Feminism and Gay Rights

Part 1
This session groups two fairly large, and non isomorphic movements. This handout isn’t academically
rigorous, but it should provide sufficient background, arguments and analysis for most debates on the
subject. It should also provide a set of concepts that can be used in several other debates. If you want
more on the topic read Foucault. Read Foucault. Naomi Wolfe’s Beauty Myth is accessible, and very useful
for debates about Feminism... Tim Patrick McCarthy and George Chauncey are both good on the issue of
gay rights.

Debates on these topics are common. Most adjudication teams don’t fell like they’ve done their jobs
unless they’ve set a motion on minority rights. So its worth spending some time thinking about...

Identity Politics

In cases where violence (structural or otherwise) is being done to a particular group, it is ones identity as
part of that group that creates vulnerability, risks of cultural imperialism, exploitations and
marginalization. Identity politics suggests rather then accepting the negative narrative, groups should
claim recognition on the very grounds that it was previously denied. Respect is demanded not despite
difference, but with respect for oneself as different.

Identity politics allows groups to mobilize and escape from one form of assimilation. Attempts to apply to
liberal norm of equality will risk demanding that the marginalized conform to the identity of the oppressor
(see the works of some gay and lesbians who oppose ‘gay marriage’)

But

1. Identity politics is essentialist, as the subject is characterized by a single axis of identity. That
axis seeks to take priority in representations of the self. It puts pressure on subjects to identify that
axis as their defining feature. Individuals are far more likely to understand themselves as intergrates
selves that cannot be represented so selectively.
2. IP has a disciplinary function - as it dictates the self understand that its members should have. For
instance, Black identity excludes black women and gay black men. The understanding of the American
American in politics is a masculine identity.
3. IP rests on the mistaken view that the subjects identity exists prior to any form of injustice.
Indeed, any claim to identity if formed around constitutive exclusion and identity politics thus engages
with the paradox of acting from the subject position it must also oppose.

In a sense, marginalized movements find themselves in a catch-22. Mass movements run the risk of
essentialization, and privileging specific forms. Discourses around the ‘proper woman’, create
psychological harm to those denied recognition that they deem to be valuable. There is a claim that to be
a proper gay, you must be out of the closet. This creates incentives to normalize and fit into the categoric
associations. Yet if a movement were to deny shared characteristic, their ability to mobilize is weakened.
Perhaps a STRATEGIC ESSENTIALISM - in a delimited set of cases, a group should pretend to be essential.

Many debates are about preformative acts that attempt to change that content of the category. Or to put
it differently, social agent produce a social reality though their actions. An identity as a women, or as a
homosexual, are not time invariant, but are constituted in time. When these associations are challenged
in fictional settings there is a risk that viewers can see it as ‘just an act,’ and laugh, reenforcing rather
then undermining the category. However, when an act occurs in reality it can create modalities that
cannot easily be assimilated into the preexisting categories that regulate. However, slurs (eg bitch, media
representations of gay footballers) can also end up strengthening those categories.

As a side point - one of the most macabre paradoxes of marginalized groups, is that victims of prejudice
characterize the immorality of their treatment as immoral due to it being them who are victims of
oppression. In other words, oppression is not wrong because discrimination is wrong, but because
discriminating against Group X is wrong. Jacob Zuma, a victim of Apartheid discrimination, threatens
violence against gay people in South Africa. Israel provides weapons to Apartheid SA etc

Queer Theory

QT examines the socially constructed nature of sexual acts and identities. Queer is an identity without an
essence, it is what is at odds with the normal, and as such demarcates a positionality.

Foucault: 200 years ago there was no linguistic category for gay males, there was just the act of sodomy.
Men and women could not understand themselves as ‘gay’, no such category existed. Homosexuality was a
construction of medical discourse, what was conventionally understood as the same practice was
transformed from a sinful lifestyle into an issue of sexual orientation.

In ancient Greece the gender of one's partner(s) was not important, but instead whether one took the
active or passive role. In the medieval view, a ‘sodomite’ was a person who succumbed to temptation and
engaged in certain non-procreative sex acts. Although the gender of the partner was more important than
in the ancient view, the broader theological framework placed the emphasis upon a sin versus refraining-
from-sin dichotomy.

With the rise of the notion of ‘homosexuality’ in the modern era, a person is placed into a specific
category even if one does not act upon those inclinations. What is the common, natural sexuality
expressed across these three very different cultures? The social constructionist answer is that there is no
‘natural’ sexuality; all sexual understandings are constructed within and mediated by cultural
understandings. The assumption in ancient Greece is that men (less is known about women) can respond
erotically to either sex, and the vast majority of men who engaged in same-sex relationships were also
married (or would later become married). Yet the contemporary understanding of homosexuality divides
the sexual domain in two, heterosexual and homosexual, and most heterosexuals cannot respond
erotically to their own sex.

In saying that sexuality is a social construct, these theorists are not saying that these understandings are
not real. Since persons are also constructs of their culture (in this view), we are made into those
categories. Hence today persons of course understand themselves as straight or gay (or perhaps bisexual),
and it is very difficult to step outside of these categories, even once one comes to seem them as the
historical constructs they are.

Why does this matter?

This central move by queer theorists, the claim that the categories through which identity is understood
are all social constructs rather than given to us by nature, opens up a number of analytical possibilities.
For example, queer theorists examine how fundamental notions of gender and sex which seem so natural
and self-evident to persons in the modern West are in fact constructed and reinforced through everyday
actions, and that this occurs in ways that privilege heterosexuality. HETRONORMATIVITY.

Gay Rights

- Discrimination is wrong, not because of a denial of equal treatment, but the irrationality of the
evaluative criteria. It would not be wrong to deny a blind man a job as a taxi driver, but would be
wrong to deny a black man the same role.

History of the Gay Rights Movement:

1920s America had limited acceptance. Pre-code Hollywood films were quite open about homosexuality
(see Norma Shearer and, to a lesser extent Greta Garbo), especially some Noel Corward plays (that I don’t
know the names of). Oppression became stronger with the introduction of the Hayes Production Code, and
associated Broadway codes. Closing down of gay bars.
Stonewall Generation - The ‘start’ of gay solidarity in the US. Solidarity after some resist arrest at
Stonewall Inn, Greenwich Village. It has become seen as the start, and is part of a usable past. It began a
narrative of agency (see Tim Patrick McCarthy on the subject - video online), and transforms victims into
democratic citizens. A past that says the GRM cant rely on someone else, but needs to mobilize yourself.

Aids Crisis - A holocaust for gay men, first discovered in June 1981 but ignored by politicians even after
CDC called it an epidemic. Created further impetus for the movement to strengthen - as it showed how a
lack of equality and recognition could prevent the very survival of homosexual men. As a sociological point
- most of the gay rights activists from this era, aren’t at the vanguard of the marriage movement. Their
history pushes them to prioritize other issues.

Marriage - Gay marriage has narrow appeal in the community, many within the movement don’t want to
integrate and live lives just like heterosexuals. The opposition (of limited support) from the grm itself is in
part a quest to be respected on its own terms.

Many in the movement find the quest for gay marriage as a misprioritization (see Chaucey and TPM): It is
an attack on one of the most sacred of institutions in the public imagination, and unlikely to be the
movements top priority. Fighting hate crime, employer discrimination, pressing for health care may all be
more important

Strategy:

If we believe that homosexuals only make up 10% of the population, they are disadvantaged in the
political arena. Need straight support. Given the diffuseness and invisibility of homosexuals, the
movement is disadvantaged when trying to mobilize mass support. Not concentrated, so little political
pressure, and lots of individuals can opt out of active discrimination by remaining in the closet.

Interest group model - lobby a dew politicians and allow for incremental policy change. In an interest
group setting, this can be an advantage. Homosexuals in politics, and on boards can help shift policy.
Opposition politicians are unlikely to gain huge traction opposing increments and thus if the medium
legislator is sympathetic, the movement can push forward change (see the National G and L Taskforce)

When the movement presses for goals at odds with the general pop, they risk awakening widespread
opposition. Some have argued that marriage was pushed by the courts and a few plaintiffs. Perhaps
‘hijacked’ the coherent strategy.

When gay rights are an open political question, the movement will tend to lose. The Moral Majority tends
to be better organized, and more able to overcome collective action problems.
- Note that gay rights movements tend to lose when faced with ballot initiatives (see Arkansas 2008, on
single adoption, Prop 8 etc)
- Opposition is often REACTIVE. A large controversy allows groups like Focus on the Family and the
Christian Coalition to mobilize support. Citizens are generally apathetic, but can be awoken with a
moral campaign.
- Opposition gets more money, more airtime and with those resources can build the capital to be
proactive. For example, when Civil Unions were first mooted in the US, Janet Folger of the Centre to
Reclaim America, was able to push a preemptive ‘No Special Rights’ platform (and won ballot
initiatives in Colorado 1992 and Idaho 1994).

Reasons to push marriage?

- To use a Milosovic phrase: Facts on the Ground Change - as people come to realize that their marriages
aren’t devalued, and the masses stop caring, the change becomes normalized.
- There may be other causes lost, but they need not be seen as more important. Marriage can change
redefine the centre - as the new reference point. It makes other changes follow naturally
- Some people want it, and it largely isn’t coercive.