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Assignment 5

In the first two chapters of Pascoe’s book, she discusses how student, teachers and administrator contribute to the cultural meaning behind gender and sexuality at River High.  She touches on the subject of masculinity demonstrated throughout the school. She states how the Mr. Cougar competition shows the differences between the dynamics of sexuality, gender, social class, race, and bodies. The idea of gender and sexuality begin to form during childhood and is later develop during the adolescent years. Pascoe states how the theme of masculinity is demonstrated throughout the adolescent phase. Pascoe recalls a skit done at River High where two young boys considered to be “nerds” are transformed from unmasculine males who cannot protect their girlfriends into heterosexual, muscular men. Their outfits automatically branded them as unmasculine as well as their high-pitched voice and their weakness which portray them as feminine. They were viewed as homosexual because of their homoerotic dance moves. In order for them to be seen as masculine they began to workout and changed their appearance. This skit also portrays the girlfriends as being helpless since they are unable to save themselves from the gangstas.  In chapter two Pascoe brings up a good point of how in the United States adults view adolescent sexuality as problematic and disruptive instead of a normal part of life. Adults try to avoid this topic and refuse to talk about it because they don’t want to inspire any sexual behavior of any kind. Pascoe states how the administrator contribute to the cultural meaning of gender and sexuality in how River High dress code emphasized gender differentiation, the dress code prevented both boys and girls from revealing certain body parts but both genders had different prohibitions. Gender differentiation was demonstrated by the different color ropes the students had to wear for graduation, males had to wear black well females wore yellow. Another way in which gender differentiation was shown was how the school had a policy that encourage sexual abstinence and discourage homosexuality, by doing this the school is teaching its kids that heterosexuality is the norm and that being sexual active is a bad thing. It doesn’t allow the student to develop their own gender identity and sexuality because it is teaching them that males should be masculine and female should be femininity.