fKeerim has 12 post(s)

In “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving,” Lila Abu-Lughod introduces constructions that Muslim women were going through. She argues about contemporary discourses on equality and freedom. War on terrorism brought dangers of reifying cultures. By such thoughts, serious appreciations among differences in cultures were disregarded. Abu-Lughod brings the issue of Muslim women, who were also often called as “women of cover,” and discomfort and plight those women were suffering. History of colonialism brought global injustice, and created limits of “cultural relativism.” Instead of analyzing the situations by political explanations, people focused on cultural framing of regions. Colonial feminism created signs of oppression, such as veils that women were forced to wear. Abu-Lughod cites words of Laura Bush, who said that the fight against terrorism could also be a fight for dignity of women. This form of veil called burqa, was originally derived from a region in Afghanistan. It was a convention for symbolizing women’s modesty, and separation of men and women’s spheres. However, feminists describe burqa as a portable seclusion. It became a symbol of oppression among Muslim women that now it means good respectable women for the family. Therefore, Abu-Lughod argues that we should develop awareness and concerns the Muslim women are facing. There should be no superiority over cultural “others.” She relates this idea to the title of the article, “Does Muslim Women Really Need Saving.” It is problematic to put them as someone in need of saving. Such ideas were results of superiority by people from other cultures. The concept of feminism campaigns could be shown in different forms according to regions. As Abu-Lughod states, political and economic views should not affect one’s cultural difference. Accepting the possibility of difference and respectfulness to other cultures would be the starting point for reform of thoughts and be helpful for those suffering from structural violence.

In her essay, Amelia Cabezas focuses on the sexual industry of Carribbean region, especially Cuba and Dominican Republic. She starts off her essay by explaining the historical background of each country, as how sex became tied into their economic and social processes. According to the article, more than 500 years, sexual labor of women in the region was justified. As becoming one of the prominent regions of tourism, both Cuba and Dominican Republic developed their sexual identities in different sectors. Sex industry became their biggest social and economic outcomes, so there were strong links between tourism and sex. Some critiques argue that people of sex tourism is a form of victimization. Cabezas introduces specific terms as jineterismo, jineteras, sanky pankys, pingueroes, etc. Those gendered terms indicate the region’s mass tourism linked to sex trades. Tourist-oriented prostitution gave opportunities to such people to seek for love, money, romance and even marriage or migration after. Cabezas also argues that there are racial, class, gendered backgrounds behind. There were occupational segregation between races, and physical characteristics of sex workers mattered. Someone with lighter skin and with socioeconomic class was not considered as sex worker or sex tourist. Therefore, the exact criteria of definition are very ambiguous and vague. In both countries, prostitution is not illegal but the state had been suggesting such groups of women as ‘dangerous’ of suspect. Women in more privileged conditions didn’t get targeted, whereas women that are dark-skinned and had more connections with tourists were defined as having ‘questionable morality’ and got verbally abused, beaten, robbed and eventually put incarcerated. While Cabezas emphasizes “sexual citizenship,” she argues that sufferings of women outside the heteronormativity. Cuban women workers were seen to represent defilement of national pride, whereas male sex workers were treated as powerful extension of Cuban identity. However, Cabezas argues sexual rights for all women and full participations as citizens, not just those who are sexual outlaws.

In Roderick Ferguson’s “Aberrations,” he suggests an idea of how property, capital, prostitution are related. He starts the article with stories that clearly show the intersection of poverty, race, gender and economic discrimination. First, racial exclusion in social occupation is emphasized as he shows a picture of colored men waiting room and colored men restroom. Also, an example of black drag queen is introduced. Drag queen prostitute is shown as one of the features of urban capitalism, and showed how sexual difference became reasons for discrimination and poverty. Them, in particular, represented economic and social alienations. They were even being excluded from mainstream queers, and African-American communities. Ferguson asserts that racialized gender is one of the capitalist modes of production. According to the article, Marxism and liberal pluralism share the idea that the nation and property are outcomes of racial and class exclusions. Also, the idea relates with historical materialism. Emerged from racialized discourse, normative heterosexuality is justified. In capitalist theme, Marx argued universalism of heteropatriarchy, as symbolization of labor done by heterosexuals. Marx also asserted that the symbol of dehumanization is largely shown through prostitution. He focused prostitution as a specific representation of generalized “labor prostitution.” According to the article, it states that being castrated from all the means of production, the worker has only that labor resides in his body to sell. (Ferguson 8) Therefore, Marx relates prostitution as property of communal lust, that is an outcome of capitalist alienation.

On the other hand, Ferguson starts the interpretation from “Queer of Color” analysis. According to him, nation and capital is outcome of intersections that contradict the idea of liberal nation-state and capital as sites of resolution, perfection, progress, and confirmation. (Ferguson 3) Therefore, queer of color analysis justifies the intersectionality of race, gender and class and proves that the contrasting idea of capitalism is mistaken. Furturemore, queer of color analysis extends its idea to women of color feminism, by investigating intersections.

In the article “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens,” Cathy Cohen discusses the radical potential of queer politics. She argues that queer activism could not be an efficient way to overcome oppression against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender groups. According to her, queer politics reinforced dichotomies between sexes. Problematic situations arose according to intersection of oppression and resistance. In queer theorizing, sexual subjects are regulated due to certain criteria, and therefore discounted as deviant. It normalizes sexuality, exploitation of labor, and constrains visibility. Often, the focus of queer politics have been “heteronormativity,” meaning that centralized institutions that legitimize heterosexuality (Cohen 440). Heterosexual relationships were acknowleged as the only natural act within society. Therefore, from a long time ago there existed dominance of heterosexuals, and queers, on the other hand, were all considered as inferior. They experienced limitations in many parts of the society, under multiple practices of normalization. Cohen throws intersectional analysis to this situation. For example, she mentions black lesbian, bisexual feminists that emphasized their experience of discrimination in their writings. As being in what is considered as inferior groups, they have gone through multiple layers of oppression. People of color and lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered are considered as minority groups of society and according to Cohen, the politics of them were arranged by radical intersectional left analysis. Within that, people recognize heteronormativity as a primary system of power and control. It interacts with fundamental political issues such as racism, classicism, sexism and institutional exploitations on class. Queer activists reject cultural norms of acceptable sexual behaviors. Instead, they come up with strategies that promote self-definition. Being acknowledged that problematic matters of heteronormativity exists in society, they argue fundamental challenge to the system. The privilege, power and institution heterosexuality has. As aspiring for challenges to domination and exclusion, in our society, new political identity has to be constructed, that is inclusive to all.

Patricia Hill Collins describes how “outsiders” contribute to society and culture. She points out an interesting view about people having “outsider within” status. According to Collins, experience of black women as outsiders, highlights tension in a powerful insider community. Living in “outsider within status” is a brutal form of existence. On one level, that status gave benefits to black women. They were seen as domestic, nurturing and caring. Therefore, in positive views, they could gain self-affirmation in white families. However, on the other hand, there were invisible walls between white families and black women, and they could never belong to them. They suffered from dilemma in self, family, society issues and the reality was often obscured by orthodox. It is shown that somehow they were in both “outside in” and “inside out” status and experienced nearness and remoteness at the same time. In her article, it shows that it is not only black women that were suffering from “outsider within” status. White women were also treated as inferior in homes. However, according to the article, if white women were considered as dogs to their male members of the house, black women were considered as mules. The oppression was in different forms for each group, but they were both treated as subordinate and dehumanized. Also, black men were fighting for their rights as they were suffering from discriminated in society. However, they shared some space with white men because they had commonality as having “manhood.” Black women were in the bottom of the hierarchy because they could not be in the same category as white males, who dominated the society. Therefore black feminism was for both racial and sexual equality. By Collins’s article, it could be inferred that multifaceted oppression that inferior insiders went through has obscure marginality. Any member of society could be inside that group in some sense. However, as black feminist thoughts express that by creating their own self-definition and self-valuation, they should be able to gain denied authority back.

In “Are women human? It’s not an academic question,” V. Spike Peterson and Laura Parisi assert that instead of analyzing human rights as based on androcentrism, we should focus on it in connection to heterosexism. They bring modernist references that assume men as the norm and universal being. From that view, women existed as a subcategory, and were naturally excluded. However, it is not only stemmed from the modern state system. Rather, the institutionalization of gendered relations and biased definition of human rights existed from when the western civilization started. The idea was dominant from Greek political theorizing, and became as a clear normalization since then. Therefore the foundational thoughts were institutionalized for a very long time and this is how feminists analyze the system. Then social inequality arouses naturally based on this idea. There were regulations on sexual activities and prevalence of masculinist laws. The asymmetry in male-centered world had been affecting every part of people’s life. Also, in androcentric feminists’ view, women’s subordination is accepted without a doubt and they deny all other gender identifications. This is problematic thought that justifies the discrimination between gender. According to their theory, gender binary is socially constructed and emphasized by influential scholars such as Freud and Marx. Feminist interrogations of social orders are related to their psychoanalytic and social structural explanations. Distinction of gender and institutionalization became the only norm of sexual identity and also constructed western and liberal definition of the term ‘family’. There is a difference between acknowledging the problem in androcentric way and heterosexist way. Peterson and Parisi argue that we should analyze group reproduction and state making in heterosexist way. In heterosexual contract, all notions such as binary gender identities, social contracts, language codification are tied together. In their sense of normalization and reproduction of gender identities, women acquire reproductive roles.

In “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence,” Adrienne Rich explains how compulsory heterosexuality is institutionalized in everyday lives. According to many researches and essays, influential scholars asserted that women are “innately” sexually oriented towards men, and were also subordinated to men in economic context. Women were raised up seeing those fixed form of ideologies widely current in fairy tales, literature, television programs, social sciences, etc. Rich introduces Kathleen Gough’s theory of “eight characteristics of male power.” From Gough’s words, it shows clear sexual inequality between men and women. Women suffer from physical exploitation, as well as psychological abuse. By that, they are convinced that sexual orientation towards men is natural inevitable.

To see this problem in economic context, we can easily find that women are getting low paid jobs compared to men. Also, jobs require sexualization of women that they have to endure any type of sexual harassment at work. Not only being economically disadvantaged, women suffer from sexual slavery within family that it makes them harder to speak up about their experience and also forces them to think that their subordination could be justified.

Therefore, because of social acknowledgement, prejudice and overlooking, women’s preference of women were, in most of the times, disguised or hidden. Comparing their experience to male homosexuals, it was harder for lesbians to achieve their rights and be acknowledged, because only by being women, they had their chances deprived. There was clearly lack of economic privilege among women. Therefore, feminist thoughts were also devoured by compulsory heterosexual orientation.

Some people catalogued lesbian existence under disease. Some assumed it as act of resistance. It could not be acknowledged as a preference or choice. Rather, it was discounted as deviant or apolitical. This explains why marriage was a necessary form for lesbians to survive economically. Rich asserts there is possibility that all women exist on a lesbian continuum. However, majority of women as a whole are still psychologically trapped and institutionalized heterosexuality is prevalent in our society.

As can be inferred from the title “Thinking sex,” in her essay, Gayle Rubin describes the politics of sexuality. Especially in Western culture and the United States, several thoughts and assumptions about sex have been acknowledged as naturally, without a doubt on its rationality. Some thoughts get deeply rooted into societies. Once they become so pervasive, it changes people’s attitudes towards such issue, and eventually dominates. Furthermore, it stays the same even after generation changes. People might have good understandings on what is unfair and wrong, but they just live with it.

Rubin delineates the issue of censoring obscenity in the United States. Late 19^th century was when it started to be pervasive, but this is an ongoing issue that the remains of old thoughts and laws still stays in people’s head. One of the shocking issues that were introduced by Rubin was regulation on homosexuals. The first federal anti-obscenity law in the United States was passed in 1873, and it prohibited activities that were related to sex. They arrested homosexuals and prostitutes. Then in 1950s, instead of focusing on prostitution, they forced power on homosexuals. Assumed as ‘sex offender,’ homosexuals became public fear and scrutiny. Many states did investigation that aimed to root out homosexuals employed in government. I was surprised that under the category of ‘sex offender,’ homosexuals were treated same as rapists, child molesters or pornographic materials. They were suffering from federal witch hunts, and extensive repression in every part of life. Up until 1977, gay arrests were happening throughout the whole state. Therefore, it could be easily found that the regulations were done formally by social, legal, and medical enforcements. We see that in current period, people who have been treated as sexual minorities speak up in public for their rights. It is more accepted by other people than earlier times. However, there still are lots of social conflicts in many different areas. Also, by some people homosexual activities are still acknowledged as inferior or immoral. Now is an important time to think about sex. Sexuality is linked to various parts of society, and discriminations or old exclusive thoughts should not be overlooked anymore.

According to Silvia Frederici in her article “The Caliban and the Witch,” women had been discounted as part of the capitalist’s investment. In the Middle ages, feudalism was deeply rooted into European society for a very long time. Until the shift between workers and masters occurred, nothing was sufficient enough to demolish the old concept and hierarchies. Frederici brings up Marx’s idea of which connects the feudal reconstruction to the development of capitalism. According to that, European working class set up the foundation of capitalist system. However, in Marx’s introduction of “transition to capitalism,” he does not mention the social position of women and how it was shifted due to social and economic changes. According to Frederici, women were only treated as a working machine. In other words, they were merely the reproduction of work force. The accumulation of wealth was eventually made by exploited workers, but the more important thing is that there was also a division within the working class and people suffered much more due to race and gender. Therefore it supports Frederici’s idea that capitalism is committed to both sexism and racism. The capitalist class in Europe had policies that shaped the proletariat. One of the policies was cutting wages of women. There also was a hierarchy between indigenous, African and European women. These were happened to discipline and reproduce the capitalist class. The means of self sufficiency brought wealth of people in some sense, but it excluded certain class from the hierarchy, which does not fit the general capitalist idea. As a result, capitalism brought different forms of enslavement. The exploitation was not just about physical abuse and labor, but was intensified in terms of ideology. Also, derived from this idea the clear division of gender and race was created. The whole process of degradation came into place. Eventually it became the foundation of capitalist accumulations that shaped a big part of the society.

In Suzanne Kessler’s “The Medical Construction of Gender,” she introduces interviews from medical experts, to deal with conditions of intersexuality. By her claim, it is represented “biological sex” and “culturally constructed gender” as having a close relationship. Infant intersexuality and ambiguous genitals had been studied for quite a time. The study was not only restricted on the physical part, but put an emphasis on the connection between psychological, cultural issues.

In a commonly accepted way, people are assigned of their gender at the time of delivery. Then, it forms and builds their identity throughout lives. Therefore when a child has an ambiguous genital, the initial assignment process should be done in an extremely careful sense to avoid possible trauma and various side effects. Nowadays, the intersex conditions are treated as fixable. Physicians try to tell the parents and patients by normalizing the intersex condition. It helps them to think in a positive way, and not to be discouraged. From this point, cultural factors play an important role. It is vital because in socializing stage, gender assignment significantly affects on how those children are raised and how people treat them. Physicians say social factors outweigh biological factors. Parents and community construct child’s identity, in which gender plays a big part. This stage is crucial not just for children with genital ambiguities, but to any children.

The whole process of gender assignment and construction has ambiguity and limit in some point. It is true that sometimes, doctors eventually get to treat the gender how they want to construct. However, to avoid confusion in both parents and patients, the process should not include any psychological discomfort, anxiety and humiliation. In the article, Kessler says the biological sex is transformed into a culturally constructed gender. Partly agreeing to her opinion, I think rather than being transformed, it gets blended into cultural and social world with the acceptance of reconstructed gender.