Dude You Re A Fag Themes

Dude, You’re A Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School Book Review

The novel Dude, You’re A Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School by C.J. Pascoe revolves around the social construct of masculinity as shown in adolescents and teachers in the high school River High, where the author conducted roughly a year and a half of field work. Pascoe “ask[s] how heternomative and homophobic discourses, practices, and interactions in an American high school produce masculine identities.” (17) To examine these constructions, Pascoe focuses “on the gender and sexuality practices of students, teachers, and administrators, with an emphasis on school rituals.” (17) Using such approaches, Pascoe seeks to highlight the masculine identity by uncoupling

This involves reviewing the high school’s gender and sexuality curriculum. Some policies included segregated colours for graduation robes based on biological gender and abstinence. How teachers and administrators act in regards to sexuality follows. A prominent example is when a teacher organized groups of students to create their own political parties for a class exercise. One group of students headed a party based on sex education. This culminated in condom distribution, in which the presiding teacher demanded all condoms back – but specifically from boys in the class. This reaction reinforces a masculinization of sex. “The condom, as a cultural object, also illustrated the importance of heterosexual activity to masculine identities. While the girls tittered and laughed, it was the boys in the class for whom the link with sexual activity was important.” (35) Pascoe uses this example, and others to explore how official high school representatives’ reactions to sex and sexuality reinforce a masculine

Pascoe splits this chapter into two factions – The Basketball Girls and the Gay/Straight Alliance Girls. The Basketball Girls section starts off with a review of tomboy pasts: young girls that behaved like boys. This state of mind is often reviewed upon as revered, while the opposite (boys who behave like girls) is usually met with shame. These girls embody masculinity like straight white boys do: “taking up space, teasing girls, and positioning themselves as sexually powerful.” (133) The GSA Girls played with the line between masculine and feminine identities through gender maneuvering. “Gender maneuvering refers to the way groups act to manipulate the relations between masculinity and femininity as others commonly understand them.” (116) These girls were politically active in their approach to masculinity and sexuality, something that caused friction with school administration. An example was when the Homecoming Pep Rally fell on National Coming Out Day. The GSA wanted to wear shirts reading “Nobody Knows I’m a Lesbian” for a prep dance. Upon the event, the principal forced the girls to cover up these shirts during their dance. For contrast, one condoned dance included a female student grinding her pelvis against a male student’s face. “Mr. Hobart [the principal] had effectively set up a two-tiered system in which explicit expressions of heterosexuality such as sensual dance moves, skits that told stories about heterosexual