The Prison and the Closet: Racism and Heterosexism
The Prison and the Closet: Racism and Heterosexism—an introduction to
the political writings of Patricia Hill Collins
by Julian Real, 2006
After participating in a rather long, unproductive discussion about
racism and heterosexism, I decided to do “the research thing” and
bring to light the subtle and sophisticated social analytic work of
Patricia Hill Collins.
The first text to be introduced is Black Feminist Thought (2000), with
focused attention on chapter 6 (”The Sexual Politics of Black
Womanhood”). This is but one chapter of Collins’ very important
feminist work: this text should be considered a MUST READ by anyone
who calls themselves feminist or pro-feminist, anti-racist, or
progressive to radical. It should be required reading, in other
words, for all who calls themselves “humanitarian”. Collins opens with
a discussion about several factors that contribute to the phenomenon
of heterosexism in some Black communities, examined within the context
and confines of a Western white supremacist State. Dynamics of social
phenomena such as heteronormativity and heterosexism vary from time to
time, culture to culture, and ethnic group to ethnic group (often
varying widely within any one ethnic group, depending on many factors,
including class, religious affiliation, geography, political values,
family values, etc.).
But here we find a deeply thoughtful and intellectually incisive
discussion about a culturally specific phenomenon, that may serve as a
lens into variations on this theme inside and outside other Black
communities, especially where other factors of white male supremacist
imperialist colonization and the oppression of ethnically marginalized
people and Tribes exist.
We must note, regardless of its “usefulness” to other herstorical
situations, this discussion is pertinent for all feminists because,
well, Black women ARE women, and Black women’s lives, worldwide, are
fully illustrative of how gender, race, class, and ethnicity,
religion, and sexuality intersect in real time, in real psyches, in
the real lives of real people, who suffer, survive, and endure. This
is to say (to white feminists and white non-feminists, especially) the
importance of reading this work, and other work by the same author, is
not for its relevance to white women’s lives, however useful this work
may be to untangling and examining those same intersections in ethnic
white women’s experience. A primary and fundamental critique of 1970s
popular feminism was that it assumed a centrality of experience, a
normativity, a basis of theoretical formulation, serving as a
launch-pad for various activist efforts and campaigns, while
significantly and mistakenly viewing white women’s experiences as
“representative” of what happens to women. What happens to white
women is what happens to women, often. But it is also ethnic and
partial, and this was not uncovered or challenged by white women in
those early days of radical thought and action. The job of pointing
this out was left, not surprisingly, to many women of Colour,
including Audre Lorde, who wrote so eloquently about these struggles
in her feminist classic, Sister Outsider. Critiques had been
intensifying, for damn good reasons, before and after Audre Lorde’s
contribution to the discussion. There have been many voices, of many
sexualities and ethnicities, later including white radical women such
as Mab Segrest and Marilyn Frye. Together, these voices of deep
introspection and structural and post-structural analysis have created
a compelling challenge to the racism, classism, and heterosexism of
early white feminism. Those brave white woman warriors dared to
articulate, at great odds, the real harm male supremacist culture
inflicts upon and infuses into the lives of people made into
patriarchally female girls and women. With this in mind, we turn now
to Collins:
p. 123: As Evelynn Hammonds points out, “Black women’s sexuality is
often described in metaphors of speechlessness, space, or vision; as a
‘void’ or empty space that is simultaneously ever-visible (exposed)
and invisible, where black women’s bodies are already colonized”
(1977, 171). In response to this portrayal, Black women have been
silent. One important factor that contributes to these long-standing
silences both among African-American women and within Black feminist
thought lies in Black women’s lack of access to positions of power in
U.S. social institutions. Those who control the schools, news media,
churches, and government suppress Black women’s collective voice.
Dominant groups are the ones who construct Black women as “the
embodiment of sex and the attendant invisibility of black women as the
unvoiced, unseen—everything that is not white” (Hammonds 1997, 171).
In the following paragraphs leading up to the main theme of this
chapter, Collins notes “Within U.S. Black intellectual communities
generally and Black studies scholarship in particular, Black women’s
sexuality is either ignored or included primarily in relation to
African-American men’s issues. In Black critical contexts where Black
women struggle to get gender oppression recognized as important,
theoretical analyses of Black sexuality remain sparse (Collins 1993b;
1998a, 155-83). […] Everyone has spoken for Black women, making it
difficult for us to speak for ourselves (123-24).
Collins, next cites the work of Paula Giddings, noting the following:
[T]o talk of white racist constructions of Black women’s sexuality is
acceptable. But developing analyses of sexuality that implicate Black
men is not—it violates norms of racial solidarity that counsel Black
women always to put our own needs second.
Citing the work of Nellie McKay, Collins quotes this passage:
“In all of their lives in America … black women have felt torn between
the loyalties that bind them to race on the one hand, and sex on the
other. Choosing one or the other, of course, means taking sides
against the self, yet they have almost always chosen race over the
other: a sacrifice of their self-hood as women and of full humanity,
in favor of the race (McKay 1992, 277-78).
Collins continues:
“Taking sides against the self” requires that certain elements of
Black women’s sexuality can be examined, namely, those that do not
challenge a race discourse that historically has privileged the
experiences of African-American men.
Yet another factor influencing Black women’s silences concerns the
potential benefits of remaining silent. (124)
Collins goes on to describe the costs of Black women and men speaking
out about sexuality in a virulently white supremacist context.
The convergence of all these factors—the suppression of Black women’s
voice by dominating groups, Black women’s struggles to work within the
confines of norms of racial solidarity, and the seeming protections
offered by a culture of dissemblance—influences yet another factor
shaping patterns of silence. In general, U.S. Black women have been
reluctant to acknowledge the valuable contributions of Black lesbian
feminist theory in reconceptualizing Black women’s sexuality. Since
the early 1980s, Black lesbian theorists and activists have identified
homophobia and the toll it takes on African-American women as an
important topic for Black feminist thought. “The oppression that
affects Black gay people, female and male, is pervasive, constant, and
not abstract. Some of us die from it,” argues Barbara Smith (1983,
xlvii). Despite the increasing visibility of Black lesbians […],
African-Americans have tried to ignore homosexuality generally and
have avoided serious analysis of homophobia within African-American
communities.
[…] As a group, heterosexual African-American women have been
strangely silent on the issue of Black lesbianism. Barbara Smith
argues one compelling reason: “Heterosexual privilege is usually the
only privilege that Black women have. None of us have racial or sexual
privilege, almost none of us have class privilege, maintaining
’straightness’ is our last resort” (1982b, 171). In the same way that
White feminists identify with their victimization as women yet ignore
the privilege that racism grants them, and that Black men decry racism
yet see sexism as being less objectionable, heterosexual
African-American women may perceive their own race and gender
oppression yet victimize lesbians, gays, and bisexuals (125-26).
Skipping now to a subsection of the chapter called “Heterosexism as a
System of Power”, Collins continues:
One important outcome of the social movements advanced by lesbians,
gays, bisexuals, and transgendered individuals has been the
recognition of heterosexism as a system of power. In essence, the
political and intellectual space carved out by these movements
challenged the assumed normality of heterosexuality (Jackson 1996,
Richardson 1996). These challenges fostered a shift from seeing
sexuality as residing in individual biological makeup, to analyzing
heterosexism as a system of power. Similar to oppressions of race and
gender that mark the bodies with social meanings, heterosexism marks
bodies with sexual meanings (128).
… In the United States, assumptions about heterosexuality operate as a
hegemonic or taken-for-granted ideology… The system of sexual
meanings associated with heterosexism becomes normalized to such a
degree that they are often unquestioned. For example, the use of the
term sexuality itself references heterosexuality as normal, natural,
and normative (129).
… Making heterosexism as a system of oppression more central to
thinking through Black women’s sexualities suggests two significant
features. First, different groups remain differentially placed within
heterosexism as an overarching structure of power… Considerable
diversity exists among U.S. Black women as to how the symbolic and
structural dimensions of heterosexism will be experienced and
responded to…
…African-American women express a range of sexualities, including
celibate, heterosexual, lesbian, and bisexual, with varying forms of
sexual expression changing throughout an individual’s life course…
(131).
Next, we turn our attention to Collins’ newer book, Black Sexual
Politics (2004), to see where she goes in her examination of
heterosexism and racism. I will be focusing on chapter 3 (Prisons For
Our Bodies, Closets For Our Minds: Racism, Heterosexism, and Black
Sexuality):
Despite … important contributions of … extensive literature on race
and sexuality, because much of the literature assumes that sexuality
means heterosexuality, it ignores how racism and heterosexism
influence one another (88-89).
In the United States, the assumption that racism and heterosexism
constitute two separate systems of oppression masks how each relies
upon the other for meaning. Because neither system of oppression
makes sense without the other, racism and heterosexism might be better
viewed as sharing one history with similar yet disparate effects on
all Americans differentiated by race, gender, sexuality, class, and
nationality (89).
Noting the importance of critiques of Black sexual politics both from
feminist and gay perspectives, including, in both camps, Black
lesbians, Collins offers this:
Both groups of critics argue that ignoring the heterosexism that
underpins Black patriarchy hinders the development of a progressive
Black sexual politics. As Cathy Cohen and Tamara Jones contend,
“Black people need a liberatory politics that includes a deep
understanding of how heterosexism operates as a system of oppression,
both independently and in conjunction with other such systems. We
need black liberatory politics that affirm black lesbians, gay,
bisexual, and transgender sexualities. We need a black liberatory
politics that understands the roles sexuality and gender play in
reinforcing the oppression rooted in many black communities.”
Developing a progressive Black sexual politics requires examining how
racism and heterosexism mutually construct one another (89).
In the next section of this chapter, called Mapping Racism and
Heterosexism: The Prison and the Closet, Collins begins with an astute
quote by Nelson Mandela:
“We regarded the struggle in prison as a microcosm of the struggle as
a whole. We would fight inside as we had fought outside. The racism
and repression were the same; I would simply have to fight on
different terms.”
… The absence of political rights under chattel slavery and Jim Crow
segregation and the use of police state powers against African
Americans in urban ghettos have meant that Black people could be
subjugated, often with little recourse. (p. 89)
African American reactions to racial resegregation in the post-civil
rights era, especially those living in hyper-segregated, poor,
inner-city neighborhoods, resemble those of people who are in prison.
Prisoners that turn on one another are much easier to manage than the
ones whose hostility is aimed at their jailers (90).
…The experiences of people in prison also shed light on the myriad
forms of African American resistance to the strictures of racial
oppression. No matter how restrictive the prison, some prisoners find
ways to resist. Often within plain sight of their guards, people who
are imprisoned devise ingenious ways to reject prison policies… As
Mandela observes, “Prison is designed to break one’s spirit and
destroy one’s resolve. To do this, the authorities attempt to exploit
every weakness, demolish every initiative, negate all signs of
individuality—all with the idea of stamping out that spark that makes
each of us human and each of us who we are” (91-92).
Collins notes that hip-hop culture has been one form of resistance.
Many creative voices speak, through rap and other cultural forms, to
the outrage of oppressed people living “freely” in places that are
more like prison than paradise.
Collins observes: What is freedom in the context of prison? Typically,
incarcerated people cannot voluntarily “come out” of prison but must
find ways to “break out” (92).
But once “out” what world is one released into?
Racism may be likened to a prison, yet sexual oppression has more
often been portrayed using the metaphor of the “closet.” This metaphor
is routinely invoked to describe the oppression of lesbian, gay,
bisexual, and transgendered people. Historically, because both
religion and science alike defined homosexuality as deviant, LGTB
people were forced to conceal their sexuality. For some homosexuals,
the closet provided some protection… Passing as straight fostered the
perception that few gays and lesbians existed. The invisibility of
gays and lesbians fueled homophobia, and supported heterosexism as a
system of power… During the era of racial segregation, heterosexism
operated as smoothly as it did because hidden or closeted sexualities
remained relegated to the margins of society within racial/ethnic
groups… Rendering LGBT sexualities virtually invisible enabled the
system of heterosexism to draw strength from the seeming naturalness
of heterosexuality (93-94).
Since the 1980s, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people have
challenged heterosexism by coming out of the closet. If the
invisibility of sexual oppression enabled it to operate unopposed,
then making heterosexism visible by being “out” attacked heterosexism
at its core (94).
Collins describes several approaches the LGBT community has taken to
break apart the mythology of heterosexuality as both natural and
normal: transgression, “queering” sexuality, and assimilation have
all been explored extensively in queer lives lived bravely in the
context of larger cultural communities of rejection, hostility, and
punishment.
Racism and heterosexism, the prison and the closet, appear to be
separate systems, but LGBT African Americans point out that both
systems affect their everyday lives. If racism and heterosexism affect
Black LGBT people, then these systems affect all people, including
heterosexual African Americans. Racism and heterosexism certainly
converge on certain key points. For one, both use similar
state-sanctioned institutional mechanisms to maintain racial and
sexual hierarchies… For another, the state has played a very important
role in sanctioning both forms of oppression (95).
Racism and heterosexism also share a common set of practices that are
designed to discipline the population into accepting the status quo.
Collins goes on to describe how marriage laws have attempted to
regulate and control people based on race and sexuality. Interracial
and gay marriage has each had their time in the hot, hot spotlight of
public scrutiny—white heterosexual male supremacist public scrutiny.
Racism and heterosexism also manufacture ideologies that defend the
status quo. When ideologies defend racism and heterosexism become
taken-for-granted and appear to be natural and inevitable, they become
hegemonic. Few question them and the social hierarchies they defend.
Racism and heterosexism both share a common cognitive framework that
uses binary thinking to produce hegemonic ideologies. Such thinking
relies on oppositional categories. It views race through two
oppositional categories of Whites and Blacks, gender through two
categories of men and women, and sexuality through two oppositional
categories of heterosexuals and homosexuals. A master binary of
normal and deviant overlays and bundles together these and lesser
binaries. In this context, ideas about “normal” race (whiteness, which
ironically, masquerades as racelessness), “normal” gender (using male
experiences as the norm), and “normal” sexuality (heterosexuality,
which operates in a similar hegemonic fashion) are tightly bundled
together. In essence, to be completely “normal,” one must be White,
masculine, and heterosexual, the core hegemonic White masculinity.
This mythical norm is hard to see because it is so taken-for-granted.
Its antithesis, its Other, would be Black, female, and lesbian, a fact
that Black lesbian feminist Audre Lorde pointed out some time ago.
Within this oppositional logic, the core binary of normal/deviant
becomes ground zero for justifying racism and heterosexism. The
deviancy assigned to race and that assigned to sexuality becomes an
important point of contact between the two systems. Racism and
heterosexism both require a concept of sexual deviancy for meaning,
yet the form that deviance takes within each system differs. For
racism, the point of deviance is created by a normalized White
heterosexuality that depends on a deviant Black heterosexuality to
give it meaning. For heterosexism, the point of deviance is created by
this very same normalized White heterosexuality that now depends on a
deviant White homosexuality. Just as racial normality requires the
stigmatization of the sexual practices of Black people, heterosexual
normality relies upon the stigmatization of the sexual practices of
homosexuals. In both cases, installing White heterosexuality as
normal, natural, and ideal requires stigmatizing alternate sexualities
as abnormal, unnatural, and sinful (96-97).
…These two sites of constructed deviancy work together and both help
create the “sexually repressive culture” in America described by
Cheryl Clarke (97).
Collins concludes this section of her chapter on page 98 with this
question: How have African Americans been affected by and reacted to
this racialized system of heterosexism (or this sexualized system of
racism)?
I believe that whatever ethnic and cultural groups folks in the U.S.
are part of, we must contend with these questions as they apply to
each and every one of us.
elaina:
Thank you for posting this, Julian. I am looking forward to reading the whole thing when I get home from work tonight. I just started “Black Feminist Thought” a day or 2 ago, so your timing is impeccable.
6 February 2006, 3:16 pmJulian Real:
Your welcome, Elaina!
6 February 2006, 5:29 pmCharles Brown:
OK, Julian, here are some comments as you requested. I am going to delete the passages that I don’t have anything to say about.
Charles
p. 123: As Evelynn Hammonds points out, “Black women’s sexuality is
often described in metaphors of speechlessness, space, or vision; as a‘void’ or empty space that is simultaneously ever-visible (exposed)
and invisible, where black women’s bodies are already colonized”
(1977, 171). In response to this portrayal, Black women have been
silent. One important factor that contributes to these long-standing
silences both among African-American women and within Black feminist
thought lies in Black women’s lack of access to positions of power in U.S. social institutions. Those who control the schools, news media,churches, and government suppress Black women’s collective voice.
^^^^^
CB: The thought that occurred to me here is I wonder if the vast majority of Black women ever heard of Evelyn’s Hammond’s claim. So, I don’t know if it is accurate to portray Black women as having a “response” to it. Their “silence” might just be that they never heard it said.
Then , of course, this is intellectual discourse, and so meaning can be challenging, but I’m not entirely clear on what it means to say that Black women’s sexuality is “speechless”. Maybe what is below expands it. I don’t know if the metaphor I’d use for Black women’s sexuality is “silent”. My experience is that Black women “say” a lot in this regard. I gotta say ” I hear ya , sisters.” My experience is that Black women’s sexuality communicates itself as well or better than white women’s. But maybe something else is meant.
I’d also say that , in general, if we are going to generalize like this, Black women are as much subjects/self-determining in their bodily attitudes as white women.
^^^^^^^
Dominant groups are the ones who construct Black women as “the
embodiment of sex and the attendant invisibility of black women as the unvoiced, unseen—everything that is not white” (Hammonds 1997, 171).
^^^^^
CB; I don’t doubt this. Not being part of the dominant group, and living in Detroit, I myself “see” Black women all the time, much more than I “see” white women. So, I am not experiencing this invisibility of Black women. However, I can see that Collins point would be true on a majority white college campus. It was true when I went to the University of Michigan.
^^^^
In the following paragraphs leading up to the main theme of this
chapter, Collins notes “Within U.S. Black intellectual communities
generally and Black studies scholarship in particular, Black women’s
sexuality is either ignored or included primarily in relation to
African-American men’s issues. In Black critical contexts where Black women struggle to get gender oppression recognized as important,theoretical analyses of Black sexuality remain sparse (Collins 1993b;1998a, 155-83). […] Everyone has spoken for Black women, making it difficult for us to speak for ourselves (123-24).
^^^^^
CB: No doubt. I’m an intellecutal, but I don’t survey the literatures like academics. But I would be surprised if what Collins says about the scholarly community is wrong.
^^^^^^
Collins, next cites the work of Paula Giddings, noting the following:[T]o talk of white racist constructions of Black women’s sexuality is acceptable. But developing analyses of sexuality that implicate Black men is not—it violates norms of racial solidarity that counsel Black women always to put our own needs second.
Citing the work of Nellie McKay, Collins quotes this passage:
“In all of their lives in America … black women have felt torn between the loyalties that bind them to race on the one hand, and sex on the other. Choosing one or the other, of course, means taking sides against the self, yet they have almost always chosen race over the other: a sacrifice of their self-hood as women and of full humanity, in favor of the race (McKay 1992, 277-78).
^^^^
CB: Have no reason to doubt this. It is a point made a while ago , and I have heard it before.
^^^^^^^
Collins continues:
“Taking sides against the self” requires that certain elements of
Black women’s sexuality can be examined, namely, those that do not
challenge a race discourse that historically has privileged the
experiences of African-American men.
Yet another factor influencing Black women’s silences concerns the
potential benefits of remaining silent. (124) Collins goes on to describe the costs of Black women and men speaking
out about sexuality in a virulently white supremacist context.
The convergence of all these factors—the suppression of Black women’s voice by dominating groups, Black women’s struggles to work within the confines of norms of racial solidarity, and the seeming protections offered by a culture of dissemblance—influences yet another factor shaping patterns of silence. In general, U.S. Black women have been reluctant to acknowledge the valuable contributions of Black lesbian feminist theory in reconceptualizing Black women’s sexuality.
^^^^^^
CB; Well, it is not really surprising that Black _heterosexual_ women would not entirely validate Black _lesbian_ theory in reconceptualizing their sexuality, is it ? By definition that’s a point of dispute between them , no ? Actually, I do have some direct communication from Black heterosexual women on lesbianism.
^^^^^^
Since the early 1980s, Black lesbian theorists and activists have identified homophobia and the toll it takes on African-American women as an important topic for Black feminist thought. “The oppression that affects Black gay people, female and male, is pervasive, constant, and not abstract. Some of us die from it,” argues Barbara Smith (1983, xlvii).
^^^^^
CB: By the way, I raised my concern about the term “heterosexism” with Barbara Smith at a Black Radical Congress meeting about 7 years ago.
^^^^^
Despite the increasing visibility of Black lesbians […], African-Americans have tried to ignore homosexuality generally and have avoided serious analysis of homophobia within African-American communities.
^^^^
CB: Maybe some African-Americans disagree with the speaker’s analysis of homosexuality. In other words, they may not be ignoring it but disagreeing.
^^^^^^
[…] As a group, heterosexual African-American women have been
strangely silent on the issue of Black lesbianism.
^^^^^
CB; Why is that strange ? Maybe they disagree and are trying to avoid arguing.
^^^^^^
Barbara Smith
argues one compelling reason: “Heterosexual privilege is usually the
only privilege that Black women have. None of us have racial or sexual privilege, almost none of us have class privilege, maintaining ’straightness’ is our last resort” (1982b, 171). In the same way that White feminists identify with their victimization as women yet ignore the privilege that racism grants them, and that Black men decry racism yet see sexism as being less objectionable, heterosexual African-American women may perceive their own race and gender oppression yet victimize lesbians, gays, and bisexuals (125-26).
^^^^^
CB: If heterosex is so oppressive for women and Black women, as you argue on the other area of this blog, why is it a _privilege_ for Black women ? Seems like you would say hetersex is a _burden_ for Black women. What kind of privilege is it to have socalled speechless sexuality ?
More later.
^^^^^^
8 February 2006, 6:22 pmJulian Real:
Re:
CB: Maybe some African-Americans disagree with the speaker’s analysis of homosexuality. In other words, they may not be ignoring it but disagreeing. Funny how you don’t refer to Karl Marx as “a speaker” but you diminish the sociological-political expertise of a Black theorist (Collins) as such. Is not Collins more than just “a speaker”?
Charles, you know many people of all ethnicities disagree with Collins’, Lorde’s, Smith’s, and many other women’s analyses of homophobia, heterosexism, homosexuality, bisexuality, and heterosexuality. Many people disagree with Marx and Engels’ analysis of political economies. Many men disagree with most of what feminists have said, and have formed men’s rights groups to oppose feminists. So I’m not surprised that there are heterosexual people, of any community, who disagree. The question here is: what are your disagreement, Charles? Can you articulate them clearly for me here?
Heterosexuality is a not necessarily “a privilege” for heterosexual women. It’s not so simple a matter as “one group is oppressed and another group isn’t, or is more oppressed”. Lesbianism is both exploited as a sexuality and invisibilised as a viable political way of being in the world. Lesbian lives are lived without institutional support (and oppressiveness). Women’s heterosexuality, is used and abused institutionally, especially in the pornography, cosmetics, fashion, and advertising industries.
Both groups suffer similarly and very differently in heteropatriarchy. Being beaten and raped by your male spouse is no privilege. Being otherwise intimately, interpersonally, in-home subjugated to a man is no privilege. And it’s also no privilege to receive bigotry and condemnation, among other oppressive realities, for being “other than heterosexual”. So both groups of women have plenty to overcome in heteropatriarchies across the globe to achieve anything approaching real freedom, real liberation.
I think lesbianism can be freeing from the oppressive constraints placed around “the heterosexual lifestyle” by its institutions, ideologies, and identities. Some Muslim Arab women question secular U.S. women’s “freedom” to be turned into pornography, and be sexually harassed by men publicly, exposed to all the demeaning comments and harmful actions by heterosexual men in the West. I know many lesbian women who have found communities of relative kindness and respect, that simply are not available, in heteropatriarchal culture. Of course some individual heterosexual women find loving, kind, respectful relationship with individual men, but rarely free of some dimensions of sexism, even if “better than most”.
Lesbian women are not, somehow, magically immune from the psychological and physical impact of male supremacy, btw. Lesbian community isn’t somehow magically “free” from CRAP. But communities organised around feminist values, women-as-human honoring values, are more empowering to women who seek freedom than women-as-women-who-are-allegedly-for-men’s-use values prevalent in heteropatriarchal communities. In feminist lesbian communities, there are less interpersonal, intimate harms to women. There are not date-rapists, date-druggers, sexual harassers, and partner-rapers. Many lesbian feminist women find relief from the gross forms of violation and exploitation that their heterosexual sisters struggle with. In lesbian feminist community women are freer to be the individuals they are, rather than living up to some heteronormative straight-jacket.
For years I have heard from heterosexual men about how constricting that heteronormative straight-jacket is, on their emotional and sexual and spiritual lives. Young heterosexual men are now breaking out of that, sharing deep affection and emotional intimacy with other heterosexual, and gay, men. Not everywhere, but in some feminist-impacted heteromale communities. I have witnessed this. I know heterosexual men who are presumed to be gay because they have broken out of the patriarchal straight-jacket of heteronormativity. While get the grief that is usually reserved for assumed-to-be gay men.
I’d say queer folks are challenged to leave the closet of invisibility, endure violence, verbal and physical, from non-queer folks, and heterosexuals are challenged to let go of socially maintained, politically enforced notions of naturalness and normativity. Heterosexuals are also challenged to be honest about the fact that they aren’t only heterosexual–most aren’t completely heterosexual, if really honest.
And, importantly, what did theorist-writer-researcher Barbara Smith have to say to you about your questioning of or about heterosexism?
8 February 2006, 11:39 pmCharles Brown:
Re:
CB: Maybe some African-Americans disagree with the speaker’s analysis of homosexuality. In other words, they may not be ignoring it but disagreeing. Funny how you don’t refer to Karl Marx as “a speaker†but you diminish the sociological-political expertise of a Black theorist (Collins) as such. Is not Collins more than just “a speaker�
^^^^^
CB: When I refer to Karl Marx I don’t give him some special , exalted title. I just call him by name. So, calling Collins a speaker is not to give her any less respect than I do Karl Marx.
When you refer to Collins, what do you call her ? Referring to what you wrote above, I see you just call her by name. Just like I do with Karl Marx. Isn’t Collins more than Collins to you ? (smile)
^^^^^
Charles, you know many people of all ethnicities disagree with Collins’, Lorde’s, Smith’s, and many other women’s analyses of homophobia, heterosexism, homosexuality, bisexuality, and heterosexuality. Many people disagree with Marx and Engels’ analysis of political economies. Many men disagree with most of what feminists have said, and have formed men’s rights groups to oppose feminists. So I’m not surprised that there are heterosexual people, of any community, who disagree. The question here is: what are your disagreement, Charles? Can you articulate them clearly for me here?
^^^
CB; Is that the question here ? How so ? I’m pretty much going to say what I want. If you notice, at that point in her discussion, she doesn’t say anything about what her or lesbian’s ideas on sexuality,or what the heterosexual women’s opinions are. So, there is nothing for me to agree or disagree with ,is there ? She just notes that they don’t agree. I just said that’s not surprising.
^^^^^^
Heterosexuality is a not necessarily “a privilege†for heterosexual women. It’s not so simple a matter as “one group is oppressed and another group isn’t, or is more oppressedâ€.
^^^
CB; Yea, ain’t that the truth. You might want to think about that in the context of previous discussions we have had.
More later
9 February 2006, 6:02 pm^^^^^
Julian Real:
To Charles:
I was speaking in the context of women-in-patriarchy, lesbian and heterosexual.
Do you believe that Black people are oppressed by white institutions, ideologies, and identities?
That women are oppressed by male supremacist institutions, ideologies, and identities?
That poor people are oppressed by capitalist institutions, ideologies, and identities?
And that lesbian and gay people are oppressed by hetero-patriarchal institutions, ideologies, and identities?
MAYBE we’ll get clear, between the two of us, on what our differences are, politically, in terms of our analysis of oppression. I’m hoping we get somewhere here, Charles!
Another question I’ve been meaning to ask:
You mentioned the Christian condemnation of all out-of-marriage heterosex, and you do acknowledge that homosexuals are also “put down” shall we say. Can we conclude (that is to say, can we agree) that “sex” is what is being condemned by many branches of the Patriarchal Christian Church, not “just” heterosexuality?
10 February 2006, 12:37 amCharles Brown:
Julian:
And that lesbian and gay people are oppressed by hetero-patriarchal institutions, ideologies, and identities?
^^^^
CB: Well, this is an issue in dispute. Lesbians are oppressed by patriarchy, because they are women.
What is your argument that oppression of gay _men_ is part of patriarchy, male supremacy ? Gay men are men. They have the privileges of men. How is it that you think they are subjects of the oppression of male chauvinism ?
I realize that many people say that oppression of gay men is part of patriarchy. But I am a critical thinker. And I am questioning this, because gay men are men. How is it that oppression of men is male chauvinist ?
I raised this with a woman friend of mine. I said I’m in these debates , and some people are claiming that gay men are oppressed by male chauvinism. She said, “Gay men are men. When I have gone into gay bars the men start hooting and yelling out “fish, fish”. I felt very uncomfortable there. They seem to be jealous of us as women.”
^^^^
MAYBE we’ll get clear, between the two of us, on what our differences are, politically, in terms of our analysis of oppression. I’m hoping we get somewhere here, Charles!
Another question I’ve been meaning to ask:
You mentioned the Christian condemnation of all out-of-marriage heterosex, and you do acknowledge that homosexuals are also “put down†shall we say. Can we conclude (that is to say, can we agree) that “sex†is what is being condemned by many branches of the Patriarchal Christian Church, not “just†heterosexuality?
^^^^
CB: Yes, I’d say historically the church has been anti-all sex. However, the emphasis is anti-heterosex. In part , because, it is only recently with the gay liberation movement that the issue of gay sex has become more public. The church hasn’t had much to say against gay sex, because it wasn’t a public issue. I’d also have some suspicions that a lot of the priests were having gay sex, so they wouldn’t want to emphasize anti-gay sex.
Another important thing I have been meaning to mention. The Church is a central institution, perhaps _the_ central institution of patriarchy, historically. God is a man ! Think about that. Eve and all women, according to church doctrine over the millenia, are much more prone to “consort with the Devil.” I had cause to focus on this recently when we were looking at historical witch hunts. The Puritan doctrine was that there are witches because women are more easily tempted by the Devil.
Yes, I believe the church has been opposed to homosexuality , with Sodom and Gamora , but historically overall its oppositon to homosex has been very much “backburner” compared to controlling and opposing heterosex. The important thing to the church is that children are the product of heterosex, and it is mainly concerned with controlling reproduction.
10 February 2006, 10:53 amCharles Brown:
Skipping now to a subsection of the chapter called “Heterosexism as a
System of Powerâ€, Collins continues:
One important outcome of the social movements advanced by lesbians,
gays, bisexuals, and transgendered individuals has been the
recognition of heterosexism as a system of power. In essence, the
political and intellectual space carved out by these movements
challenged the assumed normality of heterosexuality (Jackson 1996,
Richardson 1996). These challenges fostered a shift from seeing
sexuality as residing in individual biological makeup, to analyzing
heterosexism as a system of power. Similar to oppressions of race and gender that mark the bodies with social meanings, heterosexism marks bodies with sexual meanings (128).
^^^^^^
CB: This is a very cogent posing of the issues. I have studied and thought about the issue of biology and sexuality quite a bit. My thought at this point is that sexuality does, in part, reside in biology, but is also “socially constructed, ” as the term goes. So, I would question the above implication that sexuality does not reside in the individual’s biological makeup at all. A given individual’s sexuality is the result of a combination of nature and nurture, not just nurture.
As to the analysis of heterosexuality as a system of power, the above claim I make undercuts that to some extent. Secondly, I would say to the extent that sexuality involves a system of power, it is not on the same level , type or centrality that the systems of male supremacy and white supremacy are.
This is a good point to focus our discussion.
That sexuality has some root in biology means that heterosexuals acquire their sexual preference in part from their genes. This is reinforced by culture or upbringing. But this process does not take place in antagonism to homosexuality, in some power scheme of exploitation and oppresion of homosexuals in the way that race and gender are. It is in fact, natural and rational in the sense that heterosexuality is necessary for reproduction of the species and the people. Reproduction is a fundamentally necessary process for the perpetuation of the human race ( See my discussion of this in “For Women’s Liberation”). In other words, individuals attraction to the opposite sex is probably an expression of inborn inclination to some extent. And since the inclination to have heterosex is likely selected for going way back in time because heterosex is fertile and homosex is not, it would not be surprising if the vast majority of the population had some inborn inclination to have heterosex. That is it would not be surprising if it is the mode, in the statistical sense.
Of course, most sex acts don’t produce children. But the inclination of people to have sex with the opposite sex in non-reproductive acts would be an obvious continuation of the structure of necessary reproductive acts. The normative or statistically higher occurrence of heterosexuality is in that regard is just a result of influence of the reproductive biological “institution”. In this case, culture merely imitates nature. It is a sort of totemism in the Levi-Straussian sense ( See _Totemism_ by Claude Levi-Strauss; many cultural structures are analogies to natural structures in primary societies).
Part of the problem of putting sexuality in the same category as race and gender is that there is no fundamental exploitation of homosexuals by heterosexuals, as there is with the others.
The other complicating factor is that historically, male same sex institutions have been associated , not necessarily with the powerless and oppressed classes, but often with the ruling classes. For example, in ancient Greece the samesex institution of sex bewteen men and young boys was the norm in the _ruling class_. Alexander the Great was not a member of the oppressed and exploited classes , but rather the ruling class of his society. Similarly, in more recent times, gay histories themselves demonstrate kings, sultans, British sailors on colonialist ships, and other ruling class samesex institutions. So, samesex is a sort of mixed bag when it comes to association with oppressed classes or vicitms of power systems.
^^^^^^^
Clip-
In the United States, the assumption that racism and heterosexism
constitute two separate systems of oppression masks how each relies
upon the other for meaning. Because neither system of oppression
makes sense without the other, racism and heterosexism might be better viewed as sharing one history with similar yet disparate effects on all Americans differentiated by race, gender, sexuality, class, and nationality (89).
^^^^^^
CB; I’d say this is going to take some proving that racism makes no “sense” without “heterosexism”. Racism is rooted in slavery and capitalism. In that long history, the same sex practices of slaveship crews and pirates _reinforced_ or facilitated conquest, colonialism, slavery. In other words, homosexuality has probably played a role in support of racism in some times.
Currently, some homosexuality is socially constructed in the _racist and capitalist_ prison system. How does that homosexuality contradict racism and capitalism ?
^^^^^
Noting the importance of critiques of Black sexual politics both from
feminist and gay perspectives, including, in both camps, Black
lesbians, Collins offers this:
Both groups of critics argue that ignoring the heterosexism that
underpins Black patriarchy hinders the development of a progressive
Black sexual politics. As Cathy Cohen and Tamara Jones contend,
“Black people need a liberatory politics that includes a deep
understanding of how heterosexism operates as a system of oppression, both independently and in conjunction with other such systems. We need black liberatory politics that affirm black lesbians, gay, bisexual, and transgender sexualities. We need a black liberatory politics that understands the roles sexuality and gender play in reinforcing the oppression rooted in many black communities.†Developing a progressive Black sexual politics requires examining how racism and heterosexism mutually construct one another (89).
^^^^^
CB: I have read this book before, because all these passages are familiar.
Here there are assertions that ” heterosexism …
10 February 2006, 1:06 pmunderpins Black patriarchy” and “heterosexism operates as a system of oppression, both independently and in conjunction with other such systems ” but no arguments are offered in support of these assertions. So far, there are several claims that heterosexism is a system of power intertwined with racism and patriarchy, but there is almost no argumenation to support these claims.
Julian Real:
Hi Charles.
You’ve given me lots to respond to, as, of course, I do you (sorry about posting so much between your responses!).
First, and succinctly: I don’t think heterosexuals are politically-socially placed to be able to view the oppression of gay and lesbian folks, any better than men are placed to understand/experience/know the oppression of women, or whites to know the oppression of people of Colour. Your arguments about whether said oppression exists is precisely the same argumentation I hear from heteromen about feminism and women’s oppression, and from white folks about “whether or not” people of Colour are oppressed.
That you argue in this way demonstrates your privilege to “not know” in this regard. This is not a criticism at all, simply an observation. You, as a heterosexual, CAN ponder “whether or not” lesbian and gay folks are oppressed. I have lived it. You haven’t. Queer folks I know endure abuses that hetero folks don’t endure. Discrimination in housing, work, family life, social life, etc. That’s real. You can call it “not oppression” if you want, but it’s real, and so is the gay-bashing, the hetero privileged to be affectionate in public, the media representing heteros having romantic, sexual relationships as an every day, normal, natural thing, and not portraying gay and lesbian people that way at all.
I remember Oprah saying that she was moved to tears when she say the Huxtables on the Cosby Show embracing on a couch, just being loving and kind and warm with one another in a romantic way, and it was THE FIRST TIME she EVER saw that on TV between a Black woman and a Black man. That really impressed upon me the harm of not having one’s life reflected back to one in the media.
Tell me, Charles, where am I to look on TV for that loveing, kind, warm, romantic moment between two men or two women who are not hetero?
Even Brokeback Mountain is about two guys who have to “sneak around” to be together. Where in popular media, especially TV, non-cable, can I see that, in commercials, in TV shows, etc?
Gay men are oppressed for participating in the degraded status of the female, for being seen as “effeminate” for not being “man enough”, etc. This is the world of heteropatriarchy. You bring up the term “male chauvinism” which went out about twenty-five years ago, to be honest. I don’t know any other human beings who are feminist who use that term, unless responding to you, and keeping your lingo in it.
I’m not kidding.
The terms are patriarchy (and in this discussion heteropatriarchy), male supremacy, sexism, racism, and heterosexism. Please update your lexicon. You language invisibilises my lived reality.
So gay males are oppressed for not being “with women” the way heteropatriarchy demands men be with women. And lesbians are oppressed for not being with men the way heteropatriarchy demands women be (available, acccessible) to men.
“Lesbian porn” is heteromen’s revenge: “See, we can watch what y’all do even though you don’t want to do it with a dick.” We’ll show you.
Gay porn tends to want to prove that gay men are “real men”. Many internalised homophobic personals ads read “no femmes”. This is in keeping with the argument that gay males are hated and discriminated against because what they do with other males is not what patriarchy wants, because patriarchy wants every man to control a woman. That some men don’t might get them an odd look in hetero bars. Like, if you go into a bar and say “I think women should be treated as human beings, not as pieces of meat for men’s consumption” you might be accused of being gay.
Please, Charles, read “Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism” because your knowledge base for this stuff is so “not there” based on you being heterosexual, that it really is incumbant upon you to learn about this, and it’s really not my job to teach it to you.
It’s my responsibility as a person with light-skin privilege, or “white” privilege, to know what that privilege means, how it expresses itself interpersonally, institutionally, and in identity.
You are demonstrating an alarming (to me) level of ignorance about the reality of gay and lesbian oppression.
You say in your experience what makes heterosexism different than racism and sexism is that the latter two are less involved in biology. Tell that to any male supremacist or white supremacist and see what you get for an answer.
Your heterosexual privilege “allows” you to think that it is any different with sexuality. Dark skin pigmentation exists, as do various genital formations. That’s “natural” too, Charles. But we both know that CRAP takes some “biological” features and makes them into socio-political categories. That’s how CRAP works. The same with sexuality. No meaningful difference there.
You say that sex is what’s hated by the Church, agreeing with me. Then do you have the same trouble with the term “sexism” that you do with heterosexism?
And as for those women who find gay men offensive and misogynist: we have already agreed that some gay men are misogynist and sexist. That’s a no brainer, remember? We have also heard from a woman who feels relieved when with gay men, because she feels safer, less harassed, less objectified, less commodified, less “treated like meat”, and seen MORE as a real human being, not just “a gendered thing”. So please factor that story into your analysis too, if you want it to reflect the whole truth.
Gotta go. I’ll catch back up with you when you post here a response to those two books I recommended that you read, as you really are not getting even the most basic points about heterosexism, it seems, and I have other stuff to do than to educate you on that subject, gay male to heteromale, when there are really good books out there that can educate you just fine.
Then, and only then, can we discuss this further.
Happy reading:
Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism, by Suzane Pharr
URL: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1890759015/qid=1138556753/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-7116052-2097435?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
To educate yourself about the REALITY of homophobia and heterosexism, the oppression of gay males and lesbian females, please read:
Overcoming Homophobia and Heterosexism, by James T. Sears and Walter
L. Williams.
URL: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0231104235/qid=1138556933/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/103-7116052-2097435?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
Julian
11 February 2006, 11:46 amCharles Brown:
Feminism is advancing.
CB
^^^^^^^
lbo-talk] women outnumber men in college
joanna 123hop at comcast.net
Sat Feb 11 19:14:06 PST 2006
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——————————————————————————–
Despite extensive outreach programs and dire predictions about their
futures, there is a minority group growing ever smaller on college
campuses.
It seems no matter what anyone says or does, the trend cannot be
reversed. Fewer and fewer of them attend college.
The minority group? Men.
Although that may be a surprise to you — it certainly was to me — it’s
no surprise to college administrators who are scrambling to get more men
on campus.
“The trend is well established,” says Richard Black, associate vice
chancellor of admission and enrollment at UC Berkeley. “There are more
women than men at most American colleges and universities.”
The average student body across the country is 58 percent female,
according to B.J. Johnson, a woman who is dean of academic and
enrollment services at the University of San Francisco.
That sounds high until you consider that 63 percent of USF students are
women. At Sonoma State University, it’s 62.6 percent.
In comparison, the numbers at Cal are not as dramatic — 54 percent
women, 46 percent men. But Black says that’s only because Cal has strong
engineering and computer sciences programs, which remain male bastions.
Still, he isn’t betting on the numbers turning around. He says 54.3
percent of fall admissions in 2003 were women. That number rose to 55.1
percent in 2004 and 55.5 last September.
Johnson admits USF’s numbers are skewed somewhat by its strong nursing
program, which attracts more women than men. But Johnson, who has helped
spearhead outreach programs for male applicants at USF, says the
national collegiate gender imbalance is beyond what schools expect or want.
The trend is even more alarming among ethnic minorities.
African American women outnumber African American men on campus by a
2-to-1 ratio. The numbers for Latinos are almost as lopsided.
“We were surprised when it began in the early ’90s,” says Johnson. “But
not anymore. It is disturbing on two levels, first in the implications
for society and second because of the overall educational experience.”
An exception is San Jose State University, where the division is roughly
50-50. Again, a strong engineering and computer science program helps,
as well as Silicon Valley’s reputation as a hotbed of jobs.
But Marshall Rose, the school’s associate vice president for admission
and enrollment services, says the school is concerned and has begun
marketing itself aggressively to men.
“It is good to have a balance,” Rose says, “but we are not sure how
long it is going to last.”
Tom Mortenson, a senior scholar at the Pell Institute in Washington,
D.C., has been tracking this trend since 1979, when what he calls the
“male share of higher education enrollments” dropped from 59.3 percent
in 1969 to 49.1 percent.
The number has been sliding ever since, but only recently has anyone
noticed.
“People are starting to catch on,” he says. “Up until now, there has
been nothing but me banging away at this topic.”
It doesn’t take long to understand why Mortenson’s view isn’t popular.
When some women hear that college administrators are trying to get more
men onto campus, the rhetoric begins to fly. Feminists say women need to
be encouraged to attend college, to graduate, to move into white-collar
jobs. After all the work to gain an equal academic playing field for
women, they ask, do you expect women to go backward?
Hold your fire, says Mortenson. The gender war on campus is over. Women
won.
“The women’s agenda has so dominated, people sort of sneer at you,” he
says. “What are women complaining about? They are about to take over the
world. Which is great, by the way.”
Johnson agrees. Women need not feel threatened.
“It’s not that we are going to kick the women out,” he says. “We just
want more men.”
Don’t hold your breath, say some experts. As long as girls are doing
better in elementary, middle and high school than boys, they will
continue to comprise a larger number of students on college campuses.
“Young women dominate honor societies, are more apt to be valedictorians
and head for the elite colleges,” says Judith Kleinfeld, a professor of
psychology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who is making an
extensive study of high school boys. “Many colleges now have
under-the-table ‘affirmative action’ for boys to keep their numbers up.”
The real concern, says Black, is not that young men don’t have the
opportunity to go to college. Or they can’t make the grades. He worries
that they aren’t interested. For whatever reason, they don’t consider
college “manly.”
“You can be a man and still be interested in writing and literature,”
Black says. “I think there’s some embarrassment to saying that, but I
think we need to say it. It is OK to be a good scholar, to study hard.
That’s what men do.”
It’s not hard to see why a growing number of boys and young men might
think that way. After all, who are their role models?
“If it is not a sports figure, it is a movie action figure,” Black
says. “We need to look around for people to inspire our boys.”
As it is, our boys are turning to athletes and actors for inspiration,
getting it from people like NBA superstar Kobe Bryant.
Who, by the way, did not go to college.
12 February 2006, 12:01 pmCharles Brown:
Hi Charles.
First, and succinctly: I don’t think heterosexuals are politically-socially placed to be able to view the oppression of gay and lesbian folks, any better than men are placed to understand/experience/know the oppression of women, or whites to know the oppression of people of Colour. Your arguments about whether said oppression exists is precisely the same argumentation I hear from heteromen about feminism and women’s oppression, and from white folks about “whether or not†people of Colour are oppressed.
^^^^
CB; I didn’t say lesbians and gays are not discriminated against. I said discrimination against gay men is not male chauvinist, because male chauvinism is oppression of women, and gay men are not women. And that gay men are privileged as men and not excepted from the responsibility of ending their male chauvinism
^^^^^
That you argue in this way demonstrates your privilege to “not know†in this regard.
^^^^^
CB: You seem to have missed what I said.
^^^^
This is not a criticism at all, simply an observation. You, as a heterosexual, CAN ponder “whether or not†lesbian and gay folks are oppressed. I have lived it. You haven’t. Queer folks I know endure abuses that hetero folks don’t endure. Discrimination in housing, work, family life, social life, etc. That’s real. You can call it “not oppression†if you want, but it’s real, and so is the gay-bashing, the hetero privileged to be affectionate in public, the media representing heteros having romantic, sexual relationships as an every day, normal, natural thing, and not portraying gay and lesbian people that way at all.
^^^^
CB: However, I didn’t say gay men are not oppressed. I said they are simultaneously oppressors.
Take Black men. Surely you think they are oppressed, no ? Yet , as men , they are oppressors at the same time. Similarly with gay men, they are both oppressed and oppressors.
^^^^^^
I remember Oprah saying that she was moved to tears when she say the Huxtables on the Cosby Show embracing on a couch, just being loving and kind and warm with one another in a romantic way, and it was THE FIRST TIME she EVER saw that on TV between a Black woman and a Black man. That really impressed upon me the harm of not having one’s life reflected back to one in the media.
^^^^
CB: Now there’s “Will and Grace”.
^^^^
Tell me, Charles, where am I to look on TV for that loveing, kind, warm, romantic moment between two men or two women who are not hetero?
^^^^^
CB: Check out “Will and Grace”.
I gotta say though that the Cosby Show was a pretty minor development in the liberation of Black people.
^^^^^
Even Brokeback Mountain is about two guys who have to “sneak around†to be together. Where in popular media, especially TV, non-cable, can I see that, in commercials, in TV shows, etc?
Gay men are oppressed for participating in the degraded status of the female, for being seen as “effeminate†for not being “man enoughâ€, etc. This is the world of heteropatriarchy. You bring up the term “male chauvinism†which went out about twenty-five years ago, to be honest. I don’t know any other human beings who are feminist who use that term, unless responding to you, and keeping your lingo in it.
^^^^
CB: Everything new is not necessarily better. Male supremacy, male chauvinism are better terms I’d say. “Patriarchy” is pretty old too.
“heteropatriarchy” is an incorrect usage , in my opinion. Heterosexuality is not patriarchal. We don’t want to get rid of heterosexuality. We want to speak of heterosex in a positive way.
^^^^
I’m not kidding.
^^^^^
CB: I’m not kidding either.
^^^^^^^
The terms are patriarchy (and in this discussion heteropatriarchy), male supremacy, sexism, racism, and heterosexism. Please update your lexicon. You language invisibilises my lived reality.
^^^^
CB: Male chauvinism is a good usage. Heterosexism is out right wrong usage; see my previous discussions. Some of the more recent developments are backward movements in theory, so the new terminology is less valid than some of the old.
Women’s liberation is a better term than feminism , too.
I’m disagreeing with you, that’s why I’m not going to adopt your terminology.
^^^^^
So gay males are oppressed for not being “with women†the way heteropatriarchy demands men be with women. And lesbians are oppressed for not being with men the way heteropatriarchy demands women be (available, acccessible) to men.
^^^^^
CB: Love of women ( the opposite of misogyny) is what “demands” that men be with women. It “demands” that men be available and accessible to women.
^^^^^
“Lesbian porn†is heteromen’s revenge: “See, we can watch what y’all do even though you don’t want to do it with a dick.†We’ll show you.
^^^^
CB; Some lesbians who like porn think otherwise, probably.
^^^^
Gay porn tends to want to prove that gay men are “real menâ€. Many internalised homophobic personals ads read “no femmesâ€. This is in keeping with the argument that gay males are hated and discriminated against because what they do with other males is not what patriarchy wants, because patriarchy wants every man to control a woman. That some men don’t might get them an odd look in hetero bars. Like, if you go into a bar and say “I think women should be treated as human beings, not as pieces of meat for men’s consumption†you might be accused of being gay.
Please, Charles, read “Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism†because your knowledge base for this stuff is so “not there†based on you being heterosexual, that it really is incumbant upon you to learn about this, and it’s really not my job to teach it to you.
^^^^
CB: Naw, I don’t do reading assignments. Summarize what you want me to have from it. My knowledge base is pretty good.
As I say, I’m not working class, but that doesn’t prevent me from getting a good knowledge base on workers.
I have the knowledge that many gay men are male chauvinist in their thinking.
^^^^^^^^
It’s my responsibility as a person with light-skin privilege, or “white†privilege, to know what that privilege means, how it expresses itself interpersonally, institutionally, and in identity.
You are demonstrating an alarming (to me) level of ignorance about the reality of gay and lesbian oppression.
^^^^
CB: I’m disagreeing with you some, although you seem not to be listening very well, because I didn’t say lesbians and gays are not oppressed…so, your alarm is based on your hearing something I didn’t say.
Focus in : what I am saying is that nobody here or elsewhere has made the argument as to why oppression of gay men is part of patriarchy. They originated a patriarchy in ancient Greece, and that went along fine with samesex institutions. In fact, logically, men loving men is very compatible with patriarchy and male supremacy. For loving men would be loving superior beings in the mentality of male supremacism.
^^^^^^^
You say in your experience what makes heterosexism different than racism and sexism is that the latter two are less involved in biology. Tell that to any male supremacist or white supremacist and see what you get for an answer.
^^^^^
CB: I’m not sure what you mean. The racists are wrong on that.
^^^^^^
Your heterosexual privilege “allows†you to think that it is any different with sexuality. Dark skin pigmentation exists, as do various genital formations. That’s “natural†too, Charles. But we both know that CRAP takes some “biological†features and makes them into socio-political categories. That’s how CRAP works. The same with sexuality. No meaningful difference there.
^^^^
CB; Yes, dark skin pigmentation is genetically based , but it is not correlated with inferiority of morals, intelligence, “worth”, etc. as infamous racist doctrine has it. Light skin people’s aversion to socializing with people of a dark color is not genetic though. It is socially constructed. Racism is not instinctive.
Sexual inclination does have some biological or instinctive cause, so heterosexuals’ preference for sex with the opposite sex and aversion to sex with the same sex has instinctual or biological basis, in my opinion. This doesn’t entail aversion to socializing with homosexuals, but it does justify not wanting to have sex with the same sex. In other words, heterosexuality is wanting to have sex with the opposite sex and _not_ wanting to have sex with the same sex. It is not wanting to have sex with the opposite sex and _indifference_ to having sex with the same sex. The aversion to having sex with the same sex is not comparable to racists’ aversion to socializing with people of color. This is the difference between racism and homophobia. Gay liberation cannot demand that heterosexuals like gay sex, only that heterosexuals treat homosexuals as social and political equals.
^^^^^^^
You say that sex is what’s hated by the Church, agreeing with me. Then do you have the same trouble with the term “sexism†that you do with heterosexism?
^^^^^^^
CB: Why would that follow ? Sexism is appropriate for forms of male chauvinism that specifically involve unwanted sex such as sexual harassment.
^^^^^^^^
And as for those women who find gay men offensive and misogynist: we have already agreed that some gay men are misogynist and sexist. That’s a no brainer, remember? We have also heard from a woman who feels relieved when with gay men, because she feels safer, less harassed, less objectified, less commodified, less “treated like meatâ€, and seen MORE as a real human being, not just “a gendered thingâ€. So please factor that story into your analysis too, if you want it to reflect the whole truth.
^^^^^
CB: No , lets keep bringing in examples of gay men being male chauvinist. We already have plenty of stories about heterosexual men being male chauvinist.
I think as a gay man you are not positioned to understand your male chauvinist privileges as a gay man :>)
^^^^^^^^
Gotta go. I’ll catch back up with you when you post here a response to those two books I recommended that you read, as you really are not getting even the most basic points about heterosexism,
^^^^^
CB: No, I am disagreeing and saying that _you_ are the one who is missing basic points on why we shouldn’t use the term “heterosexism”.
And I don’t do reading assignments. You can post back here when you have a summary of the points in those books that you want to communicate.
^^^^^^
it seems, and I have other stuff to do than to educate you on that subject, gay male to heteromale, when there are really good books out there that can educate you just fine.
^^^
CB: You’re not educating me. I’m educating you in these exchanges.
^^^^^^^^
Then, and only then, can we discuss this further.
Happy reading:
^^^^
CB; Don’t hold your breath.
^^^
Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism, by Suzane Pharr
URL: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1890759015/qid=1138556753/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-7116052-2097435?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
To educate yourself about the REALITY of homophobia and heterosexism, the oppression of gay males and lesbian females, please read:
Overcoming Homophobia and Heterosexism, by James T. Sears and Walter
L. Williams.
URL: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0231104235/qid=1138556933/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/103-7116052-2097435?s=books&v=glance&n=283155
Julian
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12 February 2006, 5:14 pmCB: See above. You will have to do a book report on these if you want to discuss it with me , otherwise , we ain’t discussin’ em.
Got it ?
Stan:
You are reifying heterosexuality, Charles. You are removing it from time and space, universalizing it, abstracting it, away from its actual practice… which is a socially compulsory division of power between men and women with that actual power residing fundamentally (but not exclusively) in the heterosexual relationship.
Compulsory heterosexuality is neither natural nor socially constructed. It is inextricably both. There is not a single instance anywhere in the real world where you or anyone else can separate “nature” from “nurture.” These are analytical categories, not realities. Compulsory heterosexuality is the hegemonic form of sexuality rooted in and reproductive of male power over women.
It is not merely men having sex with women. Watch any cultural producton, like a relationship film, and see all the conventions that surround and background and idealize and sanctify a particular verison of a male-female “sexual” relationship. there is a h ell of a lot more than copulation going on there, I assure you. There is an idealizaton of male power (in which the woman — like the “happy slave” — is fulfilled).
CH is a system, and in that system is a powerfully reinforced and policed set of “norms,” that is, social expectations of behavior — including attitudes and affective behavior — that are associated with biological males and females. These expectations, in the concrete, are the practice of power. Like all social systems of power, with hegemony on one end (consent of the governed) and violent coercion on the other (where hegemony has failed), any violaton is policed.
CH = male social power over women.
Failure to conform to gender norms threatens male power.
Gay men are “like women,” and therefore violate the norm.
Gay men are policed, even to the point of violence at times, to reinforce norms.
The norms are part of a system of male power over women.
Homophobia is a weapon of male power over women.
A - B - C
Actually existing heterosexuality is normative, and therefore oppressive. That is NOT saying that every instance of male-female intimacy is oppressive.
Pointing out that women pariticpate in their own oppression, or that hegemonic sexuality produces (as all systems of social power do) internalizaton of the system’s ideology is NOT a refutation of the system.
It is a liberal evasion. Liberals love to find exceptions to the rule, and call them refutations.
Most American workers believe in capitalism. Think about it.
Ideology does two things: it makes power appear natural; and it thereby conceals power.
You are still operating from within the hegemonic ideological framework of sexuality… which has compulsory heterosexuality (male-female complimentarity instead of mutuality) at its center.
It’s not male chauvinism. It’s male social power.
12 February 2006, 8:30 pmConsumer:
All of this is a bit over my head. But as a tie-in with sexual aggression and domination, the British video of soldiers beating Iraqi boys apparently had this recorded in the background:
“Oh yes! Oh yes! You’re going to get it. Yes, naughty little boys!”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/13/international/europe/13abuse.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
I’m not sure what this really means in the great big scheme of tings but, well, it’s really fncked up.
13 February 2006, 4:18 amCharles Brown:
You are reifying heterosexuality, Charles. You are removing it from time and space, universalizing it, abstracting it, away from its actual practice… which is a socially compulsory division of power between men and women with that actual power residing fundamentally (but not exclusively) in the heterosexual relationship.
^^^^
CB: Actually, it is a necessary universal in the human species in time. It is a transhistorical category. It is not like capitalism, which must be confined to a particular historical period. See my paper first sent to the list. So, it is not reification in the normal sense that that term is used. It is not unique to just one or a few cultures. All cultures have it.
I don’t say it is universal to every individual in the species so , no, I am not “universalizing it. That is obviously not true. But heterosexual sex must go on in every generation for there to be a next generation. It is a necessary activity.
Yes, male supremacy resides in heterosexual relationships. Agree. With the rise of the male supremacist family , as in Engels’ “model” of the origin of “the”( male supremacist) family, the heterosexual relationship becomes none other than male supremacist. Various forms of male supremacist family have developed through history,including in the U.S. today. So, in some that sense I agree that male dominance and power resides in the heterosexual relationship. Male supremacy also resides in the institutions outside of the family, in private property and the state, from Engels thesis.
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Compulsory heterosexuality is neither natural nor socially constructed.
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I’d say it _is_ naturally compulsory. I think this is a fundamental disagreement I have with what you say here. See my paper. The number one principle argued or asserted is that there is no such thing as a one generation species , (the focus of _natural_ studies is the species). Reproduction is as naturally necessary as production.
I have to disagree with the other part too. Compulsory heterosexuality is also culturally or socially constructed. In this regard, culture tracks or imitates nature, the natural compulsion.
Of course, there was the Shakers, who did not compel hetersexuality. But they died out. Demonstrating the point that heterosexuality is naturally compulsory. If a culture or social construction goes the wrong way on this one, the culture will die out.
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It is inextricably both. There is not a single instance anywhere in the real world where you or anyone else can separate “nature†from “nurture.â€
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CB: Well, the Shakers. They nurtured non-heterosexuality, non-compulsory heterosexuality. And nature separated them out. Of course, they may have had a natural inclination to have heterosex which their nurture overrode, so to speak. But in the process they essentially set up a sort of test of the type you say is impossible.
There may have been other groups throughout the 10,000’s of years of humans; but they too would have died out, if they some how made heterosexuality taboo or even making it “optional” is probably risky.
^^^^^^
These are analytical categories, not realities. Compulsory heterosexuality is the hegemonic form of sexuality rooted in and reproductive of male power over women.
^^^^^
CB: No it exists before male supremacy. That’s a key thing in the argument over _The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State_. Before these origins there was compulsory heterosexuality, but it was not male supremacist. That’s why that point is important in the argument with MacKinnon. Anthropological evidence supports Engels , generally speaking on this, not MacKinnon , as I understand your elucidation of her thesis.
Heterosexuality is not the source or root of male dominance and power. In fact, as I argue, it is the area of potential women’s power, and actually realized women’s power. And the greatest progress in defeating male supremacy is precisely in areas like family law, i.e. heterosexual family law. There has literall been a revolution in family law, whereby essentially there is equality and even affirmative action in favor of women. It is one of the quiet victories in feminism.
To be vulgar about it, women have men by the ______ in heterosex.
There is even a long term reversal of Engels famous statement about the male supremacist form of marriage, monogamous marriage, as the “world historic defeat of the female sex.” Today, it is generally _women_ who are enforcing heterosexual marriage. This is remarkable. This is a point at which we can point to a _change_ from what Engels essays. Engels is not wrong about the period he discusses. It is that things have changed, fundamentally, turned into their opposite.
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It is not merely men having sex with women. Watch any cultural producton, like a relationship film, and see all the conventions that surround and background and idealize and sanctify a particular verison of a male-female “sexual†relationship. there is a h ell of a lot more than copulation going on there, I assure you. There is an idealizaton of male power (in which the woman — like the “happy slave†— is fulfilled).
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CB: This is not surprising because heterosexual sex is naturally necessary. It’s almost like showing a lot of people eating or something. Big surprise that eating is shown. No. It’s superstructure reflecting the real deep infrastructure. The necessity of eating is basic infrastructure. Similarly with heterosex.
Don’t let the fact that most actually existing heterosex is not for reproduction. That’s misleading.The necessary heterosex is at the core of the centrality of heterosex in the cultural representations you refer to, movies and the like.
Eat, drink and be merry ! as Imhotep said. This is still a valid cultural suggestion.
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CH is a system, and in that system is a powerfully reinforced and policed set of “norms,†that is, social expectations of behavior — including attitudes and affective behavior — that are associated with biological males and females. These expectations, in the concrete, are the practice of power. Like all social systems of power, with hegemony on one end (consent of the governed) and violent coercion on the other (where hegemony has failed), any violaton is policed.
^^^^
CB: Women are not compelled to have heterosex _only_ by the rules of society. They are compelled to have heterosex by nature, otherwise they will die out too. They are compelled to monogamy by male supremacy, i.e. having sex only with one man, so he can know who his children are. What the system of male dominance and power originally compelled was monogamy.
It was just as much men who originated homosex. Take in Greece. It was precisely at the time of the original institution of male supremacy and dominance, that an institution of male samesex arose famously among the first Greek slavemasters/ruling class, Plato, Aristotle, Alexander and the arch-male supremacist, world conquering, warring super machoites.They invented, not surprisingly,a narcisstic male self-loving institution. Why because they were male supremacists. So, homosex, that it NON-COMPULSORY HETEROSEX is not in contradiction with male supremacy ? This severely contradicts your argument here.
Down through the centuries, there have been many male samesex institutions or subcultures in male supremacist or male dominant or male chauvinist or patriarchial, as you all have it, socities. Helenic Greece is just one of them. There was no contradiction between homonormativity or even homo-elitism in the elite minority ruling classes of many class divided and male supremacist societies, including European societies that are the historical roots of the U.S. today. This factual generalization is devastating to your thesis here.
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CH = male social power over women.
^^^^
No, Heterosex + male homosex = male social power over women.
Male social power over women ==> male homosex.
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Failure to conform to gender norms threatens male power.
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CB: I’d say lesbianism yes. It threatens male power. Gay maleism is compatible and is even an expression of male power in “half” of its expressions.
The only problem with lesbianism is the same problem the Shakers had. It’s a one generation setup, historically. Of course, now with new science there is the plausibility of a “Brave New World”. ( Play Michael Jackson’s _Thriller_ music here. Organ music from Saturday morning scary movies. Frankenstein. He’s alive ! Mary Wollsencroft, etc.)
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Gay men are “like women,†and therefore violate the norm.
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CB: Yes, I think that’s the superficial way in which gay men and gay male violations of the norm have been thought to be feminist. But that goes on the reificational logic that “woman” is defined as “having sex with a man”. So a man masturbating is a woman at that moment too.
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Gay men are policed, even to the point of violence at times, to reinforce norms.
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CB: Some of them are yes. But some of them are THE police. Like J. Edgar Hoover ( or Alexander the Great Cop).
Here’s another contradiction in your formulation. If heterosexual men were being calculating about “gainging access to women’s bodies” as you all put it, then they would be _promoting_ other men to be homosexuals. Why ? Because it cuts down on the competition “for access to women’s bodies”. Instead of beating gays up to stop being gays, they’d be trying to turn other men into gays, so the women would be left for them.
^^^^
The norms are part of a system of male power over women.
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CB: Well, what is my explanation for why _some_ ( a very tiny, tiny minority) of men act violently toward gay men ? Simple .It’s the Freudianoid idea that they have some questions in their minds about whether they have gay inclinations. The biggest gay bashers are probably experiencing homoerotisis, as many analysts have noted.
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Homophobia is a weapon of male power over women.
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CB: No appropriately enough it is a phobia, a fear that” I might be gay.” The word is well formed in this regard. It is a psychological ,not power issue. In this regard it ( fear of gay men; not lesbians here) is a sort of fear of “not liking women”. Note when we speak of homophobia in men, we usually mean anti-gay men. There is a sort of indifference to lesbians.
Lesbianism _is_ a direct “threat” to male power and to male heterosexual desire. If men were going to be homofearful, that’s the homosexuality that they would be …I don’t want to suggest peopel _should_ fear.I’m just saying by the structural and power logics here…
^^^^
A - B - C
Actually existing heterosexuality is normative, and therefore oppressive. That is NOT saying that every instance of male-female intimacy is oppressive.
^^^^
CB: There is some oppression of women by men in heterosexual relationships, but the institution of heterosexuality is _not_ inherently oppressive. Heterosexuality is not the source of oppresxion in heterosexual relationships. Male supremacy is the source of oppression in heterosexual relationships.
However, I must note that women have fought way back from the original male oppression in heterosexual relationships. There have been giant strides forward in women’s liberation, though they have not been announced with the fanfare of revolutions in productive relations.
Women , through the Battle of the Sexes, are close to saving men from their dumbshit.
Here’s an important empirical question on this: How long have women had longer average lifespans than men ?If this has reversed in recent times ( i.e. womem used to die earlier than men) ,it would be an objective indicator of progress.
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Pointing out that women pariticpate in their own oppression, or that hegemonic sexuality produces (as all systems of social power do) internalizaton of the system’s ideology is NOT a refutation of the system.
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Agree
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It is a liberal evasion. Liberals love to find exceptions to the rule, and call them refutations.
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CB: Yea, I agree liberals are a mess.
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Most American workers believe in capitalism. Think about it.
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CB: I’d say fewer women believe in male supremacism today than workers believe in capitalism. Women’s liberation is making and has made greater advances than working class struggle.
Frankly, my “For Women’s Liberation” has an opportunist aspect to it. I think communists should unite with feminist struggle because women have been succeeding in their struggle. Quietly, patiently, steadily they are winning their liberation. The working class needs to follow the womens’ struggle’s lead. On the other hand, women will be the best communists.
Communists will gain by more fundamentally uniting their struggle with women’s liberation. My paper gives a “theoretical” basis for this. But the idea for me also comes from practice and experience in the women’s liberation and workers’ liberation struggle.
^^^^^
Ideology does two things: it makes power appear natural; and it thereby conceals power.
You are still operating from within the hegemonic ideological framework of sexuality… which has compulsory heterosexuality (male-female complimentarity instead of mutuality) at its center.
It’s not male chauvinism. It’s male social power.
Comment by Stan — 2/12/2006 @ 8:30 pm
^^^^
14 February 2006, 12:06 pmCB: Thanks . Good focus of the issues. I’d say I’m operating from a position of women’s and workers’ liberation, and I have located critical theory for potential heterosexual liberation, liberation from male supremacy and capitalism. And liberation from racism. Liberation from homophobia , even. There is nothing in this theory that justifies fear of homosexuals. For one thing, it affirms the natural necessity of heterosex to perpetuate us in the future generations. Society needs heterosex. Heterosexual have no rational basis to fear that they have to giveup or will “lose” ( ??) their heterosexuality. Homophobia is a psychological disorder, appropriately named a phobia. It is not part of a critical power structure.
Julian Real:
Hi Charles.
We’re making some headway here, and I am grateful.
You did clarify some significant things, and we still have some more to work on, but I see others are entering the conversation too, which is wonderful.
___________
CB: However, I didn’t say gay men are not oppressed. I said they are simultaneously oppressors.
Take Black men. Surely you think they are oppressed, no ? Yet , as men , they are oppressors at the same time. Similarly with gay men, they are both oppressed and oppressors.
___________
JR: Thanks, Charles. That was really useful. U.S. Black men ARE oppressed, not only for being Black, but also possibly due to class oppression in the case of working class and poor people. How Black heterosexual men, specifically, are exploited, objectified, fetishised, reviled, demeaned, and discriminated against, is different than how Black women (lesbian and heterosexual) are oppressed, how Black gay men, white gay men, and gay men of other ethnicities are oppressed. What I am trying to say is, through my understandings and experiences of the real world, and the work of bell hooks and Patricia Hill Collins, among other social-political theorists, I see Black heterosexual men being oppressed in very specific ways, particular ways, that are intricately linked to with very egregious and dangerous white heteromale projections onto Black heterosexual men, which, as you well know, has led to many gruesome fatalities of Black hetero men at the hands of white hetero men.
Gay men are oppressed for not being heterosexual and “seen as manly” in heteropatriarchy, and are, in varying ways, to varying degrees, individually and collectively oppressive to women, and differently to heterosexual woman than to lesbian women.
A book you might like (I’m not recommending it, as I hear you well on the “reading list” matter–I feel the same way you do–”just summarise for me!”) is called Unpacking Queer Politics, by Sheila Jeffreys, a white lesbian British feminist, who untangles just how male supremacist queer politics currently are, to the detriment of all women. (She also notes this was NOT the case in the 1970s when movements for Gay Liberation and Women’s Liberation had a shared (critical) analysis of hetero/sexist patriarchy. I agree with her thesis, her analysis, her observations, almost entirely. I’m not thrilled with the degree to which race and class don’t factor into her thinking, but that’s the way it goes, too often, with white people’s theorising.
So I think WE AGREE about that! Hurray. Not that we must agree, but given the seeming past disagreements, I’m happy to find some points of agreement. as strong coalitions are built on those points of agreement, while allowing for significant points of disagreement.
___________
CB: Now there’s “Will and Graceâ€.
JR: Will and Grace is a problem in so many regards: it is largely anti-lesbian, racist, and classist, as well as NOT showing gay men in affectionate relationships. It reinforces most white sexist, white classist, white racist attitudes and behaviours. Will and Grace, in practically no ways, does what I am suggested the media COULD do to promote gayness as real, natural, and normal, and by normal I don’t simply mean “assimilated”. Cosby’s Huxtable family could break some ground, precisely because of the degree to which they were assimilated: “professional” and upper middle class–part of privileged white society.
I find Will and Grace a terrible example. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is even more problematic, as it portrays (mostly white) gay men as being “for” or in service to (primarily white) hetero men. (Right.)
The more I think about it, the more I find parallels between white gay men and Black heterosexual men, in terms of how white heteromale supremacist society has historically treated each group: as objects of fear, as being sexually “out of control” and/or dangerous, as being objectified and seen as being “sex-crazed” almost entirely, as being projected onto–receiving those unowned pieces of white heteromen’s sexuality. But Collins does make most, if not all, of these points.
____________
JR: Tell me, Charles, where am I to look on TV for that loving, kind, warm, romantic moment between two men or two women who are not hetero?
CB: Check out “Will and Graceâ€.
JR: What episodes of that show display that? I haven’t seen any. Mostly it plays up gay men as a variation on the standard media stereotypes of heterosexual women, as catty, self-absorbed, dispossessed, deeply lonely, and fighting over men.
____________
CB: I gotta say though that the Cosby Show was a pretty minor development in the liberation of Black people.
JR: I agree, Charles. I agree. I think it is politically interesting, and disturbing, how Bill Cosby, corporate connected as he is, and Oprah too, can only manage to put forth “interpersonal” or “community” based analyses of racism, rather than structural and institutional ones that link so much to capitalist pariarchy.
____________
CB: Everything new is not necessarily better. Male supremacy, male chauvinism are better terms I’d say. “Patriarchy†is pretty old too.
Good point. I am intrigued with Stan’s term (if it is “his”): andrarchy. That makes more sense to me, I’m just not sure it will catch on. But I don’t find “male chauvinism” to be useful or applicable to today’s discussions and activism addressing sexism and male supremacy. If a man is sexist, why not call him sexist? “Chauvinistic” is like some old sub-category of that, and it leaves out the institutional and identity elements, which sexism keeps in place. Chauvinism, as I understand the old use of the term–which I was around for, btw ; ) –deals mostly with interpersonal behaviour and attitudes, which is only one dimension, a liberally popular one, of sexism’s harm.
____________
CB: “heteropatriarchy†is an incorrect usage , in my opinion. Heterosexuality is not patriarchal. We don’t want to get rid of heterosexuality. We want to speak of heterosex in a positive way.
I find it a very useful term, and in my experience, and those of so many women I know–dare I say all women I know: heterosexuality and patriarchy are about as intricately linked as any two social phenomena. Intricately, intimately, ideologically, and institutionally linked. Stan’s book, Sex and War, gets at this very well.
_____________
JR: I’m not kidding.
^^^^^
CB: I’m not kidding either.
_____________
I was thinking the other day that I admire your tenacity, your self-assuredness, and your maverick style: your unwillingness to go along with theory because it is popular, at least in some small radical circles.
_____________
CB: Male chauvinism is a good usage.
See above for why I have problems with it.
_____________
CB: Heterosexism is out right wrong usage; see my previous discussions. Some of the more recent developments are backward movements in theory, so the new terminology is less valid than some of the old.
I don’t agree, at all. I think it is useful in exactly the ways Collins uses it, for articulating a system of power that is largely ignored as such, or is reduced to “homophobia”, and therefore is seen only as a form of bigotry, not a system of powerful oppression and social control. Getting back to something earlier: I can’t believe you find “racism” the same thing as “race hate”. What about the institutional power dimension, and the identity dimension of racism?
_____________
CB: Women’s liberation is a better term than feminism , too.
You, me, and most feminists I know agree with that!! : )
_____________
CB: I’m disagreeing with you, that’s why I’m not going to adopt your terminology.
As noted earlier in this post, I am glad that you maintain your stance, your views, as long as you are also open to others, which is to say, to honest discussion about these matters. (I would say to some degrees, to many degrees, you have been open, btw. And I appreciate that.) Your views should make sense to you, intellectually, intuitively, and experientially. I would wager to say most people’s most deeply held theories do just that.
I’ll respond to more at another time.
Peace.
14 February 2006, 5:05 pmDoyle Saylor:
Hi Charles,
I know CB from way back. Enjoying the conversation and finding CB as usual bringing up lots to think about and a lot I agree with.
CB uses the term homophobia meaning fear of gay or he doesn’t think but I think also fear of lesbian persons. I think CB knows I don’t like the ‘phobia’ part of this term. It’s not a phobia, and that emotion structure (a cognitive disability) is not pointed at gay people. A phobia is a disability. The word phobia implies that being anti-gay is ‘just’ phobia, or extreme fixed fear like a compulsion.
The alternate view of the emotion structure of bigotry against homosexual practice and same sex practioners is articulated by Martha Nussbaum at the U. of Chicago as buttressed by these feelings, shame and disgust, which Nussbaum calls ‘asocial’ emotions. Fear is a social emotion, and we don’t understand by using phobia what is ‘rigid’ about hatred of homosexual behavior.
On the other hand I have more disagreements with Julian. For example,
Julian writes,
These are analytical categories, not realities. Compulsory heterosexuality is the hegemonic form of sexuality rooted in and reproductive of male power over women.
Doyle,
I agree with CB, heterosexuality is not compulsory, nor is it hegemonic the right way to describe patriarchy. patriarchy goes back through a lot of different sorts of economically defined era’s. I reserve hegeomony or profound influence for describing the functions of nation states. What I think you are reaching for conceptually is roughly similar to how language divides people which is not hegemony like a nation does, but work divisions of community ties that goes back a long ways before hegemony meant anything.
A lot of animals practice homosexual relationships. Can we call their species patriarchal? Or heterosexists? We see in animals a fixed pattern they themselves can little alter, but in humans we can see great variability in cultures and homosexual as well as heterosexual practices. We can to some degree bring to sexuality a culture structure or as CB would say ‘infrastructure’, which a given economic system produces that allows us to address a ‘patriarchy’ of inequality between sexes. Gender some think are performances that are cultural, so that too needs to be thrown into the hopper. But I think gender and language issues overlap, and point at ‘recognition’ as the source cognitive work that founds sexism.
This is enough. I am to some degree a thinker about homosexual rights being bi-sexual myself. But I think I am closer to CB in most ways.
15 February 2006, 6:13 pmthanks,
Doyle Saylor
Charles Brown:
* Hi Charles.
We’re making some headway here, and I am grateful.
You did clarify some significant things, and we still have some more to work on, but I see others are entering the conversation too, which is wonderful.
^^^^
CB: No progress without struggle
___________
CB: However, I didn’t say gay men are not oppressed. I said they are simultaneously oppressors.
Take Black men. Surely you think they are oppressed, no ? Yet , as men , they are oppressors at the same time. Similarly with gay men, they are both oppressed and oppressors.
___________
JR: Thanks, Charles. That was really useful. U.S. Black men ARE oppressed, not only for being Black, but also possibly due to class oppression in the case of working class and poor people. How Black heterosexual men, specifically, are exploited, objectified, fetishised, reviled, demeaned, and discriminated against, is different than how Black women (lesbian and heterosexual) are oppressed, how Black gay men, white gay men, and gay men of other ethnicities are oppressed.
^^^^^^^^
CB: Some difference , some similarity.
Also, white working class men are exploited.
^^^^
What I am trying to say is, through my understandings and experiences of the real world, and the work of bell hooks and Patricia Hill Collins, among other social-political theorists, I see Black heterosexual men being oppressed in very specific ways, particular ways, that are intricately linked to with very egregious and dangerous white heteromale projections onto Black heterosexual men, which, as you well know, has led to many gruesome fatalities of Black hetero men at the hands of white hetero men.
^^^^^
CB: Yes, although , the main forms of oppression are not those “lynchings for looking at a white woman” anymore. The myth of the Black man as rapist and murder issue is lessened. The O.J. Simpson maxiseries was an extraordinary phenomenon in the ruling class through its Hollywood branch blatantly trying to inscribe the myth Black man as rapist and murderer of white women in the minds of new generations of white people, and America. I am not speaking on whether OJ did it or not. Just the fact that it got more coverage than some wars - it became a national tv maxiseries - was extraordinarily telling. It only warranted a minor news story, like Robert Blake killing his wife. Why would it be made the national soap opera of the century , except to blast the myth back into people’s minds.
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Gay men are oppressed for not being heterosexual and “seen as manly†in heteropatriarchy, and are, in varying ways, to varying degrees, individually and collectively oppressive to women, and differently to heterosexual woman than to lesbian women.
^^^^^
CB: No doubt gay men are oppressed for this reason, but I think this is a sort of surface reason covering up for other factors. Why would the ruling class care whether some men are gay ? There have been other times in history when there wasn’t any special homophobia. I’m thinking what we experience in the U.S. today has more with the white power structure not wanting _white_ men to be gay, because the white birth rates are problematic. This is the same real reason underlying anti-abortion. The white power structure wants white people to reproduce, to keep the white population up. You know Europe’s population is not growing. So, it is not directly the issue of “manliness”, but the specific issue of fathering white children. The power structure might even promote gayness in the Black community. This came up a sort of reverse in abortion back 30 years ago. While the women’s movement fought for abortion rights, in the Black community there was an opposite concern that promoting abortions among Black women was a genocidal thrust from the white power structure.
^^^^^^^^
A book you might like (I’m not recommending it, as I hear you well on the “reading list†matter–I feel the same way you do–â€just summarise for me!â€) is called Unpacking Queer Politics, by Sheila Jeffreys, a white lesbian British feminist, who untangles just how male supremacist queer politics currently are, to the detriment of all women. (She also notes this was NOT the case in the 1970s when movements for Gay Liberation and Women’s Liberation had a shared (critical) analysis of hetero/sexist patriarchy. I agree with her thesis, her analysis, her observations, almost entirely. I’m not thrilled with the degree to which race and class don’t factor into her thinking, but that’s the way it goes, too often, with white people’s theorising.
^^^^^
CB: Yes, sounds like some honest probing.
^^^^^
So I think WE AGREE about that! Hurray. Not that we must agree, but given the seeming past disagreements, I’m happy to find some points of agreement. as strong coalitions are built on those points of agreement, while allowing for significant points of disagreement.
^^^^^^
CB: yes, it’s always good to reach agreements after big disagreements. Reconciliation is grand.
___________
CB: Now there’s “Will and Graceâ€.
JR: Will and Grace is a problem in so many regards: it is largely anti-lesbian, racist, and classist, as well as NOT showing gay men in affectionate relationships.
^^^^
CB: I’m may not have analyzed it as closely as you, but I have seen some affection between and among the gay men. Just the other day, Will met a Black gay guy with a sort of love at first sight theme.
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It reinforces most white sexist, white classist, white racist attitudes and behaviours. Will and Grace, in practically no ways, does what I am suggested the media COULD do to promote gayness as real, natural, and normal, and by normal I don’t simply mean “assimilatedâ€. Cosby’s Huxtable family could break some ground, precisely because of the degree to which they were assimilated: “professional†and upper middle class–part of privileged white society.
I find Will and Grace a terrible example. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is even more problematic, as it portrays (mostly white) gay men as being “for†or in service to (primarily white) hetero men. (Right.)
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CB: Aren’t they helping the het men to “learn” women more so they can get dates with the women ? That’s what the title sounds like.
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The more I think about it, the more I find parallels between white gay men and Black heterosexual men, in terms of how white heteromale supremacist society has historically treated each group: as objects of fear, as being sexually “out of control†and/or dangerous, as being objectified and seen as being “sex-crazed†almost entirely, as being projected onto–receiving those unowned pieces of white heteromen’s sexuality. But Collins does make most, if not all, of these points.
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CB: I’m not sure of your “historically” part. I believe homophobia has a somewhat more recent origin than racism and slavery. I don’t think there was gaybashing or anti-gay men violence in the 1800’s.
Foucault has a famous principle that the category homosexual didn’t exist until the late 1800’s
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JR: Tell me, Charles, where am I to look on TV for that loving, kind, warm, romantic moment between two men or two women who are not hetero?
CB: Check out “Will and Graceâ€.
JR: What episodes of that show display that? I haven’t seen any. Mostly it plays up gay men as a variation on the standard media stereotypes of heterosexual women, as catty, self-absorbed, dispossessed, deeply lonely, and fighting over men.
CB: As I say, I just saw an episode where Will meets a Black gay guy, and I believe they fell “in love”, or were “struck” with each other, at first meeting. Now I may have misunderstood the story line, because I’m not a situation comedy type a guy. I didn’t watch that many episodes of the Cosby show. But I _believe_ that is what was portrayed in an episode that I watched.
However, I am not really arguing with you. I would not be surprised if the pattern you mention is not in fact there.
However II, I really don’t think Hollywood is behind the curve on gayness. Just the fact that say Rock Hudson, _the_ leading heterosexual star was in fact gay sends out a pretty big message to lots of people as far as models for gay men to follow from in the limelight. Then in general, the very significant participation in theatre and the arts, including dominance in areas like dance, of gay men provides enormous role model opportunities for gay men.
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CB: I gotta say though that the Cosby Show was a pretty minor development in the liberation of Black people.
JR: I agree, Charles. I agree. I think it is politically interesting, and disturbing, how Bill Cosby, corporate connected as he is, and Oprah too, can only manage to put forth “interpersonal†or “community†based analyses of racism, rather than structural and institutional ones that link so much to capitalist pariarchy.
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CB: Everything new is not necessarily better. Male supremacy, male chauvinism are better terms I’d say. “Patriarchy†is pretty old too.
Good point. I am intrigued with Stan’s term (if it is “hisâ€): andrarchy. That makes more sense to me, I’m just not sure it will catch on. But I don’t find “male chauvinism†to be useful or applicable to today’s discussions and activism addressing sexism and male supremacy. If a man is sexist, why not call him sexist?
“Chauvinistic†is like some old sub-category of that, and it leaves out the institutional and identity elements, which sexism keeps in place. Chauvinism, as I understand the old use of the term–which I was around for, btw ; ) –deals mostly with interpersonal behaviour and attitudes, which is only one dimension, a liberally popular one, of sexism’s harm.
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CB; Because a lot of male chauvinism doesn’t have anything to do with sex. It’s genderism , not sexism. So, in my opinion chauvinism is the more general category, and sexism is a subcategory of chauvinism.
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CB: “heteropatriarchy†is an incorrect usage , in my opinion. Heterosexuality is not patriarchal. We don’t want to get rid of heterosexuality. We want to speak of heterosex in a positive way.
I find it a very useful term, and in my experience, and those of so many women I know–dare I say all women I know: heterosexuality and patriarchy are about as intricately linked as any two social phenomena. Intricately, intimately, ideologically, and institutionally linked. Stan’s book, Sex and War, gets at this very well.
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CB: My experience causes me to conclude the opposite way that you do. It is not in their hetero_sexual_ relationships in which they are most oppressed by men. It is in their heterosexual relationships that women have the most equality of power exactly because sex is important to the men, and you can’t really have sex, or good sex, with someone who is not happy with you. So, women have sex as a basis for extracting concessions from the man who is having sex with them.
So, my opinion is sharply the opposite with yours and Stan’s on this issue. I say the main areas of male chauvinism are in other areas of women’s lives than sex. I am very much in opposition to the whole placement of the sexual relationship at the center of male dominance. I think it is the weakest area of male dominance. It’s where women have men by the you know whats. Thus, it is the area where women’s lib should focus , as I suggest, sexual healing, Marvin Gaye, hey, hey.
Women have much struggle in their heterosexual relations; power struggles play a major role in heterosexual relations. However, women have much more _equal_ “weapons” in personal relationships with men than in other relationships with men, because withdrawal of affection and liking and loving is a powerful weapon in personal relationships, and women have thet ability to withold these fairly readily.
So, women complain a lot about their struggles in the Battle of the Sexes, but women have more victories in the direct Battle of the Sexes than in other areas of life.
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JR: I’m not kidding.
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CB: I’m not kidding either.
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I was thinking the other day that I admire your tenacity, your self-assuredness, and your maverick style: your unwillingness to go along with theory because it is popular, at least in some small radical circles.
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CB: Why thank you, comrade.
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CB: Male chauvinism is a good usage.
See above for why I have problems with it.
CB: My discussion in reply is above
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CB: Heterosexism is out right wrong usage; see my previous discussions. Some of the more recent developments are backward movements in theory, so the new terminology is less valid than some of the old.
I don’t agree, at all. I think it is useful in exactly the ways Collins uses it, for articulating a system of power that is largely ignored as such, or is reduced to “homophobiaâ€, and therefore is seen only as a form of bigotry, not a system of powerful oppression and social control. Getting back to something earlier: I can’t believe you find “racism†the same thing as “race hateâ€. What about the institutional power dimension, and the identity dimension of racism?
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CB: Well, I’m not agreeing that homophobia is a system of oppression on the scale and quality that racism is. Racism is a central organizing principle of capitalism in the U.S. and really worldwide. Homophobia is not. The ruling class can go both ways on homosexuality. For example, the prison system creates homosexual relationships. The ruling class doesn’t care about this, especially because of the over percentage of Black prisoners. As I say, I think the ruling class’ main issue on homosexuality has to do with population control. Where it wants the population to grow , it will foment homophobia. Where it wants the population to drop , it will foment homosexuality. It has a stricter rule on promoting racism, although there have been some big corps supporting affirmative action, and something is going on with Clarence Thomas , Colin Powell and Condelezza Rice being promoted so high. The Civil Rights Movement was aided by the U.S. need to have democracy in its ideological battles with the Soviet Union.
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CB: Women’s liberation is a better term than feminism , too.
You, me, and most feminists I know agree with that!! : )
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CB: I’m disagreeing with you, that’s why I’m not going to adopt your terminology.
As noted earlie