Heteronormativity
Heteronormativity describes a worldview that postulates heterosexuality as a social norm . It is based on a binary gender order in which anatomical / biological gender is equated with gender identity , gender role and sexual orientation . The heteronormative gender model is based on a dual division into men and women , whereby it is taken for granted that heterosexual development is envisaged and thus corresponds to "normal" behavior - other aspects of human sexuality are often pathologized . This allows homophobia and other forms of social enmity associated.
The concept of heteronormativity is central to queer theory , which questions the naturalization and privilege of heterosexuality and bisexuality.
etymology
The English term heteronormativity was coined in 1991 by Michael Warner in his article Introduction: Fear of a Queer Planet to describe a system of behaviors and social expectations built around the idea that everyone is or should be heterosexual and all relationships and all families follow this model. The basis of the concept lies in Gayle Rubin's thoughts on the sex / gender system and in Adrienne Rich's thoughts on compulsory heterosexuality from 1980.
The German term has been used since 1995 at the latest.
system
In heteronormative societies, a normative primacy is derived from the biologically predominant bisexual order and the associated rejection of the difference between "sex and gender " for all those people who strive for an opposite-sex partnership or who already live in one, i.e. who live or want to live heterosexually . Behavioral patterns that deviate from this are discredited and labeled as unnatural.
The heteronormativity thus permeates all essential social and cultural areas, as well as the subjects themselves. The healthy physicality is defined heterosexually, also when considering and describing other cultures. These approaches often serve to delegitimize other forms of healthy sexual development with equal rights (such as homosexuality ) and are often used as a reason to glorify and play down violence or systematic discrimination against the antagonized population groups.
Judith Butler coined the term heterosexual matrix for the associated harmonization of biological anatomy , gender and heterosexuality, which characterizes the gender discourse performatively .
Sexual characteristics | Gender identity | behavior | Sexual orientation | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Women | Female | Female | Female | androphil (desire male partners) |
Men | male | male | male | gynophile (desire female partners) |
Practical implications
The equation of biological gender, gender identity, gender role and sexual orientation has in practice considerable effects for those people who do not agree in all of these categories.
In practice, a heteronormative society assumes that an unspecified individual of a certain gender will or should show certain behaviors. Upbringing is also interpreted accordingly.
Boys, for example, are expected to be interested in girls from a certain age onwards and to take on otherwise stereotypically male role models . Therefore, boys are often only given role models that correspond to social expectations. This often goes hand in hand with a glorification and normalization of machismo . Homosexual boys who are not interested in girls are often disciplined or even attacked. Other deviations too, e.g. B. Boys who want to play with dolls are seen as undesirable and in need of correction.
This leads to the fact that those affected experience their own feelings as deviating from the expectations of society, often combined with a feeling of otherness and loneliness. For those affected, an active intellectual step is necessary in order to emancipate themselves from social expectations (see also coming out ).
See also
literature
- Judith Butler : Body of Weight
- Dag Øistein Endsjø: Sex and Religion. Teachings and Taboos in the History of World Faiths . Reaction Books, London 2011.
- Michel Foucault : Sexuality and Truth
- Jutta Hartmann u. a. (Ed.): Heteronormativity. Empirical studies on gender, sexuality and power (= Studies on Interdisciplinary Gender Research. Volume 10). VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-531-14611-9 .
- Chrys Ingraham: The Heterosexual Imaginary: Feminist Sociology and Theories of Gender : Sociological Theory: July 1994.
- Peter Wagenknecht: Heteronormativity (PDF). In: Historical-Critical Dictionary of Marxism . Volume 6 / I, Argument-Verlag, Hamburg 2004, Sp. 189-206.
- Michael Warner : Fear of a Queer Planet. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, Minn. 1993.
- Jillian Todd Weiss: The Gender Caste System: Identity, Privacy, and Heteronormativity (PDF; 432 kB).
Web links
- Dieter Haller: On Heteronormativity in Ethnology ( Memento from January 5, 2006 in the Internet Archive ), at archive.org (also published in: Sie und Er - Frauenmacht und Männerherrschaft. Volume of materials for the exhibition in the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum , November 25th 1997 to March 8, 1998, Volume I, pp. 77-85.)
- Ethnology and heteronormativity - Master's thesis by Marco Atlas (2000)
- Conference Heteronormativity - a fruitful concept? ( Memento from March 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), 2. – 4. June 2005 in Trondheim, Norway
Individual evidence
- ^ Shirley R. Steinberg: Diversity and Multiculturalism: A Reader . Peter Lang, April 1, 2009, ISBN 978-1-4331-0345-2 , pp. 229-230 (accessed September 10, 2012).
- ↑ Bettina Kleiner: Heteronormativity . In: Gender Glossary . 2016, urn : nbn: de: bsz: 15-qucosa-220314 .
- ↑ Michael Warner: Introduction: Fear of a Queer Planet. In: Social Text; 9 (4 [29]), 1991, pp. 3-17.
- ↑ Elizabeth J. Meyer: Gender and Sexual Diversity in Schools (= Explorations of Educational Purpose, Volume 10). Springer, 2010, ISBN 90-481-8558-0 , p. 143 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
- ^ Adrienne Rich: Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence. In: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 1980, 5, pp. 631-660.
- ↑ Zeitschrift für Sexualforschung, Volume 8, F. Enke, 1995, p. 233 (with direct reference to Warner).
- ↑ Article “Heteronormativity” at the Gender Institute Bremen. Retrieved June 20, 2018 .
- ^ Hannelore Bublitz : Gender. In: Hermann Korte , Bernhard Schäfers (Ed.): Introduction to the main terms of sociology. 8th edition. Wiesbaden 2010, pp. 87–106, here: p. 99.