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Katherine De La Cruz Response #5

The author’s field work at River High exemplifies the ways our understandings of gender and sexuality are culturally constructed. Pascoe gives multiple examples of the ways administrators act as both regulators and facilitators of the creation of sexual identities and genders. One of her first examples is the Mr. Cougar competition where male students put on a skit and take part in a ceremonial event that Pascoe explains as a sort of coming of age ceremony. In the skit the boys are transformed, through the acquisition of physical strength, from weak nerds who can’t protect their girlfriends to strong macho men who act as saviors of damsels in distress. This skit enforced various ides about gender and sexuality. First, it centered successful heterosexuality as the ultimate goal and what is most celebrated. Second, it casts femininity as weak through the boys’ use of a feminine voice before the gaining of physical strength and the fact that their girlfriends in the skit were waiting to be rescue and could not defend themselves against the gangsters.  The second part of this event was equally encoded in cultural meanings about gender and sexuality. Pascoe likens this part of the competition to a wedding. The boy circles the gym going from bleacher to bleacher to receive the cheers of the audience as he leads his female escort and mother around the room. The mother then sits and the son gives her a kiss on the cheek before proceeding to walk the rest of the way with his date. This is similar to the way a bride’s hand is given off to the groom at a traditional wedding. It once again reinforces hetero-normativity in the need for a ceremonial display of the contestants in such a clearly sexualized way. It’s important to remember that this is a school event meaning that it is hosted and approved by the school administration. In this way the administration displays an agenda towards creating gendered meanings within the school walls and aims to show what is deemed as appropriate gender displays and sexuality rituals.