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Sexual Orientation, Gender, and Families: Dichotomizing Differences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Susan Moller Okin
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Abstract

Throughout history, women and men have been seen as “opposites” in various respects. Examples from the writings of political theorists illustrate this point, while Virginia Woolf is shown to have departed radically from the general tendency to dichotomize sexual difference. Further, this “need” to dichotomize sexual differences contributes to anxiety about and stigmatization of homosexuality. As the social salience of gender becomes reduced, it is to be expected that hostility to homosexuality will decline.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 11 , Issue 1: Special Issue: The Family and Feminist Theory , Winter 1996 , pp. 30 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 by Hypatia, Inc.

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