November 13, 2009 7:00pm-8:30pm Add to my calendar

With a fearless look at a highly charged subject, Straightlaced unearths how popular pressures around gender and sexuality are confining American teens. Their stories reflect a diversity of experiences, demonstrating how gender role expectations and homophobia are interwoven, and illustrating the different ways that these expectations connect with culture, race and class.

From girls confronting media messages about culture and body image to boys who are sexually active just to prove they aren't gay, this fascinating array of students opens up with brave, intimate honesty about the toll that deeply held stereotypes and rigid gender policing have on all our lives.

Straightlaced includes the perspectives of teens who self-identify as straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual or questioning and represent all points of the gender spectrum. With courage and unexpected humor, they open up their lives to the camera: choosing between "male" and "female" deodorant; deciding whether to go along with anti-gay taunts in the locker room; having the courage to take ballet; avoiding the restroom so they won't get beaten up; or mourning the suicide of a classmate. It quickly becomes clear that just about everything teens do requires thinking about gender and sexuality.

Coming of age today has become increasingly complex and challenging; Straightlaced offers both teens and adults a way out of anxiety, fear and violence and points the way toward a more inclusive, empowering culture.

Academy Award Winner Debra Chasnoff

films/movies
humanities/social sciences
diversity & inclusion

3 -270

Women's and Gender Studies, lbgt@mit, Women in Film and Video: New England

Free
Open to public

The Friendly WGS Staff
E-mail: wgs@mit.edu
URL: http://web.mit.edu/wgs/
Phone: 3-8844