Heteronormativity and Overcompensation

In Schlit and Westbrook’s article, “Doing Gender, Doing Heteronormativity”, the authors examine the inter-workings of heteronormativity by challenging the heteronormative system of binary gender, sex and sexuality and bringing awareness to the institution of gender inequality within that system.  The study considers how cisgender men and women, or “gender normals”, respond or react to transgender people.    Ultimately the process reveals that “doing gender”, or “the interactional process of crafting gender identities that are then presumed to reflect and naturally derive from biology”, can be perceived as a threat to “heteronormativity”, and when challenged with the presence of someone who identifies outside of the binary gender construct, cisgender people tend to engage in behavior meant to reinforce a normative system while simultaneously diminishing the authenticity of persons who identify outside the binary construct.     

                Normative expectations for men and women play a large role in sustaining a specific social hierarchy and gender inequality, and structures of masculinity are designed to “do dominance” while the femininity framework is meant for forcing submission.  While we (women, gender non-conforming, LGBTQ, etc.) continue to challenge the status quo, we still languish beneath a patriarchal construct which continues to influence everything from our personal choices to our paychecks.   For some, the need to identify others as either male or female seems to come from an almost innate place as it is so deeply ingrained in our social, economic, and political structures.  These people seem to have no idea how such individuals fit into society if they can’t place them in some sort of normative category.  Under patriarchal rule, everyone is expected to “know their place”.  If we can’t establish a place for them, we can’t keep them there, etc.  This pattern is challenged in “Doing Gender…” with the presence of transgendered people, thus creating various levels of chaos in the heteronormative, concrete sequential sex/gender/sexuality system. Depending on the sort of interaction between parties, whether sexualized or non-sexualized, chaos varies accordingly.  The more sexualized an interaction, the more emotional and physical chaos typically ensue. 

“Doing Gender…” addresses how heteronormative responses to non-conforming gender identities can escalate to violence, wherein cisgender males are predominately the perpetrators, and Robb Willer’s “Overcompensation Thesis” elaborates on the process by which factors such as hypermasculinity, overcompensation, and testosterone contribute.  The violent reactions from men illustrate the real-life outcomes of gender socialization that requires men to demonstrate their own masculinity and heterosexuality through the devaluation and ridicule of male homosexuality and any presentations, by men or by women, of femininity.  Men are far more likely to murder transgendered individuals with whom them have been intimately involved upon discovering they present a gender opposite of biological sex at birth.  There is no record of women ever having committed murder under these circumstances.  Further, men who reported feeling that social changes threatened the status of men also reported more homophobic attitudes, support for war, belief in male superiority, and greater dominance attitudes. Other research on identity maintenance finds that individuals are more motivated to maintain identities that are highly socially valued and discusses how men are threatened by social change. Even touching on the notion that based upon various levels of testosterone and correlating behavior, overcompensation can be partly biological but warns against leaning too hard on this theory because social and biological processes are deeply intertwined.