Young Women's Negotiations of Heterosexual Conventions: Theorizing Sexuality in Constructions of 'the Feminist' (original) (raw)
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interalia: a journal of queer studies
The critique of identity politics has opened up a sceptical attitude towards normative categories and demands for the coherence and stability of sex, gender and sexuality. At the same time reflections on mechanisms of exclusion within emancipatory movements and politics have also gained attention. Thus, not only (hetero-)sexism and homophobia, but also discriminations pertaining to the rigid binary gender order as well as racist discrimination are issues of importance to queer politics. Considering the critique of identity or minority politics, I have come to the conclusion that rather than to proliferate or to dissolve categories of sex, gender and sexuality, it is more promising to render them ambiguous: that is what I call a queer strategy of equivocation. Nevertheless sexual ambiguity is not progressive or liberating in itself. Instead, we have to realize that queer/feminist struggles against normative identities, a destabilization of binary, heterosexual norms or new forms of g...
Bisexuality: The Great Divide. Feminism and the Gulf between Heterosexuality and Homosexuality., 1996
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.
"Thinking Heterosexualities: An Introduction to Critical Heterosexualities Studies"
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.
II. Feminism and Heterosexual Marriage: The Return of the Repressed?
Feminism & Psychology, 2004
Taken together, the 10 pieces that make up the special feature in the last issue of Feminism & Psychology (13[4]) were not only interesting and moving but made me feel quite hopeful about the changes within feminist debates on heterosexual coupledom and marriage. Although I have read the contributions in both of the current special feature issues, my comments here are specifically about the feature on heterosexual marriage in the previous issue. Ten or 20 years ago within feminism, the dominant discourse, an important part of the wider critique of patriarchy, was exclusively about the dual oppressiveness of marriage-to the women inside it and to the gay and lesbian people who were excluded from the rights it confers. That dominant discourse recommended a politics that involved not colluding in the institution of marriage and branded the idea of (romantic) love as an ideological trap. Such a position is in danger of banishing conflict, contradiction (and heterosexual love) to the realms of the unsayable. That analysis of the role of marriage in patriarchy is still evident in many of the pieces in the special feature, for example when Virginia Braun says of marriage 'politically I am against it because it has been oppressive to women, and through privileging heterosexuality, oppressive to lesbians and gay men'. On the whole, however, the tone of these contributions is one that says 'but it's more complex and contradictory than that'. Vivienne Elizabeth, for example, says 'I became increasingly critical of a simple equation between marriage and oppressive heterosexuality. . .'. This is partly to do with a discursive shift in feminist thinking, as in social sciences more generally, from a monocausal grand narrative to a multi-perspectival approach. Sharn Rocco, for example, provides succinct examples that demonstrate 'internal contradictions inherent in who I took myself to be within the field of discourses that were patterning my circumstances and my subjectivity'. I also detect in these contributions another shift, a preparedness to tolerate the conflictual feelings that we are liable to experience concerning something as powerful as marriage. This involves recognizing that choices are rarely straightforward or even very 'chosen'. (Sharn Rocco again): 'Most [choice points]
The False Idealization of Heteronormativity and the Repression of Queerness
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.
Queer , Queerer , Queerest ? Feminisms , heterosexualities and queer theorizing
2007
Queer theorizing problematizes all forms of unitary subjectivity (e.g. 'lesbian', 'homosexual', 'heterosexual') and disrupts the binary oppositions that organize thinking about sexuality in Anglo/European/North American cultures and white settler societies (Petersen, 1998). This often eclectic body of poststructuralist intellectual work developed in the United States against the background of a series of lively confrontational political actions (e.g. grassroots action by ACT UP and Queer Nation) and academic conferences at which philosophers, literary theorists and historians reflected on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues (Butler, 1990, 1993; de Lauretis, 1991; Fuss, 1991; Sedgwick, 1990; Warner, 1991, 1993). This intellectual and political work was directed at constructing 'queer' as 'permanent rebellion' and transgression (Seidman, 1996). It challenged conventional gay and lesbian politics, problematized sexual and gender categor...