TRS 5 Gender and Sexuality
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There has been much academic debate over the relationship between race and gender as factors in social, political and economic inequality and oppression. Firstly, we will examine the role and significance of gender and sexuality within racist discourses. Secondly, we will examine how race and gender compare, complement one another, differ or conflict as sites of social-political identification, classification, division and struggle, as factors in inequality, as well as frameworks for analysis. Thirdly, we shall look at the ways in which sexualized stereotyping works in the ‘intersectional’ discrimination of racialized women and/or LGBT people. Lastly, we shall examine some contemporary debates on the interrelationships between sexism, homophobia, and racism.
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TRS 5 Gender and Sexuality
- 1. Race, Gender & Sexuality The Racial State Week 5 A/Prof Alana Lentin a.lentin@uws.edu.au
- 2. Overview… ★ Constructions of race/gender. ★ Objectification & stereotyping. ★ Double discrimination or intersectionality? ★ Issues in the politics of race, gender & sexuality.
- 3. Constructing race & gender ★ The body as visual signifier. ★ Power & ideology fix meaning. ★ Engendering race/racing gender
- 4. Creating objects ★As sexually deviant ★As exotic ★As submissive ★As angry…. Racialised women have been objectified and stereotyped in many different ways:
- 5. Icons of female sexuality “By the 18th century, the sexuality of the black, both male and female, becomes an icon for deviant sexuality in general.” Sander Gilman (1985)
- 7. Deconstructing raced gender stereotypes Submissiveness Beauty ideals
- 8. Submissive docility Orientalism & the hijab.
- 9. Fair & Lovely? ★Whiteness as a yardstick for beauty. ★Skin whitening products. ★ Black is beautiful.
- 10. “Multiple oppression theory” Racialised women & LGBT suffer discrimination in: ★ Employment ★ Housing ★ Education ★ In the family etc…
- 11. Intersections “We often find it difficult to separate race from class from sex oppression because in our lives they are most often experienced simultaneously. We know that there is such a thing as racial-sexual oppression which is neither solely racial nor solely sexual.”
- 12. Being intersectional If an accident happens in an intersection, it can be caused by cars traveling from any number of directions and, sometimes, from all of them. Similarly, if a Black woman is harmed because she is in an intersection, her injury could result from sex discrimination or race discrimination […] But it is not always easy to reconstruct an accident: Sometimes the skid marks and the injuries simply indicate that they occurred simultaneously, frustrating efforts to determine which driver caused the harm. Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989. P149)
- 14. Beyond intersectionality? ★ Intersectionality critiqued for ignoring sexuality. ★ “Multiply minoritised” are ignored. ★ Race and queer issues rarely meet.
- 15. Summary ★ Race and gender are key ordering principles ★ Women and sexual minorities are often bear the brunt of racist violence ★ Heredity is key to race - reproduction and sexuality is managed and controlled ★ Race, class, gender and sexuality intersect 16
Editor's Notes
- We see both race and gender differences on the body. Recalling Hall’s work (week 2) on race as a floating signifier, we can seen how “reading the body as a language” is relevant also to the discussion of gender. The body - the visual signifiers of race and gender - is read through our understandings of what each body is mean. This meaning is socially constructed. 2. The construction of the meaning we attach to the visual signifiers of race and gender are not dissociable from power. Hall argues that the purpose of power and ideology are to fix meaning. So if we think of racism as a system of rule, we can think of it as ruling in the basis of establishing definitions of racialised others as immutable and fixed and to legislate on that basis. The point, argues Hall, is that meaning is never completely fixed but can always be subverted and can change over time. So, just as race is a flexible signifier that attaches itself to different social and political circumstances over time, so too the meaning of gender is never completely fixed. However, there is a constant drive to fix gender which is very strong. We are all socially driven to work with clear definitions of man and woman with not much room for play in between. Because of the need for power to define and classify, race and gender as ways of reading the body have undergone similar processes of fixing AND similar processes of resistance to being fixed. 3. We could argue that, due to the similar ways in which they are assembled, it is important to look at race and gender together from a conceptual point of view. But also, there are important points where racism and sexism, or racism, sexism and homophobia or transphobia collide. Women and gay, lesbian or trangender people (queers of colour) are often the targets of both racism and sexism. But there are also moments when the alliance between groups fighting sexism and those fighting racism has not been as easy or natural as one may assume. In the lecture, we are going to explore some of the ways in which the worlds of race, gender and sexuality come together and pick out some examples of the difficulties raised by the co-existence of both racism and sexism or homophobia. There are many many spheres which we could look at simply because almost all of the issues that are to do with racism also affect racialised women and LGBT people (as people generally).
- Knowledge created about the “nature” of non-white women has been used to racialise and dominate them in a variety of contexts historically - colonialism, slavery, but also more recently as migrants. Although we might find excessive some of the ways in which African or Middle eastern women were thought about during colonialist times, a lot of these ideas have filtered through into public culture and discourse and remain strong to the present day. They are also manipulated by the media - for example, think of the image of black single mothers, portrayed as being sexually promiscuous and irresponsible - having children from multiple fathers. Similar stereotypes connect e. European migrant women to the sex industry. So where do these ideas come from?
- Gilman talks about how a fascination with black sexuality came to determine how 18th and 19th century Europe viewed sexuality. For Stuart Hall, the way in which black and “oriental” females in particular were represented in iconography (pictures, painting etc.) of the time is crucial to understanding how the objectification of non-white women works. In week 2, we saw how racialisation works through a variety of process including dehumanisation. It was necessary for early race thinkers to construct racial inferiors as “less human” than Europeans in order to justify their domination. Women were an object of particular fascination, especially in relation to their sexuality. Gilman shows how a fascination with female Hottentots is exemplary of Victorian obsession with sexual deviancy. Racial “scientists” like Buffon in France focused on the apparent “apelike sexual appetite” of black women. The icon of the black woman came to stand for black sexuality in general. The fascination with black sexuality is linked to the function that the racialised other fulfilled for Europeans - as an object both of disgust and desire. The whole relationship that white Europeans constructed with this other is a double edged sword that both wants and rejects the other. On the one hand, they were curious and desirous of that which is different and strange - representing something untasted and therefore, exciting. On the other hand, they are repelled by the difference which is seen as deviant. Weheliye from Razack on desire] Sex is the most crucial taboo because it is linked to procreation. The biggest fear promulgated by race scientists was the dilution of the “race’ through mixing - so heterosexual sex with black women or men is dangerous because it was thought it could lead to the weakening of the race. The term for this was miscegenation - the pollution of the race through mixing. Gilman argues that by the 18th century, sex with non-whites was thought of in the same way as sex with prostitutes - I.e. as deviant and wrong, leading to both physical disease and moral degeneration.
- The example of Saartje Baartman is used. Saartje (pictured) was a Hottentot woman who was brought to Europe to be shown at various exhibitions which were popular in the 19th and early 20th centuries. As Gilman argues, the Hottentot was seen by race thinkers as the “lowest rung on the great chain of being”. If black female sexuality was seen as the antithesis of European sexual ideas and morals, the Hottentot was the most extreme example of everything that white women were said NOT to be. Europeans were facinated with the protruding buttocks of the Hottentot woman (greatly exaggerated by the drawing). This was seen to be a sign of their primitive sexual appetite. Saartje Baartman - the Hottentot Venus as she was called - was reduced to her sexual parts. Her buttocks and genitalia were the only facets of her being that were of interest to those scientists and members of the public who viewed her. On her death, her various body parts were dissected and conserved in the Musee de l’Homme in Paris until the 1990s. The image of Lil Kim and Saartje Baartman were joined together by a blogger who was making the point that the way The Hottentot Venus was looked at in the early 19th C. is not that different from the icons of black female sexuality today especially in commodified images (I.e. images used to sell things). The blogger, Larry Lyons, says: “so, i can't look at that picture without seeing Saartjie_Baartman aka "Hottentot Venus". i can't shake it. with each glance, i see the disarming contortions of kim's diminutive form as a (failed) approximation of the curves and the boldness of her similarly exploited ancestor.”
- Let us look at how stereotypes around race and gender have impacted on racialised women’s lives…
- Hijab: Outward visible signs of cultural or religious identity have also been important in processes of racialisation around naturalisation. Like skin colour, the Muslim veil can be understood as a racial signification. This is because in the current political climate Muslims are the targets of a particular type of racism, that some people have labelled islamophobia. Rather than being an objection to islam as a religion, Islamophobia (like antisemitism) is based on the association of all Muslims with negative characteristics that are associated with people who are perceived to be Muslim. In other words, you may not have to actually be Muslim to be a victim of this type of racism because when visible signs (such as skin colour) is used to identify people, often brown-skinned people who are not Muslim are also targeted. The hijab has been taken to be the symbol par excellence of Islam as a culture. In France, it has been made illegal to wear the hijab in public spaces such as schools and government offices. This has led to girls being excluded from school for refusing to take off their hijab. Extension to long skirts - shows that the hijab/burka is just a symbol of something more. 2010 French burqa ban. In Britain, in 2007 a government minister famously made the remark that the niqab (full face) veil was a visible sign of separation and that women who came to see him should take it off. He associated wearing the veil with a refusal to integrate into British society. In other words, the veil is being given much more importance as a cultural and political symbol than as a religious dress code (such as the Jewish kippa). The issue of the veil has united integrationists and those on the left such as some feminists. There is a belief that wearing the hijab is a sign of the oppression of women. It is felt that women are forced to wear the veil by their husbands of fathers. This is part of the Orientalist discourse (Said) about “Eastern” women as completely dominated by the men in their lives. The colonialist idea about women from the Middle east in particular as totally powerless has pervaded into our culture aided by stereotypical views of veiled and other “oriental” women as docile and lacking in independence. If African and black women were seen as overly sexualised, Indian, Pakistani and Middle eastern women were seen as tantalisingly hiding their sexuality away from western men under their veils.
- In Caribbean slave societies, “mulatto” women were seen as more beautiful. Light skinned women were encouraged to marry white men in order to improve their racial and aesthetic “quality”. The beauty of women was seen as a key to social and economic advancement (described by Fanon in BSWM). This has not gone away - light skinned and straight haired women are still more desirable in Caribbean culture according to Shirley Tate (2007). Shirley Tate argues that beyond skin, the discussion around hair quality is important for defining black women’s beauty. For example, it may be said about a woman that “she is light skinned but her hair is tough/afro/natty/kinky/peppercorn.” Here, says Tate, “her skin saves her from the ugliness of non-straight hair.” 2. Over 2,400,000 hits for “skin whitening” on Google. Simply a huge market for pills, creams and other treatments including surgery to reduce skin pigmentation. Show film: this ad from India reveals how ingrained the idea of fair skin being desirable is in the culture. Both men and women are targeted by products like Fair and Lovely. 3. In the 1960s, with the rise of black power, the slogan “black is beautiful” was intended to re-empower black people through valuing their own bodies, hair and skin which for so long had been associated with ugliness and primitiveness in the logic of race thinking. This movement brought the afro on both women and men into style. Afro or cornrows etc. are said to be authentic black styles But... there are several cases of girls being sent home from school for having inappropriate (Black) hairstyles or women being less accepted in forward facing jobs with natural Black hair.
- Examples of Femen protests and response by Muslim feminists.
- Theories of multiple domination emerge out of Marxist and socialist feminist analyses. These rely on dual systems theory to examine the interrelationship between capitalism and patriarchy. Race was merely added into the mix - therefore, women of colour were said to be oppressed triply - by capitalist, patriarchal and racist structures. But, the triple discrimination approach has been criticised for failing to look at the particular identities and problems related to coming from certain positions. In other words, the particular ethnic, religious, national or class background should also be taken into account when seekin to address the specific problems faced by different groups of women. Theories of intersectionality have been influential because they appear to describe reality more adequately than ‘add-on’ or ‘double or triple discrimination’ theories
- Significance of the Combahaee River Statement In the 1970s black feminists, majority world feminists and lesbian feminists like bell hooks, Audrey Lorde, Angela Davis and Chandra Mohanty started to question the add-on ideas behind Marxist-inspired triple oppression theory. The idea of intersectionality emerges out of critical race studies. It seeks to analyse the way in which multiple forms of power (race, sex, class) interrelate with each other, each having an effect on the other continuously and in many different ways. Intersectionality is based on the belief that you can never really look at the processes of racialisation, sexism or classism as separate. Rather each of these processes of domination constitute each other - they hold each other up and rely on one another in order to function. The theory of intersectionality emerged in critical legal studies in the 1980s and was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a black feminist legal theorist who is often thought of as the instigator of Critical Race Theory. She wrote that feminists should be aware of the ways in which we are all composed of a variety of identities and exposed to various structures of oppression that may shape our experiences in different ways and at different times.
- In particular, Crenshaw was interested in the ways in which patriarchy and race intersect in violence against women of colour. As the quote reveals, Crenshaw likens this discrimination to a traffic accident at a crossroads. Multiple cars may be involved at it might not always be easy to tell who is at fault. Likewise when someone experiences discrimination on several levels - due to race, gender, sexuality, ability, class, etc. - it might not always be easy to tell what is at fault. More likely, all of these axes are involved in the discrimination. Intersectionality tries to make sense of the interplay between multiple levels of identity and linked discriminations. Intersectionality grows out of the black feminist movement when women of colour were trying to get white feminists to understand that there is no one way of looking at women - women are different depending on where they are, what class they come from, their neighbourhood, their race/ethnicity/religion, whether they are gay/straight, whether they are able-bodied or not. Intersectionality has spread to encompass the experiences of many women and men beyond Black feminists. For example, Muslim and Arab feminists as well as indigenous and African feminists have criticized western feminism for tending to see non-western women as oppressed by their culture. Muslim feminists, for example, may have a different understanding of gender equality than western feminists. Many Muslim feminists express their right to wear the hijab for example as a feminist choice. Also, an intersectional, decolonial understanding might overturn some of the assumptions about gender equality. As Lila Abu-Lughod has pointed out, while feminists have bemoaned women’s exclusion from the workplace, not all work is good for women, as we saw in the case of domestic work. Work can be exploitative, especially for women of colour, so we need an analysis that is critical not only of gender inequality but of labour practices as a whole.
- This is the point being made by Aboriginal feminist, Celeste Liddle in her article, ‘Intersectionality and Indigenous Feminism: An Aboriginal Woman’s Perspective’ (perspective reading). She and other Black and majority world feminists have used the term ‘intersectionality’ to argue that there should be a one-size-fits-all approach to feminism. Mainstream feminist approaches based on fighting for women’s equality to men as citizens have often, according to Black and majority world feminists such as Patricia Hill Collins, bell hooks, Audre Lorde, Maria Lugones or Chandra Mohanty (to name but a few), presented a universal view of feminism which ignores, the fact that women from different racialised groups in societies such as Australia or women from different regions across the world have different experiences. the fact that white women have often participated in the oppression of Black and minority ethnic people (e.g. under colonialism) that, as a consequence, minority women may choose to be in solidarity with men from their own communities against racism from wider society. Black and majority world feminists also point out that, while sexist and patriarchal practices exist within their own communities (e.g. Celeste Liddle mentions that different Aboriginal nations had different practices and some had more gender equality than others, but some practiced polygamous marriage that was arranged at birth for example), these have to be addressed and resolved from within communities. They are opposed to what might be called an ‘imperial feminism whereby western women attempt to impose their ideas about what feminism means onto women from other societies. Solutions to issues that affect some women in Asian or African societies like for example femicide, female genital cutting or so-called honour killings should and are being addressed by women from within these societies. But, furthermore, western feminism has been criticised for assuming that violence against women and gender inequality only occurs in non-western societies which they view as intrinsically patriarchal, sexist and misogynist. This ignores the fact that domestic violence and partner abuse is a huge issue facing women in societies such as Australia. The Australian Bureau of Statistics ‘personal safety survey’ which was last conducted in 2012 found that 1 in 6 women had been subject to violence by a partner since the age of 15. [show US stats pic] Therefore, it is impossible to see violence against women as an issue which is relevant only in non western countries. Nevertheless, stereotypes about African or Middle Eastern men as being more prone to violence and misogyny are common. For example, the WSU sociologist Selda Dagistanli has shown how ‘moral panic’ about ‘ethnic’ gang rape in Sydney in the 2000s contributed to creating the impression that Muslim/Middle Eastern men in particular are more prone to sexual violence. She has also researched a similar case in Rotherham in the North of England where men from South Asian backgrounds (Indian and Pakistani) were involved in the grooming of young girls many of whom were young white girls living in the care of the social services or foster homes. [show pic and explain] The focus on the extraordinary nature of the case gave the impression that men from these backgrounds were particularly predatory. However, against the backdrop of the exposure of sexual abuse scandals involving several high level TV personalities and politicians (e.g. Jimmy Saville and Rolf Harris), many people made the critique that these cases did not lead to the general perception that all white men are potential child sex abusers. A similar issue is raised by assumptions often made about homophobia in societies in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. In many countries homosexuality is illegal (due to ‘sodomy laws’ going back to colonial times) and LGBTIQ people suffer harsh consequences, including imprisonment and violence. Again, an intersectional approach critiques the double standard at play noting, for example, the opposition to marriage equality in Australia and, until recently, other countries in Europe and the US. However, they also note that, for example, western states have often not granted protection to asylum seekers who have left their countries of origin due to persecution on the basis of their sexuality, including several detained in Australian off shore detention centres. Several asylum seekers who have been persecuted on the grounds of their sexuality in their countries of origin have been detained and deported, as in the example of Ugandan woman, Aidah Asaba in the UK [show pic] An intersectional approach would take into account the fact that people are discriminated against on multiple axes - for multiples reasons. Therefore, a woman like Aidah Asaba was not only discriminated against for being a lesbian in Uganda but also, in addition, as an African asylum seeker in the UK. Her oppression has several different sources all of which have to be taken into account to understand her experience.
- Intersectionality as a concept has been critiqued by people who identify themselves as ‘queer of colour’ - that is gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender people who are also racialised as black, brown, Muslim, etc. This is because the question of sexuality has generally been omitted by the feminist critical race theorists who introduced the idea of intersectionality. This has been rectified more recently, but critics claim that transgender issues for example have been left out of the equation. 2. Erel et al. in their paper on “The Depoliticisation of Intersectionality Talk” argue that activism based on intersectionality often only pays lip service to the complexity of these intersections. So, for example, activism may be based on white gay men and heterosexual migrant women working together, bur rarely are the more complex realities of gays, lesbians and transgender people who are also racialised brought to the fore. As Erel and all say in the paper, class too is taken off of the agenda. So, conversations about intersectionality tend to remain among relatively privileged people. 3. Thirdly, Erel et al. argue that both queer activists and black and anti-racist activists generally ignore each other’s issues. At one extreme, racialised trans people have been seen as victims of a “white disease” among certain black organisations. At the other extreme, trans activism is notoriously white. Rather than working together WITH anti-racists, queer activists often compete with them for minority status! We might want to consider what role an intersectional approach might play in the debate in Australia today on marriage equality. What would a queer Aboriginal or a queer Muslim perspective on this look like? (e.g. Muslims for Marriage Equality).