Dude you're a fag: masculinity and sexuality in high school

Abstract

Through a picturesque ethnographic description, Pascoe’s Dude, you’re a fag: masculinity and sexuality in high school gives a fly-on-the-wall experience of sexuality in high school. Informed by an interactionist approach to gender, the book unveils taken-for-granted ways in which masculinity is constructed through interactions, discourses and traditions like prom, sports and drama. The study was conducted at River High, a high school in California. I found the descriptions of setting, characters, discourses and events so archetypical that I was reminded of my own high school experiences in an African context. The setting is indeed a helpful case to think through contemporary constructions of masculinity, sexuality and inequality.