How Is Gender Performed A Heterosexual, Homosocial Female Home?

The family has always been a unit that calls for the belonging of the kin. It calls for more than blood relations, but also a relation with ancestry, history, ethnic origins, etc. It serves as the most basic political unit that many can relate too, however, the term family carries a more diverse and complex role that is seen to evolve throughout the years. With the modernization of the human civilization leads to an evolution of thought, morality, and ideology. What was once the idealized nuclear family, is now criticized by many modern day thinkers as it invokes a heteronormative that oppresses any other forms of family and sexual relationships. This concept can be seen in the given article by Bell Hooks. In Hooks’ document, she talks about the racist oppression of sexist domination towards back women. There is a focus on black women in reference to their place in the community, the home, and the home to which they are serving to (Hooks, 1990). Her views show the heavy responsibilities of black women as it reflects their privileges and lifestyle. The second document by Michelle Owen examines the normalization of queer as seen in the Canadian Legal Landscape, assimilation debates, and works to that aim to break the heteronormative family lifestyle (2001).

Until quite recently, the traditional view of family that has predominated society has been comprised of gender roles. The “ideal” family in the past has consisted of a white, middle-class, heterosexual couple with about 2.5 children. In this heteronormative nuclear family, the father is the head of the household and the breadwinner of the family, while the mother is the one who cares for the children and completes household duties. Of course, most families do not fit into this mould and those who do not fit have been repeatedly marginalized due to their differences. It is no question that race, class, sexuality, ability, and many other identity markers intersect in how forms of family may vary. As explained by the concept of intersectionality, gender must be analyzed through a lens that includes various identity markers which contribute to how an individual experiences oppression. It is through the use of intersectionality, the discussion of patriarchy, and the deconstruction of “family” that bell hooks (1990) and Michelle K. Owen (2001) paint family as a site of belonging and contestation.

In the article, “Against Gay Marriage,” author William J. Bennett believes if the government extended the status of marriage to homosexual couples, long-term social corruption would follow. His nostalgia for the heterosexual normativity paints an ugly picture of modern society. William Bennett provokes the debates on religious affairs in society, the commitment and ability of homosexual parents, and gay history in general. In the article, “A Mother’s Day Kiss-Off,” author Leslie Bennetts demonstrates the web woven within the lives of working mothers regarding their roles in domestic and corporate culture. She prioritizes her commitment to family above all other avenues of livelihood, which creates tension within her relationship. She also focuses heavily on the inequality of the sexes and how women sacrifice unnecessarily and often times unintentionally because of gender roles forced on society through culture. Both authors’ perspectives effectively appeal to the reader which add to their arguments, and detract from them by using uncited or poorly sourced information and personal experience; however, Bennetts disproves a traditional outlook on marital roles as she advocates for a changing society while Bennett exclaims the danger of homosexuals, marriage equality, and the effects of the sexual immorality in our culture.

This idea of the average American family, does not accurately depict our society. With the image of this ideal household, this sets a standard that may be impossible for some, due to their race, gender, class, sexuality, etc. Heterosexuality is never questioned or threaten within society because it is normal. Not only is it a political institution, but it is contributing to the constructions of the gender binary. In Compulsory Heterosexuality, the concept of becoming a mother is brought the reader’s attention. Women are emotionally available and caring towards others so, they make for great mothers. There are plenty of women who choose not to be mothers, does this make them any less of a women because they do not fall under the definition of the female binary. On page 637 of Compulsory Heterosexuality the author writes, “I am suggesting that heterosexuality, like motherhood, needs to be recognized and studied as a political institution-even, or especially by those individuals who feel they are, in their personal experience, the precursors of a new relation between the sexes.” Now, the gender binary, family gives society the impression that the men have to be hard working and to provide for his family. While the women are expected to take care of everything else and take care of the

In this media clip presented by Honey Maid the focus is surrounding a family of four consisting of two parents, two children, and one dog. The two parents discuss their lives as to where and how they met which was situated in a grocery store. They also confer about the process of obtaining their two sons. Their eldest son talks about his favourite memories with his parents and demonstrates how their family is very similar to other families. Throughout the clip, the household is shown doing activities that a typical family would do for example making s’mores and going on a walk with their dog. The neat aspect of the family is that they are considered to be what is known as a queer family. This is the fact because they are male same-sex parents. Their oldest child also discloses that he calls his two fathers by different labels. His “dad” is considered to be the more serious parental figure and his “papa” is regarded as the more lighthearted and funny father figure. The clip finalizes by conversing how meaningful

This essay focuses on how Maretelle Ludik’s Spring/Summer 2016 collection and how it relates to how heteronormativity is viewed in modern society. Firstly I will define what is meant by heteronormativity and provide the difference between sex and gender. Secondly I will give an overview of one of the readers discussed in class and an external reader, furthermore I will discuss how heteronormativity and gender has evolved over the years. Thereafter I will dissect Martelle Ludik’s Spring/Summer 2016 collection and show how it relates to heteronormativity and gender. Lastly I will provide a conclusion that will summarise my argument.

In “House full of Love: Bringing up Children in Polyamorous Relationships”, Alessandra Iantaffi (2009) shares a personal narrative of her experience as a participant in qualitative research on queer polyamorous relationships. Iantaffi leaves the audience with an authentic experience of lives lived outside heteronormativity, in the process, trying to create space for alternative family models other than the conventional nuclear family typically dictated by Western ideology. This article provides a basic understanding of queer polyamorous relationships and what they look like as part of a family unit and in parenting. Iantaffi does not paint a fantastical vision of the lives of queer polyamory, rather

The heterosexual imaginary is immensely ingrained in our everyday experience that most people, including feminist sociologists, has become inclined to conceptualize and theorize based around the heteronormative. The heterosexual imaginary acts as an invisible framework at play that structures our thinking processes and in which constructs our social identity. For instance, the inquiry of a survey taker’s marital status in most social science surveys come to show that our recognized and appropriate social identity is formed around heterosexuality. That is, any deviation from this heterosexual norm would be considered abnormal and be marginalized. To a minimal extent, this focus has served the interests of women because of the lack of activism

ean-Jacques Rousseau, an eighteenth-century French philosopher, was the only Enlightenment thinker that wrote two social contract theories. In each of Rousseau’s narratives, he completely disregards women. Throughout all of Rousseau’s work, but Emile in particular, he emphasizes women as passive agents in the world. In “Pacha Mama, Rousseau, and the Femini,” Nalinia Persram, a contemporary philosopher, argues that women’s superiority extends from the private sphere extends into the public sphere. (236) Women are only superior as long as they maintain control of nature and nurture. (237) When both Rousseau and Persram use these ideas in order to restrict women to their gender, they identify women as passive agents and thus, establish gender inequalities.

When I tell people, friends or family that I have to write a paper about my experience of gender, they just laugh at that. They think there is not much to it. Nonetheless, my personal experience of gender is rather a more complex than meets the eye. Having lived two patriarchal societies —one extreme and one that is drifting away from patriarchy— I have had to deal with a lot. It is not all advantage and privilege to be a heterosexual male, it has many negativities and pressures. Especially if by your nature, you struggle to fit into the societal designated gender roles. In this paper, I will reflect on my experience and struggle, as a minority male in Saudi Arabia and the United States of America. I will provide retrieve memories and incidents from my childhood and adolescence, I will describe the everyday challenges and obstacles, and I will

On one hand, their long-stand marriage acquires perfectly almost every characteristics of a straight relationship according to social prejudice. They inheritably express sexual attraction towards other sex, adopt a child, perform conventional gender role – husband and wife, father and mother in family structure. On the other hand, it lacks an element in normal heterosexual relationship, known as sexual intercourse. The fact that Joss is a transvestite but not yet attains masculine features prevents them from ability to bear children. He still owns feminine biological trademarks such as breasts or high voice. Therefore, their relationship poses an unprecedented question to the deep-rooted assumption of heterosexual relationship. Can both sides’ perception of gender identity determine the relationship status instead of solely based on physical features? As a matter of fact, Joss’s biological features impose little influence on his relationship with Millie. They both acknowledge the status of heterosexuality, and even after Joss’s death, Millie maintains her account of the relationship. Therefore, Jackie Kay seemingly disapproves any connection between a man’s anatomical features and his romance relationship. Instead, the relationship status should depend on insiders’ perception of their own gender identity and get recognition in

In the interwar period, concepts of sexuality and marriage were beginning to transform from union practises to marriages based on the idea of love and happiness. Notably, the happiness of a marriage was dependent on how fulfilling their sexual relationship is. The eroticization of marriage, as Angus McLaren describes the budding shift in the definition of marriage, created a subversive concept that both constrains heterosexual and homosexual practising men and women in middle-class society through the creation of prescribed gender traits. Which white middle-class men and women should participate in and adhere to to avoid being seen as an ‘abnormal’ sexual deviant as opposed to the budding normalisation of heterosexual practices as biologically ‘natural’.

Therefore, the emergence of queer theory hoped to deconstruct the static identity categories, contesting categories that are considered to be normal and natural. From the beginning, “capitalist patriarchal societies created an institutionalized heterosexuality framework over gender.” That is, within this social context, heterosexuality has become the dominant hierarchical division in which has come to regulate our gender roles through institutional structures. Therefore, gender categories are once again reconstituted in which male and female are seen as the unquestionable identity categories that every social actor must assume. The naturalization of heterosexuality is justified with the claim that the two sexes, male and female, are biological and therefore “naturally occurring.” This is

The period since World War II has seen a paradigm shift in attitudes to gender and sexuality. The sexual revolution of the late 1950s and 60s and the work of the feminist movement has profoundly changed the way in which men and women relate to each other socially, culturally and economically. A cultural revolution has taken place in terms of social attitudes to the make-up of the family, same-sex relationships and our understanding of sexual identity. One of the central theses of Beauvoir’s The Second Sex was summed up by the line, “One is not

Being born in the 21st century, we are exposed to many new concepts in the society. The concept of “family” also changed as well as time passes; people nowadays have better understanding towards non-traditional families such as transsexual or homosexual marriage.