Compulsory Heterosexuality 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
Yes and No Adrienne Rich attacks heterosexuality as “a political institution which disempowers women” in her 1980 essay Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence (Rich 23). What most see as a traditional way of life, Rich views as a societal mandate that serves as “a beachhead of male dominance,” (Rich 28). For a woman in Virginia Woolf’s time, “the one profession that was open to her [was] marriage,” and though females entered the public sphere as the 20th century progressed, “single
that the institution of heterosexuality itself is a construct, or “a beachhead of male dominance” (p. 633), according to Adrienne Rich in her essay “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” (1980). From a feminist theoretical standpoint, humans develop sexuality as their gender identities develop: “our sexual desires, feelings, and preferences are deeply imprinted by our gender status” (Seidman, 2003, p. 18). This relates to Rich’s notion of compulsory heterosexuality - a facet of feminist
little-explored position from which to examine the strategies and tactics by which Edna attempts to establish a subjective identity.” (237) LeBlanc’s support for this analysis comes from a variety of sources including Adrienne Rich’s article “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Experience, Teresa de Lauretis’s, Monique Wittig’s and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s wor...
which women have been convinced that marriage and sexual orientation towards men are inevitable – even if unsatisfying or oppressive – components of their lives,” a concept known as “compulsory heterosexuality” (Rich 290-291, 289). In The Poisonwood Bible, Nathan Price enforces this view of compulsory heterosexuality, leading his daughters to believe that a woman’s only purpose in life is to become an obedient wife. He breaks down the power and independence of his daughters in an attempt to enforce
of Pennsylvania Press, 1987. Landry, Donna. “Mary leapor Laughs at the Fathers.” The Muses of Resistance: Laboring Class Women’s Poetry in Britain, 1739-1796. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. 78-119. Rich, Adrienne. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979-1985.” New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1986. Wahl, Elizabeth Susan. Invisible relations: Representations of Female Intimacy in the Age of Englightenment. Stanford:
the exploration of a sunken ship and the exploration of self’(54). Nevertheless it is the feminist side of Rich that provokes most discussion. Monica Fagan presents Rich’s belief in a kind of feminine bonding asserting that in her essay "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" Rich argues that whether or not girls and women desire physical genital contact with one another, friendship and camaraderie can fuse with eroticism to form an intimate bonding among them. Rich suggests that this
representation of heterosexuality and consequently I presumed everyone expressed the same sexuality. I became accustomed to seeing and experiencing heterosexuality as a norm, that when I moved to Chicago it was an eye opener to the ignorance, not only of my hometown, but western society as a whole regarding the reoccurring dominance of heterosexuality. Granted Indiana contains a controversial past and
This is 100% not true. Just because a child grew up in a homosexual household does not mean that it’ll become a homosexual. This theory relates directly back to the idea of Compulsory Heterosexuality. What is queer theory, and how did it emerge? How has it added to our understanding of sexual identity? Queer theory is a idea that says that our identity does not determine who we are. This has added to our understanding of sexual identity
Analysis of the Film Chasing Amy Chasing Amy is a movie that uncovers the hardships we find within the confusion of love and sex in our lives. Sometimes the line between love and sex seems almost invisible, but the differences and complications of understanding that are quite clear in this movie. The issues presented in Chasing Amy are directly related to the discussions of “Politics of Sexuality” as well as everyday life in our culture. Our culture, in contrast to Ancient Greece, uses sexuality
The Importance of Gender in Buffy, The Vampire Slayer What is gender? The answer to that is not so simple. “Gender is what culture makes out of the ‘raw material’ of biological sex,” (Unger and Crawford, 1995). Also, there is a difference between what is gender identity and what is a gender role; a difference which seems to be even more difficult to differentiate between than the words “gender” and “sex”. Media and other parts of our culture seem to believe they know the difference, yet up until
Though same-sex relationships have been a prominent aspect of many cultures almost since the beginning of time, there has historically been a significant taboo surrounding the phenomenon in the Western world. "From the Fourteenth Century on, Western Europe was gripped by a rabid and obsessive negative preoccupation with homosexuality as the most horrible of sins" (Boswell 262). The majority of people did not understand or accept the idea, and consequentially did not have an appropriate way of talking
The Challenges of Lesbian and Gay Youth This research paper is missing the works cited “The unprecedented growth of the gay community in recent history has transformed our culture and consciousness, creating radically new possibilities for people to ‘come out’ and live more openly as homosexuals”(Herdt 2). Before the 1969 Stonewall riot in New York, homosexuality was a taboo subject. Research concerning homosexuality emphasized the etiology, treatment, and psychological adjustment of homosexuals
It is undeniable that Andre Gide's The Immoralist, first published in 1902 in an edition of 300 copies, is at the very least, a novel predominantly dealing with Michel, the protagonist, and his search for his true authentic self amidst social and moral conventions and the subsequent consequences of deviating from these principles. It is also undeniable that it is a novel unfolding Michel's journey from a married heterosexual to a widowed homosexual. Throughout the novel Gide uses ambiguous homoerotic
In this essay I want to analyze the main character " Joss" from the novel Trumpet, written by Jackie Kay. Joss, actually born female, decides to live his life as a man, marries a woman and adopts a son. For the reader it is still and unanswered question whether Joss is to be considered a man or a woman. For this reason I want to have a closer look on Joss's actions and statements in the novel and sum up hints for being " typcally feminine" or " typically masculine". In this process I would also
Short Essay The article “The Invention of Homosexuality and Heterosexuality” addresses how homosexuality was invented and how society accepted this new form of sexual orientation. Homosexuality is more socially acceptable in modern times. However, dating back to the nineteen century homosexually was classified as a disease that had to be cured. In the nineteen century, homosexuals diverted from the “norm” thus, they were seen a disability. Mann and Susan Archer state that “Foucault argued that the
assigned and change it. The basic genders, male and female, are often associated with, but not limited to, certain roles. Sexuality is defined as the kind of person you 're attracted to and is usually limited to that person 's gender or sex. Heterosexuality is the most common sexual orientation, and thus something many people who weren 't heterosexual felt they should be throughout the ages. Gender and sexuality are very important to educate oneself on to not only respect the orientation of others
Nominated for three Academy Awards and winner of Best Original Song (IMDb, n.d), Monsters, Inc. is “well-liked by many” thus qualifying as an example of popular cinema (Storey, 2001). Produced by Pete Doctor and David Silverman, Monsters, Inc. tells the tale of two monsters, Mike and Sully, who both work at a utility company called Monsters, Inc(operated), where children’s screams are harvested as power. One night, Sully stayed late as a favor to Mike to finish his paperwork and noticed a door left
Sexuality and Discrimination Sex is one of the most central themes in society today, with generally everybody in the world, adults and children, either seeing it in the mass media or taking part in it, whether it be for their career, for reproductive reasons, or for pleasure. Because of its predominance, sexuality plays an important, if not the most important, role in social inequality, causing double standards, violence and internal self-worth issues for minorities. Factors such as pornography
people involved. The report by Alfred Kinsey in 1948, in his book “Being Homosexual”, was commented by Richard Isay, verbalizing that Kinsey and his co-workers for many years tried to find patients who had been indoctrinated from homosexuality to heterosexuality during many therapies. Inadvertently for them none of the cases gave an expected result. With these words he acknowledged that the statement that medicine is not the answer, which in its turn supports that homosexuality is not a mental condition