Jane Ward – "The Tragedy of Heterosexuality"

Jane Ward is a feminist scholar and author of the books “Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men” and “Respectably Queer.” She teaches gender and sexuality studies at UC Riverside, specializing in feminist, queer and heterosexuality studies and creating “scholarship for the feminist revolution.” Jane joins Tierney to discuss her new book “The Tragedy of Heterosexuality,” a “lesbian feminist diagnosis” of heterosexuality that exposes the realities of heterosexual culture while encouraging its development into something deeper, more loving and less violent. Jane declares herself an ally to straight people as “they work to liberate heterosexuality from misogyny.” She’s an expert at revealing how weird most “normative” cultures and social identities tend to be. In this book, Jane contextualizes heterosexuality as the romantic arm of patriarchy and details how the heterosexual advice industry has been trying to help men and women in this country survive their marriages for the last 100+ years (not all that successfully, either). 

Do you want a chance to acknowledge queer people as allies to straight people, especially straight women experiencing romantic discontent, instead of vice versa? How about a celebration of the immeasurable contributions lesbians have made to the mainstream feminist movement? Listen to this and more importantly, read the book! 

Ward quotes Edith Massey as Aunt Ida in John Waters’ “Female Trouble” several times: “The world of the heterosexual is a sick and boring life.” 

No matter who you are or who you’re attracted to, Ward’s work has tons to offer you! 

“As with the often nebulous racial category of whiteness, one of the ways that we avoid looking critically at straightness is to keep it indefinable, to imagine that it is so vast and irreducible to any one way of being,” Ward writes in the book. 

Buy “The Tragedy of Heterosexuality” from NYU Press today - https://nyupress.org/9781479851553/the-tragedy-of-heterosexuality/

Follow Jane Ward on Twitter @thequeerjane and check out https://www.janewardphd.com/.

To enter to win a copy of “The Tragedy of Heterosexuality,” please follow these instructions: 

1. Listen to this conversation with Jane Ward in full ASAP
2. Select a quote, topic, theme or question from our conversation that inspires, arouses or interests you the most and jot it down. 
3. Subscribe to or follow the podcast!
4. Email your selection/reflection and a screenshot of your subscription to tierneytierneytierneytalks@gmail.com before 10/24/20
5. TWO winners will be selected via a completely random name picker and notified via email Tuesday, 10/27/20. 
6. Note: There is no minimum or maximum word count for your reflections, and your entry won’t be judged based on the content or “quality” of your share. Feel free. Feel safe. Have fun. Your responses won’t be shared elsewhere without your explicit permission! 

Subscribe to Tierney Talks today and follow Tierney on IG @TSTAR7. Our show music is “Let Me Love You” by Dis Fantasy. Recorded and edited by Margot Padilla. Hosted, written and produced by Tierney Finster.