The Social Consequences Of Heteronormativity

Culture often thrives off of polar opposites—hot and cold, bitter and sweet, male and female. By setting up these opposing constructs, one can easily find a set definition for each. A hot surface could scorch someone or a cold temperature could cause them to shiver. In the same way, a bitter substance would be less enjoyable to eat than a sweet one. These terms are often defined by mentioning their antitheses. Because it’s comfortable to embrace specificity and certainty, topics such as gender and gender expression often get simplified into binary existences—however, they don’t quite operate under the same parameters. In an essay entitled “Bad Feminist”, Dr. Roxane Gay explores and warns against the dangers of binary thinking. Throughout

Historically, societies have divided the sexes into male and female and assigned specific gender roles for each group to ‘perform’. Alternative sexual practices outside of the norm were considered unacceptable and abnormal. These ideologies of heteronormativity have been reinforced throughout various social institutions including media where heteronormative portrayals have been considered standards. Furthermore, as Rogers mentioned, “Commonly intertwined with such heterocentrism are values celebrating heterosexuality as normal and natural while condemning or at least rejecting lesbigay sexualities.” (Rogers 72). Heteronormativity is largely depicted in the media and reinforce dominant norms of society, which portray heterosexual romantic relationships

Some women seek lesbian relationships because they want to reject this sort of powerless state they may feel in a heterosexual situation. Relationships between men to men and women to women hold several differences, but at the same time they share several similarities. Downing concludes the article by stating that there are both gay men and lesbians that dismiss the homosexuality myth, but it is crucial that they understand that the myth does hold a cultural vision on the power of gender and human selfhood. In order to get past the myth, we must understand to accept its existence.

There are various perceptions of gay and lesbian couples that they represent a more egalitarian relationship. (Civettini 2015:1) However, when same-sex couples are observed there is still a tendency to believe that the relationship contains a masculine and feminine figure following the heterosexual model. So, it is necessary to address both how these couples deviate from society’s norms as gay individuals but might still be reproducing the same behaviors as heterosexual couples because the ideologies are so deeply rooted in social institutions. The stereotypical connotations of masculinity and femininity influence all aspects of American society and gender display relies heavily on meeting those given expectations. So, in the case of this article, the author Civettini views a connection between sex, gender, and sexual orientation when it comes to displaying

From the moment a child is born, the society in which they are born into begins to teach the child what is normal, and what is not. If the aforementioned child has a vagina, they will be labeled a girl and assumed to be heterosexual, and the same principle applies if the child has a penis. Yet the human world is not as simple as this established gender binary. For example, there are people who identify with a gender other than the sex assigned at birth.1 There are also people who are not sexually attracted strictly to the opposite gender, or at all. Such diversions from societal normality are more often than not greeted with opposition, as what is considered normal is also deemed right. The LGBT community has had to deal with fierce societal

While this visibility does afford transvestites formal recognition, the presence of satire in their representation undermines their plight for recognition as a definition of gender expression and sexual identity (Hennessy, 2000). This, therefore, acts to police and regulate the social and cultural bodies of transvestite individuals within the neoliberal state. Therefore, men and women who show characteristics inconsistent with the neoliberal state's prescribed gender roles are often regulated and policed through the labelling of marginalized and different groups (Keyes, 2014). An autonomous, feminist and individualised woman often is subjected to ‘lesbian' labelling and this form of ‘othering' contributes to the regulation and individualised policing marginalized groups experience under the heteronormative, neoliberal state and its subsequent restrictions on gender and sexual identity (Keyes, 2014). However, the sex-gender matrix that operates under heterosexuality can often be understood in terms of the social struggle of queer visibility in the consumerist culture, to recognise not the form but the function of families in the homosexual sphere (Dnes,

This paper examines the social aspects of the sexual identity in America, illustrating how sexual identities have progressed, evolved, and transformed. Social categories have been created as a tool used for social divide and control, inadvertently creating stereotypical facts and discriminatory opinions on sexes; while also helping create social and welcoming communities, whose goals are to diminish ideals such as those. Concluding, this paper will have explained the dichotomous categories of different sexualities and the divides within them. The already established sexual divide leaves no room for those stuck in the in between of today's society, especially one as progressive as America’s. Derived from the examples giving, this paper argues

Gay and Lesbian research is inquiry that focuses on the lives, experiences, and meanings of those who are socially identified as lesbians; this identity label is temporal, culturally determined, and socially constructed. Today, lesbian refers to women who are primarily sexually and romantically attracted to other women. Lesbian research is indebted to the advances and insights of feminism, a movement for social justice centered on women. Reflecting on this historic connection, lesbian research has attempted to redress the imbalance of attention to dominant groups in traditional

Heterosexism is a term used to describe people who discriminate against gays and lesbians. Throughout history, an intimate relationship between members of the opposite sex was considered the norm, and breaking this norm would make a person deviant. From birth, children are taught certain characteristics on how boys and girls are suppose to behave. Children learn these things from their parents, the schools they attend, and society that they live in. The characteristics that they learn shapes them into what they become when they’re adults. According to Barrie Thorne, “the sociological significance of children’s play is that boys and girls are helping to socialize one another into primary adult gender roles, girls being more concerned with

Both terms ‘gender’ and ‘sexuality’ are very common, broad and the meaning of it differs from person to person. Eugenically the term ‘gender’ is defined to have socially composed roles, activities, behaviours, and peculiarity that a given society considers right for men and women (WHO, 2015). Whereas the term ‘sexuality’ has various meanings, it is described as feeling or having attraction or having sexual thoughts and preferences towards same sex or opposite sex (reachout.com, 2015). This essay will explore Pascoe’s (2005) article on sexualised insult ‘fag’ by American teenage boys. It will also focus on the racialized nature of this ‘fag’ discourse. As it is not the only identity related to homosexual men but can briefly associate to heterosexual men as well. Another sexualised insult ‘slut’ depicted in Attwood’s (2007) work has many meanings and has changed overtime. This will be illustrated by highlighting how the word ‘slut’ was used to define women sexually and their struggle over class, race and generation. The term ‘bitch’ explored in Crawford & Popp (2003) study share similar perspective to Attwood’s work where talking about sexuality or gender would involve making assumption about race and class. This will help present the different identities which people use to define their sexuality and gender such as gay, fag, slut and bitch in terms of race and class. This will be explored in various academics work. This implies that understanding about sexuality and gender in

In society, there is often an invisible privilege associated with heterosexuality (Adams, 2010). For an example, heterosexual couples can walk down the street with their partner without fear of being verbally or physically attacked. This is a right that most heterosexual people don’t consider because they have never been forced to question their attraction, or love for the opposite gender, since this behavior is viewed by society as “natural” or a “normal” part being part of being a women or a man. However, the opposite is true for LGB individuals, these feelings of love or attraction for members of the same sex are often questioned by family, friends, religious and government organizations and societal norms. Like all other forms of oppression, heterosexism operates on multiple levels.

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

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

Sexuality is an issue that has been widely discussed and has often been misunderstood by society. It has often been a misconception by members of the heterosexual community that all lesbians want to be men. Through applying common sense, it can be understood why people may think gay women want to be men when looking in on the lesbian community, some lesbians prefer to express themselves and their sexuality through the way they dress and act; their short hair, masculine clothing, wearing no make-up and their macho

Gender and sexual orientation is a topic that has been and still today is not talked about in such a way it should be because of how society has chosen to structure and control it. Social stratification is a system in which groups of people are divided up into layers according to their relative privileges (power, property, and prestige). It’s a way of ranking large groups of people into a hierarchy according to their relative privileges (Vela-McConnell 2016). People, who deviate from the norm of the “accepted” gender and sexual orientation that society has placed upon us, are stratified below the norm of a dominating binary gender and sexual orientation. People who are queer face the struggle of mistreatment and an unaccepting society that has been socialized to see and act on gender and sexual orientation to being a dualistic system.