GENDER, RESIDUAL DEVIANCE, AND SOCIAL-CONTROL

Focusing on gendered aspects of informal social control, we use a soci etal reaction approach to examine 15 years of students' gender norm vi olation projects. Three predictions regarding differential reaction to women's and men's residual deviance are (a) that there will be no gen der differences, (b) that those with less power and status (women) wil l be sanctioned more or (c) that those with more status resources (men ) will be monitored and reacted to more. We discuss methodological adv antages of using norm violations to study informal social control. Fin dings contribute to a more complete theory of how societal reactions t o residual deviance are mediated by gender. There were large gender di fferences in what students chose to do regarding norm violations and l ittle change over time. Male ''deviants'' were censured more in terms of negativity, strength of reaction, laughter, and homophobia; female ''deviants'' were censured more as targets of verbal and sexual remark s. We discuss the need for more attention to gender-specific types of reaction and the role of homophobia in informal social control of men.