Heterosexuality as Patriarchal Oppression: Adrienne Rich’s ‘Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Experience’ and Shulamith Firestone’s The Dialectic of Sex (original) (raw)
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In this thesis, I wish to discuss bisexuality as a possible alternative for women who, within the confines of western culture, are expected to maintain a static sexual identity which upholds heterosexuality as its ideal. In attempting to explore the viability and attractiveness of bisexuality for women, the premise will be that the binary oppositions of heterosexuality and homosexuality are a deliberate and alienating social construct. They are not exclusive categories, yet they are compartmentalised in order for society to avoid having to confront and deal with the many variations of behaviour that occur in between. Heterosexuality worldwide is dominant, and most acceptable modus O\operandi for all humans. I believe that it is a pervasive means of control and regulation. As a construct, it supports entrenched patriarchal imperatives through which women are socialised from birth into their particular gender roles in the heterosexual equation, quite often believing that this is the only path they can take. Thus, heterosexuality can be a trap in which many women become ensnared. Heterosexuality also requires the rejection of homosexuality, which discounts the possibility of valuable, rewarding and life-enriching relationships with members of one's own sex. It precludes liberating freedom of choice whilst helping to reinforce patriarchal doctrines.
Edinburgh University Press eBooks, 2012
Introduction: feminism, queer theory and heterosexuality The 'invisibility' of heterosexuality as a normative category of identity is a recurring motif in recent work on heterosexuality; its ' "unmarked" and "naturalised" ' 1 status is understood as serving to perpetuate its power as an identity which tends to be taken for granted and to pass unquestioned. Indeed, as Linda Schlossberg puts it, 'heterosexual culture continually passes itself off as being merely natural, the undisputed and unmarked norm [emphasis added].' 2 Rereading Heterosexuality: Feminism, Queer Theory and Contemporary Fiction aims to contribute to what Richard Johnson has described as the 'impetus to render heterosexuality visible to critical scrutiny'. 3 Heterosexuality as an institution continues to have immense normative power; while this power impacts most explicitly on non-heterosexual identities it also extends to heterosexual identities which do not conform to familial, marital or reproductive norms-norms which have a particular impact on female identities, the principal concern of this book. Drawing on feminist and queer theories of sex, gender and sexuality, Rereading Heterosexuality takes as its distinctive focus the representation of female identities at odds with heterosexual norms; more specifi cally, it explores representations which serve to question the conventional equation between heterosexuality, reproductive sexuality and female identity. In this context, it will offer close readings of six novels published by British and American
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Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 2007
In this essay, Miriam argues for a phenomenological-hermutic approach to the radical feminist theory of sex-right and compulsory heterosexuality. Against critics of radical feminism, she argues that when understood from a phenomenologicalhermeneutic perspective, such theory does not foreclose female sexual agency. On the contrary, men's right of sexual access to women and girls is part of our background understanding of heteronmtivity , and thus integral to the lived experience of female sexual agency.
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Routledge International Handbook of Heterosexualities Studies, 2020
This is an interesting cultural moment in which to critically examine heterosexuality. Picture two different scenes that one might encounter in a given day in contemporary western societies. The first scene is set in a university classroom, where one mixed race student who uses they/them pronouns is talking about what it means to identify as pansexual and refers to their current partner as their "girlfriend." In the same small-group discussion is another white student who uses she/her pronouns, identifies as transgender, enacts a rather masculine self-presentation and talks about her "boyfriend" and what they will do this weekend. A few hours later in a hotel bar, a second scene unfolds between three straight, white, middle-class men in their early 30s who are catching up over drinks. Two of them are single, while the third talks about how his love life has changed since his girlfriend became his wife, and the couple now has two small children. He wistfully recalls the days when his partnership was filled with more sexual desire, which has diminished since the birth of their children. His tone has the air of inevitability about the trajectory his life has taken, from the fun sexy times with his girlfriend to the adult responsibility of married couplehood with two children. Conventional heterosexual nuclear families comprising two married biological parents and their children-like that of the wistful father in the bar-are not the statistical family norm in America, even if they are still the culturally sanctioned ideal family (Essig 2019; Stacey 2012). Nostalgic images of conventional nuclear heterosexual families have been increasingly challenged by today's shifting gender and techno-social dynamics. We are witnessing changing norms in heterosexual arrangements like online dating and hooking up (Kalish and Kimmel 2011; Wade 2018), the increase in single-person households (Klinenberg 2014), and the decoupling of gender identity from sexual identity. Straightness and its identity forms are bending into new arrangements, identity conceptions, and more flexible social statuses that build upon, morph, and attempt to supplant older, traditional patriarchal gender-normative arrangements. In return, those who hold traditional patriarchal beliefs about gender and heterosexuality continue to try to use their positions of political and institutional power to make heterosexuality "compulsory" and try to erase and/or demean new gender and sexual identities and relationships. At this cultural moment of both progressive change and reactionary politics, heterosexual identities, practices, and institutions are ripe for social analyses, theoretical explanations, and historical contextualization.
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In this thesis, entitled “The False Idealization of Heteronormativity and the Repression of Queerness,” I examine heteronormativity as a social structure that is idealized over, and against, queerness. In the first chapter, I define heteronormativity and queerness. “Heteronormativity,” here, is simply a set of standards that dictate what one must do with their gender and sexuality, such as having sexual relations with the opposite sex, getting married, or having children. Heteronormativity is visible, validated, and normalized in society. Conversely, “queerness” refers to the social structures that dictate what one must not do with their gender and sexuality. Thus, queerness is condemned, threatened, and prohibited. Furthermore, I argue that all of us have transgressed the social structure of heteronormativity since no one can consistently maintain all that heteronormativity implies. Therefore, we all have embodied queerness in one way or another. However, we have also been systematically taught to repress queerness within ourselves and others in an attempt to reduce our fear of it. Moreover, the widespread repression and fear of queerness in society supports and justifies a hierarchical capitalistic system. Since queerness is devalued and considered inappropriate, those who hold power over us, such as in the workplace, have the right to control and regulate our gender and sexual expression. In the second chapter of my thesis, I turn my attention to Hegel’s ethical family where parents are obligated to repress their children’s queerness through the use of discipline. In the third and final chapter, I offer a solution to the problem of the repression of queerness. I argue that, if we can recognize that all of us embody queerness in one way or another and if we can allow ourselves the chance to try to understand each other’s queerness without the impulse to repress it, we can achieve queer solidarity. We will see that our struggle with gender and sexuality under a heteronormative social structure that is enforced all around us is a collective struggle. Therefore, the recognition of each other’s queerness without the impulse to condemn it can act as a bridge to help us recognize that we are integrally connected to one another.
Sex, Homophobia, and Women: The Story of Lesbian Feminism
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