{"id":36130,"date":"2011-08-12T10:18:19","date_gmt":"2011-08-12T15:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=36130"},"modified":"2015-09-01T21:26:51","modified_gmt":"2015-09-02T02:26:51","slug":"the-ubiquity-of-gender-rules-or-do-lesbians-have-to-love-cats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/08\/12\/the-ubiquity-of-gender-rules-or-do-lesbians-have-to-love-cats\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ubiquity of Gender Rules; Or Do Lesbians Have to Love Cats?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my Sociology of Gender<\/a> course I talk about how gender conformity isn\u2019t simply a matter of socialization, but often a response to active policing by others.\u00a0 Single women usually avoid having too many cats, for example, not only because they\u2019ve been taught that too many cats sends the wrong signal, but because they may be called a \u201ccat lady\u201d by their friends (a joke-y slur suggesting that she is or will be a batty old spinster). \u00a0Or her best friend, with her best interests in mind, may discourage her from adopting another cat because she knows what people think of “cat ladies.”<\/p>\n

People who find community in subcultures that are seen as \u201calternative\u201d to the \u201cmainstream\u201d often feel like they are freed of such rules.\u00a0 But these subcultures often simply have different rules that turn out to be equally restrictive and are just as rigidly policed.<\/p>\n

A recent submission to PostSecret, a site where people anonymously tell their secrets, reminded me of this.\u00a0 In it a lesbian confesses that she hates cats. \u00a0Because of the stereotype that women love cats<\/a>, the “cat lady” stigma may be lifted in lesbian communities. \u00a0This lesbian, however, doesn’t feel freed by the lifting of this rule, but instead burdened by its opposite: everyone has to like cats. \u00a0So she feels compelled to lie and say that she\u2019s allergic.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Related, see our post on a confession, from another lesbian, about suppressing the fact that she’s really quite girly<\/a>.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my Sociology of Gender course I talk about how gender conformity isn\u2019t simply a matter of socialization, but often a response to active policing by others.\u00a0 Single women usually avoid having too many cats, for example, not only because they\u2019ve been taught that too many cats sends the wrong signal, but because they may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[155,15,55,778,23696,54,2051],"class_list":["post-36130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-animals","tag-culture","tag-gender","tag-intersectionality","tag-intersectionality-gender-x-sexual-orientation","tag-sexual-orientation","tag-socialization"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36130"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58740,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36130\/revisions\/58740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}