Thursday, April 27. 2006The standard categories...stereotyping gays & lesbians Blogger sloganx recently posted a link to this online quiz that asks "What type of lesbian are you?" Yes, I admit to it - I love completing whatever quiz/survey/personality/iq test may come in my direction, so I gave it a shot. Actually, I first surveyed my partner. And as we sat in front of my computer we actually wondered where those women are, the ones described by the quiz. We answered "disagree" to most of the questions, and we were still put into categories we don't relate to. She, as a "granola dyke" (with which she feels actually insulted) and me, "the pretty-boi dyke." Really?! Wow, I guess I should update my bigqueer bio!
The categories in the quiz include The Surprise! Dyke, The Vaginal-Reference-Making Dyke, The Stud, and The Magic Earring Ken Dyke.
So, take the quiz (or not) and let us know what type of lesbian you are! Most importantly, can you help me figure out where these categories came from? Maybe it's a generational thing, or a west coast thing, but frankly, I just don't get it...perpetuating stereotypes by further categorizing the lgbt community. How about we push it a bit further. I will, from now on, considering myself "The Sexy Academic Latina Techno-Loving Femme." I guess it's now really time I update my bio! Trackbacks
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The Sexy Academic Latina Techno-Loving Femme
I love it, i love it, I love it! Let's all make up our own categories so we will have a gazillion labels so we all can't possibly fit it each others. Then maybe, possibly, we'll all realize how ridiculous labels are and we can just call each other "peopple".
#1
on
2006-04-27 23:29
so what is your label, mary queen?
//alice
#1.1
on
2006-04-27 23:54
This reminds of two things...
"Maybe it's...a west coast thing" - have you ever heard that joke: in New York you are what you do, in SF you are what you're born, and in LA you are what you drive? I think that in a lot of the West Coast not just SF there is this idea that you are what you're born, and that inherent in your ethnic/gender/sexual identity is a master status which determines your desires and behaviors. So it does seem a little West Coasty to me. This also reminds me of the issue of the Utne Reader that finally made me cancel my subscription. I had long thought it ceased to be a truly progressive publication and had been reduced to a lifestyle marketing tool for middle-aged, upper middle class suburbanites who didn't like to go to church but still wanted to be spiritual, but I still subscribed. Then they came out with their "Gender Blur" Issue. In it was this quiz about how sexually progressive you were. Several of the questions asked whether the reader had ever experimented sexually with (gasp!) a person of the same sex! Not "have you experimented sexually with both sexes" or "with the sex that is not your primary sexual preference" or any other phrasing that would include me as a reader. The fact that the Utne Reader (of all magazines) in their "Gender Blur" Issue (of all issues) should assume an entirely heterosexual audience was the nail in the coffin. Check out the following GLAAD Alert on the same Utne Issue, regarding how it ignored transgendered/intersex people: http://www.glaad.org/action/al_archive_detail.php?id=1691
Big Mouth I hope you send a copy of this comment to the Utne Reader with your cancelation request.
Blatant herterosexism is all I can say.
#3
on
2006-04-28 10:46
Oh, this happened long, long ago, when my mouth was not so big (but just as loud). I think this issue came out in 98 or 99?
I've flipped through the Utne now and again since then and have never regretted my decision to cancel. |
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