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Simple for those to whom the marketing applies.
After learning about the term “heteronormativity”, it has quickly become my favourite term from queer theory. My favourite because it crosses my mind much more than other terms I’ve learned in university.
You’d be surprised at how infrequently the term “nitrification” comes up for how importatnt it is.
How do commerials marginalize a large group of people? What does heteronormativity mean? How do Bailey’s commercials play into this?
Find out by listening to the CultureCast above (by pressing the little blue play botton), or by clicking through and checking out the transcript and further sources.
Heteronormativity (CultureCast #044)
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Transcript
Hey CultureCats this is Joshua Hwang with another 90 Seconds to Culture podcast
Heteronormativity
Oh hey! Long time no see! How’s the girlfriend situation going?
Uhhh, yea about that. I’m actually gay.
We have a lot of implicit (and explicit) assumptions about the people around us, and one of the most pervasive is the assumption that everyone is heterosexual.
The term heteronormativity describes the assumption that heterosexual relationships are the norm thereby excluding or marginalizing non-heterosexual relationships. I say non-heterosexual because the categories are not just homo- and heterosexual but also include asexuality, polyamory and much more. This term, heteronormative, also encompasses the idea that men and women are two distinct and complementary parts, which each have natural roles.
An example of these ideas include the physically strong, dominant male pairing with the nurturing submissive female.
These roles are particularly apparent in alcohol commercials; off the top of my head, a Bailey’s commercial where the height of tension is where the male host suggestively looks at a spill on the chest of a female guest as if to wipe it off, thereby touching her breast. Hot.
In spite of these critiques, some believe heteronormativity is good for society: either because the male-female coupling is optimal for raising children or because non-heteronormative parenting disconnects parenthood from its biological basis.
Sources / Further Reading:
Wikipedia: Heteronormativity
Wikipedia: Boston marriage An interested term I’d never heard before.
Wikipedia: Queer Theory
[tags]heterosexual, homosexual, queer theory, philosophy, heteronormativity, culture, podcast[/tags]
(image from laverrue via Flickr)
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
These are the people I avoided in university. Assuming someone is heterosexual makes sense if 97% of people are heterosexual, just like it’s okay to ask me what I’m doing over Christmas because most people celebrate Christmas.
It’s one of many cases of not only turning a non-issue into an issue, but also a major.
Are you saying that 97% of people are heterosexual? Cuz that just ain’t right. I think that’s an example of heteronormative thinking right there..
I was kind of hoping more people would reply to Adeel’s comment, then I went AWOL. So here is my late reply.
I think assuming that someone is heterosexual is innocent enough. People assume very frequently that I am Chinese, because most people with black hair and these sorts of eyes are Chinese. Yeah it’s a numbers game.
More fundamentally, is it important to assume that I am Chinese? Is it so hard to remember that there are other groups of people?
More important is happens when you assume everyone is Chinese, or say Indian, when they may be in fact Korean or Pakistani.
In some ways this can be an afront to people’s identities. It is not so hard to imagine that I see myself as Korean and that Korean-ness carries with it some cultural heritage that I see as important. If not cultural heritage, there is something important in one’s identity that is tied tightly to sexuality.
One more thing, the idea of alienation is very important to me. If we are living in a society that is so far removed from who we are, it can make things seem very lonely at times.
And I am very sure that heterosexual people make up much less than 97% of the general population. Actually, the number itself is not the important issue though. People who make up 3% of the population do not deserve less than those who make up 6%.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1875032,00.html
Seemed topical.
TJ, what percentage of people do you think are gay? Five percent? Ten? Twenty? The old cliche we heard in school was 10%, but Alfred Kinsey got that by interviewing prisoners. From recent surveys, you’ll see that six percent of Britons say they’re gay, four percent of Americans and, somehow, 1 percent of Canadians.
Heteronormativity can be alienating to anyone along the entire spectrum of sexuality.
Even as a heterosexual individual, I am frequently confronted with and alienated by representations of gender identities and gender relations - toy stores, magazine racks, beer ads, cleaning product commercials, etc.
What is at stake is that imagining even the possibility of a non-heteronormative self- or societal-concept seems to be extremely difficult in these representations (and in many other manifestations), and it is worrisome to see this concept belittled into a matter of percentage.
another problem with heteronormative thinking is that it is self-perpetuating. If people are raised to think that heterosexual, monogamous, gender binary relationships are normal or even worse, natural, they will see that as their only option and struggle to make a lifestyle fit to them that doesn’t really fit. How many people do you think would be in a queer (meaning non-heteronormative, not just homosexual) relationship if they weren’t raised to think people could only love each other in a certain way? Adeel, remember that just because something works for YOU doesn’t mean it works for EVERYONE. I don’t know how many queer folks you are in regular contact with. You may not even know yourself. Just keep that in mind the next time you assume something about someone’s sexuality.