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...insofar as sex category is used as a fundamental criterion for differentiation, doing gender is unavoidable. It is
unavoidable because of the social consequences of sex-category membership: the allocation of power and resources not only in the domestic, economic, and political domains but also in the broad arena of interpersonal relations. In virtually any situation, one's sex category can be relevant, and one's performance as an incumbent of that
category (i.e., gender) can be subjected to evaluation. Maintaining such pervasive and faithful assignment of lifetime status requires legitimation.
But doing gender also renders the social arrangements based on sex category accountable as normal and natural, that is, legitimate ways of organizing social life. Differences between women and men that are created by this process can then be portrayed as fundamental and enduring dispositions. In this light, the institutional arrangements of a society can be seen as responsive to the differences-the social order being merely an accommodation to the natural order. Thus if, in doing gender, men are also doing dominance and women are doing deference the resultant social order,
which supposedly reflects "natural differences," is a powerful reinforcer and legitimator of hierarchical arrangements.
...To be sure, equality under the law does not guarantee equality in other arenas. ...What such proposed changes can do is provide the warrant for asking why, if we wish to treat women and men as equals, there needs to be two sex categories at all.