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Heteronormativity and Gender Roles
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Heteronormativity and Gender Roles
Through the ideology of “normal,” Berlant and Warner argue that heterosexuality becomes not only coherent but also privileged and thus “projected as an ideal or moral accomplishment” (548).
Connections to Queer Studies and Gender Studies
“A number of queer theorists, for example, adopted the deconstructive mode of dismantling the key binary oppositions of Western culture, such as male/female, heterosexual/homosexual, and natural/unnatural, by which a spectrum of diverse things is forced into only two categories, and in which the first category is assigned prividege, power, and centrality, while the second is derograted, subordinated, and marginalized. …Adrienne Rich posited what she called the “lesbian continuum” as a way of stressing how far-ranging and diverse is the spectrum of love and bonding among women, including female friendships, the family relationship between mother and daughter, and women’s partnerships and social groups, as well as overtly physical same-sex relationships. Later theorists such as Eve Sedgwick and Judith Butler undertook to invert the standard hierarchical opposition by which homosexuality is marginalized and made unnatural, by stressing the extent to which the ostensible normativity of heterosexuality is based on the suppression and denial of same-sex desires and relationships.
M.H. Abrams “A Glossary of Literary Terms, 8th ed.”
Is sexuality or gender policed in some way in the text?
What activities or identities get assimilated into a heteronormative explanation?
Does assimilation operate to promote acceptance or deny existence?
Is a "natural" state of gender or sexuality portrayed or proscribed in this text?
Who determines this “natural” state?
Is standard gender identity or heterosexuality somehow linked to morality? to coherence or unity?