Stereotypes: Masculinity In Male Cheerleaders

C.J. Pascoe’s book, Dude You’re A Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School, examines masculinity and its connection with sexuality through an eighteen-month study at River High School. The goal of Pascoe’s study is to explain how teenagers, teachers, and schooling construct adolescent masculinity through idioms of sexuality. In addition, the book investigates the relationships between gender and sexuality as it relates to a major social institution. Throughout the book she asks how heteronormitive and homophobic discourses, practices, and interactions produce masculine identities through focusing on gender and sexual practices of the students, teachers, and administrators.

This is because the society empowered men with the power to rebuke anything that they consider to have crossed the boundaries of manhood that have been put in place by the society. Optimally, when one steps outside the definition of what the society considers to be masculine then are likely to be taunted by a barricade of insults like faggot, dork, pussy etc. These insults are often trying to take away the manhood of a person to reprimand them for going out of the confines of what is socially acceptable for men. For instance, wearing pink shirts does not make one any less of a man, but since the society has created this notion that pink is for women, men have been forced to conform, and anyone who goes against these social constrictions is considered feminine or gay. Kimmel claims that anything that is perceived as gay often goes into the Negative Playbook of Guyland. To be on the safe side of the society, one has to avoid anything that might make people question their masculinity. What Kimmel is trying to argue is that masculinity is all about conformity; one has to learn to act and behave per the societal expectations of a man. This argument further proves the fact that masculinity is a social construction in which men are forced to conform to norms and values of the society for them to be considered

Pascoe argues while certain behaviors put all boys at risk for becoming a fag, some behaviors can be enacted by African-American boys without putting them at risk for or having that label. Its not that this gendered homophobia does not exist in the African-American community, there is a varied system of sexualized meanings among different radicalized ethnic groups. The difference between white boys and African American boys meaning of fag differs around clothing and dancing, which is the

“A man is at his youngest when he thinks he is a man, not yet realizing that his actions must show it.” Was said by a famous english writer named Mary Renault.In the reading “Bros before Hoes:The Guy Code” by Michael Kimmel he explains this unwritten yet critical set of rules guys follow through out their lifetime. Society has taught young men that every gender has certain roles and to properly fulfill the role of being a man they have to abide by these rules. Kimmel calls this set of rules the guy code and it explains what guys believe what it takes to be a “man”. Kimmel goes over what the guy code is, where it comes from, and who influences young boys to follow this set of rules as well as how this guy code is regulated and enforced. In these rules it specifically states young men cannot be gay. The word gay is defined as being weak and girl like to young men. So in order to continue fulfilling the duties of a man, young men must follow these set of rules.These rules prove that young men are pressured to offer constant proof that they are not gay.

Pascoe discusses how masculinity can function as a regulatory mechanism of gender in American adolescent boys. It has been found that the word ‘fag’ is not necessarily directed at a homosexual boy, but has taken on a new meaning in school age boys. It is being used as a disciplinary mechanism to police certain behaviors “out of fear of having the fag identity permanently” (Pascoe p.330). This kind of teasing and harassment can temporarily be place on any boy who shows signs of weakness or femininity. The high schoolers in the study told Pascoe that calling someone a fag was like telling them they were nothing or stupid (Pascoe p. 335). Boys could be called a fag for anything that he did that was opposite of masculine, even when it had nothing to do with his sexual preference. The fag discourse seemed to be just another way for the contest of masculinity to take

Male cheerleaders continuously get gender stigma which means a negative trait or set of traits attached to a social group, due to cheerleading being labeled as a 'feminine sport'. There are some male who become hesitant when wanting to be a cheerleader due to them being labeled as ‘Gay’. One of the female who participated in the study said “cheerleading started with men. I think the media has turned it into a sexualized female sport”. But, they believed this occur because women are helping men protect and maintain their masculine guise. However, the construction of masculinity is achieved through sexual objectification by men who cheer, because society focuses on labeling male cheerleaders homosexual, when in reality they have the advantage

A peculiarity he mentions after explaining the search for a specific gender partner is how, in the South where he is, gay men tend to seek “masculine” partners, which defeats the idea of gender roles in same-sex relationships. The concept of gender is defined as “the identity and roles associated with, and/or appropriated by specific persons, regardless of their biological sex,” (Rich, 2016). While the concept is different across cultures and time, a constant happens to be the grouping and automatic attribution of roles based on a person’s biological sex. The author challenges the idea of gender roles associated with biological sex, however, saying that these men in the South tend to seek boyfriends who are sporty and have other classic masculine characteristics. Mays comments that there are few actions or characteristics that can be classified as gender neutral as these can be in present-day society. Thus, in their case, if both partners will exhibit these masculine qualities, they will both, in turn, be forced to take up women’s roles to live normal lives, for example cooking and cleaning, which would lead to the canceling out of masculine or feminine qualities.

So if one guy called another guy a “fag” it is not necessarily to say that he is literally gay; it’s a charge that he is not being “a real man”. In essence the word “fag” is not only a homophobic slur, it is a homophobic slur that also attacks behavior as not being masculine. This is why Pascoe used the phrase gendered homophobia throughout the book to describe the masculinity the male students showed on a daily basis.

Because language is relative/arbitrary, queer has various meanings, depending on evolution and history and also personal attributions. Queer has been used as an adjective to mean strange, questionable, or to not feel right, a pejorative against queer individuals, an identity relating to a person who does not conform to a normative sexual orientation or gender identity, a sexual orientation, and as a gender identity (such as genderqueer). However, there is an overlooked use of the word: queer is also a verb. What does it mean to queer something? There was a time when that phrase meant “to mess it up,” as in queering a

In Pascoe’s analysis of the word fag she interviews many boys at River High and most of them had the same response, that a boy could be called fag for exhibiting any sort of behavior defined as unmasculine such as being stupid or incompetent, to caring too much about something, or being too emotional(57). With this I analyzed the situation I always got stuck in and constantly was under fire for the word fag. At River High having a girlfriend “both protected boys from the specter of the fag and bolstered their masculinity” in certain cases (90). At El Capitan I was the guy who always had a girlfriend but I never dated girls from the same school. Even though I was adored by other girls at the school for expressing my love interest to this other girl. The guys constantly threw the word fag at me for being emotionally attached to a girl. So I was intrigued and happy to hear that in Pascoe’s one on one interviews the guys who would be calling me a fag were actually in the same situation as me but just too scared to admit their feelings publicly. All because of the social organization as Weeks explains that the peer influences within the high school put out a

C. J Pascoe in his book titled “Dude You’re a Fag” answers the questions revolving around masculinity and sexuality in high school identifying the school setting as the primary site where masculinity is defined, defended, and asserted. Further, the book explores the high school daily life of male students and how they assert in terming those who fail to express their masculinity as “fags.” Through Pascoe, readers get a glimpse of how masculinity is upheld and constructed not just by the students but the institution as well thereby fostering an atmosphere of permissive sexual harassment, gay-bashing as well as homophobia. Most importantly is the fact that while the author illustrates how masculinity is constructed and upheld within the school

When it comes to gender our society believes it is as straightforward as “how many kidneys do you have?” or “how many eyeballs do you have?” We can all agree that we are born with one of two sexual organs. What we can’t seem to agree on is our personal identity in relation to those organs. Life is a complex cycle full of personal decisions. In the short passage by CJ Pascoe titled “Dude, You’re a fag” there are a few points that coincide with the idea that gender should not be something society chooses for you.

In this final topic of the analysis of C.J. Pascoe’s research novel Dude You’re a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School which is arguably the main topic of the book are sexuality, specifically sexuality in regards to being homosexual. A theory that explains sexuality is the queer theory by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “Sexualities not just determined by sex of described by sex of desired partner, sex acts mean different things to different people, different attitudes towards importance of sex, and sex as a key to gender identity for some, not others.” (Little, et al, 387). As stated earlier, for a male especially one who is questioning their sexuality or is homosexual being called a “fag” is the most hurtful term that can be said. For that reason, if someone calls you a fag it is assumed that you are gay as well but also race has a role in

Queer theory questions creations of normal and divergent, insider, and outsider.2 Queer theorists analyse a situation or a text to determine the relationship between sexuality, power and gender. Queer theory challenges basic tropes used to organize our society and our language: even words are gendered, and through that gendering an elliptical view of the hierarchy of society, and presumption of what is male and what is female, shines through. Queer theory rejects such binary distinctions as arbitrarily determined and defined by those with social power. It works to deconstruct these binaries, particularly the homosexual/heterosexual binary.4

Masculinity and femininity are unescapeable. We are taught how to be masculine or feminine from birth but for men, the highest form of masculinity achievable is hegemonic masculinity. In this essay, I will define hegemonic masculinity, discuss how it perpetuates homophobia by restricting the way men interact with one another and by the use of the word fag, and how it perpetuates gender inequality through the expectations of violence, no emotions, and being breadwinners.