{"id":59449,"date":"2016-05-13T10:00:37","date_gmt":"2016-05-13T15:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=59449"},"modified":"2016-05-04T22:11:47","modified_gmt":"2016-05-05T03:11:47","slug":"compulsory-monogamy-in-the-hunger-games-catching-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2016\/05\/13\/compulsory-monogamy-in-the-hunger-games-catching-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Compulsory Monogamy in The Hunger Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TSP_Assigned_pbk_978-0-393-28445-4\"<\/a><\/em>Assigned: Life with Gender<\/a> is a new anthology\u00a0featuring blog posts by a wide range of sociologists writing at The Society Pages and elsewhere. To celebrate, we’re re-posting four of the essays as this month’s “flashback Fridays.” Enjoy! And to learn more about this anthology, a companion to Wade and Ferree’s <\/em>Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions<\/a>, please click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Compulsory Monogamy in The Hunger Games<\/em>, by Mimi Schippers, PhD<\/strong><\/p>\n

NPR\u2019s Linda Holmes wrote\u00a0a great article<\/a>\u00a0about the gender dynamics in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and concluded, \u201c\u2026you could argue that Katniss’ conflict between Peeta and Gale is effectively a choice between a traditional Movie Girlfriend and a traditional Movie Boyfriend.\u201d \u00a0I do love the way Holmes puts this.\u00a0 Gender, it seems, is not what one is, but what one does.\u00a0 Different characteristics we associate with masculinity and femininity are available to everyone, and when Peeta embodies some characteristics we usually see only in women\u2019s roles, Peeta becomes the Movie Girlfriend despite being a boy.<\/p>\n

Though I find this compelling, I want to take a moment to focus on the other part of this sentence\u2026 the part when Holmes frames Katniss\u2019 relationship to Peeta and Gale as a \u201cconflict between\u201d and a \u201cchoice.\u201d \u00a0I think that, in some ways, the requirement to choose one or the other forces Katniss\u2019 to, not only \u201cchoose\u201d a boyfriend, but also to choose gender\u2014for herself.<\/p>\n

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Depending on whether she\u2019s relating to Peeta or Gale, she is either someone who takes charge, is competent in survival, and protects her partner (traditionally the masculine role) or someone who lets another lead and nurtures instead of protects (the feminine role). \u00a0As\u00a0Candace West<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Don Zimmerman<\/a>\u00a0suggested many years ago in their article \u201cDoing Gender<\/a>,” we do gender in relationship to other people.\u00a0 It\u2019s a conversation or volley in which we\u2019re expected to play the part to the way others are doing gender.<\/p>\n

When Katniss is with Peeta, she does a form of masculinity in relationship and reaction to his behavior and vice versa.\u00a0 Because Peeta \u201ccalls out\u201d protection, Katniss steps up.\u00a0 When Gale calls out nurturing, she plays the part.\u00a0 In other words, not only is gender a \u201cdoing\u201d rather than a \u201cbeing,\u201d it is also an interactive process.\u00a0 Because Katniss is in relationship to both Peeta and Gale, and because each embodies and calls out different ways of doing gender, Katniss oscillates between being the \u201cmovie boyfriend\u201d sometimes and the \u201cmovie girlfriend\u201d other times and, it seems, she\u2019s facile and takes pleasure in doing all of it.\u00a0 If Katniss has to \u201cchoose\u201d Peeta or Gale, she will have to give up doing gender in this splendid, and, dare I say, feminist and queer way in order to \u201cfit\u201d into her and her \u201cgirlfriend\u2019s\u201d or \u201cboyfriend\u2019s\u201d relationship.<\/p>\n

Now imagine a world in which Katniss wouldn\u2019t have to choose.<\/p>\n

What if she could be in a relationship with Peeta and get her needs for being understood, nurtured, and protective while also getting her girl on with Gale?\u00a0 In other words, imagine a world without compulsory monogamy where having two or more boyfriends or girlfriends was possible.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m currently working on a book on monogamy and the queer potential for open and polyamorous relationships. I\u2019m writing about the ways in which compulsory monogamy fits nicely into and perpetuates cultural ideas about masculinity and femininity and how different forms of non-monogamy might open up alternative ways of doing, not just relationships, but also gender.<\/p>\n

Forcing Katniss to choose is forcing Katniss into monogamy, and as I suggested above, into doing gender to complement her partner.\u00a0\u00a0Victoria Robinson<\/a>\u00a0points out in her article, \u201cMy Baby Just Cares for Me<\/a>,\u201d that monogamy compels women to invest too much time, energy, and resources into an individual man and limits their autonomy and relationships with others.\u00a0 What Robinson doesn\u2019t talk about is how it also limits women\u2019s range of how they might do gender in relationship to others.<\/p>\n

It also limits men\u2019s range of doing gender in relationships.\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t it be nice if Peeta and Gale never felt the pressure to be something they are not?\u00a0 Imagine how Peeta\u2019s and Gale\u2019s masculinities would have to be reconfigured to accommodate and accept each other?<\/p>\n

Elisabeth Sheff<\/a>, in her groundbreaking research on polyamorous people, found that both women and men in polyamorous relationships say that the men have to rethink their masculinities to be less possessive, women have room to be more assertive about their needs and desires, and men are more accommodating.<\/p>\n

What this suggests is that monogamy doesn\u2019t just limit WHO you can do; it also limits WHAT you can do in terms of gender.\u00a0 Might I suggest that Katniss is such a well-rounded woman character precisely because she is polyamorous?\u00a0 She\u2019s not just the phallic girl with the gun… or bow in this case… or the damsel in distress.\u00a0 She\u2019s strong, vulnerable, capable, nurturing, and loyal, and we get to see all of it because she does gender differently with her boyfriends. \u00a0And therein, I believe, is one way that polyamory has a queer and feminist potential. \u00a0It can open up the field of doing gender within the context of relationships.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how her story ends, but I for one, am hoping that, if there is a happily-ever-after for Katniss, it\u2019s not because girl gets boy; its because girl gets both boys.<\/p>\n

Mimi Schippers, PhD is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Tulane University<\/a>. \u00a0Her new book on the radical potential of non-monogamy is called\u00a0<\/em>Beyond Monogamy: Polyamory and the Future of Polyqueer Sexualities<\/a>. You can follow her at Marx in Drag<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Originally posted in 2013 at Marx in Drag<\/a>.\u00a0Cross-posted at\u00a0Huffington Post<\/a>,\u00a0and Jezebel<\/a>. Images from\u00a0IMDB<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Assigned: Life with Gender is a new anthology\u00a0featuring blog posts by a wide range of sociologists writing at The Society Pages and elsewhere. To celebrate, we’re re-posting four of the essays as this month’s “flashback Fridays.” Enjoy! And to learn more about this anthology, a companion to Wade and Ferree’s Gender: Ideas, Interactions, Institutions, please […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":59457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[387,55,23677,2088,272,23639,293],"class_list":["post-59449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dating","tag-gender","tag-gender-doing-gender","tag-gender-marriagefamily","tag-marriagefamily","tag-monogamypolyamory","tag-social-construction"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/12\/hgcf.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59449","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=59449"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68842,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59449\/revisions\/68842"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}