level social structures and micro-level interactions.

The Limits of Gender Reform

A crucial section of the article examines why feminist strategies aimed at achieving equality within the gender system have reached their limits. Lorber identifies several approaches that, while valuable, cannot ultimately solve the problem of gender inequality:

Liberal Feminism’s Equal Rights Approach

Liberal feminism seeks equal access and treatment for women within existing institutions. While this has produced important gains—voting rights, property rights, educational access—Lorber argues it leaves the fundamental gender structure intact. Women gain entry to male-dominated spheres but must often conform to masculine norms to succeed.

Radical Feminism’s Woman-Centered Approach

Radical feminism valorizes women’s differences and seeks to create woman-centered alternatives to patriarchal institutions. While this challenges male dominance, Lorber contends it reinforces gender boundaries by essentializing differences between women and men.

Socialist Feminism’s Economic Focus

Socialist feminism targets the economic basis of women’s oppression, particularly the division between paid and unpaid labor. Yet even radical economic restructuring, Lorber suggests, would not eliminate gender categories themselves.

Each approach, despite its contributions, accepts gender categories as given and seeks to work within or around them. This, Lorber argues, is why gender inequality continually reappears in new forms even as specific discriminatory practices are eliminated.

The Degendering Proposal

The heart of Lorber’s article is her call for a “feminist degendering movement.” This is not simply another reform strategy but a fundamental reimagining of social organization. Degendering would mean:

1. Eliminating gender as a category of social organization: No longer dividing people into “women” and “men” for social, economic, or political purposes.

2. Removing gender markers from official documents: Birth certificates, passports, driver’s licenses, and other official records would not specify gender.

3. Abandoning gendered language: Moving toward truly gender-neutral language in all social contexts.

4. Restructuring social institutions: Reorganizing families, workplaces, schools, and other institutions without reference to gender categories.

5. Reconceptualizing bodies and sexuality: Recognizing bodily and sexual diversity without imposing binary gender frameworks.

Theoretical Foundations

Lorber’s degendering proposal draws on several theoretical traditions:

Ethnomethodology

From ethnomethodological studies of gender, particularly the work of Candace West and Don Zimmerman on “doing gender,” Lorber takes the insight that gender requires constant performance and reinforcement. If gender must be continually “done,” it can potentially be “undone.”

Queer Theory

While not explicitly queer theorist, Lorber’s proposal resonates with queer theory’s challenge to binary categories. Her call to eliminate gender categories parallels queer critiques of heteronormativity and gender binarism.

Feminist Standpoint Theory

Lorber’s analysis reflects standpoint theory’s emphasis on how social location shapes knowledge and experience. By eliminating differential social locations based on gender, degendering would transform the production of knowledge itself.

Marxist Feminism

The article’s structural analysis and emphasis on revolutionary rather than reformist change echo Marxist feminist traditions. Like Marx’s vision of a classless society, Lorber envisions a genderless one.

Addressing Objections

Lorber anticipates several objections to her degendering proposal:

The Biological Objection

Critics might argue that biological differences between males and females are real and significant. Lorber responds that biological variations exist on many dimensions—height, strength, reproductive capacity—but only gender is used as a primary social organizing principle. Moreover, biological characteristics vary more within gender categories than between them.

The Feminist Identity Objection

Some feminists might worry that degendering would eliminate the basis for feminist solidarity and activism. Lorber argues that feminism’s ultimate goal should be its own obsolescence—a world where feminism is unnecessary because gender oppression no longer exists.

The Practical Impossibility Objection

The claim that gender is too deeply embedded to eliminate receives Lorber’s most detailed response. She points to historical examples of fundamental social transformations—the abolition of slavery, the dismantling of colonial empires, the fall of apartheid—that seemed impossible until they happened.

Strategic Pathways

While acknowledging the radical nature of her proposal, Lorber suggests several strategic pathways toward degendering:

Legal Strategies

Begin by removing gender from legal documents where it serves no essential purpose. Challenge laws that discriminate based on gender. Expand anti-discrimination protections to make gender categories legally irrelevant.

Linguistic Strategies

Promote gender-neutral language in educational, professional, and media contexts. Develop new pronouns and terms that don’t specify gender. Challenge the automatic gendering of occupations, activities, and characteristics.

Institutional Strategies

Create gender-neutral spaces—bathrooms, changing rooms, dormitories—as alternatives to gender-segregated facilities. Organize sports and other activities by relevant characteristics (size, skill level) rather than gender. Restructure parental leave and caregiving policies without reference to gender.

Cultural Strategies

Support cultural productions—art, literature, media—that imagine genderless worlds or challenge gender boundaries. Promote children’s education that doesn’t reinforce gender categories. Create communities and spaces where gender is deliberately de-emphasized.

The Vision of a Degendered World

Lorber provides glimpses of what a degendered world might look like. Rather than a bland uniformity, she envisions increased diversity as the binary gender system no longer constrains human possibilities. People would be free to express themselves, form relationships, pursue occupations, and organize their lives without gender expectations or limitations.

In this world, biological reproduction would still occur, but parenting would not be organized by gender. Sexual attraction and relationships would exist but wouldn’t be categorized as homosexual or heterosexual. Individual differences in temperament, interests, and abilities would be recognized but not attributed to gender.

This is not a world without difference but one where differences are not organized into a hierarchical binary system. It’s a world where what we now call “gender equality” would be meaningless because gender itself would not exist as a social category.

Impact and Reception

“Using Gender to Undo Gender” has been highly influential in feminist theory, cited over 580 times and sparking extensive debate. Some feminists embraced Lorber’s vision as the logical conclusion of feminist analysis. Others criticized it as utopian, impractical, or dismissive of women’s experiences and achievements.

The article has been particularly influential in:

1. Gender Studies Curricula: Many programs now include discussions of “degendering” as a theoretical possibility
2. Transgender Scholarship: While Lorber’s focus differs from trans studies, her critique of binary gender categories resonates with trans and non-binary perspectives
3. Policy Debates: Discussions about gender-neutral documentation and facilities often reference Lorber’s work
4. Feminist Theory: The degendering proposal has become a touchstone for debates about feminist goals and strategies

Connections to Contemporary Developments

Writing in 2000, Lorber could not have anticipated all the ways her ideas would resonate with twenty-first-century developments:

Non-Binary and Gender-Fluid Identities

The increasing visibility and recognition of non-binary, genderfluid, and agender individuals validates Lorber’s critique of binary gender categories. These identities demonstrate that gender binaries are neither natural nor necessary.

Gender-Neutral Policies

Some institutions and jurisdictions have begun implementing policies Lorber advocated: gender-neutral bathrooms, “X” markers on documents, they/them pronouns in professional settings. While limited, these changes show degendering is practically possible.

Backlash and Retrenchment

The fierce backlash against gender-neutral policies and trans rights also validates Lorber’s analysis of how deeply gender structures society. The intensity of resistance reveals the threat that degendering poses to existing power structures.

Theoretical Evolution

Lorber has continued developing her ideas in subsequent works. “Breaking the Bowls: Degendering and Feminist Change” (2005) expanded on the degendering proposal. “The New Gender Paradox: Fragmentation and Persistence of the Binary” (2022) examines why gender categories persist despite mounting challenges.

These later works reveal both the enduring relevance of the degendering proposal and the challenges it faces. Gender categories have proven remarkably resilient, adapting to new circumstances while maintaining their organizing power.

Critiques and Limitations

Critics have raised several important challenges to Lorber’s degendering proposal:

The Erasure of Women’s Struggles

Some feminists argue that degendering would erase the specific history and ongoing reality of women’s oppression. How can we fight sexism if we eliminate the category “women”?

The Reality of Bodies

Critics question whether Lorber adequately addresses bodily differences, particularly around reproduction. Can pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation really be degendered?

The Problem of Transition

How could society move from current gender arrangements to degendering? The transition period might involve increased conflict and confusion.

Cultural Imperialism

Would degendering impose Western feminist ideals on cultures with different gender systems? How does degendering relate to indigenous and non-Western gender categories?

Conclusion: The Radical Imagination

“Using Gender to Undo Gender” remains one of the most radical proposals in feminist theory. Whether or not one accepts Lorber’s degendering vision, the article performs crucial intellectual work by denaturalizing gender categories and imagining alternatives to current arrangements.

Lorber’s great contribution is not providing a blueprint for degendering but expanding our sense of what is possible. By proposing the elimination of gender categories, she reveals how thoroughly gender structures our thinking and how limited our imagination of alternatives has been. The article challenges readers to think beyond reform toward genuine transformation, beyond equality within gender to freedom from gender itself.

Twenty years after its publication, Lorber’s call for degendering remains both impossible and necessary—impossible given current social arrangements, necessary as a horizon toward which feminist politics might orient itself. The article stands as a testament to the power of radical imagination in feminist theory, daring to envision not just a better world but a fundamentally different one.