Homophobia by women against gay males?

Great Debates
1

I figured GD might be the place for this, though I don’t really have any heavy thoughts of my own on this subject, and I certainly don’t want to bring about any hurt feelings. I’m just curious, though: it appears that homophobia is often attributed either to repressed homosexual feelings of one’s own, or fear of being identified as a homosexual.

But that would assume that homophobia is confined to dislike or fear of the phenomenon among one’s own gender group, i.e., it’s guys who do the gay bashing. As sort of a corollary, I often see pop culture representations of women showing approval or admiration toward gay guys, to the extent of actively seeking them out as a sort of ideal friend (thinking mainly of Sex and the City and 9 Chickweed Lane, but I’m sure I’ve seen it elsewhere).

But are women ever guilty of gay-bashing, specifically against homosexual males? If so, how common is this, and what is the rationale? It would seem to go against the typical characterizations of homophobes I mentioned above.

Reason it comes to mind is that I do remember one or two female family members when I was young telling me that being gay was “wrong”, and as an adult I have run into at least one woman who expressed outright disgust for a certain literary character specifically because he acted like a sissy (according to her) and was implied to have sex with other males.

2

Women are just as capable of irrational hatred as men. This only seems surprising if you’ve bought into that “fairer sex” crap.

3

But if so, what’s their motivation? If by “just as capable” you mean homophobia is just as prevalent among women as among men, wouldn’t that cast doubt on the usual motivations attributed to homophobes?

4

People can be bigoted against homosexuals for any number of reasons. It doesn’t have to be some secret fear of being gay.

5

“Homophobia” or fear of gays (and implicitly one’s own sexuality) as an explanatory rationale for heterosexual antipathy toward gays is both vastly overused and (IMO) mostly incorrect. It feels good to wield the word as it accuses the person dissing/oppressing/etc.etc. gay people of being 'fearful" of them, and their (the purported homophobes) own sexuality which imputes power to the feared object. In reality dislike of gay people is centered more on disliking or despising their lifestyle and behavior as being in conflict with one’s mores and cultural values, and not some hysterical fear of them.

This is not to say ignorance is better than fear, but ‘homophobia’ as a word is a poor (bordering on stupid) descriptor of the actual impetus for whatever negative feelings most people have about homosexuals.

6

Not necessarily. If we assume that the root cause of homophobia is secret homosexual desire, then it would not be surprising for them to react negatively to anyone who is openly gay, both as protective camouflage (“If I publicly insult Jim for being gay, no one will suspect I’m desperately in love with Nancy,”) and as sour grapes desire to keep everyone in the same closet (“If I can’t be happy, why should they?”)

That being said, I don’t think most homophobes are themselves secretly gay. It’s certainly a component of a lot of people’s bigotry, but most people recognize that it’s not the case for the majority.

Similarly, as regards astro’s post, I think most people recognize that the word “homophobia” is removed from its etymological roots, and don’t take it to mean a literal fear of homosexuals. The only people I ever see who make this mistake are people who have been accused of homophobia. It is, admittedly, an inelegant word, but it’s the only word we have to describe the phenomena.

7

Well, I like gay men just fine, but I wouldn’t want to marry one!

Oy!, a woman

8

One of the things I noticed, experienced and was really bothered by as a Single (Heterosexual) Male was the open fear of single men expressed by a significant vocal minority of women.

If you were married, you were “safe”, and they’d deal with you as a normal human being. If you were single, there was something wrong with you and they’d shun, ignore or in some cases, openly express their disdain and fears.

I’ve experienced this with a number of female co-workers, noting it not just toward me but toward all single men in the department (and been rather annoyed that the management did nothing to deal with the open hostility and negativity toward a significant number of their co-workers - it’s really unprofessional!), and I’ve experienced it from wives of friends.

As one case in point, the wife of a friend kept me at arms length, sometimes shunned me openly, sometimes made inappropriate comments, didn’t invite me to events involving the larger clique, because I was single. But the moment I got engaged, I was right in the middle of it and she was happy to be my friend! Then when my wife and I separated, they broke all contact and refused to have anything to do with me.

So taking that same observation and applying it to homosexual males, all I can conclude is that these women hold a similar view of gay men, because they’re not married and aren’t likely to ever be married.

9

God thinks it’s wrong. Doesn’t matter what gender you are if you believe that.

There are otherwise-intelligent straight women who think homosexual men are ‘gross’ and ‘unmanly,’ just as there are gay guys who are outright misogynists. The world has no shortage of idiots and assholes. Hatred and abuse don’t need much more motivation beyond, ‘I personally don’t like my station in life – quick, who can I blame it on? I’m a shitty person who doesn’t amount to much – quick, where can I redirect people’s attention so they don’t notice?’

10

I’ve never known women like that, Chimera, but my guess is, if they were cold to you after you separated, it was either because they were concerned you might then be “on the make” or because they figured the separation must be “your fault.” In short, they don’t like single men not because they aren’t married per se, but because they see unmarried men as potentially threatening - either as nuisances who come on to women or bad guys who don’t treat women right. (Obviously, this is not a legitimate thing to think.) This is a WAG, as I said, because I’ve never been one of them, nor known any such women. But if I’m right, gay men would not fall into either category.

Lots of women really like gay men, because they can give a man’s perspective on appearance and such without worrying about any signals being given or received. Lots of women really like gay men because they like people, and some of those people happen to be gay men.

11

“Homophobia” is a perfectly cromulent word to denote any and all feelings of antipathy, hostility or moralistic judgement towards gay people. It was a poorly structured neologism in its conception, but focusing on the Greek roots is specious at this point. If you really want to fixate on the “phobia” part, then it should also be pointed out that “homo” means “same,” and so “homophobia” would mean “fear of the same.”

The word “homophobia” as poorly designes as it may be, has become the catch-all word for antihomosexual sentiment and it is not incorrect to use it as such.

To the OP, feelings of repressed homosecxuality are only one cause of homophobia (albeit one that is supported by empirical evidence). Religious and cultural bigotry is obviously another major cause.

12

I agree that quibbling about the root structure and denotation of the word is specious argument, intended to distract from the charge of bad behavior.

My mother, who I adore and admire in many ways, has a definite streak of homophobia towards both gay men and lesbians. In many ways, she’s overcome this - she flat out told my father that if either of my brothers were gay, he would deal with it, and there would be no ostracism (Dad’s so waaaaaay more homophobic, it’s not funny.) But, things sneak through, and as open-minded as my mom is, she has a lot of trouble accepting homosexuals, homosexuality, and homosexual behavior in mainstream society.

I think I finally got through to her when I said, in response to a lot of the anti-gay sentiment out there, that more than a few people were exhausted and frightened of the amount of change our society’s mores have gone through. Sometimes, you need a program to find out what’s now okay and what’s no longer okay, and that we really just want the world to slow the hell down while we figure stuff out.

“THAT’S RIGHT!” my mom answered.

I sympathize with this view. I really do. I’m only in my 30s, but there are times when I feel like emigrating to New Zealand, because my country is going to hell in a shopping cart. I think those of us who are pro-tolerance, pro-inclusion, and pro-gay are better off addressing THAT fear and discomfort, if we want to win over those we label “homophobic”.

We also need to remember that people don’t vote their interests, they vote their identity. My mother’s identity is that of a professional, well educated, hard working woman in her early 60s. She was inculcated from childhood to believe that any variation from “normal” sexuality was immoral, dangerous, and unhealthy. She has worked as a nurse her entire adult life, and she saw what unrestricted sexual license in gay men’s populations resulted in during the 70s and 80s. She sees gay men and women as a fringe element of society and herself as one of the protectors of society, and it is her job to make sure that homosexuality is not seen as normal or acceptable behavior.

At the same time, she is a caring, empathic mother with a very wide social network which includes gay relatives, friends, and colleagues. It’s not these relatives, friends, and colleagues who are a danger to society, but those Others Out There. The ones she cares about are doing all right, so why should she vote in favor of gay marriage, when that would only encourage the Others Out There to become more “abnormal” in their behavior and an even larger threat to her world, which is already tumbling with change?

I think I’ve gotten through to her. When she tried the tired old line about how allowing gay people to marry was a threat to regular marriage, I pointed out that regular marriage was under much more threat from the likes of Britney Spears and her three day marriage, or the other celebrity, heterosexual relationship that lead to the man siring an out-of-wedlock baby and abandoning his wife and children for his mistress.

My dad? That’s another case entirely, and there is no talking him around his homophobia - and it’s a true phobia: fear, hatred, and disgust towards gay men. But he is a product of his time, his upbringing, and his culture, and they are, mercifully, far less prevalent than they used to be.

13

As a straight man, I don’t feel about lesbians remotely the way women in pop literature appear to feel about gay men. I don’t seek lesbians out as “safe friends” or like that. So I find the idea of straight women disliking & resenting gay men (as some of my female friends have) more understandable, not less.

14

I don’t know, it seems that there’s a point somewhere between “despising their lifestyle” and becoming convinced that them living their lives somehow constitutes an affront to yours that “hysterical fear” becomes an accurate description.

15

I think it’d be rather high among the “Now I have to explain this to my young children” crowd.

16

I’m curious, who was the character?

Whether or not homophobia is part of the picture, it does seem like a great many people have their gaydar turned up to 1000. The sexuality of male actors and celebrities who come off any less macho than, say, Bruce Willis or John Wayne, is suspected by at least some people, particularly if they are fine-featured or “dress too well”. For instance, somebody mentioned here years ago that they never thought John Lithgow was straight. Huh? What? What is it about him that seems “gay”? True, he did play a transsexual in Garp, and a transsexual character is more than enough to mark an actor gay in the eyes of many. But good lord, that was decades ago!

17

You really can’t see why someone would think John Lithgow is gay? The man is very, let’s say, “theatrical.” And to a lot of people, that means teh ghey.

As for the whys of women hating on gay men, I have a co-working who used to work for an AIDS outreach group in the early 90s and, according to her, the mostly lesbian staff was outwardly hostile to all of the gay men that came through the door. Basically, it boiled down to the women believing that gay men and their promiscuous behavior made the rest of the gay community (i.e. lesbians) look like perverted freaks.

18

I think the “homophobes are closeted gays” is probably true in a minority of instances, but a small minority. I think for most who have huge problems against gays it’s based on a variety of other things. For men I think empathy has a role= visualization of gay sex and putting yourself in the scenario; for some it’s because they believe all the stereotypes are true and widespread, for some they may have had a negative experience with a gay man (there are certainly some bastardly ones out there, just as there are from any demographic). Most irritating- and I’ve known people who justify it this way- is those who’ve had some sort of encounter with a male pedophile who preyed on boys in their history and they associate this with gays; more reasonable is that I’ve known a couple of women who were romantically involved with gay men who broke their hearts and now they dislike gays in general.

For most homophobes, male and female, I think it’s a far more personal thing. Racism is no longer socially acceptable or legally permissible, but gays are people you can dislike and find intrinsically inferior to yourself morally WHILE AT THE SAME TIME never having to worry that you’ll one day be like them. In other words, you can look down on adultery or thieves or addicts or on drunks or on fat people or on ugly people, etc., but there’s always the chance you’ll one day be or fat or drunk or an addict or ugly or that you’ll commit adultery or steal something and that would make you one of those people you hate. However, if you’re a straight woman or a straight man, you can be pretty damned sure you’re never going to willingly and knowingly have sex with a gay man, so that’s a nice safe set of horns to project your moral repulsion onto.

19

While I’ve known a number of women who have problems with lesbians or bisexual women, I’ve only known a very few who had problems with gay men that weren’t rooted in religion. Of those who are homophobic towards gay men, though, it seemed as though the problem was rooted in a fear of rejection. What it boiled down to was that men are supposed to want women and constantly be seeking (heterosexual) sex. Men who don’t want women are a threat and an insult. It messes up the game.

20

And building on what I said above, it’s a very safe sin to dislike as it’s one they can be sure they’re not going to commit. You’ll very rarely meet a happy and self-confident homophobe (or racist or anti-Semite, etc.).

I should mention that to me a certain “ick” factor when straight people think of gay sex (like I get when imagining having oral sex with a woman) or even an occasional “it’s just weird” thought about gay couples does not qualify, to me anyway, as homophobia but just that little natural “just don’t get it” thing that we all get about some things from time to time.