ibdp written assignment

1. DAILY NEWS 20 September 2017
Kids everywhere have damaging gender stereotyping setbyage 10
By Andy Coghlan
Damaging gender stereotypes are ingrained from the age of 10. That is the conclusion of the first
study to draw together data from high, middle and low-income countries across different cultures
about how “tweenagers” perceive growing up as a boy or girl.
Researchers interviewed 450 children aged 10 to 14, plus a parent or guardian, from 15 countries,
including Nigeria, China, the US and South Africa. They found that across all cultures, early
adolescents were fitted with a “gender straitjacket” that has lifelong consequences linked to
an increased risk of health problems. These are particularly perilous for girls.
“What we’ve learned is that there’s more commonality than differences in 10-year-olds across the
world,” says Robert Blum of Johns Hopkins University in Maryland and leader of the study,
which is published this week in a special issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health. “We were
very surprised to see such universality of the myth that boys are strong, confident and leaders,
while girls are weak and incompetent, who should be quiet and follow.”
One main finding showed that boys and girls are encouraged to lead separate lives in early
adolescence. Parents in many cultures – particularly in low to middle-income countries –
intervene at puberty to quash their child’s relationships with the opposite sex.
At this age, the world shrinks for girls, while it expands for boys, says Blum. Girls are more
likely to stay close to home, while boys are given free rein to explore and experiment
unsupervised.
“This is profoundly problematic, but that’s what gets played out everywhere, even in most liberal
societies,” says Blum.
In many places, the pressure of these stereotypes leaves girls at higher risk of leaving school
and experiencing early pregnancy and sexual violence, and encourages reckless and risky
behaviour in boys.
In some countries, boys faced sanctions for attempting to defy the status quo. For instance, boys
in Delhi said that they expected beatings from their parents if they associated with girls. They
were taught that they wouldn’t be able to control their sexual urges, says Blum. Some boys
reported that abuse of girls was “natural” because of these urges.
There were some positive findings. In Shanghai, for example, interviews revealed increasing
support for girls to prize traits such as educational achievement and career development.
“Too often, we address gender norms late in adolescence when they are well established and have
started to have negative impacts on health,” says Sarah Keogh at the Guttmacher Institute in New
York. “This study shows that gender socialisation happens much earlier than that.”
Blum says it is possible to change stereotypes, citing altered attitudes and laws combating sexism
in Europe and North America. But he says it requires the knowledge of how and when these
gender myths are ingrained. Exposures to gender stereotypes start in infancy, he says, “but early
adolescence may be the ideal time for interventions”.
Journal reference: Journal of Adolescent Health
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2147963-kids-everywhere-have-damaging-gender-
stereotyping-set-by-age-10/

2. Playing with Fire: “Compulsory Heterosexuality” in ‘The Hunger Games’
Posted By Bitch Flicks
I taught Suzanne Collins’s novel The Hunger Games as the culminating text for my Women and Violence in
Literature course this semester. Almost all of us had read the book already,but to look at Katniss through the
lens of the female protagonists thathad come before her in the semester—The Bride,Firdaus,Aileen Wuornos,
Legs, Lisbeth Salander, Malli, Phoolan, Sihem—meant we could consider the work Katniss is doing in popular
culture. So while we had read the book before, we hadn’t read it the way that we read it together.
Much conversation focused on subvertinggender norms,yet we talked littleaboutthe focus of the loveinterests
until our final discussion. While my conversations with my friends’ 12-year-old daughters about the trilogy
always began with “Team Peeta!” or “Team Gale!” our conversations in theclassroomfocused on thescholarship
of female collectives and violentresistance;we didn’t need Galeand Peeta as fodder for conversation. But on
the last day of class, I introduced Adrienne Rich’s idea of compulsory heterosexuality to complic ate the larger
conversation in which readers—and viewers—find themselves forced to choosea camp, justas Katnissisforced
to do.
Of course, the filmic versions of the novels rely on the love trianglebetween Katniss,Peeta, and Galeas a way
to includethe most viewers, includingthe16 or so people who sawthe films without havingread the trilogy. In
a perhaps unintended meta-moment, Caeser smiles to the adoringcrowd and callsa survivingPeeta and Katniss
“the star-crossed lovers from District 12” from a set that looks uncannily like one from American Idol or The
Voice.
Within the context of the Hunger Games and the arena, The Capitol, just like Hollywood, gives the audience
what it wants: a forced—or let’s borrow Rich’s term “compulsory”—heterosexual relationship that Katniss
barely tolerates in the novels. However, Katniss co-opts the Capitol’s compulsion, her only opportunity to
ensure the survival of both herself and Peeta, and uses itto resistthe Capitol and disrupttheir narrativeof what
the Hunger Games should accomplish—passivity—and instead incites the fire of revolution.
After Katniss becomes District12’s firstvolunteer in an attempt to spareher sister Prim, whose odds were
clearly notin her favor, the former is whisked to the Capitol where she must become what the audience
wants: the picture of femininity as a clean,waxed, young lady,a female object that must win the affection of
the wealthy sponsors who hold her lifein their hands. In the clinical settingof the Remake Center, her team—
after a required second round of cleaning–transforms her body from that of a ragged, hard coal-mining
daughter to that of a smooth, softCapitol woman where femininity means manipulation of one’s body, often
to the pointof disfigurement (as happens to Tigris in Mockingjay). Haymitch reminds Katniss thatshe needs to
be “nicer” to win the attention of the viewers.
Once the tributes are in the arena—the Capitol’s entrancement with the Hunger Games relying on bloodlust,
the Districts’ on fear—Katniss and Peeta separate. After many, many deaths of children in a PG-13 film, the
Gamemaker announces a change of ruleafter his menacingconversation with PresidentSnow: two winners can
emerge from the same District. As Gale watches the Games, his jealous sidelong glance casting toward the
television, the rest of the Capitol can now root for love in the reality death match.
The Capitol viewers—and theHollywood viewers—are then treated to the scene they have been waitingfor. All
of us feel relieved there is a chance for the heterosexual love to live; the edict seems to good to be true! We
get the lovescene that confirms their relationship,and Katniss’sperformancemakes iteas y for all of us to forget
that this relationship is forced, that Katniss and Peeta have both come to realize that their best chance of
survivingis by feigning heterosexual desire. They press together in the cave. Haymitch sends medicine with a
note reminding Katniss what she must do: “You call that a kiss?”
In talking about Kathleen Barry’s work, Rich reminds readers in her 1980 essay “Compulsory Heterosexuality
and Lesbian Existence” that “[t]he ideology of heterosexual romance, beamed ather from chi ldhood outof fairy
tales,television,films,advertising,popularsongs,weddingpageantry,is a tool ready to the procurer’s hand and
one which he does not hesitate to use.” The viewer requires a fairy tale—Katniss and Peeta’s lives depend on
this fairy tale. In an infection-induced fog,Peeta dreamily recounts watchingKatnissgo home,“Every day. Every
day.” We areled to believeshe has been the objectof his lovewithouther awareness. We can hear the viewers
in the Capitol swooning—and liningup to help. And we see Galeleeringatthe screen as his lovegoes to another
man.
This feigned relationship isin facttheir only option for survival,onethatthey will play up later in this filmasthey
dress like Prince Charming and Cinderella…
and (spoiler alert) in Catching Fire with their acceptance of the sad fact that the Capitol’s desire for their
heterosexual relationship to carry on means that they must marry in order to survive… and (super spoiler alert)

3. by Katniss’s resignation in theepilogue of Mockingjay in which she succumbs to Peeta’s desireto have children
with him.
In the final sceneof the Games, Katniss ismocked by another girl for trying to save her “lover boy.” We see the
Capitol watchingthe love story. The command center grows quiet whilethe men and a few women controlling
the couple’s environment watch during a rare moment of stillness; even they are captivated by the story they
have created. Katniss and Peeta arethe finale.The audiencemust know: Will their (heterosexual) lovesurvive?
Panem holds its breath. The desire for compulsory heterosexuality is the pair’s shield—though it puts them at
risk,itis the only way for the two of them to survive. They are in a bind of expectations others put on them in
order to endure in this system of oppression called Panemand its games. And instead of choosingherself–“We
both go down and you win”—she sends Cato to the dogs, savingher lifeand Peeta’s (and in a moment of gender
essentialism, fires a mercy shot to spare Cato an even more horrible death).
They hug. Everyone relaxes. A crescendo of anxiety is released for a moment when we think they will both
live: Heterosexual normativity can persist.
And then the previous provision isrevoked. Peeta and Katniss stand atthe cornucopia,the ultimate symbol of
hearth and home reflecting the audience’s desires for heterosexual normativity, and recognize that their
attempt atplayinginto theCapitol’s desires for a heterosexual relationship to flourish even in thefaceof terrible
odds did not work. One of them must kill the other.
Katniss takes control of the situation. We see the districts watch them hold the poisoned berries to each
other. The thought of losingboth lovers becomes unbearable,and the games are called to an end. They are the
“winners,” a moniker few of the surviving tributes accept. Katniss and Peeta hug again.
Rich argues that “[h]eterosexuality has been both forcibly and subliminally imposed on women, yet everywhere
women have resisted it, often at the cost of physical torture, imprisonment, psychosurgery, social ostracism,
and extreme poverty.” The Capitol has donejustthis: imposed the narrativeof heterosexuality onto the lovers,
and then used it to attempt to kill them. However, when Katniss takes the Capitol’s desireand pushes it to its
limit—to the star crossed lover, the Romeo and Juliet, the Pyramus and Thisbe, the dangerous hyper -
heterosexual narrative of “if my partner is dead, I can no longer bear to live” story—and thereby breaks the
games. By encouraging co-suicide, she makes the story so much more than the viewers can bear (whilst they
have no problembearingthe awfulness of watchingchildren die) thatshe takes the Capitol’s desireand exploits
it to savetheir own lives—though itrelegates her to a lifeof livinga lie to maintain the ruse that saves her life.
In their final interview, the fairy tale couple, “the star crossed lovers from District 12,” sits onstage as the
audience swoons. Caesar feeds them the story they are to parrot: “You were so in love with this boy that the
thought of not being with him was unthinkable.”
Katniss plays into the audience’s desire, though we know she is not in love with Peeta: “I felt likethe happiest
person in the the world. I couldn’t imagine life without him.”
And finally, “We saved each other.” The audience practically faints with joy.
But forcingherself into the ruseof heterosexuality puts her at more risk,not less.Katnissistrapped: shecannot
“win.” Playinginto thedeception draws theattention of the Capitol’s leaders,whilenotplayinginto thenarrative
means she may have been dead in the arena.
The lastshotof the filmfocuses on Snow watchingthe “lovers” hold hands overhead. Menacingmusic plays as
he walks off. The image of their heterosexual couplingis not enough for him. Katniss will beatrisk for the rest
of the trilogy because of her subversion. Rich ends her essay with a call to the reader to consider the damage
that occurs to women within the framework of compulsory heterosexuality:
“Within the institution exist, of course, qualitative differences of experience; but the absence of choice remains
the great unacknowledged reality, and in the absence of choice, women will remain dependent upon the chance
or luck of particular relationships and will have no collective power to determine the meaning and place of
sexuality in their lives. As we address the institution itself, moreover, we begin to perceive a history of female
resistance which has never fully understood itself because it has been so fragmented, miscalled, erased. It will
require a courageous grasp of the politics and economics, as well as the cultural propaganda,of heterosexuality
to carry us beyond individual cases or diversified group situations into the complex kind of overview needed to
undo the power men everywhere wield over women, power which has become a model for every other form of
exploitation and illegitimate control.”
Katniss spends the rest of the trilogy grappling with the material consequences of her decision to co-opt
heterosexuality to save her life in the arena. Her experience echoes in Rich’s words: “absence of choice,”
“cultural propaganda,” “the power men everywhere wield over women.” Catching Fire and Mockingjay find
their roots in her struggleto come to terms with her need to feign a heterosexual relationship with Peeta. We
will have to waitto see how the filmmakers decide to construct the rest of their “love story.” Because Katniss
and Peeta never really have a choice.