Breaching Gender Norms Results in Violence

Sherry Piszar

Once in a while, the struggle of an ordinary person captures the attention of the entire nation. In the cases of Shannon Faulkner and Matt Shepard, this happened in response to their decision to live as they wished, defying societal norms for the performance of gender. When these norms are breached, they are defended by society through the administration of negative sanctions to the deviant parties. Faulkner sought admission to an all-male military-style school, and Shepard lived as an openly gay male. Since contemporary society is androcentric and homophobic, both Faulkner and Shepard suffered negative sanctions as a result of their choices. Susan Faludi tells how Faulkner was harassed and threatened with violence, even murder, in her essay “The Naked Citadel.” Beth Loffreda recounts the murder of Shepard in her essay “Selections From Losing Matt Shepard.” The experiences of Faulkner and Shepard epitomize one side of the battle for freedom from discrimination on the basis of gender, and freedom to pursue happiness regardless of how one performs gender, respectively. The media coverage of their battles attracted attention to the underlying issue, the pursuit of gender parity. The reason that their struggles attracted so much attention is that they symbolized changes that many Americans fear and oppose. Malcolm Gladwell describes one aspect of this phenomenon, called the “tipping point,” in his essay, “The Power of Context: Bernie Goetz and the Rise and Fall of New York City Crime.” The introduction to Gladwell’s work explains the source of his inspiration: “In epidemiology, the phrase ‘the tipping point’ is used to describe that moment when a virus reaches critical mass…Fascinated by this medical fact, Gladwell found himself wondering whether it also applied to the social world” (Gladwell 178). He continues by introducing the “Power of Context” theory, which states that contextual cues from the environment shape individual action more than personality factors or deeply held personal convictions. Gladwell’s idea that “tipping points” exist in the contemporary social world illuminates the reasons why Faulkner and Shepard met with strong negative sanctions for breaching gender norms, and his “Power of Context” theory helps to explain how and why the opposition to gender parity grew and was expressed through violence.Since cultural norms for gender enactment are an important part of the “context” in which we live, breaching them, as Faulkner and Shepard did, is subject to negative sanctions, including violence and murder.

Faulkner and Shepard took part in the continuous fight for gender parity, which is met by strong opposition from those who view these freedoms as dangerous for society as a whole. Faludi describes Faulkner as “…the woman who had challenged the school’s hundred-and-fifty-year-old all-male policy by omitting reference to her sex from the application and winning acceptance to the Corps of Cadets earlier that year---acceptance that was rescinded once the administrators discovered their error” (Faludi 134). Shannon Faulkner was rejected as a candidate for admission to The Citadel solely because she is female. A male former cadet asserts that, “The great majority of the guys here are very misogynistic…All they talk about is how girls are pigs and sluts” (Faludi 135). Faulkner’s rejection comes from a social context of an androcentric environment where stereotypical masculinity is the gold standard. Her decision to ignore The Citadel’s norms for gender performance led to a negative response there. Likewise, Matt Shepard is murdered because he is openly gay, in defiance of societal norms for masculine gender performance. Loffreda recounts Matt’s experience in a gay bar:

"after Mr. Shepard confided that he was gay, the subjects deceived Mr. Shepard into leaving with them in their vehicle… McKinney, we’d later learn, had apparently told Matt, ‘We’re not gay, and you just got jacked,’ before striking him… both subjects… robbed him, and tortured him… The subjects then left the area, leaving the victim for dead” (Faludi 315).

The primary difference between Matt’s experience and Shannon’s is that the social context is one of homophobia, not androcentrism. But both environmental cues indicate that it was the rejection of normative performance of gender by Shannon and Matt that led to violent reprisals.

The media acted as a tipping point in Shannon and Matt’s cases by creating and disseminating information in a manner calculated to spread opposition and encourage violence by providing a context of controversy and conflict as a backdrop for their experiences. Media reports of the virulent opposition to the admission of Shannon Faulkner created an environment that encouraged harassment and violence. Faludi recounts that “A few days after the judge ordered The Citadel to admit Faulkner to the Corps of Cadets, morning rush-hour drivers in Charleston passed by a huge portable sign that read ‘Die Shannon’” (Faludi 149). Media coverage of the court order triggered angry protests, including the clearly articulated and widely publicized wish that Shannon would die. Similarly, The Citadel’s newspaper ran a column devoted to Faulkner’s opposition. Faludi asserts that “The Brigadier’s column ‘Scarlet Pimpernel’ took up the anti-Shannon cause with a vengeance” (Faludi 152). The column fueled the fire by lampooning Shannon and openly opposing her admission to The Citadel, encouraging an environment of hostility toward her. Similarly, media coverage of Matt Shepard’s death and its impact on the town of Laramie created an environment of rage and conflict. The excessive coverage of Matt’s murder might have encouraged increased anti-gay violence. Loffreda points out that “They knew the statistics: that anti-gay violence tends to rise sharply in the aftermath of a publicized bashing” (Loffreda 321). Paradoxically, the media attention that serves to raise public awareness of the violent consequences of homophobia also increases the incidence of anti-gay violence. One reason for this odd correlation is that the media also provides an opportunity for those who are anti-gay, such as Fred Phelps, to voice their opinions. The anti-gay viewpoint was expressed in a confrontational manner, which added to the potential for violence resulting from contextual cues. The media coverage exacerbated the difficulties faced by Faulkner and for all non-heterosexuals in the wake of Shepard’s murder by adding environmental cues that lead to increased opposition and violence.

The microcosms of The Citadel and Laramie show us how larger social tensions are intensified until violence erupts. The Citadel cadets also feel the tension of maintaining male identity in uncertain economic times and in the presence of a challenge to the stereotypical male model for the enactment of gender. Faludi explains the situation this way:

Again, we are at a psychic and economic crisis point for manhood. And again, the gun issues hide the butter issues: the bombast masks a deep insecurity about employment and usefulness in a world where gentlemen soldiers are an anachronism and a graduate with gentlemen’s C’s may find himself busing tables at Wendy’s (Faludi 138).

Since the cadets face so many threats to their masculine identity in the outside world, regarding their ability to work and to earn a good living, they seek refuge in the insular world of The Citadel, where male privilege still exists, and male self-esteem and acceptance still result from the stereotypical enactment of the male gender. Once again, the important difference between the cadets at The Citadel and the people of Laramie is the substitution of homophobia for androcentrism. The people of Laramie feel the tension between those who support gender parity and those who are anti-gay, because while they do not condone hate crimes, the majority of them do not support gender parity either. This kind of ambivalence is not limited to the people of Laramie. For example, Barbara Cubin sponsored a resolution condemning the murder of Matthew Shepard. This would appear to be a gesture of solidarity against anti-gay violence, but it was not backed by any new anti-discrimination legislation. Loffreda captures the essence of the public response to Matt’s murder:

Cubin was not alone, of course, in her contradictory patriotic embrace of Matt; flags were lowered, resolutions passed, in a nation otherwise happy to express its loathing of gays by closeting them in the military, refusing them antidiscrimination protection in most cities and states, repressing their presence in school curricula, faculty, and clubs, and denouncing them in churches (Loffreda 324).

The people of Laramie, along with the entire nation, showed solidarity by voicing their opposition to hate and to hate crimes. They did not change their stance about gay rights though. In rejecting the proposed inclusion of sexual preference and gender performance to the existing anti-discrimination laws, they showed tacit support for homophobia. While it may be argued that it is possible to “love the sinner and hate the sin,” it is also impossible to love someone yet refuse to protect them from discriminatory behavior on the basis of sexual preference or gender performance. The conflicts around gender performance, originating in homophobia or androcentrism, were intensified in Laramie and at The Citadel, mirroring the tensions around gender performance that occur in the larger social world, and reflecting the influence of the media on those relatively insular environments.

Cultural norms for the enactment of gender are resistant to change. Breaching gender norms is a form of deviance that is punished severely, regardless of the context in which it occurs. For Faulkner and Shepard, the pursuit of happiness was made costly by opposition to the way that they enacted gender. The context in which this occurred was conducive to strong, even violent, opposition to breaching. The scapegoating of Faulkner and Shepard was an inevitable result of the way that they breached gender norms in an environment that is hostile toward this form of deviance, and in which hatred was fueled by the media.