Final answer:
The symbolic interactionist view of gender focuses on daily interactions and cultural symbols to understand how gender roles are created and maintained. Gender is seen as a fluid and dynamic construct, informed by societal interactions and the interpretation of these interactions, rather than a fixed set of characteristics.
Step-by-step explanation:
The symbolic interactionist view of gender suggests that gender is a social construct that emerges from and is reinforced through daily interactions and the use of symbols. This perspective focuses on the micro-level of social interaction, analyzing how people use language and symbols to 'do gender' in their everyday lives. According to this view, individuals use cultural symbols to navigate gendered expectations during interactions, such as altering their approach based on the perceived gender of a bank loan officer, as highlighted earlier. Interactionists observe that in some societies, like the Minangkabau of Indonesia, men and women work cooperatively, challenging the competitive gender norms seen in other cultures like the U.S. This indicates that gender roles and the associated inequality are not fixed but are instead fluid concepts that are continually produced and reproduced through social interactions.