Gender identity becomes salient mainly in contexts where gender fits the issue

Evidence

For example, in all likelihood, a male-female categorization is more meaningful or fits better in a situation in which male and female students discuss issues of abortion or rape than in a situation in which they discuss issues of drug abuse. In the former case, the students should be particularly likely to define themselves in terms of their collective male or female identity, and this tendency should further intensify if their in-group is outnumbered by the out-group so that the ingroup is particularly distinctive in the immediate social context (Simon, 1998b). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4402

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: designing classrooms and meeting formats to deliberately activate or suppress identity categories by choosing which issues get discussed.
• SHARE: Great nugget for anyone teaching discussion-based classes about how topic choice drives which identities people perform.
• XREF: connects to: Age operates as an identity axis whose value depends on field and gender — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1185