Well, not exactly. You know when you see a guy holding a girl’s hand in the hallway of a high school and everyone sees it and copies it? Or when a bunch of male jocks run through a break-away banner before a football game to the applause of an all-female cheerleading squad? Or even back in elementary school when you had to sit boy-girl-boy-girl in your desks so that there would be less giggling and whispering among same-sex friendships? Remember that? C.J. Pascoe in her book, Dude, You’re A Fag, describes these instances as a “heterosexualizing process.”
We have all heard many times in response to anti-gay aggression that being homosexual isn’t a choice; it is a set of desires that you are born with that come into play in the shaping of one’s sexual and personal identity. At the same time, many people are born with heterosexual attractions and couldn’t see themselves being able to conduct a sexual or emotional relationship with someone of the same sex. However, what Pascoe is suggesting is that from a very early age, the way that kids are taught to behave in school and the rituals that they are taught to perceive as normal have a distinctly heterosexual undertone, so that anything contradicting those norms would be considered averse to what is normal.
C.J. Pascoe says that she “Looks at school itself as an organizer of sexual practices, identities, and meanings. Beginning in elementary school, students participate in a ‘heterosexualizing process’ in which children present themselves as ‘normal’ boys or girls through discourses of heterosexuality” (Pascoe 26). What she means by this is that elementary school, middle school, and high school act as a playground for boys and girls monitored closely by the conventions of heterosexuality, and therefore contribute to the establishment of what it means to be masculine and feminine in the American high school.
Some of these discourses that Pascoe alludes to are things like the institution of the school dance and prom. The process
of asking a girl to a school dance for a boy is something that has been depicted and satirized in film, television, books, and magazines as a source of anxiety for the male, because if the female rejects his offering, then he is considered to be a failure in the heterosexual practices of high school culture. Similarly, if a girl is going to prom with a boy, she will spend sometimes as much as $500 total on a gown, shoes, bag, hair, nails, and makeup for herself, and a boutinier for her date (and this is not even including the limo!). In this scenario alone, countless hours of preparation are spent by the female to look like a pseudo-princess for her prince in his rented tuxedo. The couple simulates a bride and groom perched on the top of a cake as they pose for pictures in suburban backyards next to flowers or beside other couples whom they share their limo with. Everywhere one turns, there are constant reminders of couplings of boys and girls thought to be clean, attractive, and American.
The process of preparing for high school rituals of prom, homecoming, football games, and the reminder of everyone’s relationship status while just trying to walk to Math class are all part of American schools acting as a breeding ground for heterosexualizing. Pascoe mentions that this process then articulates the degrees of masculinity that males must abide by, and continue to prove by calling their friends “fag” or “gay.” The fact that any of those words would be considered an insult to a male drives home the idea that in high school, straight is what is normal and taught, and anything else doesn’t enter into the curriculum.
We have all heard many times in response to anti-gay aggression that being homosexual isn’t a choice; it is a set of desires that you are born with that come into play in the shaping of one’s sexual and personal identity. At the same time, many people are born with heterosexual attractions and couldn’t see themselves being able to conduct a sexual or emotional relationship with someone of the same sex. However, what Pascoe is suggesting is that from a very early age, the way that kids are taught to behave in school and the rituals that they are taught to perceive as normal have a distinctly heterosexual undertone, so that anything contradicting those norms would be considered averse to what is normal.
C.J. Pascoe says that she “Looks at school itself as an organizer of sexual practices, identities, and meanings. Beginning in elementary school, students participate in a ‘heterosexualizing process’ in which children present themselves as ‘normal’ boys or girls through discourses of heterosexuality” (Pascoe 26). What she means by this is that elementary school, middle school, and high school act as a playground for boys and girls monitored closely by the conventions of heterosexuality, and therefore contribute to the establishment of what it means to be masculine and feminine in the American high school.
Some of these discourses that Pascoe alludes to are things like the institution of the school dance and prom. The process
of asking a girl to a school dance for a boy is something that has been depicted and satirized in film, television, books, and magazines as a source of anxiety for the male, because if the female rejects his offering, then he is considered to be a failure in the heterosexual practices of high school culture. Similarly, if a girl is going to prom with a boy, she will spend sometimes as much as $500 total on a gown, shoes, bag, hair, nails, and makeup for herself, and a boutinier for her date (and this is not even including the limo!). In this scenario alone, countless hours of preparation are spent by the female to look like a pseudo-princess for her prince in his rented tuxedo. The couple simulates a bride and groom perched on the top of a cake as they pose for pictures in suburban backyards next to flowers or beside other couples whom they share their limo with. Everywhere one turns, there are constant reminders of couplings of boys and girls thought to be clean, attractive, and American.The process of preparing for high school rituals of prom, homecoming, football games, and the reminder of everyone’s relationship status while just trying to walk to Math class are all part of American schools acting as a breeding ground for heterosexualizing. Pascoe mentions that this process then articulates the degrees of masculinity that males must abide by, and continue to prove by calling their friends “fag” or “gay.” The fact that any of those words would be considered an insult to a male drives home the idea that in high school, straight is what is normal and taught, and anything else doesn’t enter into the curriculum.
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