"In this superb ethnography of daily life in a contemporary high school, C. J. Pascoe highlights the sexualized dynamics of youthful masculinity. With vivid detail and perceptive analysis, she examines the 'fag talk' which pervades boys' conversations; the convergence of gender, sexual, and racialized practices in school rituals like the 'Mr. Cougar' contest; and the experiences of girls who display themselves as masculine. The result is a book that breaks fresh ground in masculinity and gender studies-and is a very good read!"
--Barrie Thorne, author of Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School
"High school and the difficult terrain of sexuality and gender identity
are brilliantly explored in this smart, incisive ethnography"
Based on eighteen months of fieldwork in a racially diverse working-class
high school, Dude, You're a Fag sheds new light on masculinity both as
a field of meaning and as a set of social practices. C. J. Pascoe's
unorthodox approach analyzes masculinity as not only a gendered process
but also a sexual one.
She demonstrates how the "specter of the fag"
becomes a disciplinary mechanism for regulating
heterosexual as well as homosexual boys and how the "fag discourse"
is as much tied to gender as it is to sexuality.
Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (June 4, 2007)
Language: English
C.J. Pascoe is Postdoctoral Scholar with
the Digital Youth Project at the Institute
for the Study of Social Change,
University of California, Berkeley.
