Shaming Jane: A Feminist Foucauldian Analysis of How College Students Employ the Sexual Double Standard in Peer Interventions

Abstract

Through dual quantitative and critical-interpretive (feminist Foucauldian) analyses, we examine how college students frame risk when trying to prevent a close friend from hooking up while drunk. Our analysis of participants’ (N = 539) open-ended responses to a hypothetical scenario revealed five discursive strategies of corporeal control: diseased body, dangerous body, marked body, gross body, and remorseful body. We argue that these strategies both reflect and reinforce the sexual double standard, serving as complex dimensions of the sexual double standard in hooking up culture as it affects heterosexual women and men. Through Foucauldian theory, we position the sexual double standard as a technology of self and of power, serving a larger ethic of care for college students.

Keywords:

• feminism
• Foucault
• hookup
• sex
• sexual double standard

Acknowledgment

A previous version of this essay was presented at the 99th annual conference of the National Communication Association in Washington, DC.

Notes

Hamilton and Armstrong (2009) note, “Ridgeway and Correll (2004, p. 511) define gender beliefs as the ‘cultural rules or instructions for enacting the social structure of difference and inequality that we understand to be gender'” (p. 592).

Differentiating between participants’ belief that society holds a double standard and participants’ own acceptance of it, Milhausen and Herold (2001) find that the majority do not personally endorse the SDS; however, a more recent study indicates they do (Sakaluk & Milhausen, 2012). Men endorse the SDS more strongly than women (Milhausen & Herold, 2001; Sakaluk & Milhausen, 2012). In contrast, women have been found to hold a reverse double standard, judging sexually active men more harshly (Milhausen & Herold, 1999, 2001; Sakaluk & Milhausen, 2012). Upon examining college students’ personal endorsement of the SDS in the context of hooking up, Allison and Risman (2013) find the majority are egalitarian, holding both sexes to similar standards. It is worth noting that while individuals may indicate they do not endorse the SDS in survey research, they could unconsciously reinforce it in subtle ways through personal interactions with and/or judgments about others.

We recognize that a review of extant research regarding the negative consequences of hooking up arguably replicates a gendered, disciplinary perspective on the body. We offer this review because of its relevance to the topic and to our analysis—and we do not do so uncritically. Indeed, our critical reflections on the existing literature inform our analysis and argument.

It is important to note, however, that sexual coercion, abuse, and/or violence are also common in committed relationships, particularly among college students (Armstrong et al., 2010).

Feminist theorizing has certainly been mixed with regard to Foucault. For many, Foucault and other poststructuralist theorists depoliticize and undermine feminisms and feminist movements. While the debate regarding Foucault and feminism continues (and is quite revealing of the complexities in Foucault's works), a complete review of this particular literature is not within the scope of this essay.

The larger disciplinary practices are those found in normative discourses of masculinity and femininity (Bordo, 1993; Butler, 1990), but have especially detrimental effects upon women: “an adequate understanding of women's oppression will require an appreciation of the extent to which not only women's lives but also their very subjectivities are structured within an ensemble of systematically duplicitous practices” (Bartky, 1997, p. 104). We envisioned our own exploration into the discipline of bodies by college students as examining such practices.

Previous research has focused attention on ways hookup culture is informed by gendered concepts, especially hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity, which underscore normative understandings of men having social dominance over women while women engage in compliant sexual behavior (Currier, 2013). However, the specific disciplinary function of these normative constructions, how they are formed in language, and how they are applied to the body have not been fully examined. We follow Jackson and Cram (2003), who drew from Foucault in exploring how female participants frame their sexuality in service of and as resistance against the SDS. Our study was parallel in theoretical positioning but different in its approach. We attended to discourse used in framing risk within a hypothetical interaction while Jackson and Cram (2003) analyzed personal accounts of sexuality. This difference highlights how participants use disciplinary language on others and especially women.

A subsample of participants was selected because of the original design of the study, which included whether or not the participant was drunk or sober at the party. We have decided to select those participants who were randomly assigned into the sober condition for the present study to make data analysis more manageable and because one could argue that participants would not be able to clearly articulate what they would say in this situation if they were intoxicated. An alternative assignment was offered to students who did not choose to participate in the study.

The scenario was adapted from Let's Talk About It, an alcohol prevention tool that focuses on college students’ drinking-related decisions (Lederman et al., 2007).

The prompt here asks whether students attempted to prevent a friend, rather than asking them to engage in such behavior, which provided students the choice to intervene. Although the scenario sets the stage for intervention, not all participants engaged in the scenario in that way, and some indicated that Jane or Josh should do whatever they want. We focus our attention on instances when students attempted to intervene.

We recognize that the use of static categories for participant sex corresponding to woman and man is problematic when engaging in a Foucauldian analysis (Butler, 1990). However, we see this construction as consistent within the literature regarding college student behavior (Crawford & Popp, 2003; Fasula et al., 2012), our participants’ discourse, and in previous feminist analyses that also examine “sex” (Bordo, 2003; Gavey, 2005; Trethewey, 1999).

On the whole, we have preserved the open-ended comments verbatim, unless grammar problems made the comment illegible. Some of the slang used to describe Jane was initially confusing. In instances when a specific term did not make sense, but seemed to be used to demean a target, we consulted the online Urban Dictionary.

We differentiate between diseased and dangerous. Although both, in part, signal a physical danger, we see them as different in terms of the diseased body serving as a “container” or passive carrier for disease while the dangerous body is more actively used via sexual assault or legal threats. Our analysis also indicates that there is a substantial difference in the way that Jane's body is regarded as “dirty” in comparison to Josh, which is deserving of attention.

Although many participants also spoke of the danger of drunk driving, we did not include such references because the risk of driving under the influence was not framed as a sexually based disciplinary function of the SDS.

One positive outcome of this type of research could be a disruption of the ways in which college students and others engage in the tropes of the SDS while not believing in them. In this way, campaigns regarding hooking up may be able to offer new language and ways of seeing these behaviors as detached from gendered frameworks. College students could, perhaps, be able to discuss the consequences of hooking up through more balanced terms that see all parties as culpable for their actions. Indeed, there were instances in our data when participants indicated that both parties would feel remorse (“it is not ethical for both of u guys to hook up when you are both drunk;” “they will both regret it in the morning”). A more robust development of these strategies is beyond the scope of this paper but should be considered in future research.