Heteronormativity Letter
Greetings, ladies and gentlemen.
Not long after getting to know somebody, I like to engage in a little sociological sporting. It does provide a mild shock to the co-participant, but it is, in the end, mostly harmless. I feel I have spent enough time in this class to spill my pseudo-secret.
I am a long-time active member, and former officer, in a college sorority.
The reaction I receive varies, but the theme typically involves disbelief. Some think they’ve misheard me; others have actually “corrected” me by claiming I’m in a fraternity. Regardless, I don a smile and assert the love I have for my Sisterhood. After I clarify off-hand that my particular chapter is co-ed (as if my facial hair, deep voice, and pronounced adam’s apple didn’t provide enough evidence), my conversant usually relaxes.
I use my status as a “Mister Sister” to illustrate a bias that social scientists call “heteronormativity,” which is fancy-speak for “this is how society expects males and females to behave, and that ideal is what we should strain to attain.” I have been both a victim and a perpetrator of this cousin to prejudice, and every time I notice it in action I stop and wonder, “Why?” The most readily available answer is that we live in a society that likes to know its men are Men and its women are Women.
As individuals, of course, each of us has had our own unique experiences that shape who we are. To expect someone to match society’s prescription for the perfect woman or man would invite disappointment. In fact, such expectations can cause more harm than good.
A prominent by-product of the strive toward heteronormative identity has been the steady increase in the unrealistic evaluation of one’s appearance. Although girls and women are the most talked-about victims of media’s supersaturation of hypersexualized visuals, image issues among males have increased over recent decades. Alongside the increasingly unrealistic proportions of Barbie through the generations, action figures such as GI Joe have not only gained muscle definition, but bulked up immensely (the average chest sized increased by 129%, and the biceps gained more than twice as much mass).
This idealization of body types likely had a huge hand in the increase of eating disorders, especially binge eating and improper dieting, among males: the average ratio of men and women with eating disorders was once believed to be around 1:10, but some recent findings point to a figure closer to 1:6.
The desire to look like bone-figured lingerie models or ripped and rugged action heroes is only part of heteronormativity’s vice-grip on our society. Much of it is related to behavior or, as stated earlier, expectations of behavior. How one spends their time or what jobs they choose to go into often carries heavily gendered social perceptions. Take, for instance, video games; before this current generation of home consoles in particular, video games have been considered the domain of the male population. Even though females’ participation in this pastime is constantly rising, a woman who plays video games is not a gamer but a “girl gamer.” Compare that to “nanny”; one can hardly avoid calling a man with that job a “male nanny” because of the occupation’s highly feminine connotations.
Both the gamer and the nanny are marked as much by their sex as their activity. Drawing attention to one’s gender in a non-normative position not only redirects focus from the person’s position to the person’s sex, but denies recognition of their demonstrated talent on its own merits.
Finally, I would be remiss in my discussion of heteronormativity if I neglected to address the subject of homophobia. While homophobia and heteronormativity are by no means one and the same, the bonds between them are inherently linked. Of the things I’ve talked about so far, homophobia is the most damaging weapon to wield against someone unsure of their masculinity or femininity, as it can shut down the will to be an individual in favor of group acceptance. Even the colloquial use of the word “gay” as a synonym for “stupid” or “wrong” is evidence of the social assertion that homosexuality is something to be corrected or changed.
My ultimate problem with heteronormativity is the rigidity of its prescriptions for womanhood and manhood. As heteronormativity says “you are a woman, so you should desire men,” homophobia says “you are a woman who desires other women, so I won’t respect you as a person.” An extension to this reasoning, which ties the two concepts together, is the still-too-commonplace act of baiting.
I am most familiar with the tactic by way of feminist politics, such as when feminist women are labeled as “man-hating” and/or “lesbian” by their opponents. I have also witnessed baiting during a research session in a Newton computer lab, where two male occupants called into question an absent man’s sexuality for nothing more than his interest in writing poetry by the campus lakes. Such suggestions do more than implant potentially false attributes onto someone who acts outside a cultural norm; they distill entire groups of people down to strands of commonality, turning them from individuals with similarities into stereotypes and categories.
As much as we have been told growing up – by parents and peers, movies and after-school specials – that we should be independent-minded people who don’t need to concern ourselves with the opinions of others, social reality makes achieving such self-confidence difficult. In order to progress as a society, we must realize that heteronormativity amounts to little more than large-scale peer pressure. It tries to hinder our individuality and bury our birthright to be more than what everyone else wants us to be.
I hesitate to presume but most, if not all, of you reading this letter seem to be comfortable with your own individual levels of maleness and femaleness. But for those of you who know someone struggling with their gender identity, or someone who constantly questions others of theirs, let them know that not only is it okay to transgress gender norms in order to be true to yourself, but it may be absolutely imperative to do so. Tell them what I urge you now – enjoy what you enjoy, and let no one persuade you to stop. Love who you love, and let no opinion force you to hide it. Reach for your goal, and let neither man nor woman hold you back, because you have the right to be comfortable with the person you are.
Sincerely,
Clark
Not long after getting to know somebody, I like to engage in a little sociological sporting. It does provide a mild shock to the co-participant, but it is, in the end, mostly harmless. I feel I have spent enough time in this class to spill my pseudo-secret.
I am a long-time active member, and former officer, in a college sorority.
The reaction I receive varies, but the theme typically involves disbelief. Some think they’ve misheard me; others have actually “corrected” me by claiming I’m in a fraternity. Regardless, I don a smile and assert the love I have for my Sisterhood. After I clarify off-hand that my particular chapter is co-ed (as if my facial hair, deep voice, and pronounced adam’s apple didn’t provide enough evidence), my conversant usually relaxes.
I use my status as a “Mister Sister” to illustrate a bias that social scientists call “heteronormativity,” which is fancy-speak for “this is how society expects males and females to behave, and that ideal is what we should strain to attain.” I have been both a victim and a perpetrator of this cousin to prejudice, and every time I notice it in action I stop and wonder, “Why?” The most readily available answer is that we live in a society that likes to know its men are Men and its women are Women.
As individuals, of course, each of us has had our own unique experiences that shape who we are. To expect someone to match society’s prescription for the perfect woman or man would invite disappointment. In fact, such expectations can cause more harm than good.
A prominent by-product of the strive toward heteronormative identity has been the steady increase in the unrealistic evaluation of one’s appearance. Although girls and women are the most talked-about victims of media’s supersaturation of hypersexualized visuals, image issues among males have increased over recent decades. Alongside the increasingly unrealistic proportions of Barbie through the generations, action figures such as GI Joe have not only gained muscle definition, but bulked up immensely (the average chest sized increased by 129%, and the biceps gained more than twice as much mass).
This idealization of body types likely had a huge hand in the increase of eating disorders, especially binge eating and improper dieting, among males: the average ratio of men and women with eating disorders was once believed to be around 1:10, but some recent findings point to a figure closer to 1:6.
The desire to look like bone-figured lingerie models or ripped and rugged action heroes is only part of heteronormativity’s vice-grip on our society. Much of it is related to behavior or, as stated earlier, expectations of behavior. How one spends their time or what jobs they choose to go into often carries heavily gendered social perceptions. Take, for instance, video games; before this current generation of home consoles in particular, video games have been considered the domain of the male population. Even though females’ participation in this pastime is constantly rising, a woman who plays video games is not a gamer but a “girl gamer.” Compare that to “nanny”; one can hardly avoid calling a man with that job a “male nanny” because of the occupation’s highly feminine connotations.
Both the gamer and the nanny are marked as much by their sex as their activity. Drawing attention to one’s gender in a non-normative position not only redirects focus from the person’s position to the person’s sex, but denies recognition of their demonstrated talent on its own merits.
Finally, I would be remiss in my discussion of heteronormativity if I neglected to address the subject of homophobia. While homophobia and heteronormativity are by no means one and the same, the bonds between them are inherently linked. Of the things I’ve talked about so far, homophobia is the most damaging weapon to wield against someone unsure of their masculinity or femininity, as it can shut down the will to be an individual in favor of group acceptance. Even the colloquial use of the word “gay” as a synonym for “stupid” or “wrong” is evidence of the social assertion that homosexuality is something to be corrected or changed.
My ultimate problem with heteronormativity is the rigidity of its prescriptions for womanhood and manhood. As heteronormativity says “you are a woman, so you should desire men,” homophobia says “you are a woman who desires other women, so I won’t respect you as a person.” An extension to this reasoning, which ties the two concepts together, is the still-too-commonplace act of baiting.
I am most familiar with the tactic by way of feminist politics, such as when feminist women are labeled as “man-hating” and/or “lesbian” by their opponents. I have also witnessed baiting during a research session in a Newton computer lab, where two male occupants called into question an absent man’s sexuality for nothing more than his interest in writing poetry by the campus lakes. Such suggestions do more than implant potentially false attributes onto someone who acts outside a cultural norm; they distill entire groups of people down to strands of commonality, turning them from individuals with similarities into stereotypes and categories.
As much as we have been told growing up – by parents and peers, movies and after-school specials – that we should be independent-minded people who don’t need to concern ourselves with the opinions of others, social reality makes achieving such self-confidence difficult. In order to progress as a society, we must realize that heteronormativity amounts to little more than large-scale peer pressure. It tries to hinder our individuality and bury our birthright to be more than what everyone else wants us to be.
I hesitate to presume but most, if not all, of you reading this letter seem to be comfortable with your own individual levels of maleness and femaleness. But for those of you who know someone struggling with their gender identity, or someone who constantly questions others of theirs, let them know that not only is it okay to transgress gender norms in order to be true to yourself, but it may be absolutely imperative to do so. Tell them what I urge you now – enjoy what you enjoy, and let no one persuade you to stop. Love who you love, and let no opinion force you to hide it. Reach for your goal, and let neither man nor woman hold you back, because you have the right to be comfortable with the person you are.
Sincerely,
Clark