Deborah Cameron, in “Performing Gender Identity: Young Men’s Talk and the Construction of Heterosexual Masculinity,” points out that "it is unhelpful for linguists to continue to use models of gendered speech which imply that masculinity and femininity are monolithic constructs" (282). This seems in line with Rusty Barrett's analysis of the linguistic styles of African American drag queens (AADQs).
In "Supermodels of the World, Unite!" Barrett notes that "the presence of a dominant hegemonic [linguistic] variety may not always represent collaboration with the dominating social group" (163). And it is clear that, although Cameron's subjects try very hard to gender themselves as "red-blooded heterosexual males: not women and not queers" (282), they feel compelled to perform what could be construed as stereotypical linguistic moves.
Gender Might Be More Nurture than Nature
Cameron's insight that the subjects' overt othering of women and gay men "provide[s] a contrast group against whom masculinity can be defined" (281) proposes a transactional model with "gender" only being possible if there are reinforcing hits from outside the discourse community. Similarly, in order to subvert what is perceived as white heterosexual hegemony, the AADQs of Barrett's analysis appropriate "the white woman style" (162).
The main difference between the AADQs and the straight, white suburban college boys is that, according to Barrett, the drag queens consciously appropriate the "symbols of domination . . . as a means of resistance" (163) whereas the college boys are concerned with resisting any forces that might subvert their ideal of maleness, particularly "the perceived danger that so often accompanies Western male homosociality: homosexuality" (281).
But Who Has the Power to Represent Gender?
In this sense, it is not difficult to read the linguistic strategies of both groups as power seeking relative to each group's self-perception. The AADQs seem to feel they are already in a position of "otherness" in contrast to the heterosexual white dominance. Alternately, the college boys seem to feel they need to preserve their heterosexuality in contrast to homosexuality.
When witnessing any kind of performance, it is often easiest to take the characteristics of that particular performance as evidence of its meaning instead of trying to fit the performance into preconceived categories. But if one's sexual identity is supported (performed) through language and not inherited or acquired, then where does this leave Kiesling's fraternity brothers in “Playing the Straight Man: Displaying and Maintaining Male Heterosexuality in Discourse”?
According to Kiesling, the subjects' "discursive indexing of their heterosexuality is embedded in a community of practice that is organized around heterosexuality and sexual difference" (118). One the surface, this seems well and good: yet another example of "playing the straight man." However, Kiesling observes that in college fraternity culture, heterosexual sex is “an important social goal" (119). In this community, the discourse comes after the performance (straight sex). The discourse, in effect, depends on and is created by the performance (or the appearance of such performance).
References:
Barrett, Rusty. “Supermodels of the World, Unite! Political Economy and the Language of Performance Among African American Drag Queens.” The Language and Sexuality Reader. Eds. Deborah Cameron and Don Kulick. London: Routledge, 2006.
Cameron, Deborah. “Performing Gender Identity: Young Men’s Talk and the Construction of Heterosexual Masculinity.” Language and Gender: A Reader. Ed. Jennifer Coates. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.
Kiesling, Scott. “Playing the Straight Man: Displaying and Maintaining Male Heterosexuality in Discourse.” The Language and Sexuality Reader. Eds. Deborah Cameron and Don Kulick. London: Routledge, 2006.
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