fFabiana has 12 post(s)

In her essay“Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving,” Lila Abu-Lughod argues that the feminist movement from Western countries trying to save Muslim women from cultural oppression , orthodox religious views and the violence of the Taliban, are imposing a Westernized view of the world in the lives of Muslim women. Feminists see themselves in a superior standpoint in which they can decide what would be a positive change in the lives of Afghan women.  But by changing their cultural way of dressing and taking away the veils from their hair will not change the life situation for many women that need social justice, the end of war, peace, economic resources, education, safe environments to raise their children, social recognition, health care, and universal human rights.

Abu-Lughod states the issues that affect Afghan women are not only those that the Taliban imposed upon them, but we should take a look to the large picture and recognize that the social issues were present before the war on terror. The violence and destruction we see on T.V. and discussed in interviews is rooted in political issues, conflicts to access territory, extraction of oil and natural resources. In order to change the lives of Afghan women and disadvantaged people in the world,  there should be a re distribution  of wealth and the work of  organizations and that want to bring rights and justice for people.

Also, Abu-Lughod informs that we must identify what are the interests of the groups and organizations involved in the search for a better world. If  feminists and  human rights advocates want to bring justice and emancipation for women and people that are suffering the aftermath of the terrorist attacts of September 11th, they should do it by discussing the history of interventions of the U.S. in Afghanistan, the relationship of the Taliban with the U.S and how neo-colonialism influences religious groups to react against foreign powers that want to dominate their lives and take their resources.

Amalia L. Cabezas defines “sexual citizenship” to the situation of many women who live in the Caribbean, specifically the women called camareras or jineteras in Cuba and the Dominican Republic. These women do not conform with heterosexual standards of behavior and monogamy, and exchange sex, romance and friendship with foreigners who give them gifts in exchange for their hospitality. Also, women do not identify themselves as prostitutes or sexual workers, in contrast, they believe that by using their bodies an providing pleasure, romance and company to visitors or “amigos” they can support their families, migrate to other countries and perhaps get married.

These women have adapted to the “sex tourism” economy because they want to escape poverty and necessity. And tourists have no legal boundaries to look for sexual services and companionship. However, these women are susceptible to get arrested, raped and extorted by the police. Women get sentenced for prostitution when they are seen alone in the streets near nightclubs and public spaces. Many of these women are sent to rehabilitation centers where they work in agriculture, and get paid low wages. “Jineteras” are seen as deviants by the law and society. Apparently, they lack morality and the social values of socialism. But prostitution is not illegal in Cuba. Dark or light skin color divide a line between who gets labeled as sexual worker or deviant in this economy.

This is ironic because males that show the same behavior and make their living by receiving meals, clothes, trips and jewelry in exchange for sex and companionship do not get stigmatized as deviants, nor get arrested or bothered by the police. In contrast, male that are sexually involved with tourists are seen as “machos.” These male are called, jinetero, pinguero and sanky pankys .

What is important to see is that women and men are immersed in the sexual economy of the tourism industry in the Caribbean imposed by capital relations of western dominant countries. Colonialism and neoliberalism create the conditions for this workforce in the sex tourism sector, which  require skills and specific look and skin color to entertain  customers at the hotel complex.  The sex economy is based in good service, hospitality, romance and love.  And the profit earned from the tourist industry is an important asset for both Cuban and the Dominican Republic governments.

Roderick Ferguson states that by analyzing the statuses and identities of black queer prostitutes we could reveal capitalist economy, the state and the western ideology operating as a force that generates the intersection of multiple forms of oppression such as definitions of inferior cultures, race, class, gender and sexuality. Non-white subordinated groups are the working class of the capitalist system. This class is created by the constrains and limitations imposed by the state, and at the same time the state promotes the order and the normativeness of white heterosexual ideals.

In order to discuss the cultural factors and causes of inequality, poverty and subordination of black queer we should look into the economic development of capitalism, we should observe the ideology of western society and see how they are intertwined with state regulations and production of knowledge.Ferguson critiques the capitalist economy and its mode of production as responsible for social formation and class segregation. The capitalist system creates antagonism between wealth,  order and refinement, and poverty, disorder and decline. Capitalism and the rules of the state contradict each other in some way, but this clash is constantly reproducing the identities of white and nonwhite people. Also, patriarchy, race, division of labor, definitions of normative and deviant sexuality, social class, gender, age, and segregation are some of the variables that Ferguson places into perspective to reveal that U.S. ideals are aligned with the aim of capital accumulation and capitalist property relations.

Ferguson examines historical materialism as the starting point of division of classes and division of labor, when a surplus mass of workers are deprived form their means of production and willing to sell their labor power to survive. With industrialization, demands for labor and merging racial diversity in urban centers  in the U.S., Mexicans, Asian, and African American workers create fertile ground for the expansion of capitalism and exploitation of workers. The state implements programs to control nonwhite populations which are fixed into a  racial profile. Mexicans are americanized into domestic service, Asian and African Americans are segregated from middle class neighborhoods and  regulated by laws that prohibit interracial marriage. Capitalists produce more capital employing subordinated groups in the market and also by limiting their opportunity generates a surplus mass of workers that are willing to work for wages, sell their bodies and adjust to the circumstances of poverty because they have no other choice. Nonwhites are excluded from economic freedom, culturally and racially excluded  from the politics and economic spheres of society.

Cathy Cohens states that Queer Politics and Queer activism have the potential to radically change the political system and institutional oppression in our society, but Queer politics fail to recognize a broader understanding of queerness that should be based on multiple systems of oppression regulating the lives of most people. Why not include single mothers, blacks and exploited people in the political activism of Queerness if  heteronormativity is creating and oppressing the identities in the subordinated groups?  Lesbians, bisexuals, gays, transgendered, blacks, single mothers are oppressed by the institution of heterosexuality. Through definitions of heterosexuality the state regulates sexual behavior and creates social statuses, social identities that help sustain, reinforce, normalize and replicate the status quo of the privileged class.  On the other hand, definition of  class, race, sex and gender affect particular groups in society .

Cohen revises some historical facts to see how white supremacists implemented the institution of marriage (heterosexual marriage),  to regulate sexual behavior, to give rights and citizenship for those who qualify into the definitions of the sate. The sate also created laws to prohibit interracial marriage (whites and blacks) to reinforce division of class and to deprive blacks from equal opportunity.  Also, heterosexual women who procreate children outside the marriage institutions were/are seeing as deviants and “demonized” as people that takes advantage of the welfare system . But we should see that poverty, single mothers , and  incarceration affect blacks, Latinos the exploited and the underclasses. Race, class , gender, sexual identity are linked to institutional oppression, which  regulates the lives of people outside the heterosexual definition.

Queer politics focuses in the white middle and upper class lesbians , bisexuals, gays and transgendered people affected by sexism and homophobia, economic and political constrain. Queer activists want to challenge the static definitions of sexuality and restructure society, but the radical change of society would be impossible to accomplish if the left does not include changes that include other people’s interests, class, gender, sexuality, people of color and their disadvantage, sexism, AIDS activism. If Queer politics are meant to change the politics, economic , social and cultural institutions they need a broader view of society and its issues.

In “Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought,” Patricia Hill Collins argues that oppression fostered a double consciousness in African American women in which they identify their roles as servants imposed by the oppressive structure, but at the same time, African American women developed a hidden consciousness about themselves that separated  from the external definition of who they are as human beings. African American women possess the characteristics of a “stranger”, and observant participant that is detached from within the group, and that detachment provides them with the framework of analysis to explain relations of power.

Black feminist consciousness and culture raises from their opposition to their imposed roles as servants. They identify  oppression, patriarchy, and tension on socially constructed definitions of race, gender, and social class. The thought of black feminist women denotes activism in itself, which rejects the definitions that subjugate their identities as women. Black women are outsiders because they do not want to conform to socially defined norms. They self protect their hidden “true self” identities, which are different from the objectified other.  Black women self -valuate their womanhood, the roles in the family, the churches and creative expression, which produces knowledge and  redefines culture within the “outsider” group.

However, the framework of analysis that black feminist posses is provided by their resistance to oppression, from the inheritance of their past as a subordinated group that was excluded from political right, deprived  from social participation in women’s movements, denied of economic freedom, and impeded intellectual development. Black feminist groups and their stand point reveal an important criticism to our culture and to the Sociology Science because privileged male have dominated the production of true, knowledge and reality, but the standpoint of the white privilege “insiders” is the standpoint of those who have the power. Nevertheless, the black feminist paradigm is a resource to any subordinated group to measure power relations and to identify its effects in society.

Peterson and Paresi look for answers regarding human rights laws,which do not protect women as self -determined individuals and social agents, and especially deny protection to women in their private spheres where the family institution places women in the most vulnerable situation. By defining heterosexism and then showing the role of the sate normalizing patriarchy, I see that human rights are another layer of the oppression system that  guarantees the status quo for male domination over women, and the reproduction of this societal arrangement operates nationally and transnationally.

Heterosexism determines that men and women are naturally different rather than subjected to social and cultural constructions.  The identities of masculinity and femininity are institutionalized and their bodies politicized. Men and women are micromanaged by the state laws that regulate the division of labor and the institutions. Marriage and the family are mechanisms to preserve cultural values and the socialization of new generations. The binary gender identity of male and female, reinforces the normalization of heterosexism and that is intrinsically linked to the division of labor. This gender system places women in an organization of social inequality. Women’s subordination is normalized through cultural transmission, language, literature, state policies, power and transnational organisms.

However, is it possible that state violations, inequality , violence and deprivation of freedom do not constitute violations of human rights against women? Perhaps it would be helpful to revise who writes the laws, who is the authority and see who benefits with these politics. The answers reveal that males benefit and their domination is predominant in society. These ideas of public and private spheres, roles and privilege status foster the development of men and the oppression of women. Women have no agency and self-determination under these definitions, and are limited by boundaries of gender subjugation. The main role of women is procreation,  and the state laws preserve heterosexism to prevent changes in society.  Women are not protected by human rights because they are “men’s rights.” Gender inequality safeguard the interests of the ruling class.

In “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” Adrienne Rich argues that feminism has to address no only gender inequality as a way to include women’s ideas in the cultural norms of patriarchal society, but feminism should also address heterosexualism as an institution in society established  by the capitalist system, which  deprives women from accessing empowerment and embrace their  identities as a group .

The system of heterosexuality imposed to women as a natural choice for women’s erotic life and development in general is a managed and organized form of coercion according to Rich. The reality of women’s identity is distorted by a fragmented  perception and false consciousness about themselves. The information and social scripts for women, determine fixed patterns of behavior, that are represented in the media and reinforce with stereotypical ideas of romance, marriage, women’s role, womanhood, freedom of choice, sexual liberation, etc.

However, women’s  empowerment would lay in questioning the “compulsory heterosexualism,” or the “female sexual slavery” in which women are used as objects and subjected to violence.  By questioning heterosexualism, women perhaps would be able to see the methods and mechanisms that lay underneath the surface of the family institution and the societal arrangements that keep women subjugated.   The many ways in which male dominate women’s lives are by controlling women’s self-expression and  creativity, limiting their access to education and economic freedom, regulating their offspring , imposing  division of labor, and erasing erotic ideas about themselves and their own bodies.

According to Rich, the suppressing of women’s history and  lesbian invisibility creates the appropriate terrain for male domination. Rich discusses the term “lesbian continuum”  to reflect the experiences of women transcending sexual attraction, but bonding in an intimate way against tyranny, marriage resistance and forming women associations. Lesbian existence comprises the rejection of an imposed way of life, in which women are naturally, emotionally and sensually inclined towards the masculine figure .

In “Thinking Sex: Notes from a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality,” Gayle Rubin states that sexuality is taboo in the United States, and in the Western societies in general. Society has been rigidly formed in a frame of thought or religious belief that defines what is accepted as sexual behavior, what is sinful and deviant. Rubin shows how  mechanisms of sexual control operate in our society through the use of law, repressive politics, mental health definitions and ultimately as a form of racism. In the U.S. sexuality is part of the hierarchical order of society and is difficult to discuss it openly.

Rubin shows the characteristics of sexual thought in the U.S. and reveals that sex is viewed as a negative behavior. In our society  sex is considered dangerous and destructive. This view is rooted in the Christian tradition, which condemns sex as sinful and bad. Sex is exempted as a negative force  only when a married couple, heterosexual of course, have sex because of procreation and love. Nevertheless, signs of enjoyment are forbidden, people must feel guilty for having sexual attractions, masturbate, cohabit, or explore their sexuality in any possible way. This perception of sexuality has confined the choices of people in regard their sexual lives. The social norms specify the way individuals should feel or repress emotions, pleasure and passion.  The laws have imposed boundaries in the ways people can use their bodies, and the laws have defined the only accepted way of having relationships with a person or group of people. These regulations are serious and coercive. LGBTQ have been deprived of their freedom, punished and segregated for just being.

There is another important aspect of the sexual though in the U.S. and Rubin describes it as a “hierarchical system of sexual value” (151). With that in mind, we should understand that people who have the most prestige in our society are married, reproductive-heterosexual couples. They are at the top of the social ladder because of their sexual behavior and conformity to the morals and values. They are perceived as socially acceptable, trusted, respectable and could be rewarded with advantages of social mobility. On the other hand, stigma is attached to all those who do not behave in the way religion, the state, the media and most public institutions establish as “normal.”

Moreover, Rubin states that the stigma is rooted in medical and psychiatric censure. Psychiatry condemns sexual behavior as a sign of mental health and judges individuals as emotional inferiors. Sexual preferences are not seen as a personal choice and as an expression of individual’s feelings.  These systems of sexual repression and judgement are meant to divide a line between what is good or what is wrong. If we take a closer look, all these ideas of sexual morality are similar with the ideas of racism, and operate alike segregating people in social classes and limiting their access to resources and social development. Sexuality is supposed to conform with a single standard, but that standard has been constructed by the ruling class. We live in a society where diversity is not valued at all. Variation in sexuality is rejected, as other races and ethnicities are undermined as less important.

In The Caliban and The Witch, Silvia Federici traces the subjugation of  women and the decline of their status in society, which were rooted in the development of capitalism in Europe in the 1500’s. The rise of the capitalist society as a political economy not only expropriated women from their means of production and labor power, it also enslaved women as a domestic non-waged worker, and made them property of their husbands. Women’s participation in society was diminished with the regulations and violence imposed by the sate. Women became alienated from their own species being, and without access to their reproductive rights, they became machine-like entities to produce the proletariat class, the cheap labor for manufacture  that created the surplus value and accumulation of capital for the bourgeois class. These dynamics not only applied for women in Europe, but expanded to the women of the American colonies and the African women that were forced to work in sugar, cotton and rum plantations.

The appropriation of land by part of the state and the lost of the means of subsistence for rural families and women workers of the Medieval Europe were the beginning of a number of changes that generated the degradation of the status of women in society. The redistribution of land and wealth favored the bourgeois class that collected money and products from agricultural workers who were left to live on the streets. Capitalism would generate a rearrengemnt of classes. The capitalist who owns the means of production, and the proletariat, who has labor power. However, women would not be allowed to sell their labor power under capitalism. Women would be subjugated to work for their husbands without receiving wages, to do the housework without recognition, to prostitute themselves on the streets in order to get food.

Without land to work, women were taken away from their labor power and the production of their own crafts and social life. The commonality of production favored the interaction of women until the new mode of production was imposed by the capital system. Women would suffer poverty, famine, and would revolt against their oppressors and would pay a high price for it. Women were forced to leave the public space and to be secluded into a domestic space where her presence became invisible for society even though the hard work and demands imposed in the house by her husband.

Also the regulations of the state in regard to reproductive rights would impose women to populate Europe and America to generate armies, to replenish the factories with workers, to travel overseas and participate in genocide in the extraction of slaves, goods and materials form the colonies. Women’s  reproductive bodies were the cheapest way to get workers, to sell slaves and to produce surplus value and accumulation of capital. Women were tortured, killed and treated as witches for standing for themselves and for denouncing their unjustified mistreatment and subjugation in society.

In “The Medical Construction of Gender,” by Suzanne Kessler, it is shown how doctors and families deal with intersexuality in the case of new born babies showing these physical characteristics. When infants are born with ambiguous genitals, they cannot be defined as male or females by their doctors.  Therefore, infants are subjected to chromosome, hormonal and other tests to verify their biological identity. This situation creates a stressful moment for doctors and parents because having a neutral sex baby is seen as problematic. However, the point that Suzanne illustrates is that doctors are not neutral in determining the infant’s sex. Doctors base their opinions not only in scientific facts but also in how the genitals of these infants look. These decisions taken by doctors, parents and society come from a common ground. People have fixed ideas about sex and gender roles. And people have fixed expectations about how a male or female should be like.

When a baby shows XX chromosomes, that baby is defined as a girl. On the other hand, when a baby shows YX  chromosomes that means the baby  is a male in terms of biology. Yet Suzanne states that sometimes the infant sexes are not defined by the chromosomes because doctors have their own opinions about intersexuality. There is a lot of pressure in the sphere of the professional setting where doctors discuss and analyze what is the better decision to make. If the baby would fit in society as a boy or girl, and if the life of the baby would be successful in terms of “reconstruction of genitals,” the subsequent surgeries that will be involved, hormonal treatments as adults, sexual life, procreation, and in terms of socialization, what gender would correlate to the physical characteristics of the baby. The most salient feature for making decisions is the size of the male’s penis.

Moreover, parents feel puzzled by the situation because intersexuality is not discussed publicly even though the five percent of the population has been identified as intersexual. Doctors ask parents to hide the situation from family members and friends until the “issue” is resolved. Parents avoid talking about it. It is taboo, and people deal with this situation in terms of fear of judgement. All these factors increase the level of  urgency to solve the situation although babies are born healthy.

Suzanne shows that sex is questionable in terms of biology sciences, as gender is questionable in terms of definitions of society.  Any infant born with ambiguous genitals could live his or her life as any other person identifying as male, female or both.  What is more important is to see how the child would be socialized.