Pupil’s sexual and gender identities Flashcards
DOUBLE STANDARDS:
Lees (1993): There is a double standard of sexual morality in which boys boast about their sexual exploits, but a girls is called a ‘slag’ if she doesn’t have a steady boyfriend or dresses/speaks in a certain way.
Boy’s sexual conquests are approved of and given status by peers and ignored by male teachers, but ‘promiscuity’ among girls attracts negative labels.
Feminists see these double standards as an example of patriarchal ideology!
Verbal abuse
What Connell (1995) calls “a rich vocabulary of abuse” is one of the ways dominant gender and sexual identities are reinforced.
Boys use name-calling to put girls down if they behave or dress in certain ways. Lees (1986) found that boys called girls “slags” if they appeared to be sexually available and “drags” if they didn’t!
Similarly, Parker (1996) found that boys were labelled gay simply for being friendly with girls or female teachers. This was all further evidence of reinforcing gender norms and identities.
Mac an ghaill: The male gaze:
There is also a visual aspect to the way pupils control each other’s identities. The male gaze is all about the way male pupils and teachers look girls up and down, seeing them as sexual objects.
Mac an Ghaill sees the male gaze as a form of surveillance through which dominant heterosexual masculinity is reinforced and femininity devalued.
Male peer groups
Male peer groups also use verbal abuse to reinforce their definitions of masculinity.
Mac an Ghaill: Conducted a study of Parnell School and found that peer groups reproduce a range of different class-based masculine gender identities.
W/C “MACHO” LADS- Looked down on other W/C lads who were seen to work hard. (The “dickhead achievers”)
M/C “REAL ENGLISHMEN”- projected an image of effortless achievement- (succeeding without trying, though in some cases actually working hard “on the quiet”).
FEMALE PEER-GROUPS: POLICING IDENTITY:
Ringrose (2013): Conducted a small-scale study of 13-14yr old W/C girls’ peer groups in a South Wales school, finding that being popular was crucial to the girls’ identity. As the girls transitioned from a girls’ friendship culture to a dating culture, they faced a tension between:
An idealised feminine identity
Showing loyalty to the female peer-group, being non-competitive and getting along with everybody in the friendship culture.
A sexualised identity
Involved with competing for boys in the dating culture.
Currie et al (2007) and Reay (2001): a high risk game!
Currie et al identifies that girls are forced to perform a ‘balancing act’ between the two identities.
Girls who are over-confident and think themselves ‘better’ than the others face ‘slut-shaming’ and being excluded from the group and girls who don’t compete face ‘frigid’ shaming by the other girls.
“boffin identity”: reay (2001) suggests that girls who wanted to be successful at school had to perform an asexual identity, presenting themselves as having no interest in boyfriends or popular fashion.
Interestingly, these types of girls might respond by calling other, W/C girls “chavs”!
Teachers and discipline
=teachers also play a part in reinforcing dominant definitions of gender identity:
Haywood and mac an ghaill (1996): male teachers told boys off for “behaving like girls” and teased them when they got lower marks in tests than girls.
Askew & Ross (1998): male teachers can often have a protective attitude towards female colleagues, coming into their classes to ‘rescue’ them from threatening pupils who are being disruptive. This simply reinforces the idea that women cannot cope alone!
