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textualdevianceMan, this day is getting off to a bang-up start. Technically, I have homework to do, but doing my morning rounds produced a couple of brain-ticklers:
Great column about Brokeback and homophobia
Metaquotes discussion about gender stereotyping
I kind of got into a bit of hot water with someone recently for pointing out that one of the big roots of homophobia is gender role rigidity. I guess he wanted the "real reason" to be something else, likely because he himself is sensitive to issues of gender. Of course there's more to it than that--religion, obviously, plus the fear of the unknown/differences and such. But a lot of the really rabid homophobia really comes down to discomfort with people who don't act the way they're "supposed" to for their biological sex.
After all, even people who are straight who violate gender roles can be victims of homophobic attacks. (Caveat: merely being thought or labeled gay is not a homophobic attack, tyvm.)
For males, much of the discomfort comes down to two things:
1. Discomfort with less-"manly" gay men because of the fear of becoming like that themselves, as if it were somehow communicable. In many cultures, masculinity is represented by, and represents, power, dominance, self-determination, aggression and physical conquest. Conversely, femininity is represented by, and represents submission, passivity, determination of one's path by others and receptiveness.
To men who have built their self-concept and concept of male/female dynamics on the extremes of these established roles, the idea of being feminized at all--whether that be to act in a stereotypically-feminine way, or to be a sexually-receptive partner (whether with a male or female sex partner) is to lose one's social status and power. Some men get off on this, in very controlled situations (men who enjoy being feminized and dominated by women, for instance) but in day-to-day life, many men feel very threatened by the concept of being thought of in a feminine role.
Which leads to...
2. Discomfort with "manly" gay men because of the fear of being the object of male sexual aggression.
The paradox, here, is that both effeminate and masculine gay men inspire the same fear, based on the same rigidity about gender roles and their respective power, especially as it pertains to sex. Effeminate gay men are threatening because they represent a possible social role for the male in question which frightens them because it seems less-powerful. Masculine gay men are threatening because they represent a possibly more-dominant male who could sexually and socially subjugate them.
It's no coincidence that many of the most sexist men are the most homophobic. Nor is it coincidence that most sexist and homophobic men are also in precarious positions with regard to other social power, especially socioeconomic status and race. Men who already feel that their relative power is threatened because of being a racial minority or poor may react much more strongly to the potential power threat of gay men than men who are more secure in their own power status. (Likewise true for younger men, especially those living with domineering fathers.)
Interestingly, much of this same gender/power structure issue is behind female homophobia, too, which I will explain more after breakfast...
Okay, happy tummy....
Female homophobia is interesting. It doesn't usually manifest the same way male homophobia does because it's not usually based in the same fear of losing power. With one exception.
A lot of women--even after a century of feminism--still buy into the traditional gender power structure because they've been led to believe that power for women cannot be achieved in traditionally-male ways, but has to be achieved by using traditionally-female strengths.
Or, in other words, a lot of women buy into the idea that their sexuality (and only a particular type of it) is their only or primary source of power.
The same sexism that leads men to believe they will lose power if masculinity is re-defined or if gay men have power is what's behind women believing that feminism will cause them to lose power, rather than gain it.
One of the primary pejoratives lobbed at feminists is the whole hairy-legged man-hater thing. The whole separatist thing is another essay, so I won't get into that, but I do find it interesting that so many women are utterly terrified of not being feminine or of un-feminine women.
Now, of course, as related to the linked discussion above, there is an argument to be made that whatever is natural to a woman or girl IS feminine, and therefore stereotypes of femininity don't have a trademark on that word. But that gets into issues of transgender, etc., that are too deep to get into here. So for the moment, "feminine" means stereotypical Western femininity.
And stereotypical Western femininity is characterized by a few simple concepts: sexual objectification, fertility, domestic servitude and dependence. Most everything else we consider typically feminine grows out of those four things.
It's less true these days than it was before, but it's still a common belief that women cannot survive in the male-dominated outside world. That women cannot earn their own living, cannot get an education, cannot pay their own bills, etc. Unfortunately, sexism is still enough of a problem that women do in fact have less success, overall, than men do in these areas, but generally speaking, most women in Western society can manage quite well without a husband to provide for them.
Unfortunately, the fear that a woman without a husband will not survive persists, at least on a subconscious level, in many women. Many of us grew up with mothers or other female relatives who emphasized developing traits that would make us good wives and mothers, and that would attract a strong man who would provide for us and the kids. And the backlash of the 80's ensured that even girls who grew up with feminist mothers still got the message that they needed to be pretty and submissive to catch a man, and that not catching a man was to divorce oneself from society.
Clearly, both men and women do best when surrounded by committed support networks of partners, family, friends, etc. But the traditional wife/husband dynamic doesn't carry the inherent value it once did, because men no longer have to exclusively rely on women for domestic service and childrearing, and women no longer have to exclusively rely on men to provide for economic needs and protection.
Yet, amazingly, the underlying fears about this structure being disrupted are still rampant, and it's this fear that is the root of female homophobia.
Like a man fearing that his power will be diminished by gay men, women feel that their power will be diminished by gay men and lesbians. And by butch women, too.
Like so:
1. Women who, consciously or subconsciously, feel they need a husband to survive fear gay men because they fear that male sexuality, being a powerful draw for them, will be a powerful draw for their husbands, and take them away from caring for their wife and kids. Unfortunately, given the number of closet cases hiding in straight marriages, this fear is all too real for some. Any woman with an ounce of gaydar probably does have some reason to fear that her husband's long nights at work or lack of interest in having sex with her may mean he's eventually going to come to his senses and dump her for a guy. (Of course, somehow they never seem to realize that there is an equal chance that their man might dump them and run off with a 19 year old blonde named Tiffini, too.)
This is what's behind a lot of the rhetoric you see about same-sex marriage "destroying" the family. Somehow these people have gotten it into their heads that gay sex is such a temptation for all men that if they felt they had an alternative to women, they'd go for it. It's apparently only religion and societal condemnation that keeps the nation's men from running off and living happily ever after with their best friend Steve. Then women will be left alone, won't be able to earn a living to feed their kids, and misery would ensue.
2. Women who never bothered getting an education or job skills, and who therefore rely on their husbands for economic survival fear lesbians and strong women (and feminism in general) because they fear that they will be expected to be responsible like that. If a woman's value is in being a good little wife and good in bed, and those are that woman's strengths, then she feels confident in her survival. If a woman's value shifts, and men start expecting women to also be intelligent and self-sufficient, her survival is in danger because she can no longer compete with women who have those attributes.
This is especially true for women who were Daddy's Girls or otherwise pampered little princesses growing up. It's fortunately changing, but pretty girls are still often given so much just for being a pretty little girl that they never bother developing anything else. Then they reach 40, and the pretty thing isn't the asset it used to be, and find themselves alone when their husband has dumped them for a newer model.
(This is also true for attractive boys, although not quite to the same degree. Attractive boys are still expected to be self-sufficient in terms of getting a career and such, but they don't have to work as hard for it, and sometimes find themselves struggling when they're older and not given quite so much leeway for their looks.)
So, all that to explain that yes, homophobia is very much based in rigid gender roles. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the less welded someone is to rigid gender roles, the less likely they are to be homophobic. And that goes for gay men and women, too. There's plenty of homophobia lobbed at the dykes and fairies from the "straight acting" types because they're running off the same cultural brainwashing that affects straight people. It may not have the same cultural manifestation, but the effects are the same. Femme lesbians fear dykes because they fear losing their power to attract a sugar daddy (whether they want one or not.) Straight acting gay men fear queens because they fear being thought of as lower in the power pecking order.
So really, I don't get why people who want to eliminate homophobia would resist working on eliminating sexism and gender dichotomy, too. Once they face and release their own fears about losing power if the gender power structure is upended, working on getting other people to face and release those fears is easier.
I should know. I used to think that way myself. Even as I probably set off every baby dyke-dar in a 20 mile radius, I was still spouting nonsense about things like "I want a girl. I don't want a guy with tits" as old as 18 or so. In the back of my mind, I knew I was a big ol' dyke (albeit a bi one) and I was really afraid of admitting that, and therefore losing the power I had as a femme-ish sex kitten. Butch women scared me because I identified with them, and I wasn't yet ready to admit to myself that that's what I was, too. Growing up in a very sexist culture had convinced me that I wouldn't have any value if I was un-feminine and so I didn't want to be contaminated with dyke cooties lest I lose my value.
These days, I know better. I still have a lot less social power than many--male or female--due to various things, but I feel better about just being who I am. If someone rejects me, they're at least rejecting the real me. I'd rather be rejected for who I am than accepted for who I am not, and then constantly fear losing that acceptance if someone finds out the truth.
So how about it? How about we dump the silly terrified clinging to extremes of gender, when all they are is relics of a power structure that is almost gone? We can still do them as vaudeville, but trying to live a day-to-day life living up to impossible standards for being properly male or female is exhausting, and perpetuates social mores that destroy queer folk and straight folk alike. It's time we just started being human, and stopped defining ourselves by whether we have tits or not.
Great column about Brokeback and homophobia
Metaquotes discussion about gender stereotyping
I kind of got into a bit of hot water with someone recently for pointing out that one of the big roots of homophobia is gender role rigidity. I guess he wanted the "real reason" to be something else, likely because he himself is sensitive to issues of gender. Of course there's more to it than that--religion, obviously, plus the fear of the unknown/differences and such. But a lot of the really rabid homophobia really comes down to discomfort with people who don't act the way they're "supposed" to for their biological sex.
After all, even people who are straight who violate gender roles can be victims of homophobic attacks. (Caveat: merely being thought or labeled gay is not a homophobic attack, tyvm.)
For males, much of the discomfort comes down to two things:
1. Discomfort with less-"manly" gay men because of the fear of becoming like that themselves, as if it were somehow communicable. In many cultures, masculinity is represented by, and represents, power, dominance, self-determination, aggression and physical conquest. Conversely, femininity is represented by, and represents submission, passivity, determination of one's path by others and receptiveness.
To men who have built their self-concept and concept of male/female dynamics on the extremes of these established roles, the idea of being feminized at all--whether that be to act in a stereotypically-feminine way, or to be a sexually-receptive partner (whether with a male or female sex partner) is to lose one's social status and power. Some men get off on this, in very controlled situations (men who enjoy being feminized and dominated by women, for instance) but in day-to-day life, many men feel very threatened by the concept of being thought of in a feminine role.
Which leads to...
2. Discomfort with "manly" gay men because of the fear of being the object of male sexual aggression.
The paradox, here, is that both effeminate and masculine gay men inspire the same fear, based on the same rigidity about gender roles and their respective power, especially as it pertains to sex. Effeminate gay men are threatening because they represent a possible social role for the male in question which frightens them because it seems less-powerful. Masculine gay men are threatening because they represent a possibly more-dominant male who could sexually and socially subjugate them.
It's no coincidence that many of the most sexist men are the most homophobic. Nor is it coincidence that most sexist and homophobic men are also in precarious positions with regard to other social power, especially socioeconomic status and race. Men who already feel that their relative power is threatened because of being a racial minority or poor may react much more strongly to the potential power threat of gay men than men who are more secure in their own power status. (Likewise true for younger men, especially those living with domineering fathers.)
Interestingly, much of this same gender/power structure issue is behind female homophobia, too, which I will explain more after breakfast...
Okay, happy tummy....
Female homophobia is interesting. It doesn't usually manifest the same way male homophobia does because it's not usually based in the same fear of losing power. With one exception.
A lot of women--even after a century of feminism--still buy into the traditional gender power structure because they've been led to believe that power for women cannot be achieved in traditionally-male ways, but has to be achieved by using traditionally-female strengths.
Or, in other words, a lot of women buy into the idea that their sexuality (and only a particular type of it) is their only or primary source of power.
The same sexism that leads men to believe they will lose power if masculinity is re-defined or if gay men have power is what's behind women believing that feminism will cause them to lose power, rather than gain it.
One of the primary pejoratives lobbed at feminists is the whole hairy-legged man-hater thing. The whole separatist thing is another essay, so I won't get into that, but I do find it interesting that so many women are utterly terrified of not being feminine or of un-feminine women.
Now, of course, as related to the linked discussion above, there is an argument to be made that whatever is natural to a woman or girl IS feminine, and therefore stereotypes of femininity don't have a trademark on that word. But that gets into issues of transgender, etc., that are too deep to get into here. So for the moment, "feminine" means stereotypical Western femininity.
And stereotypical Western femininity is characterized by a few simple concepts: sexual objectification, fertility, domestic servitude and dependence. Most everything else we consider typically feminine grows out of those four things.
It's less true these days than it was before, but it's still a common belief that women cannot survive in the male-dominated outside world. That women cannot earn their own living, cannot get an education, cannot pay their own bills, etc. Unfortunately, sexism is still enough of a problem that women do in fact have less success, overall, than men do in these areas, but generally speaking, most women in Western society can manage quite well without a husband to provide for them.
Unfortunately, the fear that a woman without a husband will not survive persists, at least on a subconscious level, in many women. Many of us grew up with mothers or other female relatives who emphasized developing traits that would make us good wives and mothers, and that would attract a strong man who would provide for us and the kids. And the backlash of the 80's ensured that even girls who grew up with feminist mothers still got the message that they needed to be pretty and submissive to catch a man, and that not catching a man was to divorce oneself from society.
Clearly, both men and women do best when surrounded by committed support networks of partners, family, friends, etc. But the traditional wife/husband dynamic doesn't carry the inherent value it once did, because men no longer have to exclusively rely on women for domestic service and childrearing, and women no longer have to exclusively rely on men to provide for economic needs and protection.
Yet, amazingly, the underlying fears about this structure being disrupted are still rampant, and it's this fear that is the root of female homophobia.
Like a man fearing that his power will be diminished by gay men, women feel that their power will be diminished by gay men and lesbians. And by butch women, too.
Like so:
1. Women who, consciously or subconsciously, feel they need a husband to survive fear gay men because they fear that male sexuality, being a powerful draw for them, will be a powerful draw for their husbands, and take them away from caring for their wife and kids. Unfortunately, given the number of closet cases hiding in straight marriages, this fear is all too real for some. Any woman with an ounce of gaydar probably does have some reason to fear that her husband's long nights at work or lack of interest in having sex with her may mean he's eventually going to come to his senses and dump her for a guy. (Of course, somehow they never seem to realize that there is an equal chance that their man might dump them and run off with a 19 year old blonde named Tiffini, too.)
This is what's behind a lot of the rhetoric you see about same-sex marriage "destroying" the family. Somehow these people have gotten it into their heads that gay sex is such a temptation for all men that if they felt they had an alternative to women, they'd go for it. It's apparently only religion and societal condemnation that keeps the nation's men from running off and living happily ever after with their best friend Steve. Then women will be left alone, won't be able to earn a living to feed their kids, and misery would ensue.
2. Women who never bothered getting an education or job skills, and who therefore rely on their husbands for economic survival fear lesbians and strong women (and feminism in general) because they fear that they will be expected to be responsible like that. If a woman's value is in being a good little wife and good in bed, and those are that woman's strengths, then she feels confident in her survival. If a woman's value shifts, and men start expecting women to also be intelligent and self-sufficient, her survival is in danger because she can no longer compete with women who have those attributes.
This is especially true for women who were Daddy's Girls or otherwise pampered little princesses growing up. It's fortunately changing, but pretty girls are still often given so much just for being a pretty little girl that they never bother developing anything else. Then they reach 40, and the pretty thing isn't the asset it used to be, and find themselves alone when their husband has dumped them for a newer model.
(This is also true for attractive boys, although not quite to the same degree. Attractive boys are still expected to be self-sufficient in terms of getting a career and such, but they don't have to work as hard for it, and sometimes find themselves struggling when they're older and not given quite so much leeway for their looks.)
So, all that to explain that yes, homophobia is very much based in rigid gender roles. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the less welded someone is to rigid gender roles, the less likely they are to be homophobic. And that goes for gay men and women, too. There's plenty of homophobia lobbed at the dykes and fairies from the "straight acting" types because they're running off the same cultural brainwashing that affects straight people. It may not have the same cultural manifestation, but the effects are the same. Femme lesbians fear dykes because they fear losing their power to attract a sugar daddy (whether they want one or not.) Straight acting gay men fear queens because they fear being thought of as lower in the power pecking order.
So really, I don't get why people who want to eliminate homophobia would resist working on eliminating sexism and gender dichotomy, too. Once they face and release their own fears about losing power if the gender power structure is upended, working on getting other people to face and release those fears is easier.
I should know. I used to think that way myself. Even as I probably set off every baby dyke-dar in a 20 mile radius, I was still spouting nonsense about things like "I want a girl. I don't want a guy with tits" as old as 18 or so. In the back of my mind, I knew I was a big ol' dyke (albeit a bi one) and I was really afraid of admitting that, and therefore losing the power I had as a femme-ish sex kitten. Butch women scared me because I identified with them, and I wasn't yet ready to admit to myself that that's what I was, too. Growing up in a very sexist culture had convinced me that I wouldn't have any value if I was un-feminine and so I didn't want to be contaminated with dyke cooties lest I lose my value.
These days, I know better. I still have a lot less social power than many--male or female--due to various things, but I feel better about just being who I am. If someone rejects me, they're at least rejecting the real me. I'd rather be rejected for who I am than accepted for who I am not, and then constantly fear losing that acceptance if someone finds out the truth.
So how about it? How about we dump the silly terrified clinging to extremes of gender, when all they are is relics of a power structure that is almost gone? We can still do them as vaudeville, but trying to live a day-to-day life living up to impossible standards for being properly male or female is exhausting, and perpetuates social mores that destroy queer folk and straight folk alike. It's time we just started being human, and stopped defining ourselves by whether we have tits or not.
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no subject
While, being a heterosexual woman, I can't speak from experience, what has always struck me about depictions (word or picture) of sex between men or between women is how similar to, not how different from, hetersexual sex it is.
no subject
Women, on the other hand, usually just have a fear of the ick factor. Regular ol' PIV sex is icky and messy enough. No sense in making it worse.
Of course, from my point of view, I don't understand why "sex" is nearly always defined as some sort of tab a into slot b anyway. There are hundreds of very fun sexual activities that don't involve phalluses going into orifices.