GENDER AND SEXUALITY QUESTIONS 2

Gender and Sexuality Questions

How does Michael Messner argue an individual becomes “100% Straight”?
According to Messner, individuals become 100% straights through actively engaging
in behaviors that increase their chances of being seen as 100% or hegemonically masculine.
He gives his own example of how he suppressed his homoerotic desires towards a friend
called Timmy and then began to aggressively reject Tommy, physically harm, make fun of
him, and play aggressively so that he could appear to be 100% Straight. Thus, according to
Messner, individuals are not born 100% straight, they simply learn to act in a manner that
makes others look at them as being 100% straight (Messner, 2005).
How is homophobia related to a backlash to feminism? How is it related to problems
within the women’s movement?
In Homophobia as a Weapon of Sexism, Suzanne Pharr argues that homophobia is
used to enforce heterosexuality and nuclear family which are bastions of patriarchal power.
Through calling for women to have greater control of their bodies and have equal status with
men, feminism is seen as damaging nuclear family, a symbol of patriarchal power, and is,
therefore, at odds with homophobia, which protects the nuclear family. This backlash against
feminism has also created problems in the women’s movement as actions related to feminism
and women empowerment have become stigmatized (Pharr, 1995).
Why do you think the Compton’s Cafeteria riots aren’t as well known in the history of
LGBTQ rights as the Stonewall riots?
Even though they took place three years before the Stonewall riots in New York,
Compton’s Cafeteria riots are not as well known in history because they were primarily an
anti-transgender riots rather riots against discrimination based on sexual orientation. At the

GENDER AND SEXUALITY QUESTIONS 3
time, transgender persons were relatively a marginalized group even among the larger
LGBTQ group. The Compton Cafeteria riots are also less remembered because there was
little coverage of the event in the media when it occurred (KQED, 2016).
How are the caricatures of black women that Kimberly Springer identifies as surfacing
over 100 years ago reproduced in today’s popular culture? Please provide a specific
example.
Caricatures of black women such as their perceived hypersexuality have been
reproduced in today’s popular culture mainly through portrayal of black women in music
videos, particularly hip-hop videos. The women in the videos (video vixens), are usually
skimpily dressed, are over-sexualized, and the lyrics often use the term “hoes” to refer to
them. Even female rappers such as Lil Kim and Foxy Brown use highly sexualized language
to describe themselves (Springer, 2008).

GENDER AND SEXUALITY QUESTIONS 4

References

KQED Truly CA (2016). Screaming Queens. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-
WASW9dRBU
Messner, M. A. (2005). Becoming 100 percent straight. In Inside sports (pp. 113-120).
Routledge.
Pharr, S. (1995). Homophobia as a weapon of sexism. Race, class, and gender in the United
States: An integrated study, 178-187.
Springer, K. (2008). Queering black female heterosexuality. Yes Means Yes!: Visions of
Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape, 85-86.