fTheresa has 3 post(s)

Gayle Rubin, in her essay “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality,” highlights the critical assumptions about sex that have hindered the growth of a radicalized theory of sex.

According to Figure 9.1, “good” and “normal” sexuality “should ideally be heterosexual, marital, monogamous, reproductive, and non-commercial” (10)  Any sexuality outside of those criterions are deemed to be “bad” and “unnatural,” supported by false assumptions that homosexuality and prostitution symbolize a dangerous, immoral society.

Homosexuals have been one of the main scapegoats regarding “unnatural” sex.  The homosexual was deemed a ‘menace’ around World War II, and soon after, state and federal legislatures passed laws that authorized employers to discriminate against their employees based on their sexual orientation.  This job discrimination, based on the assumption that homosexuals were a threat to the community, discouraged countless homosexuals to pursue their field of work, and limited them to low-status, low-income occupations.

Sex-workers too, were portrayed as a threat to “health and safety, women and children, national security, or civilization itself” (21).  The sexual behavior of prostitutes was recognized as a mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association, which implied they were not as emotionally and mentally capable due to their sexual behaviors and orientation.  Sex-workers were therefore vulnerable to irrational persecution by law-enforcement, especially during times of intense moral panic.

Even if it lacked harm, acts including masturbation, prostitution, homosexuality, and pornography were taboo and therefore deemed a threat to society in the United States.  These assumptions were ultimately counterproductive and limited political discourse on sexuality by promoting standards which ostracized and penalized those who did not identify with the heterosexual or monogamous agenda.  The oppression and condemnation of sexual diversity thus hindered the possibility to learn about and respect “abnormal” sexual preferences, and discouraged the possibility for growth of those deemed the “sexual deviants” of society.

In Chapter 1 of The Caliban and the Witch, Sylvia Frederici discusses the relation between capitalism and both the racist and sexist ideals in which it promotes.

The population crisis in the 16th and 17th centuries was a pivotal issue that was used by capitalists, in their favor, to justify the humiliation of women.  The decline in population was a threat to the capitalist economy because the size of the labor force was central to the economic life.  Capitalists believed the notion that a large population was key to prosperity.  In other terms, these capitalists now had more people and labor to exploit.  Believing that a higher population equates to a more prosperous economy and society, the state began to intervene, launching a war against women that stripped from them the rights to their bodies.  Harsh penalties were enacted against women who sought out contraceptives and abortions, and women were forced to procreate against their will.  The female body was looked at as an instrument solely for reproduction and its’ contribution to expanding the work-force.

Most women were denied work opportunities by craftsmen and other employers, which left them with only few options.  House work, one of the few spheres women were able to complete tasks, was deemed as “non-work.”  The few women that were employed outside the home were payed cheap wages, significantly lower than those distributed to men.  Policies were enacted by the state that made it nearly impossible for women to be financially independent, despite their efforts and dedication to their work.  The sexual division of labor was thus created once alliances between urban authorities and craftsmen were formed with intentions of privatizing land and spaces.

The sexual division of labor that arose during the early stages of capitalism dismissed the ability of women to participate in daily activities.  Although not as blatantly discriminatory as it was in its beginning, capitalism still maintains racist and misogynistic undertones that target the minorities of the particular society that it’s implemented in.

In the piece “Skeletons in the Closet,” Linda Schiebinger discusses the increased attention directed toward the anatomy of women and men in the scientific community of eighteenth and nineteenth Europe.  Although there were objective physical differences between women and men, these differences were then used to establish social and political inequalities for women.  In a period and climate where women began to challenge their subordinate roles in society, the medical community justified the inequalities women faced with their “scientific findings” that women were inferior in the “natural” hierarchy.

The arguments that women were inferior to men focused on the differences in organs between women and men.  Not only were women deemed to be weaker in strength, their smaller skulls were irrationally associated with them lacking the ability to think critically and analytically, as men were able to do.  The uterus was used by scientists and doctors as a sign that a woman’s role was strictly limited to birthing children and later taking care of them.

What it comes down to, which I believe the author does well in explaining, is that anatomy and science were being used to justify the oppression of minorities (women and non-white people).  Nature does have validity in some areas, some facts cannot be argued against.  However, the medical community, consisting of primarily white men, used their “findings” to maintain their higher ranking in the social and political hierarchy, while at the same time, suppressing women’s ability to gain political and social power.   Biological and natural differences stripped many women at the time of activities and interests that would challenge the notion of their inferiority, including obtaining an education and participating in politics.  Although science is known to be objective and fully factual, we must be aware of the bias, and the social factors at the time which directly affected the conclusions of anatomical differences between men and women.