Gaga Feminism Summary

1. In the essay “Gender Treachery: Homophobia, Masculinity, and Threatened Identities” Hopkins suggests a few ways in which homophobia can be challenged. Be specific and discuss some of the approaches that Hopkin’s puts forth for dismantling the prevalence of homophobia. What must we get rid of in order to also get rid of homophobia?

The most prevalent and popular stereotype of the post World war II era in America is one filled with women abandoning their wartimes jobs and retreating into the home to fulfill their womanly duties. In Joanne Meyerowitz’s Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture, she shows how far women departed from this one dimensional image. While Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique is reflexive and focused on the mainstream, Meyerowitz’s analysis is a broader and more inclusive exploration of media, as she draws upon multiple sources. Although Friedan effectively unveiled the thought process and reasoning behind society's belief that the message of media was to make women think that their place was to be the happy housewife, Meyerowitz expanded her media archives and found a differing message in analyzing both female responses to media and exploring their stories.

In Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal by J. Jack Halberstam, Halberstam discusses an uncertain definition of gaga feminism and place it within modern politics as “feminism”. She uses Lady Gaga as a symbol for a new era of sexual and gender expression because of the way how Gaga plays with sexuality and gender in her music and videos. According to Halberstam, “ Gaga feminism is a politics that brings together meditations on frame and visibility with a lashing critique of the fixity of roles for males and females” (5). It is very different from old feminism because we have different relationships besides the mom-daughter relationship. Although Halberstam presents her argument through embracement to pop culture, personal approaches, and engaging writing styles; however, many of her insights are limited to her own life and might not be applicable to others.

The articles by Roderick Ferguson (2004) in his book literally highlights the regulation that established sociological schools of thought impose upon the ‘queer people of color,’ or anyone who is different in terms of sexual orientation and non-white. In the very early part of the book, Ferguson depicts the imagery of a black drag-queen prostitute from Marlon Riggs’ ‘Tongues Untied.’ He goes on to describe the way capitalism, in general, and the American system in particular has conveniently excluded many like her – people of alternative sexual preferences with both African American culture and Leftist Liberal thought rooted in the heterogeneity. (Ferguson, 2004, p. 3). It is at this point that through the work of Chandan Reddy, Ferguson reminds the reader that the core of Leftist-Liberal Marxist thought revolves around the abolishment of race, gender and sexuality.

In this article Roxane had lead me through a pathos appealing reading that aroused many feelings and emotions towards the aspects of her lingering thoughts and perspectives of privileges being different and that the way people used the word it is seen as it has become white noise. My goal in this paper is to analyze her discussion, as Gay begins with her credibility; with personal facts; reputable sources; citing convincing opinions, and successfully employing emotional appeals. However, her

Chauncey’s, Gay New York Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World 1890-1940, is essentially a social history investigation into the non-invisible gay New York. The author introduces his reader into city where no man was either a homosexual or heterosexual. Instead, this was a place where a man was either masculine of feminine rather than the sex of their chosen partner. Chauncey makes this argument by saying

The following thesis will lay out the progression in the LGBTQIA movement along with the deficits that these individuals have encountered throughout history. An interdisciplinary perspective through historical,

social, and economic equality to men.” The novel entitled, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is

By erasing the experiences of transgender butch women (that is, butch lesbians who are transgender women), Halberstam

Homosexuality has been an issue for the public for an extremely long time dating back to even Ancient Rome and Greek. Especially with the birth of Christianity, the religious society has been persecuting anyone claiming homosexuality, forcing people to hide their own sexuality for centuries. It is important to understand and know the past of the homsexuality to understand the reason for their fight and the mentality of their opposition. Homosexuality has never been accepted into the norms of society and was even viewed as a mental disease by the American Psychiatric Association (Bowman). Not until a few decades ago has the movement for gay rights began to kick off. The event that really set off the movement was the Stonewall Riot of 1969. “New York’s gay community had grown weary of the police department targeting gay clubs, a majority of which had already been closed. The crowd on the street watched quietly as Stonewall’s employees were arrested, but when three drag queens and a lesbian were forced into the paddy wagon, the crowd began throwing bottles at the police” (“Stonewall”). This event is regarded as the foundation for the modern gay rights movement including the formation of many gay, lesbian, and bisexual civil rights organizations.

As being developed by poststructuralism, feminism, lesbian & gay studies and even American pragmatist theory (Parker,2001; Seidman,1997), queer theory has become one of the most important theories, which contributes to the research of sociology, arts and organizations. On the one hand, queer theory has been used to study the relations between the sexuality, gender and workplace. On the other hand, by utilizing denaturalized, deconstructive and performative methods to queer the presumptions of the taken-for-granted norms, queer theorists question and disprove the traditions which people cherish (Seidman,1995).

LGBTQ social movements have evolved over time from liberationist politics of the 1970s to an enormous contemporary focus on gay and lesbian marriage rights, a controversial and arguably assimilationist priority for mainstream LGBTQ advocacy groups. Different forms of activism have approached assimilationism versus societal reformation or preservation of unique constructions of queer identities with a myriad of arguments. In “The Trouble with Normal” by Michael Warner, the author focuses primarily on a criticism of gay marriage rights activism in which he posits that all marriage is “selective legitimacy.” He points to other LGBT movements and issues as more worthy of pursuing, particularly intersectional pursuits of equal rights for people regardless of coupled status. In “Marital Discord: Understanding the Contested Place of Marriage in the Lesbian and Gay Movement” authors Mary Bernstein and Verta Taylor give a snapshot history of LGBTQ activism since the 1970s and offer similar arguments as Warner about the heteronormative and neoliberal nature of placing the fight for legal marriage rights at the forefront of LGBTQ activism, although they do also introduce emerging improvements with the increasingly intersectional awareness of modern advocacy efforts.

Queer theory is a postmodern concept, an outgrowth of movements both political and personal. It seeks to invert the

Canaday, M. (2014). LGBT history. Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies, 35(1), 11+. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.proxy.davenport.edu/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA370396593&v=2.1&u=lom_davenportc&it=r&p=AONE&sw=w&asid=9d707445b93f162c44834c8c255b5954

“The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove that their minds are not in a healthy state; for, like the flowers which are planted in too rich a soil, strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded on the stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity” (Wollstonecraft 7). This is a view in which several feminists abide with and can relate to; the idea that women have the wrong intentions and goals for their lives, that they are treated like children and are predestined to act like children, instead of adults. Although the Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft was written in 1972, this