Gender, Sexuality and Emotion

The Genderbread Person

Hochschild: Emotion Work Emotion Work: the management of one’s own feelings in an effort to maintain the well being of a relationship. Also involves the orientation of self to others to fit with accepted norms of emotional expression. Types Evoking emotion Suppressing emotion Techniques Cognitive Bodily Emotion Emotion Labor: The same as emotional labor but rather emotions are regulated by workers because of expectations to display certain emotions as part of their job Feeling Rules: “fake it till you make it” Men need to be strong, brave and macho Women need to be happy and perky You know you have the correct or incorrect emotions by how others react to you Examples: showing affection, apologizing after an argument, making sure the home runs smoothly Emotion work See wonser’s blog

Hochschild: Emotion Work Answer: 1: Feeling rules 2: original emotion labor was done on airplane stewardesses. 3: distant father = emotion work, because that’s what fathers should be, emotionally distant Emotion work See wonser’s blog What types of emotion work do these represent?

Goffman: Gender Display Main Ideas Gender is a collective performance “Gender Advertisements” The outward depiction of gender is maintained through the way it is expressed Argued advertisements do not look strange to us when they should. They take something that exists already in the world and change it, forming a distorted reflection Gendered relations and roles of femininity and masculinity are learned through advertisements* “The Arrangement between the Sexes” Often gender performances are framed as coming from within an individual but Goffman believed: Social spaces and relations are gendered in ways that produce gendered performance (not the other way around) Social interactions, spaces and institutions have been constructed in ways that highlight gender differences What is the problem with with learning gender through advertisements? Answer: if advertisements are giving you a distorted reflection of how to express gender, then if you learn gender from the advertisements then you are learning distorted expressions of gender Doing gender and emotion and gender displays See wonser’s blog Anecdotes: *Goffman’s Restrooms: sex segrigation in public restrooms creates gendered differences. There are no urinals in most home restaurants

Heterosexism vs. Heteronormativity Heterosexism: the belief that heterosexuality is normal and the norm Often considered the norm and thus superior Heteronormativity: the social setting that normalizes heterosexuality Popularized in 1991 when the term was used in one of the first major queer theory publications Involves the alignment of biological sex, sexuality, gender identity gender roles and gendered expression What ways are heterosexuality displayed to others? If these displays don’t mesh with what observers perceive their gender to be, how could this be perceived as disturbing? Answer: Through emotions, feelings and actions

Homophobia Homophobia: the negative attitudes and feelings toward individuals who identify or are perceived as being homosexual, bisexual or transgendered Overt Hate crimes / violence Covert Discrimination through hiring practices* Internalized homophobia: negative stereotypes, beliefs, stigmas and prejudices about homosexuality that people with same-sex attractions turn inward toward themselves Feels the need to promote or confirm to cultural expectations of heteronormativity or heterosexism Repression of emotions Forced outward displays of heteronormative behavior to appear “normal” and be “accepted” Making assumptions about a persons romantic partner or gender role * In 1991 Cracker Barrel restaurant fired an employee who did not repersent the company’s values of being engaged in a heteronormative relationship

Queer Theory Queer Theory: “Because the logic of the sexual order is so deeply embedded by now in an indescribably wide range of social intuitions, and is embedded in the most standard accounts of the world, queer struggles aim not just at toleration of equal status but at challenging those intuitions and accounts. The drawing realization that themes of homophobia and heterosexism may be read in almost any document of our culture means that we are only beginning to have an idea of how widespread those intuitions and accounts are” – Michael Warner* Views gender categories as not fixed, unable to be categorized and labeled Focuses on a critique of social boundaries and the mechanisms that produce them Normative vs. deviant behavior *Because queer theory circumvents (goes around) categorical definitions it is difficult to properly define it Queer theory’s assertation that no sexuality is normal

Kinsey’s Sexual Spectrum The Kinsey Scale Developed in 1948 to account for research showing that people did not fit into neat and exclusive heterosexual and homosexual categories – many individuals reported their sexual behavior and attractions somewhere in between The spectrum 0 - exclusively heterosexual with no experience or desire for sexual activity with the same sex 6 - exclusively homosexual with no experience with or desire for sexual activity with those of the opposite sex 1-5 - identify themselves with varying levels of desire or sexual activity e.g.: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/07/20/sex-statistics-who-does-it-the-most.html, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/26/it-s-high-time-for-conception-studies-show-peak-times-weather-for-sex.html, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/fashion/sex-on-the-brain-studied.html?_r=0, http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/04/homophobic_maybe_you_re_gay_the_new_york_times_on_a_new_study_of_secret_sexuality_.html), a note of caution. 

Kinsey’s Sexual Spectrum Data Men: Nearly 46% of the male population has engaged in both heterosexual and homosexual activities, or “reacted to” persons of both sexes in the course of their adult lives 0% American males were more or less exclusively homosexual for at least 3 years between the ages of 16 and 55 (range of 5-6) Women: Kinsey found only a very small portion of females with exclusively homosexual histories 14% of females aged 20-35 had more than incidental homosexual experiences in their histories 7% of single females aged 20-35 and 4% of previously married females aged 20-35 were given a rating of 3 for this period of their lives* 2-5% of females aged 20-35 were given a rating of 5 1-3% of unmarried females aged 20-35 were rated as 6 Hardly anyone scores a 0 on the Kinsey Sexual spectrum * A 3 is about equal parts heterosexual and homosexual experiences / responses e.g.: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/07/20/sex-statistics-who-does-it-the-most.html, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/26/it-s-high-time-for-conception-studies-show-peak-times-weather-for-sex.html, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/fashion/sex-on-the-brain-studied.html?_r=0, http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/04/homophobic_maybe_you_re_gay_the_new_york_times_on_a_new_study_of_secret_sexuality_.html), a note of caution. 

Behaviors How are each of these behaviors related to our discussion on gender, sexuality and emotion? Sexting Phone calls when dating Hardcore female sports fans Male and female friendship sans sexual attraction Men publicly crying A customer service representative dealing with returns after the holidays A same sex couple visiting family for the holidays under the guise of best friends _______________________________________________________________________ Key concepts to consider: Moral panic Emotion work Emotion labor Feeling rules Sexting: sexting doesn't happen in isolation or necessarily 'lead to' real-world sex, but rather the new technology i merely being used to do old things. Over hyped resulting in moral panic Phone calls when dating Harcore female sports fans Male and female friendships sans sexual attraction Men publicly crying Heterosexism Heteronormativity Homophobia