When I was getting ready to send an email direct today, I found this fascinating video clip on NYU's homepage. Take a look. The video is about halfway down the page in the left column and is called "What are the origins of the concept of homophobia?" If you push ctrl f and type in Kulick it should highlight it for you.
A quick summary of what I got out of it (although it is much clearer in the video): Homophobia emerged as a term in the seventies when members of the APA were attempting to depathologize homosexuality. A main argument here was that homosexuality was not a psychological issue, rather the fear of it was.
Prof. Kulick argues that this idea of homophobia misidentifies the problem as being an individual psychological issue of fear as opposed to a societal issue of hate. As a result attention is given to individual psychological issues which may or may not be there as opposed to the societal systems which may be motivating hateful behavior.
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I think this concept raises some interesting questions about how we do social justice work, particularly when dealing with students who have engaged in hateful behavior. Thoughts?
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This seems related to some of the issues we talk about in our presentation on masculinity. When we hear a homophobic comment specifically by a man, do we treat it as ignorance or a pressure coming from society to hate homosexuality and instill a fear of it in men? I think our field and tradition says that we address the situation psychologically, that it must be a student's ignorance or personal fears. But I like Seth's suggestion that we think big picture, and address some of the issues that might be embedded in our students from social stereotypes and norms.
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