{"id":1439,"date":"2025-09-29T21:32:37","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T01:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/?p=1439"},"modified":"2025-09-29T21:32:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T01:32:37","slug":"ruralbad-urbangood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/2025\/09\/29\/ruralbad-urbangood\/","title":{"rendered":"Rural=Bad; Urban=Good"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Eli Clare\u2019s autobiography, <em>Exile and Pride<\/em>, Clare explores the intersectionality between class and sexuality. During this exploration, Clare discusses the narrative between rural versus urban communities, especially how rural communities are typically associated with rednecks, which are then associated with homophobia, bigotry, and so on; whereas, urban communities are associated with open-mindedness, the cultural salad bowl metaphor, and queer enclaves. This idea is summarized in metronormativity. While, on occasion, these stereotypes can be proven true, it is never good to generalize and assume based off what you have heard, rather than what you have experienced.<\/p>\n<p>I grew in a very similar socioeconomic status to Clare. Both of my parents have worked their whole lives, and we have always straddled the line between lower and middle class. I also grew up in a rural community; a cow farm, to be more specific. Location is one of the most important factors in determining one\u2019s socioeconomic status, and living in a rural area often coincides with being lower or lower-middle class. That being said, urban areas typically consist of those in the middle- and upper-class. Besides the obvious difference in land use in rural and urban communities, the concentration of wealth in urban areas and lack thereof in rural areas must be addressed. While it\u2019s true that money can\u2019t buy happiness, according to the clich\u00e9, it can buy accessibility to education, healthcare, and more. A lack of accessibility is at the root of the villainization of rural communities, and we as a society must learn to share and spread our resources equally if we ever hope for equality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Eli Clare\u2019s autobiography, Exile and Pride, Clare explores the intersectionality between class and sexuality. During this exploration, Clare discusses the narrative between rural versus urban communities, especially how rural communities are typically associated with rednecks, which are then associated with homophobia, bigotry, and so on; whereas, urban communities are associated with open-mindedness, the cultural &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/2025\/09\/29\/ruralbad-urbangood\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Rural=Bad; Urban=Good<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5699,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[344663],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5699"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1442,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439\/revisions\/1442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}