Compulsory Heterosexuality

426 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Compulsory heterosexuality by adrienne rich analysis

The way people in the LGBT community are looked at is that they are looked at as nothing but abnormal people and are treated like they’re not even human. In this case, lesbians are seen in this harsh way in the eyes of some males because they would think that these women are only saying that to turn them down. While reading Adrienne Rich’s article “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence”, I saw how she points out how there are some males who would force themselves on women and how there are lesbians who would still go out with a man even though they don’t like them in that way. What Adrienne specifically said is: Some of the forms by which male power manifests itself are more easily recognizable as enforcing heterosexuality on women

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Ann Aldrich's 'We Walk Alone'

    717 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is often found that the stereotypical “butch” and “femme” pairing are more visible than other lesbian relationships. However, this does not mean that they do not exist. The ever-growing popularity of the lesbian social sphere has symbolized both difficulties and effects of identifying with such a label. The label or identity itself, though distinctly separating lesbians from “normal” heterosexuals begins to exhibit pre-existing conflict experienced by gay males: “there’s always been something wrong (Aldrich, 38).” This quote implies the conditioned and ingrained belief that homosexuality’s “taboo” existence was more than just wrong, but distasteful and something that society should look down upon for being an “abnormality.” Sometimes, this social reality for lesbians made it hard for them to “come out the closet” and be visible. This experience is exemplified as “The repressed lesbian has a harder time of it, for she is less aware of her abnormality (Aldrich, 41).” Additionally, to be able to clearly and accurately identify “the lesbian is to meet the many women she is at close range; to see her against her various backgrounds, hear her sundry voices, and familiarize yourself with the diverse facades of her several lives (Aldrich, 42).” Here, the presence of the “double life” is demonstrated to further analyze the lack of privileges that the lesbian community had, including the social aspect of their

    Read More

  • Power, Control and the Cycle of Domestic Violence

    1958 Words  | 4 Pages

    Domestic violence has been plaguing our society for years. There are many abusive relationships, and the only question to ask is: why? The main answer is control. The controlling characteristic that males attribute to their masculinity is the cause to these abusive relationships. When males don’t have control they feel their masculinity is threatened and they need to do something about it. This doesn’t occur in just their relationships, but rather every facet of life. Men are constantly in a struggle for power and control whether it is at work, home, during sports, or in a relationship, this remains true. So the only way for them to get this power is for them to be “men”; tough, strong, masculine, ones that demand and take power. Where is this thirst for control coming from? Is it the natural structure of a man or is it a social construct? The answer is that it’s the social construction of a patriarchy that results in this thirst for control due to fear. The fear is being emasculated, whether it is by gayness, or femininity. Men use the fear created from domestic violence to gain control, but yet women do have some control in a relationship it is this vague boundary of how much control that leads to domestic violence.

    Read More

  • Masculinity In American Culture Essay

    704 Words  | 2 Pages

    Embracing masculinity is not just an act to show power and gain respect, it is also a way

    Read More

  • Exploring Gender Inequality: Interactional and Institutional Perspectives

    1211 Words  | 3 Pages

    Cultural norms and expectations are partially constructed on assumptions of opposition between the sexes and genders. Sex and gender are measured on a binary scale, and culturally accepted behavior and sanctioned activities often reflect the sexual division of labor. The sexual division of labor assigns sex roles based on the differences in biology and anatomy of the two sexes. The sexual division of labor favors masculine over feminine traits. The sex roles created are adopted and reproduced in gender roles that reflect cultural expectations. These cultural expectations and norms reflect a preference for masculinity and legitimize the dominance of men in institutions and

    Read More

  • Biphobia In The LGBT Community

    1347 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Bisexual women have reported that tensions are more pronounced in lesbian spaces than in LGBT communities and that they can be covert and hidden rather than explicit, therefore difficult to identify or pin down” (qtd. in Hayfield 5). Lesbians have been found to be especially skeptical of bisexuals because they believe that they are just experimenting and will go back to being heterosexual after their experimental phase. From a study, lesbians came reporting with “anger, hate or mistrust towards bisexual women and preferring not be politically or socially associated with them” (Hayfield 4). Some lesbians outright refuse to date bisexual women, because they are afraid that they will later on cheat or leave them for a man. Some lesbians will date bisexual women as long as they’ve never been with a man before, because in their minds, women who have been with men are dirty and are tainted. It is also a belief among some lesbians that bisexual women are only saying they are bisexual in order to please heterosexual males. The belief that bisexuality isn’t a real and valid sexuality is most prevalent in the lesbian community. They often believe that these women are being “greedy” and “need to pick a

    Read More

  • Heterosexuality And Homosexuality

    613 Words  | 2 Pages

    Freud's most important articles on homosexuality were written between 1905, when he published Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, and 1922, when he published "Certain Neurotic Mechanisms in Jealousy, Paranoia, and Homosexuality."[1] Freud believed that all humans were bisexual, by which he primarily meant that everyone incorporates aspects of both sexes, and that everyone is sexually attracted to both sexes. In his view, this was true anatomically and therefore also mentally and psychologically. Heterosexuality and homosexuality both developed from this original bisexual disposition.[2] As one of the causes of homosexuality Freud mentions the distressing heterosexual experience: "Those cases are of particular interest in which the libido changes over to an inverted sexual object after a distressing experience with a normal one."[3]

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis Of Pride

    1356 Words  | 3 Pages

    Queer theory also has to be taken into consideration when discussing the need for a safe space within the film. While safe spaces are important for women in general, they are also needed for gay identifying women as they often face multiple forms of oppression. Lesbians face not only the discrimination of being female, but also from being non-heterosexual. This includes violence, abuse and the small privilege women have is also now removed due to it being granted by male relationships which lesbians reject. (Lesbians in Revolt, no

    Read More

  • Compulsory Heterosexuality

    4128 Words  | 9 Pages

    In today’s world, as humankind is still in progress, we have a much more liberated world compared to past. In terms of politics, we learned discrimination is not a honourable case to be involved in and we tried to minimize constraints reflected on “other” races, “other” nationalities, in short all of the others that are not similar to “us”. “Us” is, without doubt, white, Western man. Despite all the back-drawed prejudices of others in the name of liberation, respect and equality, it does not seem to be the situation for non-heteronormatives to live in a peaceful environment. Since I came to Amsterdam as an exchange student this term, I had the opportunity to experience daily-life with all the people from different sexes, genders not considered “normal” which is rarely the case in Turkey. Amsterdam made me face non-heterosexual world and I realized that these people do suffer from unequal rights mostly in other parts of the world. I questioned myself as being far away from that topic in the past and it really made sense to me to investigate about supremacy of heterosexuals.

    Read More

  • Patricia Hill Collins Analysis

    527 Words  | 2 Pages

    Patricia Hill Collins outlines the existence of three different dimensions of gender oppression: institutional, symbolic, and individual. The institutional dimension consists of systemic relationship of domination structured through social institutions, such as government, the workplace or education institutions. In other words, this dimension explains “who has the power”. This is completely related to a patriarchal society. Patriarchy is the manifestation and institutionalism of male dominance. This means that men hold power in all institutions, while women are denied the access to this power. The symbolic dimension of oppression is based on widespread socially sanctioned ideologies used to justify relations of domination. It reflects inequality

    Read More

  • Gender Observation Reflection Paper

    992 Words  | 2 Pages

    As soon as I entered, I went to an ice cream store and as I was waiting in line I began to notice the gender roles. One observation I made was a couple standing in front of me. A man stood tall in front of me with an arm wrapped around, what I assumed, his wife. I took this stance as a position of dominance and power. After they ordered and their ice cream was made, he paid. Again many masculine men like to see that paying, rather than letting the miss pay, shows power. Next, I went to the food court. I sat down and looked at the different groups around me. First, there was a fast food restaurant. When I looked inside, I noticed that all the cashiers were women and all the cooks but one were men. This shows perhaps the different gender roles that men do the hard and heavy work while the women do the serving and tilling. In line, I noticed many men paying for the meal, especially if they came with a partner. At the tables, I noticed that many men sat and the women would bring the food and as they left the women would completely clean up the table. This resembles how woman would serve the food and clean up after their husband and

    Read More

  • Thesis About Masculinity

    1318 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the past, men were considered to be the dominant power in relationships. Men were expected to provide for the family both financially and in terms of protection. They were the power that made the decisions and had the final word. Whilst this expectation is no longer favored in the general public, there is almost this unspoken assumption that men are still responsible for these tasks. It is what a “real” man would do. In this society “manhood is equated with power.” (106) This power is not only limited to relationships and extends to other aspects such as property, money, influence etc. In some cultures, property, money and influence are attained through dowries which are paid by a woman’s family in order for that same woman to be married to a man. Victoria Brownsworth would argue that “marriage is an unnatural state predicated on the dominance of one partner over another.” Masculinity boasts of power and dominance in a society that fights for equal rights for all. When power is a prerequisite for someone to be considered masculine, homosexuals will not be able to fit under that category because of the fact they are part of a minority that is not yet empowered. There are very few homosexual people who have had that kind of power such as politician Harvey Milk and Apple CEO Tim Cook, however “manly” is often not an adjective used to describe these two influential figures. Masculinity applies only to straight men despite any and all characteristic that a gay man may have to fulfill what a normal man would say is

    Read More

  • PATRIARCHY: GENDER IDENTITY AND WOMAN SUBJECT

    828 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Patriarchy is a political-social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence.” Bell Hooks.

    Read More

  • How Sexuality is Socially Constructed

    2048 Words  | 5 Pages

    As Tamsin Wilton explains in her piece, “Which One’s the Man? The Heterosexualisation of Lesbian Sex,” society has fronted that heterosexuality, or desire for the opposite sex, is the norm. However, the reason behind why this is the case is left out. Rather, Wilton claims that “heterosexual desire is [an] eroticised power difference [because] heterosexual desire originates in the power relationship between men and women” (161). This social struggle for power forces the majority of individuals into male-female based relationships because most women are unable to overcome the oppressive cycle society has led them into. Whereas heterosexual relationships are made up of the male (the oppressor) and the female (the victim who is unable to fight against the oppressor), homosexual relationships involve two or more individuals that have been freed from their oppressor-oppressed roles.

    Read More

  • Heterosexuality And Homosexuality

    1115 Words  | 3 Pages

    The concept of sexual orientation, which is a person’s romantic and emotional attraction to another person, is a modern sociological construct (Macionis, Jansson, Benoit, & Burkowicz, p. 190, 2016). The predominant classifications of this concept are heterosexuality, meaning the sexual attraction to someone of the opposite sex, and homosexuality, the sexual attraction to someone of the same sex (Macionis et. al., p. 190, 2016). With the large majority of society’s acknowledgment towards these two sexual identities, it leaves little to no room for those who find themselves in neither ends of these categories, to receive any sort of recognition. More specifically, the visibility for those who establish themselves as bisexual, defined as the sexual attraction to people of both genders, face misconceptions from a portion of society (Macionis et. al., p. 190, 2016). Whether it may be from heterosexuals or homosexuals, someone who falls in between the two identities seem to encounter greater difficulties in gaining social acceptance. Despite having its place in the term, LGBTQ, which is an abbreviation for the community of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and people of other sexual orientations and

    Read More

  • Argumentative Essay On Gender Equality

    1641 Words  | 4 Pages

    men and women actually believe that some lesbians or some feminists absolutely hate men and

    Read More

More about Compulsory Heterosexuality

Open Document