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Jane Ward, The tragedy of heterosexuality

Article in Feminism & Psychology · March 2021

DOI: 10.1177/09593535211005885

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 F eminism
&
Psychology
Feminism & Psychology
0(0) 1–4
Book Review ! The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/09593535211005885
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Jane Ward, The tragedy of heterosexuality. New York University Press,

2020; 216 pp. ISBN: 9781479851553.
Reviewed by: Nathaniel E.C. Schermerhorn , The Pennsylvania State
University, USA

Jane Ward is worried about straight people and her second book, The Tragedy of
Heterosexuality, makes it abundantly clear that we all should be. We have defined
and organised our society around heterosexuality (including all its norms and
rituals) but have not reckoned with the negative impacts it has on straight
women and straight men. Accepting heterosexuality as normal and natural does
a disservice to those who identify as straight: it leads them to accept unhappy and
unhealthy relationships that rely on gender essentialism and produce gendered
violence. Despite an increased awareness of intimate partner violence (and violence
against women, more generally), we have failed to interrogate how heterosexual-
ity’s very construction allows for this. In The Tragedy of Heterosexuality, Jane
Ward makes this oversight salient by defining the tragedy of heterosexuality
(Chapter 1), tracing the history and persistence of the tragedy (Chapters 2 and
3), analysing queer responses to it (Chapter 4), and, ultimately, providing a poten-
tial resolution to the tragedy of heterosexuality (Chapter 5).
The reader should be aware of two things. First, Ward emphasises that the
book focuses on straight culture, not straight individuals. In doing so, she
acknowledges that there are always exceptions, thereby seeking to minimise the
defensiveness of those who feel they exist outside of the tragedy of heterosexu-
ality (“#notallstraightpeople”, p. 7). Second, the book focuses on Western con-
ceptualisations of heterosexuality and relies on research conducted in the United
States. However, I do not see this as a weakness. Ward clearly articulates the
imperialistic consequences Western heterosexuality has for other countries (e.g.,
Iran), although a full analysis is beyond the scope of this book. In addition, the
United States has largely been focused on human rights violations as they relate
to gendered violence in other countries (e.g., the ritual of “sati”); The Tragedy of
Heterosexuality turns the gaze back to the centre and allows the reader to grasp
more fully the misogynistic and violent effects of heterosexuality occurring daily
in the United States.
2 Feminism & Psychology 0(0)

The Tragedy of Heterosexuality reveals that we have normalised, glorified, and

institutionalised heterosexuality without working to solve the paradoxes inherent in
the very construction of “straightness.” Chapter 1 provides a historical and intersec-
tional framework for diagnosing and working to resolve the tragedy of heterosex-
uality. Importantly, Ward acknowledges her own positionality (as a white, queer,
femme, and able-bodied scholar) that influences the ways in which she has experi-
enced and perceived straightness. Therefore, she engages heavily with the work of
queer feminists of colour. In examining the work of scholars such as Adrienne Rich,
Audre Lorde, Kate Millett, Gloria Anzald ua, and Michelle Wallace, Ward posits
that heterosexual culture is (and has always been) characterised by misogyny and
toxic masculinity. Misogyny, gender essentialism, the dehumanisation of women, the
acceptance of rape, as well as racism and xenophobia are all fundamental to the
actual construction of heterosexuality, not simply consequences of heterosexuality.
Central to the tragedy of heterosexuality is the “misogyny paradox” (p. 35): men
love and hate women. Rather than addressing and eliminating the misogyny para-
dox, attempts to “repair” heterosexuality have instead simply repackaged misogyny.
Chapter 2 begins with an overview of the emergence of the term “heterosexuality” as
we have come to know it. Early heterosexual “relationships” were built on men’s
ownership of women – not on romance and mutual respect. Largely influenced by
the eugenics movement, the push for heterosexual relationships based on romance
required intervention, and professionals felt that the disgust between the sexes could
be tempered with medical and psychological interventions. As Ward argues, through
her examination of self-help books (Chapter 2) and the seduction industry (Chapter
3), however, these interventions, firstly, placed the responsibility on women while
reifying their presumed submission and, secondly, used the understanding of misog-
yny to help men approach women (without problematising the misogyny itself).
Taken together, Ward’s findings in Chapters 2 and 3 reveal that “an enduring
feature of the tragedy of heterosexuality is straight men’s sense of entitlement to
women’s sexual and emotional service” (p. 11). Importantly, in these chapters,
Ward clearly articulates the inseparable nature of racism and heterosexuality in
the historical review of heterosexuality and her analysis of the heterosexuality
repair industry. She analyses how racial differences were embedded within and
constitutive of heterosexuality as well as how we must continue to use an intersec-
tional approach to understand the tragedy of heterosexuality.
In Chapter 2, Ward analyses self-help books meant to repair relationships
between men and women throughout the 20th century. She shows that self-help
books focused on how women could better understand the complexities of being
male and how they could properly care for and meet men’s sexual and emotional
needs (e.g., cooking, cleaning, physical presentation, suppressing their own desires/
problems). For instructors who often show the misogynistic advertisements of the
mid-century that market this conceptualisation of heterosexuality, Chapter 2 pro-
vides a thorough and accessible analysis and historical review.
In Chapter 3, Ward’s focus turns to a more recent phenomenon – the seduction
industry – by analysing the results of her field research at two “seduction
Book Review 3

bootcamps.” Targeting the “average frustrated chump” (p. 78), the seduction boot-
camps promise that men will leave with the confidence and skills to approach and
date women. As Ward’s ethnography reveals, the bootcamps ultimately reinforce
men’s feeling of entitlement over women, relying on the gender essentialism that
produces misogyny and resulting violence against women.
In the following chapters, Ward provides a queer diagnosis of the tragedy of
heterosexuality (Chapter 4) and proposes a queer feminist resolution (Chapter 5).
In Chapter 4, Ward analyses qualitative responses from 53 individuals from her
extended social circle who responded to questions about the tragedy of heterosex-
uality. Queer people see straight culture as boring, defined by dislike between men
and women, the enabling of straight men by straight women, the (often obsessive)
ritualisation of heterosexuality (e.g., gender reveal parties), commodifying queer
culture, and obsessing over genitals (but engaging in mediocre sex). Queer people,
in other words, are more attuned to the negative effects of decades of institution-
alising heterosexuality than straight people are.
How are these problems to be resolved? Ward notes that feminist interventions
have, unfortunately, placed the burden of heterosexual repair on women; she
therefore, advocates for a queer feminist approach in Chapter 5. Recognising
the difficulty that comes with dismantling centuries of normalising and natural-
ising of the deleterious effects of heterosexuality, Ward proposes the idea of “deep
heterosexuality” (p. 158). Speaking directly to straight men in Chapter 5, deep
heterosexuality requires straight men to recognise their own sexual vulnerability
along with the humanity of women. Again, borrowing from lesbian feminists,
Ward argues that we must cease thinking of heterosexuality as natural and reliant
on gender essentialism to understand the needs of men and women. Furthermore,
men must learn that they can be sexually attracted to women (objectification) while
simultaneously recognising women’s subjectivity. In doing so, straight people can
actively work against heterosexuality’s deeply ingrained power dynamics.
Feminist psychologists will find research inspiration throughout The Tragedy of
Heterosexuality, but I will highlight two key areas of potential interest: research
design and interventions. Ward understands that “straight culture is so hegemonic
it influences the quantitative data that would be useful [to understanding queer
feminist interventions]” (p. 27). Questions about queer quality of life, queer culture,
and queer responses to and experience with heterosexuality are all framed using the
discourse of heterosexuality that has become seemingly impermeable. Psychologists
must interrogate the implicit assumptions embedded within our study materials and
survey questions. Although Ward acknowledges the limitations of her informal
study (Chapter 4), it serves as a model for how we can begin to construct alternative
research designs and she eloquently challenges the suggestion that her questions may
be leading (and the very assumptions that go into defining a question as “leading”).
Furthermore, quantitative and qualitative research on heterosexuality must take a
feminist intersectional approach. Luckily, psychologists have engaged with what this
looks like in practice (e.g., Grzanka et al., 2020) and provided strategies for imple-
mentation in research more broadly.
4 Feminism & Psychology 0(0)

I share Ward’s cautious optimism that the more recent rejection of overt misogyny
in the seduction industry might allow men to better empathise with women but remain
somewhat sceptical about the current potential for men to become truly “women-
identified” (p. 165), or to like women enough to break down the strict binaries of man/
woman and subject/object. Psychological research shows that men avoid associating
with anything considered feminine, even when it is personally detrimental to do so (see
Vandello & Bosson, 2013, for a review). Rejecting femininity is so central to concep-
tualisations of masculinity (Connell, 1995) that the hope of men becoming “women-
identified” seems almost too optimistic in the present moment. Psychologists have
studied the negative effects of masculinity on men (and women), but we must also
work to identify specific and feasible ways that we can successfully reconceptualise
both heterosexuality and masculinity to resolve the misogyny paradox.
The Tragedy of Heterosexuality is an incredibly engaging, informative, and
accessible account of how our society has unrelentingly naturalised the substan-
dard relations between men and women since the construction of modern hetero-
sexuality in the early 20th century. The ongoing project of normalising
heterosexuality has legitimised misogyny, perpetuated the belief that women are
inferior, and suppressed men’s emotional capacity. Reading Ward’s historical and
contemporary analyses, one simultaneously recognises how this tragedy has gone
unnoticed and hopes, for the sake of straight people, that the resolution will not
require a deus ex machina but, instead, inspires a collective desire to fundamentally
change how we define and embody heterosexuality.
The text would be a great addition to postgraduate courses with content relating
to gender, feminism, queer theory, and intersectionality, but would also be accessible
to undergraduates (particularly those who have taken introductory gender studies
courses). Importantly, the variety of methods Ward uses (e.g., historical analyses,
ethnography, survey/qualitative analyses) makes the book interdisciplinary and rel-
evant (but not limited) to historians, sociologists, and psychologists. Courses on
human sexuality, interpersonal relationships, and close relationships would also
benefit greatly from including The Tragedy of Heterosexuality on their syllabi.

ORCID iD
Nathaniel E.C. Schermerhorn https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7531-2194

References
Connell, R. W. (1995). Masculinities. University of California Press.
Grzanka, P., Flores, M. J., VanDaalen, R.A., & Velez, G. (Eds.). (2020). Intersectionality in
psychology: Science, policy, and social justice [Special issue]. Translational Issues in
Psychological Science, 6(4).
Vandello, J. A., & Bosson, J. K. (2013). Hard won and easily lost: A review and synthesis of
theory and research on precarious manhood. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 14(2),
101–113.

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