Dude You Re A Fag Summary

C.J. Pascoe’s Dude You’re A Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School focuses on how high school boys prove their masculinity to one another. The book explains the inequalities that are created when boys prove their masculinity through dominating behaviors. In Pascoe’s book, she focuses on how boys defend their heterosexual masculinity by using the “fag epithet.” She argues that by insulting people’s feminine behaviors, they are able to strengthen their masculinity. She focuses on how white boys and African American boys prove their masculinity in different ways. In Pascoe’s book, she also notes that girls can be masculine as well. She focuses on how girls are allowed to break the binary gender roles to an extent, but boys are not allowed
By having gender roles that society views as normal, masculinity becomes superior to femininity. Pascoe identifies four types of masculinity: hegemonic, complicit, subordinated, and marginalized masculinity. Hegemonic masculinity creates a gender hierarchy, which then creates inequality between the genders. Complicit masculinity is when men do not necessarily apply hegemonic masculinity, but still benefit from it. Subordinated masculinity describes how some men are oppressed by hegemonic masculinity, especially men that identify as gay. Marginalized masculinity is when men are not as powerful as other men because of their race or class (Pascoe, 2012, pp.
If a sexist or homophobic joke happened in the classroom, the teachers did not punish the boys. The teachers were not concerned with the sexist and homophobic environment (Pascoe, 2012, pp. 30-42). Pascoe states, “The gender inequality fostered by such heterosexuality never seemed to be of concern to school officials” (2012, pp. 42). She also noticed that the white boys were allowed more freedom to express their sexuality, and that the African American boys were punished for expressing theirs. She believes that the reason they were punished was because society viewed them as hypersexual (Pascoe, 2012, pp.