Gender policing
Rubin studied the works of Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Claude Lévi-Strauss to gain a better understanding of the creation of the "sex/gender system".
Rubin found that "woman" was a role created in opposition to "man" and served the purpose of building power, trade relationships, and mutual aid through the exchange of women by marriage.
During this Mesolithic or Middle Stone Age in North-West Europe, hunting and gathering food was a prominent survival strategy.
Early interpretations of these survival techniques is one of the main reasons for the current idea of the gender binary within western society.
Aspects of the enforcement of cisnormativity through gender policing are under-researched internationally, as research focusing on cisgender queer people has long ignored the experiences of transgender youth.
These masculine attributes include wealth, control over resources, fertility, attractiveness, heterosexuality, physical strength, and emotional detachment.
[14][15] Many scholars on the subject argue that this is due to the greater value assigned to "masculine" traits or behaviors compared to "feminine" ones, and/or beliefs that "tomboyism" is temporary.
[14][15] At least one study indicates that parents across various social locations celebrate and encourage their preschool age daughters to engage in gender nonconformity, such as wearing sports-themed clothing and participating in traditionally male activities.
Rubin states that Jacques Lacan's analysis of Freud views the Oedipus complex as the crisis experienced by a child when internalizing kinship rules.
In Rubin's view psychiatry further policed accepted gender and sexual expression by deeming non normative behavior as mentally and emotionally stunted.
[17] Rubin also saw that this system of internalizing norms privileged heterosexual masculinity while outlining the psychic oppression society inflicts on women and femininity.
In western society, being "white" and middle class continue to inform gender norms, leaving "non-white" people unable to perform accepted femininity or masculinity.
[19] An individual's expression of gender is often first policed by their parent(s), as well as other elder authorities such as teachers and day care providers, at a very young age.
For example, girls were given directive bodily instructions such as "talk to her, don't yell, sit here, pick that up, be careful, be gentle, give it to me, put it down there.
Sweden's reformation of their school system in 1962 resulted in a new curriculum which included objectives to limit gender policing in early education.
Compensatory pedagogy challenges these traditional gender roles by encouraging girls to maintain autonomy and boys to build closeness with others.
Unlike the relative success so far of Swedish schools in limiting gender policing, individual efforts by Kathy and David, Storm's parents, faced huge media backlash.
Dude, You're a Fag, a book by CJ Pascoe, examines masculinity and gender policing in high schools through ethnographic research.
In this context, the use of the fag epithet is a form of gender policing, frequently applied to boys who lack heterosexual prowess or are deemed inadequately masculine or strong.
One interviewee "appears to be drawing attention to the different norms for governing the conduct of girls who police boys’ bullying practices through a condemnation of violent behaviors".
People who are gender-normative in appearance experience primarily behavioral gender policing, such as reminders to act in a more (or less) feminine or masculine manner.
In the case of the nineteen-year-old Missouri runner Helen Stephens in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, who finished first place in the 100-meter race, many questioned her sex because they could not fathom the concept of a woman running so quickly.
[32] Research regarding conformity pressures and gender resistance among transfeminine individuals (those who are assigned the male sex at birth but identify as a woman) indicates that these persons experienced "intense and pervasive" pressures to conform to traditional masculinity, and feared exposure of their gender identity would result in physical danger or loss of legal, economic, or social standing.
[34] While this issue is frequently encountered by transgender and genderqueer individuals, to a lesser extent, it is also experienced by persons with androgynous or gender ambiguous appearances.
), the District of Columbia and over 200 cities have enforced the anti-discrimination law toward transgender people allowing them to use any public restroom that corresponds to their gender.
The bill argued that banning people from using public restrooms of their choice due to the biological sex listed on their birth certificates (genitals vs. gender) was unreasonable, therefore, it launched transgender rights into the national spotlight.
"[44] Older fashion protocols systematically enforced normative gender binaries, confining people to dress and accessorize in a way that connected to their sex.
An 1845 New York state statute, for example, defined an unlawful vagrant as “[a] person who, having his face painted, discolored, covered, or concealed, or being otherwise disguised, in a manner calculated to prevent his being identified, appears in a road or public highway.” [48] Many gendered clothing laws from the early 20th century focused particularly on forbidding people assigned male at birth from dressing in women's clothing.
Ohio Supreme Court Justice O'Neill wrote that the ordinance was, "unconstitutionally void for vagueness, because it does not provide adequate standards by which activity can be determined as legal or illegal."
At the present time, clothing is sold for both sexes which is so similar in appearance that a person of ordinary intelligence might not be able to identify it as male or female dress.
