SXST 2101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Heterosexuality, Heteronormativity, Psych

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Sexuality Studies
• Course: SXST 2101
• Professor: Dan Irving

Document Summary

Power comes through the normalization of knowledge. Heteronormativity = at center of power, influences how society = structured/governed. Taken for granted as natural or normal. How heteronormativity allows us to explore ways that heteronormative discourses are learned, how it controls us, how it contributes to social inequalities, etc. Midterm: discourse the organized system of knowledge that determines what we know and how we come to know it. How do we come to understand ourselves and others as. Normal or how do we relate to this. Rooted within biology and chromosomes, xx or xy. Only male or female according to dominant discourse. Normal attraction = male to female and vice versa. Butler says all three of these categories are interlocked, they have to be studied together and they function together (wanted to resist these and give alternative knowledge: gender, sexuality: System of power regulating desire, passion, etc. Heteronormativity produces sexuality as a governable social category.