In the movie "but i'm a cheerleader" normal femininity was portrayed as girls who like to kiss hot guys and put pictures of guys in their lockers. It was very black or white and nothing inbetween. The main character was a girl who never thought of herself as a lesbian, but was confused because she didnt fall into the norms of what women are expected to do and enjoy. All of a sudden she confronts an intervention and gets sent to a sort of homosexual camp. This movie clearly brings up the intersection between gender and sexual identity.
Girls are tought that they have to do girly stuff, and they have to like guys, and they like to kiss guys etc.. But then this brings up a problem because then there are examples of girls who are clearly girls, but dont like guys, and doing girly stuff. Then what? this raises alot of confusion. I think this has been a huge problem for alot of people. This movie shows a sort of camp that homosexuals go do and they can learn to to become heterosexuals. To me this really shows how society views homosexuality, they really don't understand it, and because we dont understand it we cannot associate with what goes through thier minds,a nd some people think that it has to be changed, or that it CAN indeed change. There is a clear problem with the gender binary we have, and sexual identitiy because the moemnt you dont fall into a specific category it messes everything else up. After a couple of weeks in the camp the main character begins to understand her sexuality, and she starts of open her eyes to the whole world of being a lesbian. This doesnt happen until she meets people that are just like her, and who also dont fall into the social norm. This illustrates the problem. If we were to remove the fact that women are supposed to like guys, and are supposed to be nuturing and the whole social construction of it all, i belive that it could eventually help alot of people in that there are specific guidelines for men and for woment, because clearly the guidelines have way too many exceptions.
1 comment:
great discussion. isn't it interesting how sexual orientation is limited by both norms about sexuality AND norms about gender, despite the fact that in practice, the two are often not linked?
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