Page 51 - Cultural Studies A Practical Introduction

Gender and Sexuality 35

underscore the daily, ritualized basis of gender identity and performance:
“ She answered the phone in that cutesy, friendly voice she reserves for
phone calls. ”
The novel also focuses on gender gray areas that fall outside of or
between the standard heterosexual model. There are older men who molest
young girls on trains and transvestites who resent the presence of lesbian
girls in their neighborhood of the city and beat them up:

Boku - chan was trying her best to become a guy. … Boku - chan had the single
fixed idea that, since she liked women, she wanted to become a nice man,

and that in order to become one, she needed to act manly. Which to her
meant frowning as you held your cigarette between thumb and forefi nger,
putting your arm around a girl ’ s shoulder and lifting her chin with your
finger, speaking in a deep, threatening voice, adopting all the poses and

actions of hunky actors in movies. She was tall, had studied karate, and was
muscular, so she had the mannerisms down, but somehow when she did it,
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it all came off as a joke.

Worm, the murderer, is a victim of gendered cultural conditioning.
Badgered by his mother to perform well in cram school, his sexuality has
become bent from physical expression and become focused on women ’ s
undergarments and voyeurism. His solution is violence and the adoption
of a militaristic role that he performs with one of the high school girls, by
enlisting her as a subordinate.
The Internet has become an important cultural and political tool for
members of minority gender and sexual groups. It allows easy access to
public discussion and news broadcasting by those without access to radio
or television stations or networks. On such sites as http://www.queerty.
com , information can be disseminated, issues discussed, and political action
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taken in a way that is not possible in mainstream media outlets. The
entries on Queerty for October 9, 2008, for example, concerned television
commercials that aimed to convince people to stop using gay - derogatory
expressions such as “ That ’ s so gay! ” It also reports on an effort in Canada
to question the judgment of a minister who allowed a gay - hating African
singer to enter the country. Buju Banton sings songs in which he urges
listeners to murder gays. If one goes to the Queerty Japan site, one can

find a link to AfterEllen.com, a site for lesbians. There, for the same day,
a poll asks viewers to vote for the best lesbian kiss on television, but the