{"id":66197,"date":"2015-12-30T02:00:22","date_gmt":"2015-12-30T07:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=66197"},"modified":"2015-12-22T01:00:19","modified_gmt":"2015-12-22T06:00:19","slug":"why-lesbians-and-gay-men-dont-share-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2015\/12\/30\/why-lesbians-and-gay-men-dont-share-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Why lesbians and gay men don’t share space"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2<\/a>February’s\u00a0edition of Contexts<\/a><\/em> had a fascinating article by Amin Ghaziani titled Lesbian Geographies<\/a>. Most of us are familiar with the idea of a “gayborhood,” a neighborhood enclave that attracts gay men. It turns out that lesbians have enclaves, too, but they’re not always the same ones.<\/p>\n

Here’s the frequency of same-sex female couples (top) and same-sex male couples (bottom)\u00a0in U.S. counties.\u00a0Census data tracks same-sex couples but not individuals, so the\u00a0conclusions here are based on couples.<\/p>\n

\"7\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What are the differences between where same-sex female and same-sex male couples live?<\/p>\n

First, Same-sex female couples are more likely than their male counterparts to live in rural areas. Ghaziani thinks that “cultural cues regarding masculinity and femininity play a part.” As one interviewee told<\/a> sociologist Emily Kazyak:<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a flaming gay queen, they\u2019re like, “Oh, you\u2019re a freak, I\u2019m scared of you.” But if you\u2019re a really butch woman and you\u2019re working at a factory, I think [living in the midwest is]\u00a0a little easier.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If being “butch” is normative for people living in rural environments, lesbians who perform masculinity might fit in better than gay men who don’t.<\/p>\n

Second, non-heterosexual women\u00a0are about three times<\/a> as likely as non-heterosexual men to be raising a child under 18. Whatever a person’s sexual orientation, parents are more likely to be looking\u00a0for good schools, safe neighborhoods, and non-postage stamp-sized apartments.<\/p>\n

Finally, there’s evidence that gay men price\u00a0lesbians out. Gay men are notorious for gentrifying neighborhoods, but data shows that lesbians usually get there first. When non-heterosexual men arrive, they accelerate the gentrification, often making it less possible for\u00a0non-heterosexual women to afford to stay.\u00a0Thanks to the gender pay gap, times two, women living with women don’t generally make as much money as men living with men.<\/p>\n

Or, they might leave because they don’t want to be around so many men.\u00a0Ghaziani writes:<\/p>\n

Gay men are still men, after all, and they are not exempt from the sexism that saturates our society. In reflecting on her experiences in the gay village of Manchester, England, one lesbian described gay men as \u201cquite intimidating. They\u2019re not very welcoming towards women.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cross-posted at Pacific Standard<\/a>.<\/em><\/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":"

February’s\u00a0edition of Contexts had a fascinating article by Amin Ghaziani titled Lesbian Geographies. Most of us are familiar with the idea of a “gayborhood,” a neighborhood enclave that attracts gay men. It turns out that lesbians have enclaves, too, but they’re not always the same ones. Here’s the frequency of same-sex female couples (top) and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":68483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,55,2088,2098,8080,778,23696,272,283,54],"class_list":["post-66197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class","tag-gender","tag-gender-marriagefamily","tag-gender-prejudicediscrimination","tag-housingresidential-segregation","tag-intersectionality","tag-intersectionality-gender-x-sexual-orientation","tag-marriagefamily","tag-prejudicediscrimination","tag-sexual-orientation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2015\/01\/212.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66197","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=66197"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68510,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66197\/revisions\/68510"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}