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Heteronormativity Revisited: Adolescents’ Educational Choices, Sexuality and Soaps

Heteronormativity Revisited: Adolescents’ Educational Choices, Sexuality and Soaps
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Author(s): Els Rommes (Radboud University, The Netherlands)
Copyright: 2010
Pages: 23
Source title: Gender Issues in Learning and Working with Information Technology: Social Constructs and Cultural Contexts
Source Author(s)/Editor(s): Shirley Booth (University of Gothenburg, Sweden), Sara Goodman (Lund University, Sweden)and Gill Kirkup (Open University, UK)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-813-5.ch009

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Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to explore to what extent heteronormativity, the norm that man and woman are attracted to each other because of their presumed difference and complementarity, can offer an explanation for the persisting association between masculinity and technological/computer competence. Two aspects of heteronormative gender relations, namely sexual attractiveness and the heteronormative division of labour are particularly explored. The main focus in this chapter is on how technological competence and the gendered division of labour and of sexual attractiveness are represented in mass media. Along with this, some examples of the consequences of these heteronormative imaginaries and ideology for people’s lives will be given. Amongst youth popular soap operas, stereotypical images are repeated of technologically competent men and socially competent women. For some women, this image also seemed to dominate in their personal lives, where they seemed to want to stay away from technologies as soon as there was a man around. Being (hetero)sexually attractive and being computer competent did not go well together in several block buster movies. The adolescents included in this study clearly shared this notion. These two aspects of heteronormativity do seem to strengthen the understanding of why it is so hard for women to choose a career in technology and particularly in computing science.

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