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Construction of the difference
Construction of the difference between homosexual and heterosexual can use the same theoretical guidelines as construction of sex and gender differences
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Modern research into how homosexuals differ from heterosexuals tends to support that the reasons are genetic and physiological 9. Nevertheless it is earlier theories of illness, behaviour or of confusion that still have greatest influence on attitudes towards and stereotypes of homosexuals 10. This attitude of homosexuality as something an individual could stop 'if they really wanted to' results in criminalisation, discrimination, hatred and fear. The situation would be different if the heterosexual majority saw homosexuality as much an inherent and unchangeable part of the gay individual as their own sexual orientation is to themselves 11. From a gay perspective the differences are more clearly seen as inherent for sexual orientation but constructed for attitudes; meaning, they see their own sexuality as immutable but see the attitudes of individuals and that of society in general as learned and changeable . This leads to a prescription for change; namely that the culture and power basis that supports seeing only heterosexuality as normal should be challenged and altered. It is to this end of change that I argue homosexuals should be as open about their sexual orientation as possible - even when still acknowledging the considerable difficulties for many individuals if they do so. Homophobia is the fear or hatred of homosexuals.A frequent, and reasonable, question concerns just how prevalent homophobia is in the workplace. Employers tend to find it difficult to concede that their own colleagues could display the extremes of such behaviour at work. Surveys suggest that roughly one in three gay men have been victims of blatant discrimination 12 in an environment where 76% of them remain secretive about their sexuality at work 13. Fully 97% feels that they have been passed over for job opportunities because of their sexuality 14. Fears appear well founded with a 1988 US survey showing 71% of employers would either fire, not hire or not promote someone they thought to be homosexual 15. Herek has identified three basic causes of homophobia 16:
A further opinion 20 using gender role identification holds that homophobia reflects an unconscious fear that homosexuality is a better deal than heterosexuality. For a male homosexuality being seen as an unwillingness by gay men to protect and provide for women, for lesbians this may be interpreted as a failure to submit to being protected and provided for. These 'roles' are also at the base of sexism 21. Heterosexism is the assumption that everyone is either heterosexual, wants to be or should be.Recognition and challenge of this assumption is as important as recognising homophobia because without this recognition company policy and procedures will often unwittingly exclude gay workers and treat them less fairly than other employees 22. Unwittingly or not, a company that has such exclusionary policies is discriminating against people because of their sexual orientation. Heterosexism demands that homosexuals be seen as still conforming to male and female gender stereotypes even if reversed. It assumes a gay man as weak and feminine and lesbians as butch and masculine. The majority of homosexuals who do not fit these stereotypes are assumed to be 'really' heterosexual 23 and this leads to false assumptions that by being closeted gays will not face discrimination 24. This fails to appreciate the amount of energy required to maintain the facade and the enormous stress continual denial causes - energy and stress that could be more productively aligned to job tasks and advancement. Expecting a single group defined by a single characteristic to shoulder such a burden is discrimination, by definition. Homosexuality is an area of difference that confronts all of the common causes of discrimination.The base responses to a difference by a majority are feelings of discomfort, focus on the individual who is different, possible regarding of the minority as a threat and something to be feared and also a desire to remake the minority in the image of the majority 25. Gays also suffer 26 as a result of extreme stereotyping which is a common way in which a majority will seek to distance itself from the minority. Use of stereotyping is how a hegemonic norm (in this case, heterosexual union) preserves its dominance. The challenge of excluded homosexual ways of life shifts debate towards justifying the heterosexual norm and begins to focus attention on uncomfortable issues such as marriage breakdown, spousal abuse, child abuse and sexism 27. When a dominant group confronts such realities it is hardly surprising that the reaction will often be antagonism towards the minority - very much a case of shooting the messenger instead of acknowledging the message. Tactics employed by gay employees A closeted employee will typically follow one of two tactics :
Previous work I have done on the subject leads me to think that both tactics fail the gay employee and are ultimately futile 28. As society has become more aware of homosexuality any person who fails to show outwardly heterosexual signs beyond about 30 years old will often be assumed as gay 29. At this point the individual will suffer all the negatives without being able to take advantage of the positives available to their open colleagues. Openly gay employees will often also use one of two tactics:
Personally, I have adopted Integration as my preferred strategy 30. It is not in my nature to seek discord although I fully recognise, and appreciate, that deconstructing the stereotypes and demanding equality sometimes calls for it. Following long speculation by my fellow employees I took my first steps to 'come out' at work in the Melbourne office of Mobil Oil Australia.The Mobil environment was bureaucratic and 'masculine'. Personnel policies often used rather arcane language 31 and policies were written so as to exclude gay employees from many benefits. Most colleagues were accepting if somewhat uncomfortable but I still endured homophobic notes left on my desk or in my diary [ two examples are in Appendix A], harassing telephone calls, verbal abuse and even an outright theat by a senior manager of physical attack if he and several other colleagues ever found me alone in the car park. What is significant for me is that I did not feel I had the means for my concerns to be addressed. The company policy on non-discrimination was so poorly constructed as to send quite the opposite message to gays 32. I was not about to place my reputation at further risk by making claims about fellow workers that I could not substantiate in a corporation that obviously assumed none of their employees were gay, or if they were it did not matter. At this time I was also dealing with my own discomfort addressing the issue publicly - this is an entirely normal but harrowing part of 'coming out' - and I needed much greater self-confidence than I had at the time to make complaints within such an organisation. I have had rather a better experience managing my coming out at Melbourne Business School, not only because I am now 'over it' 33 but because of my reflecting on the previous experiences and applying the learning. I had concerns about what 'type' of person would fill the school and I was aware of the vital role that successful group work plays in the MBA programme. For months prior my partner and I discussed how best to tackle the issue. The eventual tactic was one of complete integration by the third month of first term by deliberately avoiding informal groups of fellow students initially and spending a great deal of effort on individual contact. I even went to the extent of acquiring a new "MBS drag 34 " in neutral and bland colours to avoid attention. By these means I hoped to be seen as myself before the group process took over and my home life and sexuality were uncovered. I believe my management of this to have been successful and this has been an enormous relief. After the experience at Mobil I have been impressed by my fellow students acceptance of myself and my partner; we feel fully included which is even better than simply not feeling excluded 35. |
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Ahead to Outcomes of encouraging Openess |
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Footnotes for this page |
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8 | Sinclair A, course notes for Managing Difference, Melbourne Business School, Term 3 1996 |
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9 | Use of genetics as a possible explanation was first speculated upon by Hutchinson (1959). There is still no complete understanding - it is a complex scientific problem. Earlier research lacked the means to conduct genetic research leading to all sorts of other speculative notions about the causes of the difference. Over the last 30 years a strong body of evidence suggests that the cause is mainly biological whilst none has supported that homosexuality is 'learned'. When interpreting such research it does well to recall Kinsey's greatest contribution - namely, that sexuality is rather fluid in definition and that for a great middle section of the population bisexuality - degrees of attraction to both sexes - is their orientation and separating out these people from exclusively homosexual people is difficult. As examples, is someone 'exclusively' heterosexual just because they have never acted upon their sexual attraction to their own sex? Does the different physiological response required by men and women to fulfil their side of penetrative intercourse make a difference? (It is rather 'easier' for a fully gay woman to physically engage in sex with a man or for a straight woman to engage in sex with a woman than it is for a man to maintain an erection when he is not at all sexually attracted - leaving aside the small number of documented cases of men who have had erections when raped under threat of extreme violence).It is worth noting that refute of the scientific evidence by the Religious Right relies heavily on playing with semantics rather than providing counter evidence. From these quarters one often hears that science has not proven the theories. This is a distortion of the scientific process which is theory backed by repeatable observation and is underpinned by the principle of Occam's rasor - never assume what you don't have to. Scientist are trained to use non-absolute expressions such as "This suggests...", "...evidence indicates..." etc. This scientific philosophy is in marked contrast to religious dogma which talks in absolute terms, even when no repeatable observation is possible ie "God hates...", "...is a sin against the Lord..." etc. Use of such language is trained out of scientists and considered improper. Allowing for the possibility that further observations may indicate your scientific interpretation is not sustainable does not invalidate your own work. |
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10 | Earlier theories based on learned or socialised causes have not been supported by research. Such theories included having a domineering mother or an absent father or that it resulted from gender confusion. Other theories such as that homosexuality was a form of mental illness or that one became gay only following childhood seduction by an adult homosexual have been disproved, this last theory is largely based on the refusal by parents to believe their. son or daughter could possibly be this way by design. For much of these theories Freud tends to be blamed. His work early this century (particularly 'The Interpretation of Dreams') viewed mental illness as existing when the conscious and unconscious minds conflicted. It is not hard to imagine outward signs of such a condition occurring in any minority group living in a society that continually reinforced their conscious mind to believe that they were perverse or immoral when their own subconscious desires said otherwise - it took even the American Psychiatrists Association (or more particularly, the members of the APA who like everyone else grew up in an anti-gay society) until 1973 to separate the 'not sick individual' from the 'sick society'. Freud also contributed the notion (in 'The Phobic Theory of Male Homosexuality') that a fear of the opposite sex drove some men to homosexual relationships. Interestingly, while Freud regarded homosexuality as a retardation of sexual development (heterosexuality being the ultimate state) he did not believe it to be either an 'illness' that could be cured or that gay people could not have fulfilling lives as homosexuals. His famous 'Letter to an American Mother' of 1935 makes for enlightening reading when considering the damage so many psychiatrists have wrecked on homosexual men and women since. Freud himself was indebted to the groundbreaking work of Havelock Ellis (Sexual Inversions, 1897) in which Ellis argued that homosexuality was neither a disease or a crime but simply a congenitally acquired sexual orientation. Use of Freud's definition of mental illness to interpret the behaviour of extreme religious bigots or that of the young men who make up the majority of 'gay bashers' can lead to all sorts of fascinating discussion! |
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11 | Whitam of Arizona State University in a study of cross-cultural attitudes and occurrence (A Question of Sexual Orientation) found that those societies that view being gay as 'just the way it is' were rather more tolerant than those who viewed it as a 'behaviour' - though this can rapidly take on chicken-and-egg dimensions |
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12 | Woods JD, The Corporate Closet: The Professional Lives of Gay Men in America, The Free Press, 1994, p 200 |
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13 | Woods JD, Ibid, p 8 |
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14 | Woods JD, Ibid, p 9 |
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15 | Woods JD, Ibid, p 9 |
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16 | Herek G, Beyond homophobia: A Social Psychological Perspective on Attitudes towards Lesbians and Gay Men, Binghamton, New York, Haworth Press, 1984 |
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17 | A case can be made for including AIDS-phobia under this category. The response by many parallels the response to other new, especially sexually transmitted, diseases through the ages - ie, demonising the group first infected, blaming the disease on them and denial that it could infect either themselves or someone close to them. Curiously, people who condemn homosexuality on HIV/AIDS grounds overlook lesbians as being the least likely to acquire the disease; though this may be also seen as yet another example of female sexuality being marginalised and calls for the behaviour of males to be enforced. |
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18 | This reaction is marked in young adult males dealing with what they see as their own inadequacy at not having fully established their heterosexual, masculine credentials such as a wife (or sexually active girlfriend) and children. It is from this group that most violent attacks on gay men and women are drawn |
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19 | As example, it is common within fundamentalist Christian groups who espouse a belief that homosexuality is a moral sin and that gays seek to destroy family life or values. Anne Schaef and Diane Fassel (The Addictive Organisation, 1988) note that organisations can continue to operate in what their members may well see as questionable ways if the organisation reinforces the notion that the members are performing constructive social work eg "Saving the Family from the sodomites". |
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20 | Farrell W, The Myth of Male Power, Random House, Sydney, 1994, pp 207-208 |
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21 | The notion of gender role confusion as a cause of homosexuality has little standing in the psychiatric profession today - and, perhaps more importantly, is not generally an 'issue' among gay men and women who tend to more clearly see the distinction between sex, gender and sexuality than heterosexuals and will often deliberately play with the divisions in order to show them up as merely social contructs. Note, for example the difference between transvestism which is largely a heterosexual male phenomenon and drag which is a male (usually gay) in theatrical costume. Nevertheless it forms the basis for the 'treatment' programmes devised by groups such as Exodus (an American Christian organisation that claims to be made up of 'ex-gays' and their supporters) who tend to see gender and sexuality not as socially constructed or a continuum but as stark 'male' or 'female' polarities. |
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22 | Such exclusion can be seen by considering sick leave, bereavement leave or other benefits that recognise only legally married or de-facto relationships - ie heterosexual. |
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23 | Cross & White Ed., The Diversity Factor, Irwin, Chicago, 1996, p 99 |
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24 | Cross & White Ed., Ibid, p 100 |
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25 | Sinclair A, Ibid |
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26 | D'Angelli (Pennsylvania State University, 1994) detailed how the pressure of stereotyping results in high levels of suicide, depression, anxiety, alcohol abuse and lowered self-esteem. Stereotyping is typically countered by the stereotyped group becoming visible enough for the offending group to alter their perceptions. |
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27 | This is not to pretend that gay relationships are somehow free of the typical 'games' and selfishness associated with all relationships. Nor does it infer a belief that heterosexual relationships are somehow dysfunctional by nature. (I need only give the example of my parents 40 year marriage charaterised by mutual respect and affection in which I have never heard them raise their voices to one another). The point is that until the sexual/gay/feminist revolution the notion was that the marriage home was sacrosanct and 'private' subjects such as incest, child and spousal abuse and gender role subordination went unreviewed by society in general. |
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28 | Gray G, Individual Assignment, Organisations, MBA Programme, Melbourne Business School, 21 March 1996 |
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29 | By outward signs this means known to be in a heterosexual relationship or having a 'good' reason for not being so (recent divorce or recent arrival to the area etc). Excuses can be made in the short-term but a long-term disinterest in establishing a heterosexual relationship is noted and discussed by work colleagues. |
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30 | In my own experience the majority of heterosexual colleagues appreciate candour and usually will assist with such a strategy - once they have dropped perviously held attitudes towards homosexuals as a group through personalisation There is always a danger that such attitudes will not be dropped but that you as a gay individual will be seen as atypical and 'one of the good gays - not like the rest of them'. This is another way in which a majority will seek to maintain the difference gap |
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31 | one on airfares for spouses referred to 'the employee and his wife' |
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32 | For example, it referred to sexual preference rather than orientation-a seemingly minor point to heterosexuals but one that grates with gay men and women who are only too familiar with attitudes that see our sexual identity as just a behavioural problem. Indeed there is a campaign by the Religious Right to use the term preference, which implies choice in the matter, rather than orientation. Further, the example of 'gay sexual harassment' was not one involving a homophobic remark or threats but rather a gay worker asking a male colleague out for a drink at a 'gay nightclub' to wind down after they had both put in a long day - in other words nothing was said about protecting the gay employee whilst much was said about remaining closeted. To gay men such an episode is so ridiculous as to be almost laughable - for a start, the male collegue may well have been gay himself and welcomed the chance to have a quiet drink at his usual bar. Secondly , a gay man is unlikely to invite a straight male collegue out to a gay bar without already being on friendly and open terms and finally, examples of gay men sexually harrassing straight males is dwarfed by the amount of harrassment in the other direction - let alone straight male harrassment of women. Elsewhere in the document it was clearly stated that a male colleague simply inviting a female colleague out socially did not in itself constitute harassment. The use of language and the double standard was stark. |
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33 | an expression often used by out Australian gays to indicate their degree of self-confidence about speaking openly |
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34 | In gay slang 'drag' simply means any set of clothing for a particular purpose ie office drag = your suit, gardening drag = the old clothes you mow the lawn in etc |
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35 | Much of this acceptance may perhaps be attributed to the fact that many MBA students are themselves facing a period of change in their own lives and may be more receptive to differences. When freed of the need to conform, an overwhelming part of corporate life for many, people are typically less obsessed with others lack of conformity. |
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This work remains the property of the author (grantdale@geocities.com) and of the University of Melbourne and may not be reproduced, stored or edited in any way without the expressed permission of the author. It may be quoted for academic purposes provided the author is acknowledged. |
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