Roaches Magazine
To the Survival of Roaches
Issue No. 3
Call me your deepest urge toward survival call me and my brothers and sisters in the sharp smell of your refusal call me roach and presumptuous nightmare on your white pillow your itch to destroy the indestructible part of yourself.
with hate you learn to honor me by imitation as I alter— through your greedy preoccupations through your kitchen wars and your poisonous refusal— to survive.
Call me your own determination in the most detestable shape you can become friend of your image within me I am you in your most deeply cherished nightmare scuttling through the painted cracks you create to admit me into your kitchens into your fearful midnights into your values at noon in your most secret places
~ Audre Lorde
To survive. Survive.
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EDITORIAL TEAM
Maura Partrick
Deputy Editors
us uo
Editor-in-Chief
& Pr e s u m s e pt h c
Ro a
Roaches Magazine
Sam Miller
Kelly Peraza
Caroline Sjerven Lydia Wiernik
Creative Directors
Sam Miller
Caroline Sjerven
Faculty Editor
Lissa Lincoln Printed by Tanghe Printing, Belgium Published by The American University of Paris Edition of 200
Copyright Š AUP Student Media and Individual Contributors, 2020. All Rights Reserved. No reproduction, copy, or transmission, in whole or in part, may be made without written permission. Please send all inquiries to roaches@aup.edu
Spring 2020 The American Universtiy of Paris 6 rue de Colonel Combes 75007 Paris, France Gender, Sexuality, & Society Program 5
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writing
Issue No. 3 “Postcolonial Feminism and the Challenges of Intersectionality, Maura Lucy Partrick
82 96
Letter from the Editor, Maura Lucy Partrick 8
“The Representation of Dido and Sita: Victims of the Patriarchy or Sacrificial Victors?”, Caroline Sjerven
98
“Feminist Word on the Street”, Maura Lucy Partrick 10
“somewhere away from here, the day is soft”, venus 102
“The Song of the Earth”, Melissa del Carmen Gomez 17
“untitled poem about a girlhood I will never relive”, venus 103
“To the Survival of Roaches”, Audre Lorde 3
table of contents
“becomings”, venus 18
roaches issue no. 3
“Brown Eyes”, Melissa del Carmen Gomez
“rebirth at 4:37pm on a Tuesday”, venus 19
“The Evolution of Taxonomy and Treatment of Intersex Bodies - How does this inform Bioethics?”, Katie Taylor
104
“Valentine’s Day Virus”, Imaniushindi Fanga 20
“Risk It All For Love”, Melissa del Carmen Gomez
119
“Iel: My French Gender Problem”, Buchanan Fuchs 25
“Third-World Feminism Under the Western Gaze: A Theoretical Analysis of Non-Western Feminism”, Jensen Zack
120
“A Letter From My Former Lover”, Anonymous
126
“Right, Left, Up”, Evan Eugene Floyd 34
“Poem from Girlhood”, Anonymous
127
“Runaway Drag Queen”, Evan Eugene Floyd 36
“Feminism in International Relations: Comparing and Contrasting the Four Core Theories Supporting a Global Movement”, Caroline Sjerven
128
“Subjective ‘Westernization’ & the Intersectionality of Dalit Women: Reservations Within the Indian Caste System, Maya Deshpande 28
“From the Bathroom Floor with Love”, Evan Eugene Floyd 37 “U Up?”, Evan Eugene Floyd 37 “Body Dysmorphia in LGBTQ Populations”, Kelly Peraza Klee 38 “sacrilege at dusk”, venus 46 “elegy”, venus 47 “Reasons for Stagnation and Growth in Development: Ecuador and South Korea Case Study”, Elizabeth Gallo 48 “crane song”, venus 62 “another cliche poem about how I always leave smelling like smoke (and I don’t hate it anymore)”, venus 63 “Comparing Gender and Context in Orlando and Left Hand of Darkness”, Madelin Carpenter-Crawford “Un-Used Eden”, CAL “An Exposition of Sapphic Passion or Your Soul and Mine”, Isabella Beach
64
71 72
art
“Roaches Cover”, Lydia Wiernik cover “My Body, My Rule”, Sam Miller 9 “LA TRANSMISOGYNIE”, Sam Miller 10 “ELLE LE QUITTE IL LA TUE”, Sarah Sturman 11 “J’AVAIS DIT NON”, Sarah Sturman 11 “Boys Will Be Good Humans”, Mallory Boyd 15 “Untitled”, Reagan Espino 16 “Domestic”, Reagan Espino 21 “Photo from Pride”, Imaniushindi Fanga 22 “Photo from Pride”, Imaniushindi Fanga 25 “Untitled (2)”, Reagan Espino 33 "Les Amoureux", Caroline Sjerven 45 "Roaches", Caroline Sjerven 82 “Mya, 2019”, Hannah Yang 97 “Self Portrait”, Reagan Espino 118 “Photo from Pride”, Imaniushindi Fanga 137
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Issue No. 3
Editor’s Letter Hello, great to see you again! Roaches is a zine dedicated to the marginalized and structurally oppressed and disempowered. Roaches attempts to empower and uplift these abused and exploited voices, allowing them to reclaim their identity and existence. These pieces all represent the pain and hurt of the marginalized as well as the pride of knowing and accepting one's identity and being able to overcome these structural inequalities and injustices that have plagued our lives since the beginning of time. The zine will always serve as a safe haven for those voices to demand that their existence be heard and accepted and to challenge heteronormativity, the patriarchy, and racist institutions, using their artistic and written creations to break apart these long existing structures of inequality. Roaches’ third publication was created during the COVID-19 pandemic, and despite the difficulties everyone has faced, we are extremely proud of the work we have the pleasure of publishing. This publication of the zine will be done electronically, allowing for it to be shared to a wider audience and enjoyed by all, however physically printing the zine is not out of the question. We hope through reading Roaches you are inspired to demand that your own identity be accepted and celebrated, and to continue questioning power imbalances and oppressive institutions which continue to divide this world. Only through supporting and wholeheartedly accepting each other can we hope to one day live in a world where those oppressed no longer are, and those structures of inequality are rendered obsolete and forgotten. In Solidarity, Maura and the Roaches team Artwork by Sam Miller
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Issue No. 3
feminist word
by
Maura Lucy Partrick
women were victims of Fe138 micide in France in 2019. This translates to a woman being killed every three days, usually by a partner or ex-partner.
The term femicide can be used to broadly categorize any deadly violence against women, although the technical use of the term is applied in cases where a woman was killed simply for being a woman. Femicide is defined clearly by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the murder of a woman, where there is a spectrum of violence against women and murder is the worst possible outcome of this violence. This article will discuss the different types of femicide, look at a theoretical approach to femicide from the perspective of a PHD candidate, and finally look specifically at the anti-femicide slogans plastered across Paris. There are four main categories the WHO uses to categorize the different justifications behind femicide: intimate femicide, murders in the name of ‘honor’, dowry-related femicide, and non-intimate femicide. In most cases, these acts of violence against women
Photo by Sam Miller
are undertaken by men. There are few instances in which women may also be culpable for the crime, but even in these instances these women are usually aiding men. Intimate femicide is defined as femicide committed by a current or former partner, and comprises more than 35% of femicides. This is contrasted to non-intimate femicide, where there is no intimate relation between the aggressor and the victim. In some cases this femicide is committed ‘randomly’, but there are many examples of non-intimate femicide happening systematically, as with certain locations in Latin America, such as in Guatemala, where 700 women were killed in 2008, many of whom were subjected to brutal sexual violence and torture before their death.1 ‘Honor’-related murders are committed by both men and women, and occur because of an “assumed sexual or be-
on the street
havioral transgression, that includes adultery, sexual intercourse, pregnancy outside of marriage and in some cases, for being raped”. The WHO estimates that 5,000 women every year are victims of murder in the name of honor. It is important to note that with ‘murder in the name of honor’, acts of violence are taken out on women because of an assumed wrongdoing. In many cases, especially with cases of rape, women are not responsible for the subordinate position they are forced into, but these acts of murder place the sole blame on these women becoming a justification for the abuse and murder inflicted upon them. Dowry-related femicide involves newly married women as victims of murder by inlaws because of issues related to their dowry.
while, in general we must respect the practices of other cultures, we just cannot do so in these cases where women are systematically being abused and murdered and ‘culture’ is being used to justify these actions. When a woman is a victim of systematic abuse and oppression, the issue does not lie in the culture she is a part of, but rather the construction of the society which allows the culture to justify femicide, which is in fact a human rights abuse that is unacceptable in any circumstance. The importance of culture cannot be diminished, but when women are being abused and killed at an exorbitant rate, and the justification of the violence is the culture, we must question the viability of these claims, and seek to understand The prevalence of this how culture plays a practice varies from role in legitimizing a reported 7,600 to systematic gendered 25,000 women muroppression. In the case Photos by Sarah Sturman dered annually as of femicide in France, a consequence of culture is not the jusconflicts related to dowry. ‘Honor and tification for acts of violence against dowry-related femicides’ are intimately women—rather it is the social contied to cultural practices and beliefs and
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“We must...seek to
understand how culture plays a role in
legitimizing systematic gendered oppression”
struction of French (and almost every other existing) society which creates an unequal and oppressive relationship between genders, where women are consistently abused and exploited.2 Jill Radford and Diana Russell were the first feminist theorists to coin the term ‘femicide’ in 1992, to define acts of violence against women not on the basis of the act itself, but on the basis that these acts were being committed because the victim was a woman. This article will look at Aleida Luján Pinelo’s PHD thesis for the University of Utrecht, which outlines the history of the use of the term femicide and the problematics associated with the term. Pinelo begins by critiquing the application of this term, saying it has not been properly discussed amongst feminist theorists and that it is reserved only for acts of violence taken out against women in ‘third world’ contexts. This is of course a problematic assumption and not the reality of the situation. Femicide takes place across the globe, regardless of how ‘developed’ or ‘underdeveloped’ one
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assumes a location is. This is exemplified with a case study of France, as France is by no means considered a ‘third world’ or ‘underdeveloped’ country, especially considering the status of France as a previous—and sometimes current— colonizer. Pinelo begins with an interesting argument she witnessed during her time in school, where the discussion of femicide came up. One of her classmates stated that the use of the term ‘femicide’ was another method of essentializing women. Essentialism is the converse of social constructionism. Gender essentialism attributes fixed and intrinsic qualities to both men and women. This is understood by many feminist theorists to be problematic in most contexts, as it allows for the justification of oppressive and expolitative practices against women on the basis that there are qualities that women have that naturally make them inferior, and therefore any oppression on the basis of this inferiority is justified. The converse, social constructionism, explains that the qualities each gender has are not innate but rather constructed by social norms and institutions, which are themselves often grounded in patriarchal ideals. This allows for a further structural and systemic oppression of women. Pinelo’s classmate then went on to argue that the term did not include ‘non-normative subjects’ such as transgender men and women and nonbinary individuals. This is an interesting argument to make, especially in the case of violence against transgender people, as they are also victims of gender-based violence. Both Pinelo and I hold the position that while this is an extremely relevant argument to make, the
term femicide is still important in its own right because it focuses on the fact that violence against women can be unrelated to gender, but in a majority of cases, it is because of gender. Radford and Russell’s official definition of the term is “the misogyny killing of women by men.” Russell further defines it as “the killing of females by males because they are females”. There exists a power imbalance between men and women, explained in part by gender essentialization, but also due to the patriarchal structure of society, which positions men—white, rich, heterosexual men—as the dominant group in society. They are the ones who determine power structures; who hold the most social, political, and economic standing within society, whereas women are in almost every circumstance in the position of the oppressed, subordinated, and exploited. Pinelo explains that this is one reason why the use of the word ‘femicide,’ as opposed to ‘homicide/killing of women,’ is essential; it recognizes the socially-constructed power relations between genders, where again women will always be at a disadvantage on the basis that they are women. Rather than using the term homicide or killing of women, femicide expresses that the act of violence was taken out on a woman, and it was done simply because of her gender. (Aleida Luján Pinelo, A Theoretical Approach to the Concept of Femicide/Feminicide,Universiteit Utrecht Media and Cultural Studies Department, 2015) In response to the increasing issue of violence against women and femicide in France, the French goverment is being
persuaded to adopt legislation that will fight this misogyny on a widespread level. On September 3, 2019, the French government announced that it will be opening 1,000 more places in shelters to house victims of domestic violence. Prime Minister Edouard Phillipe stated “for centuries, women have been buried under our indifference, denial, carelessness, age-old machismo and incapacity to look this horror in the face” and announced that he, along with other members of the French government as well as feminist activist groups, will be pushing for legislation that allows for the “wide-scale use of electronic bracelets to prevent domestic violence offenders from approaching their victims”. This is a first step in the right direction, but many feminist groups have expressed dissapointment at the failure of the French governement to allocate more money to the fight against gender-based violence. I myself also have to ask how this legislation will help in preventing domestic violence from happening in the first place, as there still seems to be an understanding amongst male perpetrators that the violence they inflict can continue to happen as long as they aren’t caught in the act. This legislation also does not consider that many women do not feel safe reporting their abuser, and therefore the violence is able to continue under the eyes of the government as they have not yet taken the necessary measures to prevent domestic violence before it happens. Legislation is important 13
Roaches Magazine
in changing social norms and structures, but there needs to be the conscious consideration that this violence against women is happening because of the way society is structured and how this justifies mens abuse of women—not because there are some bad men or weak women.34 In response to the problem of femicide in France, protestors and activists have taken to the streets, creating and displaying posters meant to pay homage to the victims of femicide. I reached out to Marguerite Stern, who is the leader of the French Chapter of Femen—a Ukrainian feminist acitivist group dedicated to protecting women’s rights—but she was unfortunately unavaliable for comment. These posters spell out a variety of messages—“daddy killed mommy with knives”, “she left him, he killed her”, “I said no”—all of which convey acts of violence taken out on women. They are plastered on the buildings of Paris to bring awareness and urgency to this continuing problem. The blunt nature of these posters are meant to bring attention to the urgent position women are subjected to across France- the public’s reactions ranging from anger to indifference to support - where many women are able to fundamentally and intimately relate to the messages being shown, either because they themselves have been a victim of gendered violence or know someone who has. These posters provoke a very personal and visceral reaction, where many women feel
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represented and seen for the first time in their lives, especially in contexts where sexism and violence against women is ignored or justified. Seeing these posters personally when I am out walking stirs up many emotions: pride in the women risking their rights by illegally hanging these posters in order to show an important message, sadness for myself and every single woman I know who can relate personally in some way to these intense and upsetting messages, anger that these acts are still happening with seemingly little to no public or state support, and hope that by continuing to hang these posters regardless of the consequences, the violence inflicted upon women each day will be recognized and will finally end.
Endnotes 1 Human Rights Watch. World report 2010 – Guatemala. New York, NY, Human Rights Watch, 2010. 2 https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/ handle/10665/77421/WHO_RHR_12.38_eng. pdf;jsessionid=10146B840C300993FBF72041573E2F71?sequence=1 3 France24, 100 Deaths and Counting: France’s Femicide Problem, September 2019 4 France24, Thousands March in France to Protest Alarming Femicide Levels, November 2019
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maura Partrick is a graduate student studying International Affairs, Conflict Resolution, and Civil Society Development with an undergraduate degree in Gender, Sexuality, and Society. Her passion lies in feminist activism and the empowerment of disenfranchised communities, hoping one day to work in human rights law with a focus on gender. She has cherished her time as editor in chief of this publication, and hopes that everyone enjoys reading it as much as she enjoyed creating it with the rest of the team!
These posters have begun to show up across Paris, and many of those who see them ask: what are they for and who made these? This article was written to shed light on these posters and the meanings behind them, using my personal photos as well as photos taken by my good friend Sarah Sturman, in order to understand their importance and the reality of French women in our current time. My only hope in writing this article is that more people are aware of how profoundly important these posters are, and that the French government will begin to take more important legislative measures to ensure the safety and equality of all women in France. Photo by Mallory Boyd 15
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Issue No. 3
The Song of the Earth When I was little, my mother sang songs of the sky and the stars, the moon and the many creatures on this spot we call Earth. Earth with her trees and rivers and plains and mountains. I could’ve sworn, that sometimes, the Earth sang back to us, her song making the trees dance, their leaves twirling down to kiss the dirt. Beautiful Earth Mother has gifted us with plants that provide us food and health. She has gifted us water to drink and wood for fire and warmth. She had gifted us plenty. So why are her children torturing her? Instead of the songs my mother sings, my mother now watches in horror as the lands burn in flames, as the ice melts, the volcanoes erupt, the land shakes, as the skies turn foggy and are filled with the grey and thick mist of pollution. She always tells me, “The Earth has become tired of us. She is giving us warnings that everyone is ignoring. I can feel how tired she is. Can no one else feel it?” I watch as the lakes I swam in become smaller and smaller, the green grass I ran around, in turn, yellow in age, and the trees I used to climb cut down for a business center. I go to the beach and see trash on the once soft sand, now painful due to the pieces of plastic and glass. I run to the seagulls and scare them away before they could eat any of the trash and mistaken it for food. My father would always take us on trips to escape the city. I loved these trips: watching thunderstorms in Arizona, swimming in Texas...but today was different. Arizona. The sun was bright and her rays were kissing my skin. I sit at the Grand Canyon in disgust, watching tourists take photos of the land, claiming to be ‘woke’ for being so close to nature and the Earth. I laugh in disgust, knowing once they leave the canyon itself, leave behind the creatures and go back to the city, the Grand Canyon would all but just be an illusion to them, and the songs the Earth tries to sing to them would be silenced or ignored. When I was little, my mother sang songs of the sky and the stars, the moon and the many creatures on this spot we call Earth. Earth with her trees and rivers and plains and mountains. I could’ve sworn, that sometimes, the Earth sang back to us, her song making the trees dance, their leaves twirling down to kiss the dirt. Today, I try to listen to her song, but all I hear are screams and cries, pleading and begging for the pain to stop.
“Untitled” by Reagan Espino
by Melissa del Carmen Gomez
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Valentines Day Virus
She
wails, “Aye.” I grab her smooth locks gently out of my mouth. Her lips taste like cherry plastic and I feel toxic again. My toes curl and my eyes roll back. I’m numb from ecstasy. She’s still kissing me, but I’m lost in other thoughts. My lips are loose and she’s sucking on them tighter now to activate my inhibitions. Techno-pop sounds bring me back to life and I consider my options. I whisper, “Let me taste you?” She replies with a brief pause, “But I’m on my period.” I respond, “ It happens.” There’s silence and only smoldering looks are exchanged. It’s dark, but I can still make out the shape of her beauty and the lengthy volume of her fabulous eyelashes. “She’s caught me,” I think. I’m feeling malicious and I use my tongue as a murder weapon. I hope my performance is enough to make her loyal. I have yet to begin applying my specialist of manouveres yet she’s already soaking wet, I’m surprised. I keep on asking myself, “ How did we get here?” But it doesn’t really matter. Her body says she trusts me which is better than any verbal utterance. Talk is cheap sex is deep. She tastes like iron and salt and now I’m getting deeper and deeper into her void. I’m following the white rabbit. A few oohs and aahsmakes the time pass slow. I am in deep anticipation for the next affirmation. The
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by Imaniushindi Fanga loudest one makes her pelvic muscles roll and clench. I almost drown in her mess. I come up to shore for air and we lock eyes. It’s scary, but she reassures me with a gentle kiss on the lips and neck. I see the remains of glitter from her lip gloss she let me borrow on her cheeks and forehead. I’m tired now and nuzzle my head between her neck, her hair smells of specialized bio-cream conditioner. Natural fruits like mango, purple berries, and grapes come to mind; my olfactory senses make a mental note and I begin to weep. The fear of love’s potential loss and ephemerality frightens me once more. Its license over my heart is so deep it dilucidates the brightest parts of me. She hears my whimpers, yet says nothing. She turns over only to embrace me. Her smile is straight and wide. She breathes outward in sharp and loud huffs. She’s fatigued. Any moment she might pass out. I can smell some cheap brand name beer on her breath and it brings me great comfort. She’s just as lost as I am. I turn to the ceiling and count sheep 14 times it’s Valentine’s Day. I’m in love with the freedom, but I never know for how long.
About the Author Born and raised Imaniushindi K Fanga. Origins in Gabon and Congo. Born in Boulder, Colorado.
“Domestic” by Reagan Espino 21 21
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Issue No. 3
Iel: My French Gender
by Buchanan Fuchs
Problem
Photo by Imaniushindi Fanga
“No, there is a neutral pronoun, it’s iel.” The woman at the bar took a slow sip of her beer, seeming to enjoy the myriad expressions my face was taking on. “What? I’ve never heard of it before.” She shrugged. Obviously I knew I would learn all sorts of new words once I got to Paris—I’ve only lived in the States my entire life, and I’m far from fluent in French. But this wasn’t just some fun vocab I’d learned while out in the city. This was something I’d been trying to find for years. I had three French teachers during grade school, all of whom I asked the same question: what’s their gender-neutral pronoun? But that wasn’t the real question I was asking. I grew up in Nashville, TN, where views on gay rights changed from each zipcode. I argued at my private school for years that they allow me to use the singular ‘they’ in formal academic essays before they updated the student handbook. I came out as gay and nonbinary to the world at age 17, and asked people to expand their pronoun use. So, the real question I was asking was “is there a place for me?” English is an easy language. No, not to learn, nor teach, nor spell. But the lack of linguistic regulation is outstanding. Unlike languages like French that have l’academie francaise in charge of regulating language and deciding what’s “correct,” English is lawless. It’s a bastardized, unreasonable language where any ‘made-up’ word can become ‘real’ once enough people use it. It belongs to all of us, not a board of experts. Think of some of the words my generation, Gen Z, uses daily: stan; misunderestimated (my favorite Bushism); lorge. Maybe you don’t happen to understand 23
Roaches Magazine
these words, but someone does. Just because they’re not in dictionaries doesn’t mean they don’t have meaning. Maybe it’s the Sociology minor in me talking, but it’s social interaction that gives words meaning, not a set of rules. And as Anglophonic North American culture opens up to recognize more genders than just man and woman, we as members of the culture can choose to add singular ‘they’ or ‘ze’ or other nonbinary pronouns to our lexicon— and once we use these words, give them meaning, they’re added to our language and become real. I’ve seen so many people, especially of my generation, make incredible strides to give members of the ‘T’ part of the LGBT community a space. This isn’t to say that all experiences are positive, or that all people are accepting. I see resistance in graffiti, in lawmakers, in journalists, in schools. I also need to note, I come from a privileged background. I’m white, able-bodied, American-born, from an upper middle-class family. I realized recently, if Hollywood ever made a movie about an NB person (which, I realize, they probably will not), the lead will probably look like me: a white, ablebodied AFAB (assigned female at birth), who wears a binder and dresses masculine. This is something I try to always keep in mind. There are so many voices asking to be heard, and I was born with a microphone in my hand. When I argue in favor of NB language inclusion, I’m listened to. This isn’t the same for everyone. My nonbinary experience is not universal, and I can’t ask everyone
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else to come out and to act the way I am able to. But silence does not negate a voice. Whether in or out of the closet, existence in a place unwilling to accept them is an act of courage, and vital to improving all of our lives. Before coming to France, I thought that there may not be any openly NB people. I spent many nights scanning forums and webpages, fueled by anxiety, trying to figure out where the NB pronouns were. I was always unsuccessful. This is a difficult part of French—everything is gendered, masculine or feminine. There are plenty of jokes about this—why is la chaise feminine? What’s so womanly about chairs?—but it’s a fair question. Who even cares about gender? I don’t, not really. Even with my own identity, I’m not bothered when people use ‘he’ or ‘she’ anymore. It’s not how I’d introduce myself, but it doesn’t wound me. I assume eventually we’ll get rid of all gender recognition anyway. How do we even explain gender to kids? Hair length? That doesn’t hold up. Clothes? If women wear dresses and men wear pants, that means everyone in pants is a man and womanhood is dependent on what laundry day it is. Body size or shape? It differs from person to person. So what’s left, genitals? It’s pretty messed up to be so interested in what every person you meet looks like naked. Gender doesn’t really matter to me. It does to some people, and I respect that, but to me, it doesn’t. Eventually, I decided to use elle. It’s what I was taught to use, and because I look more feminine these days, it’s easy to let people assume. I’m not trying to hide my
Photo by Imaniushindi Fanga
gender—it’s just faster to call myself a lesbian and let people fill in the blanks than explain the whole non-binaire thing to people I won’t see again. Am I back in l’armoire? I don’t know. It doesn’t feel like it. When I first came out, it was so important to me that I had the right words to describe myself and that I convince the world that I’m not lying or going through a phase. But somewhere along my way, I lost the need. I know who I am. Other people can interpret me how they like. I’m called ‘sir’ by waiters, and ‘madame’ in the street, and ‘thude’ by my friends, and I’m alright with it. I don’t need consistency. I don’t need my identity to be validated by every person I meet. I know who I am. No one can change that.
So will I use iel? Part of me says “who cares?” I just went through that whole section about how gender doesn’t matter, and I don’t need to be validated. Using elle is easier and less complicated and I already resigned myself to using it. But the rest of me knows that I need to— as someone with the ability to effect change, it’s my responsibility to do so. So, if you see me with an abundance of ‘how to use iel and neutral adjectives’ pages open on my computer, you know what it’s for. I may not love learning new grammar, but it’s a small price to pay for progress (no matter how small).
And, besides—if a stranger in a bar could inspire me, who’s to say I can’t do the same? 25
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Subjective‘Westernization’ & The Intersectionality of Dalit Women: Reservations Within the Indian Caste System by Maya Deshpande There is a long-standing tendency in both western and non-western academia to disregard perspectives that include some western influences as illegitimate and inapplicable on non-western cultures. In “Dalit Women Talk Differently: A Critique of ‘Difference’ and Towards a Dalit Feminist Standpoint Position”, Sharmila Rege argues against the notion that the “representation of Dalit women’s issues by non-Dalit women is less valid and less authentic,”1 and instead that confronting the subjugation of Dalit women is not solely the responsibility of Dalit feminists themselves, but the responsibility of every feminist. As Uma Narayan further explains in “Contesting Cultures: ‘Westernization, Respect for Cultures, and Third World Feminists from Dislocating Cultures”, excluding ‘westernized’2 perspectives from political discussion and social awareness allows for the subjective problema-
tization of feminist issues by the Indian government and dominant castes within the system, excluding feminism from Indian politics altogether. Through the reservation programs implemented by the Indian government to provide lower castes with more opportunities in education and government jobs, it becomes clear how the rejection of westernized thought is not only subjective but has also excluded Dalit women from the reservations and from India’s feminist movement. Uma Narayan determines that feminism in third world societies and politics is rejected on the basis that it and other westernized perspectives held by those native to third world countries and belonging to the upper castes are ‘culturally contaminated’, meaning they have been manipulated by western thought and practice so much so that they betray the cultures and
traditions of their mother countries. Sharmila Rege critiques a similar claim, that those outside of a marginalized group cannot engage with the issues that those within the marginalized group experience because they do not directly experience those issues themselves. The claim is valid and is evident in how women in India’s lowest Dalit caste are made invisible; women from western cultures, even women from India who belong to the
ical action. Now, those who disapprove of the participation of westerners or non-Dalits in Dalit women’s issues are faced with a dilemma: if only the people belonging to the Dalit caste can speak about the issues of their group, and if they are the very group of people who are denied their ability to speak about their issues by their societies through the oppression of voice, then how will their issues ever be heard and discussed? Narayan argues that the dismissal of western“Their identities are not ized thought regarding Dalit to blame for their outlier women’s issues is not a coincibehavior, the hegemonic dence nor is it apolitical; in fact, is instrumentalized by those in normative ideas of what itpower who benefit politically, sorepresents them are.” cially, or economically from Dalit women’s current social standing middle or upper castes, have been and the greater stagnation of known to misrepresent the issues the feminist movement in India. of Dalit women. If they engage The selective rejection of westwith the issues Dalit women are ernized thought is exemplified faced with, their skewed under- through India’s failure to disstandings of Dalit realities often mantle the Indian caste system result in the misrepresentation in the name of cultural authenof Dalit women, or worse, the ticity. complete overpowering of Dalit women’s issues in politics by The Indian Caste system, contheir own. The westernized per- sisting of four fairly static classspectives held by non-Dalits are es with the Dalits as the rejected deemed useless in the context of fifth class of ‘untouchables’, has Dalit culture and are dismissed justified and preserved social and from social discussion and polit- economic inequalities in India 27
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since its conception. Despite the government incentive of reservations, which are quotas implemented by the Indian government in 1902 requiring government-funded schools and government jobs to reserve a minimum number of seats for each lower caste in the system, inequality within the caste system remains very much intact, and indeed caste discrimination in the form of violence or ‘atrocities’ are on the rise. Even when the reservation system is not sabotaged either explicitly or implicitly, and is allowed to function or there is an attempt to implement it, there are more subtle attacks on its effective implementation. A prime example of this is the question Dalit women’s representation. Debates regarding caste discrimination and patriarchies developed throughout the 1980s and 90s, but they were not discussed as “intrinsically linked”. As a result, all Dalits were assumed to be males and all women were assumed to be the same type of victim, which is one that aligns with the experiences of “middle class, upper caste women”.3 The dislocation of caste debates and attacks on patriarchies evolved into the exclusion of Dalit women’s experiences from both. The reservations themselves hold
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spots for women collectively and Dalits collectively, so the assumptions about all Dalits being men and all women being victims in the way that the upper caste women are victimized are displayed in how many spots are reserved for Dalit women: none. Dalit women, trapped by their multidimensional identities, are then unable to hold government jobs or receive an education. By disregarding westernized solutions to this issue, which involve recognizing Dalit women as their own marginalized group as opposed to members of two separate marginalized groups, the problem worsens and Dalit women fall deeper into oppression.
By Rege’s logic, the misrepresentation of Dalit women becomes a matter of intersectionality. She acknowledges the role that western and non-Dalit perspectives have played in glazing over Dalit women’s issues but argues that to correct them, we must understand how to engage with their issues and allow non-Dalits to do so, that is, by knowing that oppression is intersecting. Within the non-normative groups of a society lie subgroups whose iden-
“Intersectionality evolves into a careful balance between creating respectful boundaries for unique margin alized identities and still allowing those identities to be represented politically.” tities still do not align with the dominant forms of non-normativity; on the societal spectrum from normative to non-normative, they are the most extreme cases of non-normativity and with it, marginalization. Their identities are not to blame for their outlier behavior, the hegemonic normative ideas of what represents them are. Non-normative subgroups like the Dalit women have identities that overlap in different areas of marginalization (i.e. they are both women and members of the Dalit). This overlap creates a new type of marginalization that is different from the kind of marginalization that middle-class Indian women or Dalit men are subject to and is not a simple addition of them either. The marginalization that Dalit women endure is unique and nuanced by oppression within and outside of their culture, but this doesn’t mean that it should be excluded from upper caste discus-
sion. Rege explains that the work that originates from Dalit feminists “cannot flourish if isolated from the experiences and ideas of other groups who must educate themselves about the histories, the preferred social relations, and utopias and the struggles of the marginalized.”4 She concludes that the requirement of “direct experience based ‘authenticity’” is only necessary if non-Dalit women are being spoken for, as opposed to being spoken with.5 In speaking for Dalit women, we assume that they belong to a combination of the hegemonic fights against patriarchies and caste discrimination, allowing Dalit men and middle-class women to drown out their voices. To speak with the Dalit women, we must recognize them as their own marginalized group. It is possible that intersectionality, most definitely classified as an imposing westernized idea and pressure on India’s long history of discrimination against Dalit women, could actually be harmful to the Dalit women. How can a concept that aims to spotlight those whose identities are the combination of several marginalized groups in society prevent those very groups from communicat29
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ing their realities and problems? The answer lies in the dividing nature of intersectionality. Intersectionality should prevent the mass generalization of women in India and the subsequent erasure of the Dalit women’s political presence but because intersectionality aims to distinguish extremely marginalized groups from one another, these groups are left to represent themselves by themselves. As mentioned, for every non-normative subgroup there is another sub-subgroup of people whose identities don’t align with the original subgroup’s dominant non-normativity. And so, marginalized groups are separated further and further by their varying identities and forms of marginalization, leaving the entire marginalized body of society less united. When these groups are not united they lose their political mass, which is already less than those whose identities align with what is normative in society. Intersectionality evolves into a careful balance between creating respectful boundaries for unique marginalized identities and still allowing those identities to be represented politically.
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world feminist Gayatri Spivak proposes a system among small marginalized groups in society, whereby those non-normative groups, like the Dalit women, temporarily consolidate with others to make political change. The idea stems from strategic essentialism. Indian cultural essentialism is the notion that there is a fundamental, ‘true’ form of Indian culture that existed before colonization had destroyed it. By this logic, progress is actually to go back to this ‘true’ Indian culture, hence the rejection of westernized perspectives that pull Indian culture away from what it once was. The problem with essentialism that both Narayan and Rege expose through their works is that it requires this ‘true’ origin of Indian culture to be fixed, unaffected by its own context (i.e. its own pre-colonial histories, biases, etc.) and not in need of further development. Just like any culture, the Indian essentialist culture was fluid, socially constructed by Indian society at the time, influenced by a set of pre-colonial biases, still subject to development and progress, and therefore not a reasonable goal for modern Indian society to strive for today. Strategic essentialism, In countering the danger in prac- however, is the acknowledgment ticing intersectionality, third that essentialism as a whole is not
useful, but is sometimes necessary to enact change. To practice strategic essentialism in third world feminism is to temporarily assume that the interests of marginalized groups of women, or even women as one, in third world cultures are essentially the same. This allows certain marginalized groups to unite for a heftier political mass, increasing their likelihood to make a political change while still maintaining differentiated identities. Partnerships between varying marginalized groups are meant to exist only to produce an increase in social awareness of each party involved; after this is done, the groups disassociate and move into new partnerships to keep advancing their movements. In theory, strategic essentialism would create an equilibrium between allowing marginalized groups to establish themselves as their own and still help them to create social change with one another, but it is unclear whether it is realistic in practice. In relation to the lack of representation of Dalit women in the reservation program, we must decide if the partnership of Dalit women with another marginalized group would bury Dalit women’s identities even more or if it would amplify their voices to Indian society.
Rege ends her essay with an abstract call to action for non-Dalits to “reinvent themselves as Dalit feminists.”6 With the help of Narayan, we can understand that the central focus of feminist discourse in India is not a rejection of critique, but rather a desire, a need, to be listened to by non-Dalits, the members of the upper castes, and especially Indian policymakers and people in power who benefit from the silence of the marginalized, genuinely and with an effort to contextualize themselves as members of the uniquely marginalized, intersecting group of Dalit women. Once issues like the lack of spots specifically for Dalit women in the caste system’s reservations are properly heard and engaged with on a critical, academic, and political level, change can begin for Dalit women and lower-class third world women alike.
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Endnotes 1 Gopal Guru. “Dalit Women Talk Differently.” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 30, no. 41/42, 1995, pp. 2548–2550. JSTOR. 2 ‘Westernized’ or having ‘Westernized politics’, having been influenced by western colonial ideology by means of education, location, religion,or other elements within one’s lifestyle. For the purpose of this paper, assume all instances of ‘westernized’ perspectives refer to this definition. 3 Sharmila Rege. “Dalit Women Talk Differently: A Critique of ‘Difference’ and Towards a Dalit Feminist Standpoint Position.” Economic and Political Weekly 33, no. 44 (1998): WS-42 4 Rege, WS-45. 5 Rege, WS-45. 6 Rege, WS-45.
Issue No. 3 vol. 30, no. 41/42, 1995, pp. 2548–2550. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4403327. Spivak, Gayatri. “Can the Subaltern Speak?: Reflections on the History of an Idea.” Edited by Rosalind C Morris, Columbia University Press, 2010, https:// cup.columbia.edu/book/can-the-subalternspeak/9780231143851.
Bibliography Sharmila Rege. “Dalit Women Talk Differently: A Critique of ‘Difference’ and Towards a Dalit Feminist Standpoint Position.” Economic and Political Weekly 33, no. 44 (1998): WS39-S46. http:// www.jstor.org/stable/4407323. Narayan, Uma. “Contesting cultures: ‘Westernization,’ Respect or Cultures, and Third-World Feminists from Dislocating Cultures: Identities, Traditions, and Third World Feminisms.” Linda J. Nicholson (ed.), The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory. Routledge. pp. 396--414 (1997). Gopal Guru. “Dalit Women Talk Differently.” Economic and Political Weekly, “Untitled (2)” by Reagan Espino
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DAT I N G
Issue No. 3
W I T H
DATA
Right Left UP You finish setting up your profile. Loading... First guy, you can’t really tell how he looks. Sometimes, he’s clean-shaven; he has a beard in the majority of the photos. You start taking note of things. Awkwardly flexed arms in an office. A tattoo that disapears. His bio mentions wanting to out, for beer or wine. Right. The guy after has one photo. There’s no head but a naked body. A bit of butt as the bottom, the top cuts off above the nipple. A letter instead of a name. His phone number. Left. This one lays in fall leaves. Light up red letters, “Seduce and destroy”. he was educated at the University of London. He has a mirror selfie on the floor of a gym. A seductive smirk. A mile away. Right. The next has fake lips. Butt implants. He’s got a permanently pouty face. Huge sunglasses. A checkered suit. A fake Gucci bag. Neon green swim trunks, boats in the background. Left. A huge dog in his lap. You hope he owns it, that it’s not one of his friend’s. His hair changes color and style; tap. There’s a video of him flexing next to boxes of beer. His shirt matches the brand: Corona. He’s 6 ft and wears shorts in the snow. You can tell he travels. “You could do better but please don’t”. “Feel free to harass me if I forget to answer you”. You swipe right. You unlock the option to tell someone you really like them. You unlock the UP swipe. You only get one a day, you try to save it for someone special.
BY
E VA N
E U G E N E
F L OY D
wants to do face masks and drink white wine together. Asks what you’re looking for on the app and if you’d like to start a series together. A guy you just started liking appears. His account matches his social media. There’s a one sentence bio with what you already know. Wonder if his finger went or will go the same way as yours. Your friend swipes for you. You remember you’ll see him in person, you plan on hanging out. The next profile: a past one night stand. His eyes are edited. You realize you remember his name. You think about him in bed: Left. Turkish. Shirtless on the beach. Pink underwear and Santa socks. A chef, the rest of his photos are buying wine or in white cooking. He studies in Istanbul. You can’t read his bio, he seems like your type. You forget swiping but you two like each other. Two photos. Italian Morrocan. Looking for someone serious; a ring emoji after the word “relationship”. His hair is dyed, his beard is trimmed. He’s tall. His shoes imply that he plays basketball but they’re too clean. His shirt is worth stealing. Right. Seconds later, it’s a match. A name in another alphabet; he’s Georgian. A smile with teeth in each image. Outside in all but one. An ear piercing. “Swipe right if you’re tired of masturbation”. “On our first date, I’ll carve our names into a tree. It’s the most romantic way to let you know I have knives”. Right. He likes you too. Someone swiped UP on you. You aren’t interested. Left. You run out of swipes, you exit the app. A few days later, you meet a guy in real life.
Gendarmerie. Right then match. You hope to see him in and out of uniform, a bit in between in the bedroom. Another French guy after him. He messages asking what you do and what you’re interested in. Says he 35
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Issue No. 3
R U N AWAY D R AG Q U E E N (BONBON AMERICAINE)
BY
E VA N
E U G E N E
F L OY D
keep Bo inside. He said Bo’s neck was red while trying to look at it; Bo wouldn’t let him. I’ll be back in a few hours. Dad 11:23 PM
Bo stuffed a toothbrush in his makeup bag. He rearranged his wigs; an orange bob and a blonde wig with a fake blood stain used in a Carrie costume. Stockings hid with socks. Dresses were folded but shoved into the duffel bag. Bo knew his character wasn’t essential overall but it was a part of him. All of him was leaving the house. He’d bring everything he cared about if he could. Priorities after outfits.
Even with his phone near death, Bo managed to call a car. He ignored his family on his phone; text notifications kept coming in. Bo tried not to think about what happened in the house. He got in the car. He lied about his day to the driver.
It didn’t take Bo long to pack his boy clothes. If it was clean, it came. He wasn’t entirely sure what he grabbed but he knew it checked his boxes. Shirts, jeans, underwear, socks. He only brought the shoes on his feet. He put on his warmest winter coat. Bo checked his pockets; phone, wallet, and keys. Bo’s mother wanted to act like the attack didn’t happen. She wanted to take a family photo. Her sons were home for the holidays, she wanted to show them off. To use them as props. For paternal clout. All parents want to sing their child’s praises. The boys were going to deliver presents to their mother’s friends before they fought. Then Bo’s neck was red. He didn’t take the time to look at it but everyone in the house said it was. His mother showed initial concern but as Bo packed his bag, she asked if they could still get a family photo. Bo’s father didn’t want to deal with the fallout. Bo didn’t want to be there. His home wasn’t safe. In many ways, it wasn’t his home. His brother slept in his room when he was gone. His dad used his closet for storage. Stuff shifted. It took Bo longer than expected to get his things and go. His dad came into the room, he tried to
Bo searched his duffel for a phone charger. He couldn’t find one. Bo wouldn’t go back.
Dad 1:00 AM
From The Bathroom Floor, With Love
It was happy hour, he’d had a few beers. It wasn’t a happy hour but he’d stopped shedding tears. His phone was almost dead. Soon no one would hear the thoughts in his head. He laid in the place people pissed Thinking of the one he missed. He held onto the porcelain throne, Where the contents of his stomach became known. Poems by Evan Eugene Floyd
I want to keep you in my bed But there’s no love in my head
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Issue No. 3
Body Dysmorphia in LGBTQ Populations by Kelly Peraza Klee
B
ody dysmorphic disorder is a mental disorder categorized by the obsessive compulsive tendencies to check or hide parts of the body that are considered ugly. To confirm whether or not LGBTQ individuals suffer from higher rates of BDD compared to heterosexuals, several studies were compared concerning mental health and social pressure. Overall, we found that only gay men suffer from higher rates of BDD compared to straight men. Lesbian and bisexual women had the same rates compared to heterosexual women, although bisexual women are most at risk for developing a mental health issue. Data on transgender women and men is still unavailable, and very little can be inferred at this time. The focus of this paper is body dysmorphic disorder and the relationship it has with the LGBTQ community. The DSM V classifies body dysmorphic disorders as part of obsessive-compulsive disorders. It is based around a perceived flaw with one’s physical appearance. The question I want to answer is: compared to heterosexuals, do LGBTQ people suffer from
higher rates of body dysmorphia? Do transgender people have higher rates of body dysmorphia compared to the rest of the gay community? I predict that all LGBTQ people will have a higher rate of body dysmorphic disorder compared to heterosexuals. To answer this, we will first look at the history of the disorder in the DSM, the definition, and then focus on the relationship between the LGBTQ and BDD. Body dysmorphia was recognized in the late 1800s, but it was not published in the DSM until the revised third edition in 1987. Before 1987, it was known as dysmorphobia, named by Morselli who initially discovered it. After the publication of the DSM IV, it was officially named body dysmorphic disorder. In the DSM V, it was placed under obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD UK). The DSM V classifies body dysmorphia as “Individuals with body dysmorphic disorder (formerly known as dysmorphophobia) are preoccupied with one or more perceived defects or flaws in their physical appearance, which they believe look ugly, unattractive, abnormal, or deformed...However,
any body area can be the focus of concern (e.g., eyes, teeth, weight, stomach, breasts, legs, face size or shape, lips, chin, eyebrows, genitals). Some individuals are concerned about perceived asymmetry of body areas. The preoccupations are intrusive, unwanted, time-consuming (occurring, on average, 3-8 hours per day), and usually difficult to resist or control.” (American Psychiatric Disorder, 2013) The best example is the “Wolf Man” from Freud. “One of Freud’s patients who was subsequently analysed by Brunswick3 was known as the “Wolf Man” and was preoccupied with imagined defects on his nose. Brunswick wrote “He neglected his daily life and work because he was engrossed, to the exclusion of all else to the state of his nose. On the street he looked at himself in every shop window; he carried a pocket mirror, which he took out every few minutes. First, he would powder his nose; a moment later he would inspect it and remove the powder. He would then examine the pores, to see if they were enlarging, to catch the hole, as it were in its moment of growth and development. Then he would again powder his nose, put away the mirror, and a moment later begin the process anew”. (Veale, 2004) This is a clear example of how this disorder presents itself and why it is categorized as an obsessive-compulsive disorder in the DSM V. There is an obsession with the flaw, and a compulsion to fix or hide it. The diagnosis of body dysmorphic disorder revolves around four main criteria. The first is the preoccupation
with one or more perceived defects or flaws in physical appearance that are not observable or appear slight to others. The second is the individual has performed repetitive behaviors (e.g., mirror checking, excessive grooming, skin picking, reassurance seeking) or mental acts (e.g., comparing his or her appearance with that of others) in response to the appearance concerns. The third is the preoccupation causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. The fourth is the appearance preoccupation is not better explained by concerns with body fat or weight in an individual whose symptoms meet diagnostic criteria for an eating disorder. (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). A person must meet each of these conditions to have the disorder. There are extra specifiers including muscle dysmorphia and the patient’s level of insight. Insight in this case meaning fair or poor. Fair insight means the patient is aware that their perceptions are not true. Poor insight means that the patient thinks that their assumptions about their body are probably true. Finally, there are absent beliefs where the patient believes that their flaws are true. There is another specifier which is listed as muscle dysmorphia. It is when an individual “...is preoccupied with the idea that his or her body build is too small or insufficiently muscular. This specifier is used even if the individual is preoccupied with other body areas, 39
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“Body dysmorphic disorder in the LGBTQ community is a serious problem” which is often the case.” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) There are few differences between men and women with body dysmorphic disorder. According to the DSM V, the biggest difference is “...males are more likely to have genital preoccupations, and females are more likely to have a comorbid eating disorder. Muscle dysmorphia occurs almost exclusively in males.” (American Psychiatric Disorder, 2013) In one particular study, the researchers offered a questionnaire to Pakistani medical students. “The top three reported body foci of concern in male students were: head hair (34.3%), being fat (32.8%), skin (14.9%) and nose (14.9%). The top three reported body foci of concern in female students were: being fat (40.4%), skin (24.7%) and teeth (18%).” (Taqui et al, 2008) Although these results are not representative of everyone who has body dysmorphic disorder, this allows us to see specific issues each gender faces and at what rate. The acronym LGBTQ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer. These letters describe peo-
Issue No. 3
ple who do not consider themselves heterosexual or cisgender. The word ‘transgender’ has nothing to do with sexual orientation, but their sex at birth. This community has suffered, with homosexual people having to continuously hide and fight for their rights in almost every part of the world. It’s important to discuss the overall trend of mental health of LGBTQ people to get a sense of where the community is health-wise. If a population is being underserved, it must be studied to see how it can be improved. This community faces more mental health issues because they face such specific problems like discrimination, prejudice, denial of civil and human rights, and lack of acceptance from family. Sexual minorities also are at greater risk of experiencing harassment or violence compared with the sexual majority population. (Herek, 2008) These types of stressors can place sexual minorities at increased risk for substance use and mental disorders. (Ryan et al., 2008) High levels of stress often precede mental disorders, and this is no exception. Some members of the LGBTQ population are found to have higher rates of issues, such as bisexuals, because of discrimination within the community. “Our meta-analysis revealed that, for both depression and anxiety, measured in a variety of ways, bisexual people experience higher rates of poor outcomes relative to heterosexual people, and also experience as high or higher rates
of poor outcomes relative to gay and lesbian people.” (Ross et al., 2018) Rates of suicide are higher among all LGBTQ populations compared to heterosexuals. LGBQ adults have a twofold excess risk of suicide attempts compared to other adults. (King et al., 2008) Among transgender adults, the lifetime prevalence of suicide attempts is 40%. (James et al., 2016) Suicide risk in LGBTQ people is thought to be highest during the teen years and early 20s. In 2015, more than 4.5 times as many LGB-identified high school students reported attempting suicide in the past 12 months compared to non-LGB students (29.4% vs 6.4%); 42.8% of LGB youth seriously considered suicide. (Kann et al., 2016) This becomes very complex when body dysmorphic disorder already has high comorbidity with suicide risk. Rates of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts are high in both adults and children/ adolescents with body dysmorphic disorder. (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) Body dysmorphic disorder in the LGBTQ community is a serious problem, as the high rate of suicide among the separate populations are quite high. On top of this, the stressors mentioned earlier such as discrimination and rejection may have long term effects on how these people view their bodies.“Meta-analytic data...indicate that gay men tend to report slightly higher levels of dissatisfaction toward their bodies compared to heterosex-
ual men. Recent data also suggest that heterosexual men report the lowest levels of body dissatisfaction compared to heterosexual women, gay men and lesbians, with little differences noted between the latter groups. In fact, among gay men there was a 32% prevalence rate of body dissatisfaction, compared to 24%, 35%, and 38% for heterosexual men, lesbians, and heterosexual women, respectively. Although gay men may not be the most at risk group of the four, they have elevated rates compared to heterosexual men, and possess comparable levels of body dissatisfaction to women.” (Blashill, 2011) The reason why these numbers are so high for gay men compared to heterosexual men is because of ‘objectification theory’. “Objectification theory states that sexual objectification results in individuals becoming more hyper aware of how their body looks. This body surveillance may result in dissatisfaction with one’s body when upward social comparisons are made to unattainable cultural standards of beauty. Gay men in particular may face added objectification in Western society.” (Kozak et al., 2009) Among gay women the situation is different. There does not appear to be any difference between homosexual women, bisexual women, and heterosexual women in their likelihood to develop body dysmorphic disorder. “The analyses revealed that heterosexual women reported a greater drive 41
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for thinness and leanness and more investment behavior as compared to homosexual women. However, bisexual women did not differ significantly from the others in these facets. Furthermore, homosexual women reported a significantly lower degree of body checking than did bi women, and both homosexual women and bi women preferred a larger ideal body size compared to heterosexual women. There were no group differences in drive for muscularity, body dissatisfaction, avoidance behavior, and BDD or ED symptoms.” (Henn et al., 2019) In this case, homosexual women do not suffer more from body dysmorphia compared to their heterosexual counterparts. However, bi women appeared to suffer more compared to both groups for the same reason that gay men have this disorder- “...discussed the impact of antibisexual discrimination and internalized biphobia on the amount of internalization of sociocultural standards of beauty and body surveillance. Since bisexual women experienced a higher degree of discrimination compared to heterosexual women and homosexual women, they might have internalized the beauty standards to a greater extent.” (Brewster et al, 2014) Research
“In transgender people, there is virtually no data on their rates of body dysmorphic disorder”
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showed that while bisexual women did not differ from heterosexual or homosexual women in rating body dissatisfaction, but they are more at risk out of the three. Transgender people may choose to go through a process known as transitioning. There are two parts to transitioning: social and medical. Social transitioning involves presenting as your identifying gender to family and friends. This can include changing hair, clothing, coming out, and changing your legal name. Medical transition can be surgery for face or genitals, hair removal, or hormone therapy. There is no specific order for these steps, nor are any of them required. There is, however, the recommendation for a person to present as their identifying gender for a year before surgery. (UCSF Transgender Care) Data on transgender people and their rates of body dysmorphic disorder are virtually non-existent. Instead, what comes up is generalities of mental health compared to cisgender people and a particular condition called gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is a condition where one does not feel like their assigned gender. According to the DSM, a person must meet six criteria to have gender dysphoria. These are a marked incongruence between one’s experienced/ expressed gender and primary and/ or secondary sex characteristics, a strong desire to be rid of one’s primary
and/or secondary sex characteristics, a strong desire for the primary and/or secondary sex characteristics of the other gender, a strong desire to be of the other gender, a strong desire to be treated as the other gender, and finally a strong conviction that one has the typical feelings and reactions of the other gender. (American Psychological Association, 2013) This rates of gender dysphoria compared to body dysmorphic disorder are much lower, with a survey of 10,000 people undertaken in 2012 by the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that 1% of the population surveyed was gender variant, to some extent. (NHS. UK) While gender dysmorphia and body dysmorphic disorder are different, there are links, such as a MTF (male to female) transgender person hating their musculature, bodyweight or jawline. A FTM (female to male) transgender person may hate their breasts or hips and wish to conceal them. Although it is possible to have both body dysmorphic disorder and gender dysmorphia, there is no evidence in research at this time. Overall, LGBTQ people do not seem to suffer from body dysmorphic disorder at a higher rate than their heterosexual counterparts. Gay men did have higher rates of body dissatisfaction and rates of body dysmorphic disorder, which may stem from the objectification theory. Lesbian and bisexual women did not show higher rates of body dysmorphic disorder compared to heterosexual women, and showed
preferences for a leaner body versus a thinner one. One discrepancy was in bisexual women, where they were more at risk for the disorder because of discrimination. In transgender people, there is virtually no data on their rates of body dysmorphic disorder. However, transgender people suffer more from gender dysmorphia, which shares similar symptoms of scrutiny and anxiety over their body. There are no studies confirming this.
about the author Kelly Peraza is a junior studying Psychology and Environmental Science. Other interests include activism, music, and meditation. Current plans involve working in counseling, medicine, or government work. (After all, it is becoming very clear we need more brown people in positions of power.) 43
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Bibliography Blashill, A. J. (2011). Gender roles, eating pathology, and body dissatisfaction in men: A meta-analysis. Body Image, 8, 1-11. Brewster ME, Velez BL, Esposito J, Wong S, Geiger E, Keum BT. Moving beyond the binary with disordered eating research: a test and extension of objectification theory with bisexual women. J Couns Psychol (2014) 61(1):50. 10.1037/a0034748 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association, 2013. Henn, A. T., Taube, C. O., Vocks, S., & Hartmann, A. S. (2019). Body Image as Well as Eating Disorder and Body Dysmorphic Disorder Symptoms in Heterosexual, Homosexual, and Bisexual Women. Frontiers in psychiatry, 10, 531. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00531 Herek, G. M. (2008). Hate crimes and stigma-related experiences among sexual minority adults in the United States: Prevalence estimates from a national probability sample. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 24(1), 54-74. doi:10.1177/0886260508316477 James S, Herman JL, Rankin S, et al. The Report of the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey. Washington, DC: National Center for Transgender Equality;2016. Kann L, Olsen EO, McManus T, et al. Sexual identity, sex of sexual contacts, and health-related behaviors among students in grades 9-12– United States and selected sites, 2015. MMWR Surveill Summ. 2016;65(9):1-202. King M, Semlyen J, Tai SS, et al. A systematic review of mental disorder, suicide, and delib-
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erate self harm ing lesbian, gay and bisexual people. BMC Psychiatry. 2008;8:70. Kozak, M., Frankenhauser, H., & Roberts, T. (2009). Objects of desire: Objectification as a function of male sexual orientation. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 10, 225-230. NHS.UK. Gender Dysphoria Overview. (2016, April 12). Retrieved from wwhttps://www.nhs. uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/. Ross, L. E., Salway, T., Tarasoff, L. A., MacKay, J. M., Hawkins, B. W., & Fehr, C. P. (2018). Prevalence of Depression and Anxiety Among Bisexual People Compared to Gay, Lesbian, and Heterosexual Individuals:A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Journal of Sex Research, 55(4/5), 435–456. https://doi.org/10.1080/0022 4499.2017.1387755 Ryan, C., Huebner, D., Diaz, R. M., & Sanchez, J. (2009). Family rejection as a predictor of negative health outcomes in white and Latino lesbian, gay, and bisexual young adults. Pediatrics, 123, 346-352. doi:10.1542/peds.2007-3524 Taqui, A. M., Shaikh, M., Gowani, S. A., Shahid, F., Khan, A., Tayyeb, S. M., Naqvi, H. A. (2008). Body Dysmorphic Disorder: Gender differences and prevalence in a Pakistani medical student population. BMC Psychiatry, 8, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471244X-8-20 UCSF Transgender Care “Transition Roadmap.” Transition Roadmap | Transgender Care, University of California, San Francisco, 2019, https://transcare.ucsf.edu/transition-roadmap. Veale D. Body dysmorphic disorderPostgraduate Medical Journal 2004;80:67-71.https://pmj.bmj.com/content/80/940/67.citation-tools
“Les Amoureux” by Caroline Sjerven
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Reasons for Stagnation and Growth in Development: Ecuador and South Korea Case Study By: Elizabeth Gallo
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n the past, economists and historians stood by the belief that the development process was linear; that in fact, every country had to go through the same stages and checkpoints in order to arrive at a developed stage. This has since been refuted and proven incorrect as technology has allowed many countries to ‘leap’ over stages in development. In this paper, I will explore multiple factors that could explain how the absence of natural resources may have contributed to South Korea’s dependence on human capital and substantial leap in development while Ecuador’s abundance in natural resources may have led to its dependence and stagnation. South Korea is considered a historical anomaly. Within 5 decades, South Korea’s economic development went from being “at best, even with Africa’s,” to becoming one of the leading South East Asian economies (Mo 63). In 1996,
South Korea joined the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, “being internationally recognized as a ‘developed state.’” and achieved a per capita income comparable to the countries of Western Europe (Seth 2017). But how was this done? How did a small country, surrounded by powerful countries, and little natural resources achieve this? While under Japanese colonial control (1910– 1945), Korea experienced rapid industrial and economic growth (Mo 63). Korea’s system of compulsory education paved the way for a well-educated population, thus leading to a high level of human capital relative to physical capital that can be attributed to fast economic growth. However, World War II and the Korean War left South Korea’s economy in disarray. On June 25th, 1950, the three yearlong Korean War commenced with North Korea launching an unprovoked in-
vasion into the South. After the war, 42–44% of manufacturing facilities, 40–60% of power-generating capacities, basic infrastructure like housing, schools, health centres, water and sewage, roads and communication facilities were destroyed. The scale of total civilian damage reported was “bigger (1.05 times) than Korea’s GNP of 1953” (Park 2019). By the early 1960’s, Korea faced several difficulties, such as a “shortage of food, inadequate capital accumulation, low level of technology and a high unemployment ratio” which put them on par with Africa’s development stage (Hattori 79). Syngman Rhee, who was elected as the first President of the Republic of Korea in 1948 until 1960, was instrumental in laying the groundwork for a democracy, establishing a market economy, and rebuilding South Korea's economy with a series of reconstruction plans. Rhee’s reconstruction plans expanded economic infrastructure, built key in-
dustries like cement and steel, and increased the production capability of manufacturing (Park 2019). His objective was to try and bring the nation back up, restore faith in South Korea, and to stabilize people’s lives. The only way this was going to be done was through foreign investment and funding. From the years 1945 to 1960, South Korea received “a total of $2.94 billion in aid, of which the amount provided by the US accounted for over 80%” (Park 2019). Whether a country or an individual, anyone investing that much money into a country or business will expect their agendas to be met, however there was strong push back from the Korean government; the Korean government wanted to use the resources to purchase more equipment and build factories, the US insisted on allocating them primarily for commodities and raw materials to increase the counterpart fund. In the end, the US funded projects 49
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that helped with the restoration of social infrastructure such as power, communications, transportation, education and health facilities and funded non-projects that mostly focused on necessities such as wheat, oil, fertilizer, raw rubber, medicine, etc. This aid provided by the US was instrumental in getting South Korea on its feet and in fact, during the post-war reconstruction period, the effort to curb inflation was “largely successful” (Park 2019). After the removal of Rhee from the presidency by students and an almost 2 year intermission filled with ‘acting’ presidents, a new military government led by President Park Chung-hee was set in place in 1961, with a state that gave priority to economic development, focusing on a combination of state planning and private entrepreneurship; according to Jongryn Mo, Korea’s conditions in 1960 were more favourable for economic growth than those of most developing countries. This may be attributed to the rapid expansion of education and land reform that happened during Rhee’s presidency. In fact, from 1945 to 1960, the “enrolment in primary schools increased three times its size, secondary schools more than eight-fold, and higher education ten times. By 1960, 96% of all children of primary school age were attending school”
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(Seth 2017) With a combination of that and the highly successful adult literacy programs carried out by the state, by 1961 South Korea had the “best-educated workforce of any country with a comparable income level” (Seth 2017). The land reform that began in 1950, right before the Korean War, changed around who owned land and how much. In 1944, “3 percent of landowners owned 64 percent, but in 1956 the top 6 percent owned only 18 percent” (Seth 2017). Land reform allowed for traditional peasants to become small business farmers, drastically reduce rural wealth inequalities, brought stability to the countryside and had capital go toward commerce, industry, and education since many landowners invested in business or established schools. This emphasis in education provided new opportunities for all citizens. With the land reform, an increase in rural roads were constructed in order to reach markets. This provided the infrastructure that allowed many subsistence farmers to become market specialists. Growing industrialization raised farmers' incomes through the general equilibrium effect and also provided many new opportunities for the average citizen. Through these
new economic opportunities alongside the education reform, meant that their children had a wide range of employment options in business and the public sector which in turn allowed talent to rise (Mo 85). By having an educated workforce and a more stable countryside that invested in the local economy, Park was able to provide security from the perceived threat of communism and change Korea from a “backward, agrarian nation to an industrialized state” (Mo 64). In addition, Park’s regime implemented broad policy goals of economic reform based on export-led growth by promoting exports while maintaining restrictions on imports to contain current account deficits and protect domestic industries. They implemented those policies with a relatively low level of corruption and bureaucrats faced explicit incentives to further the regime’s larger policy goals; the double threat of communism coming from North Korea and China would be more imminent if South Korea did not succeed at becoming economically independent. By including a large portion of Korea’s population as beneficiaries of the new policies set in place, the shared growth
became credible because failing to do so would have “risked the regime’s future through increased domestic support among the masses for communism” (Mo 66). This was vastly different from the common tactic of other natural states that mostly concentrate economic and other privileges to the elite. Inclusion in South Korea, however, differed from the type of inclusion in Western Europe. Initially, South Korea’s inclusion was based on expanding economic rights, economic opportunities, and shared growth but it would downplay political and civil rights (Campos and Root 1996). Therefore, when analysing South Korea’s development, the focus should stay on economic and political reform. To summarise, what South Korea achieved in industrialization and development during the 1960s and 1970s was unique and ground-breaking in the history of development. It diverged from the path historically followed in Western Europe and is an example that development is not linear. Additionally, the lack of an abundance of natural resources lead to South Korea having to rely on human resources and capital in order to build the economy. Finally, the role of government was critical in expanding land reform, education, 51
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wealth distribution, acceleration in the growth of manufacturing, and a relatively lower level of corruption. Without these key factors and the synchronization of all the reforms, Korea would have not progressed and developed at the same speed and multiple different sectors. Since Ecuador’s independence from Spain after the Battle of Pichincha on May 24, 1822, Ecuador has been developing. To this day, after almost two centuries, Ecuador is still considered a less developed country. The 2019 Human Development Report (HDR) given out by the United
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Nations Development Programme (UNDP) stated that “Ecuador’s Human Development Index (HDI) value for 2018 [was] 0.758, which put the country in the high human development category, positioning it at 85th out of 189 countries and territories” (Conceição 2). However, HDI is not the only indicator for development, as development is measured differently depending on the organization. For instance, based on the HDR 2019, Ecuador has a life expectancy of 76.8 and the mean years of schooling is 9 years (Conceição 3). This can be seen in Table A below.
Table A: Ecuador’s HDI Trends Based on Consistent Time Series Data and New Goalposts
Conceição, Pedro. Inequalities in Human Development in the 21st Century: Ecuador. United Nations Development Programme, 2019, pp. 1–10, Inequalities in Human Development in the 21st Century: Ecuador.
If compared to South Korea, there is a substantial difference between the numbers. For example, as seen in Figure A, the Human Development Index is 0.906, ranking South Korea 22th in the world (HDR 2019). Additionally, the life expectancy at birth is 82.8 years, a 6-year difference, and the mean years of schooling is 12.2, a 3.2-year difference.
Figure A: Human Development Indicators - South Korea
“Human Development Reports.” | Human Development Reports, 2019, hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/KOR.
These are differences that can really reveal the disparity in development level between the two countries. How is it though, that Ecuador who became independent in 1822 and South Korea who became independent in 1948, a 126-year difference, is fixed in stagnation while South Korea zipped through development? There are a plethora of different theories as to why a less developed country is doomed to stagnation. Although natural resources are not the sole indicator, there is evidence that a dependence on abundant natural resources leads to a variety of impediments that hinder development.
“17 countries in the world with the highest levels of biodiversity” (Fleury et al. 10). In the beginning of the 1900s until 1925, cocoa beans were the main export bananas until 1948 when bananas usurped the cocoa beans. Today, oil is the number one export and has been since 1972. As shown on the following page in Table B, Ecuador is ranked 19th in the world as an oil dependent state.
This dependence on oil, however, has a negative effect on economic growth. In fact, studies have shown that dependence on fuel and mineral resources such as oil and hard-rock minerals, including diamonds, gold, Since the beginning, Ecuador has and other gemstones have the “bigheavily relied on the rich resourc- gest negative impact on institutions es that the land has provided for and economic growth” (Ross 17). its economy as is among the top 53
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Table B: Resource Dependency: Nonfuel Mineral-Dependent States and Oil-Dependent States
This is in part due to the resource rent and rent-seeking behaviour that is strongly correlated with corruption and many other issues that hinder economic growth and ultimately leads to stagnation. A resource rent is the value of capital that is rendered by natural resources, or the gross operating surplus. According to a study carried out by Shannon
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M. Pendergast, Judith A. Clarke and G. Cornelis Van Kooten, the higher the resource rent, the higher the level of corruption. They find that in many less developed countries, resource rents are not being used in a way that benefits the country or its citizens but rather are “dissipated through corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency and policies
aimed at rent-seeking interest groups” (Pendergast et al. 414). This is the case in Ecuador; there is an ever-undulating level of total natural resource rents, with the highest total so far being 18.834 percent in 2006 (World Bank). This is remarkably high in comparison with South Korea which had their highest total natural resource rent of 0.785 percent in 1975 (World Bank). Figure B shows how for the past 47 years, South Korea’s total natural resource rent has remained relatively stable, never going above 0.8 percent. Ecuador on the other hand, has had an incredibly unstable total natural resource rent, undulating con-
stantly, however mostly staying between 6 and 15 percent. If Pendergasts’s study was correct, that would signify that Ecuador would have a higher level of corruption than South Korea, of which, it is correct. In 2018, Ecuador had a corruption score of 34/100 which ranked them at 114th out of 180 countries, while South Korea’s corruption score was 57/100 and was ranked 45th out of 180 (Transparency International).
Part of this problem is due to the sheer volume of resource rents as governments can “absorb, and effectively track, only limited amounts of Figure B: Total Resource Rents (% of money” (Ross 24). This is because resource rents GDP) – Korea, Rep. Ecuador often flood governments with more revenue than they can manage effectively, therefore leading to the embezzlement and money laundering. Another cause of corruption is the volatility of resource revenues due to the market. The changes in revenues do not allow for predictability which end ups ``overwhelm[ing] normal bud“Total Natural Resources Rents (% of GDP) - Korea, Rep., Ecuageting procedures and dor.” Data, The World Bank, 2017, data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.TOTL.RT.ZS?end=2017&locations=KR-EC&start=1970 […] weaken[s] state in&view=chart.ww
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stitutions” (Ross 24). For example, there was an accelerated increase in GDP growth as a result of high oil prices in the 1970s. This influx of revenue into the Ecuadorian economy placed Ecuador within the category of middle-income countries (Fleury et al 10). However, a subsequent fall of oil prices, the natural disaster of El Niño between 1982 and 1983, and the 1987 earthquake that destroyed the country’s main oil pipeline and ended up forcing Ecuador to suspend all oil production for several months “underscored the fragility of Ecuador’s economy and its vulnerability to exogenous factors” (Fleury et al. 10).
Additionally, studies have consistently observed that resource rents and resource dependency is positively linked to civil war. Even after taking into account that any conflict may be instigated by a complex set of events such as “poverty, ethnic or religious grievances, and unstable governments,” there is nevertheless an understanding that natural resource dependency and rents are the leading cause of civil war (Ross 19). This is as a result of resource rents providing income to corrupt governments which makes it more desirable to hold political power, which provides incentives to overthrow governments due to human
Table C: Civil Wars Linked to Resource Wealth, 1990-2002
Ross, Michael. The Natural Resource Curse: How Wealth Can Make You Poor. Edited by Ian Bannon and Paul Collier, World Bank, 2003, pp. 17–42, Natural Resources and Violent Conflict: OPTIONS AND ACTIONS, www.jstor.org/stable/resrep02485.7.
rights violations, harms countries’ economies, leads to weak and less accountable governments, reduces growth, and increases poverty (Ross, Pendergast). In fact, between 1990 and 2002, there were 16 civil wars that were linked to resource wealth; as seen left in Table C. Of the sixteen, six were correlated with crude oil; nearly 50 percent. Due to Ecuador’s high dependency on oil, it is a miracle that Ecuador is not on that list. Although Ecuador has not had a civil war in many years, there were ongoing wars that began around the 1830s with neighbouring countries Peru and Colombia, all linked to land disputes due to the natural resources found on that land. Once a country that shared a border with Brazil, the land that Ecuador has lost due to these wars is significant. The most recent war, the Cenepa War in 1995, was with Peru over the border demarcation in the province of Condorcanqui, in the Cóndor mountain range. This land, rich in gold, copper, and uranium, was heavily fought for in order to gain land and mining rights; in the end, Peru got the land rights (Duran 2). Although the Cenepa War was not a civil war, it was a war that was instigated due to natural resources and the wealth
that could be secured through the ownership of the land rights. Finally, corruption causes weak and unaccountable governments. As a matter of fact, there have been “seven Presidents between 1996 and 2007” (Fleury et al. 11). With a weakened and less accountable state bureaucracy, scholars have found that countries that try and meet public expenses by raising oil revenues or that get their income from natural resources rather than taxes “fail to develop the type of bureaucracy that can intervene effectively in social conflicts” and become less democratic (Ross 25). These corrupt governments tend to favour the wealthy, such as the owners of big media and banks, since they are financially able to bribe the government into implementing laws and policies that will favour their agendas. Consequently, this leads to a higher risk of civil wars and civil unrest that is frequently suppressed “by dispensing patronage and by building up their domestic security forces,” all of which is funded by natural resource rents (Ross 25). This all creates a trap, given that resource dependency/rents and gov57
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ernments reinforce each other, that end up inducing stagnation. By not being a natural resource dependent nation, South Korea has been able to circumvent many of the impediments listed above. Not only has their lack of natural resources saved them from the natural resource curse, their demographics may have played a role as well. The final demographic and point I will make to illustrate the reasoning behind Ecuador and South Korea’s drastic disparity in development will be on ethnicities. According to the World Population Review, Korea is listed as homogeneous nation, whereas Ecuador has a “very ethnically diverse population” with 4 major ethnicities: Mestizos who make up 71.9% of the population, Amerindians who account for nearly 7% of the population, Afro-Ecuadorians making up 7% of the population, and white people of European descent making up 12.% of Ecuador’s population (Ecuador Population 2019). It has been found that the greater the number of ethnicities, the higher the risk for internal conflict and tensions (Pendergast et. al). These higher risks of conflict may be directly related with corruption as the different ethnic groups strive for power. Being that Ecuador is an ex-Spaniard colony, the class sys-
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tem that was implemented since Ecuador’s independence mirrored the class system that was mandated during colonial rule. It was white, ‘pure’ Europeans that had a monopoly control of the government and resources. Following white Europeans, Mestizos, who are a mix of European and Amerindian dissent, had moderately more rights and wealth, and so on. Since then, there has always been conflict between Amerindians and Afro-Ecuadorians with Mestizos and white Europeans who demanded to have more rights. South Korea being that they are a homogeneous society, has not had these social conflicts. According to the United Nations, it is estimated that 1.3 billion people live in a less developed country and this is projected to grow to 1.9 billion by 2050. The predicament on development is therefore not an issue restrained to less developed countries, but rather a global issue. Countries are not addressing development in the way that they should. There must be a comprehensive approach that addresses how the dependence on natural resources leads to the hindrance of development and a multitude of governmental complications like corruption. The world and each individual country
need to be clear on how to avoid resource-led corruption and a way to do so is through revenue transparency. Resource rents have been found to instigate corruption and stagnate development, however through revenue transparency, revenue will no longer be tied to off-budget accounts or in offshore accounts which then goes directly into the pockets of crooked government officials taking money from the citizens they say to be working for. They must address the reasons that keep them in the development trap. However, they do not have to do this alone. The world is becoming increasingly connected; imports/exports, international financial operations, commerce, etc are making countries more interdependent. For this reason, revenue transparency should not be restricted to domestic levels, but rather it should also be promoted at the international level, companies included. By doing so, the levels of corruption will dwindle, allowing for the resource rents to be invested in infrastructure and social programs such as education that increase long-term growth. However, this cannot be done if more developed nations do not hold themselves accountable for their own corruption, embezzlement, and money laundering.
The leaders of today and tomorrow must work towards an international revenue transparency program or the issues linked with development will never cease.
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Bibliography Anindya Datta. “Understanding East Asian Economic Development.” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 22, no. 14, 1987, pp. 602– 606. JSTOR,www.jstor.org/stable/4376876.
“Ecuador Population 2019.” Ecuador Population 2019 (Demographics, Maps, Graphs), 2019, worldpopulationreview.com/countries/ecuador-population/.
Barbier, Edward B. “2002 – The Role of Natural Resources in Economic Development.” Australia’s Economy in Its International Context: The Joseph Fisher Lectures, Volume 2: 1956-2012, edited by Kym Anderson, University of Adelaide Press, South Australia, 2012, pp. 487–516. JSTOR, www. jstor.org/stable/10.20851/j.ctt1t304mv.31.
Eisenstadt, Todd A., and Karleen Jones West. “Public Opinion, Vulnerability, and Living with Extraction on Ecuador’s Oil Frontier: Where the Debate Between Development and Environmentalism Gets Personal.” Comparative Politics, vol. 49, no. 2, 2017, pp. 231–251., www.jstor.org/stable/24886199.
Campos, José Edgardo, and Hilton L. Root. 1996. The Key to the Asian Miracle: Making Shared Growth Credible. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
Fleury, Sonia, et al. Assessment of Development Reports: Ecuador . United Nations Development Programme, 2008, pp. 1–57, Assessment of Development Reports: Ecuador .
Choi, Ji Young. “RETHINKING ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND THE FINANCIAL CRISIS IN SOUTH KOREA AND THE STATE IN AN ERA OF GLOBALIZATION.” Journal of Third World Studies, vol. 26, no. 2, 2009, pp. 203–226. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/45194570.
Hattori, Tamio. “Economic Development and Technology Accumulation: Experience of South Korea.” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 34, no. 22, 1999, pp. M78 –M84. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4408021. “Human Development Reports.” | Human Development Reports, 2019, hdr.undp.org/en/countries/ profiles/KOR.
Conceição, Pedro. Inequalities in Human Development in the 21st Century: Ecuador. United Nations Development Programme, 2019, pp. 1–10, Inequalities in Human Development in the 21st Century: Ecuador. Drekonja, Gerhard. “Ecuador: How to Handle the Banana Republic Turned Oil State.” Boletín De Estudios Latinoamericanos y Del Caribe, no. 28, 1980, pp. 77–94. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25675059. Durand, Anahí, and Asociación Servicios Educativos Rurales. “NO MAN’S LANDS? Extractive Activity, Territory, and Social Unrest in the Peruvian Amazon: The Cenepa River .” Land Coalition, Jan. 2011, www.landcoalition.org/sites/default/ files/documents/resources/CENEPA_ENG_ web_11.03.11.pdf.
Mo, Jongryn, and Barry R. Weingast. “Conclusions and a Look Ahead.” Korean Political and Economic Development: Crisis, Security, and Economic Rebalancing, by Jongryn Mo and Barry R. Weingast, 1st ed., vol. 362, Harvard University Asia Center, Cambridge (Massachusetts); London, 2013, pp. 191–202. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1x07wgf.12. Mo, Jongryn, and Barry R. Weingast. “Initiating South Korea’s Transition, 1961 –1979.” Korean Political and Economic Development: Crisis, Security, and Economic Rebalancing, by Jongryn Mo and Barry R. Weingast, 1st ed., vol. 362, Harvard University Asia Center, Cambridge (Massachusetts); London, 2013, pp. 63
–94. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1x07wgf.7. “Oil Rents (% of GDP) - Korea, Rep., Ecuador.” Data, The World Bank, 2017, data. worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PETR. RT.ZS?end=2017&locations=KR-EC&start=1970 &view=chart. Park, Jong-Dae. “Korea’s Path of Development in Retrospect.” Re-Inventing Africa’s Development, 1 Jan. 2019, pp. 177–205., doi:10.1007/9783-030-03946-2_7. Pendergast, Shannon M., et al. “Corruption, Development and the Curse of Natural Resources.” Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne De Science Politique, vol. 44, no. 2, 2011, pp. 411–437. JSTOR,www.jstor.org/stable/41300548. Ross, Michael. The Natural Resource Curse: How Wealth Can Make You Poor. Edited by Ian Bannon and Paul Collier, World Bank, 2003, pp. 17–42, Natural Resources and Violent Conflict: OPTIONS AND ACTIONS, www. jstor.org/stable/resrep02485.7. Seth, Michael J. “South Korea’s Economic Development, 1948–1996.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History, 19 Dec. 2017, doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.271. “South Korea Population 2019.” South Korea Population 2019 (Demographics, Maps, Graphs), 2019, worldpopulationreview.com/countries/ south-korea-population/. Stanley, Leonardo. “BUCKING THE TREND: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF NATURAL RESOURCES IN THREE ANDEAN COUNTRIES.” Rethinking Foreign Investment for Sustainable Development: Lessons from Latin America, edited by KEVIN P. GALLAGHER and DANIEL
CHUDNOVSKY, by JOSÉ ANTONIO OCAMPO, Anthem Press, LONDON; NEW YORK; DELHI, 2009, pp. 179–200. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1gxp7zk.16. Stanley, Leonardo E., et al. “SOUTH KOREA.” Emerging Market Economies and Financial Globalization: Argentina, Brazil, China, India and South Korea, by Leonardo E. Stanley, Anthem Press, London, UK; New York, NY, USA, 2018, pp. 185–208. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt216683k.14. “Total Natural Resources Rents (% of GDP) - Korea, Rep., Ecuador.” Data, The World Bank, 2017, data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.TOTL. RT.ZS?end=2017&locations=KR-EC&start=1970 &view=chart. “Transparency International- Ecuador.” Transparency International - Ecuador, Transparency International, 2018, www.transparency.org/ country/ECU. “Transparency International- South Korea.” Transparency International - South Korea, Transparency International, 2018, www.transparency. org/country/KOR. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2019). World Population Prospects 2019: Highlights (ST/ESA/ SER.A/423). Weisenfeld, Lorin S. “ECUADOR—UNITED STATES: INVESTMENT GUARANTY AGREEMENT.” International Legal Materials, vol. 24, no. 3, 1985, pp. 566 –570. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20692823.
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Comparing Gender and Context in Orlando and Left Hand of Darkness by Madelin Carpenter-Crawford
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his essay aims to compare the discourses of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando with those of Ursula K. LeGuin’s Left Hand of Darkness in order to see where they differ in their definition of gender, sex, and sexuality. In making this comparison, discussion centers on the uses of surrogate time and place for exploring contemporary issues in relative safety, particularly for female authors of the 20th century. Also relevant is the question of social and legal contexts creating the need for security in controversial writing and in establishing how both texts were influenced by and influences on their contexts. Finally, modern reception is explored including the reading of LeGuin’s androgyny as masculine-centered and the necessity of Woolf’s fantasy framework in modern interpretation. Through this exploration, I clarify how both texts fit into the politics of gender, sex, and sexuality during their respective times and cultures of origin and in fact pushed these boundaries while maintaining the relative security of their authors.
One great connection between the landmark texts Orlando by Virginia Woolf and Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin is the social pressure exerted on their female authors not to threaten patriarchal conventions of gender and sex. While the two women wrote in entirely different contexts, each had to measure the ways in which she challenged traditional constructions of gender, biological sex, and sexuality according to that lens: How can I frame this to appear non-threatening enough to be read? How much exploration of alternative models can I get away with without risking persecution or social and professional exile? It is this concern which unites the two authors across time and geography, the effects of which place both novels at the helm of gender discourses referenced in their respective eras. On the other hand, one great difference between the works of Woolf and LeGuin is exactly the systems and individuals they choose to ex-
plore definitions of gender and sex through. In Orlando, the character by the same name changes biological sex halfway through the novel, barely batting an eye at the biological change, yet profoundly feeling the social impacts of his/her perceived gender. That I distinguish between sex and gender to discuss Orlando is important specifically because Woolf does not. Even in describing the physical changes Orlando undergoes, the words man and woman are used rather than male and female. In this way, Orlando presents as a non-binary character in a bisexual society. In comparison, LeGuin’s protagonist in Left Hand of Darkness is Genly Ai, a man from some future Earth transplanted on the planet of Gethen as an ambassador. Ai’s manhood stands out in the society he comes to spend most of his adult life in because the society at large is without gender and sex in a way. To be more specific, the Gethenian people are considered human, yet their resting state is sexless – neither male nor female. Gethenians undergo a process called “kemmer” whereby hormones stimulate them to sexual drive once per month and the mating process induces one partner to determine a sex opposite to the other partner for reproduction. Gender and sex, then, are not absent from LeGuin’s construction of Gethenian society – in fact, they play a vital role in social life. This much is exemplified
using masculine pronouns for most everyone on Gethen, save certain moments of femininity perceived by Ai. Yet, for the majority of the novel, Genly Ai’s experience is one of a gendered person transplanted into a genderless society. He views the social moors associated with gender and sex as an outsider, much like Orlando. Also like Orlando, neither of Ai’s worlds distinguish between self or other-identified gender and biological sex. Beyond its own value in the politics of gender, the non-distinction of gender and sex in both novels complicates sexualities. In Orlando, Sasha presents an ambiguous gender at first introduction. Orlando can be seen to struggle with defining her gender in a critical passage: “Orlando was ready to tear his hair with vexation that the person was of his own sex, and thus all embraces were out of the question” (Woolf 22). Further, there are several occasions wherein Orlando and Shelmerdine question one another’s genders: “’You’re a woman, Shel!’ She cried. ‘You’re a man, Orlando!’ He cried” (178). While it is true that the 1920s Britain from which Woolf was writing had a vibrant and open homosexual social scene, homosexuality was not legalized until by the United Kingdom 65
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in 1967 (Branigan). In this passage, Woolf acknowledges both this truth and the less accepting status of the Elizabethan era than the 1920s. She presents the prospect of Orlando’s homosexuality, but does not confirm it, as was likely the safety mechanism for many of 1920s Britain’s gay and lesbian population. While homosexuality may have been accepted as an enjoyable pastime, it was still unsafe to commit the concept to identity or official partnership. Woolf herself stands testament to this in her decades long romantic affair with Vita Sackville-West, but maintenance of her marriage and non-commitment to Sackville-West (Burgess). In this passage, Woolf sets up the same situation regarding Orlando’s sexuality – a suggestion of homosexuality, but not an identity. In Left Hand of Darkness, Genly Ai has a near-sexual experience with his friend Estraven while Estraven is in kemmer and presenting as female. The inclusion of this interaction begs the questions: Is Genly Ai
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“Queerness of gender, sex, and sexuality is presented as another fantastical element rather than as a serious consideration” heterosexual? Or homosexual given that he sees Estraven as a man throughout the rest of the text? Can Estraven’s sexuality even be tied down, or for that matter any Gethenian’s? Yet, LeGuin does not address the situation further; she neither gives additional examples for either character nor continues their dialogue far enough to establish these facts. The implication in these choices is that the answers are insignificant. Their suggestion is that it is necessary to interrogate gender, sex, sexuality, but it is not necessary to draw definitive conclusions on their defining features. It is okay to remain unsure in the discourse. In comparison with Woolf’s time, LeGuin was writing in the same year and the same country in which the Stonewall Riots took place. Where homosexuality in Woolf’s time was a casual yet open option, in LeGuin’s time it was first taking on the form of an identity in response to pressure against it. Questioning definitions was therefore in the air. In the early 1970s too, the transgender rights movement began in earnest with the organization Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. Undoubtedly, discourse over what defined homosexuality and transgenderism as identities rather than pastimes was looming large and uncertain, and
both of which are reflected in Left Hand of Darkness. These same social contexts would have been a crucial feature in defining the framing of gender and sexuality in both texts. Woolf famously said of Orlando that it was her “writer’s holiday”, breaking any and all conventions, including gender but also time, physics, and weather (Burgess). Early in the book, the “Great Frost” is introduced with such absurdities as “a young countrywoman started to cross the road in her usual robust health and was seen by the onlookers to powder and be blown in a puff of dust over the roofs” (19) and “corpses froze and could not be drawn from the sheets” (20). Such recollections present an ere of fantasy, as does Orlando’s multi-hundred-year lifespan. Thus, queerness of gender, sex, and sexuality is presented as another fantastical element rather than as a serious consideration. In my view, this too is related to the illegality of homosexuality in Britain in the 1920s (Branigan). Where homosexual interactions were accepted and commitments dangerous, homosexual writings and genderqueer ones by association were a documentable offense. In this regard, it was already a brave and rebellious act to publish as much as Woolf did. To present gender and sex as fluid in any other context than fantasy would have rendered Woolf far more socially and legally vulnerable. This example
fits a wider theme of authors using surrogate societies separate in time and/or place to explore contemporary issues for the masses while escaping persecution for it. LeGuin also uses a surrogate society in Left Hand of Darkness, but in the future rather than the past. In the far-off future of Left Hand of Darkness, humans from various worlds, including what can be assumed to be our own by Ai’s description, are in alliance and attempting to recruit Gethen to this alliance. The critical difference between Woolf’s surrogate past and LeGuin’s surrogate future is that no matter how far-fetched, the future is still possible. The past is passed and unchangeable. This gives Left Hand of Darkness a greater weight to its questioning of gender. It suggests that it is possible for us humans to live in a genderless society, and we should therefore grapple with what that would mean. Given its historical placement alongside the early LGBT rights movement, this weight is more appropriate and more safe to write than it would have been in Orlando. Additionally, LeGuin is revered today as one of the pioneers of the “speculative fiction” genre, which is perfectly exemplified in its divergence from even science fiction by this sense of gravity. Finally, it is essential to consider in the light of still changing definitions and rights for people of queer gen67
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ders and sexualities, that modern readings of both texts will be perceived differently than at the time of their publishing. One example of this, though still dated, is the 1992 Sally Potter film made of Orlando. It is adapted to fit the constraints of film language but also to be more palatable to 1990s audiences. As an example, several elements of the book’s absurdity are cut short or omitted altogether from the film. The aforementioned excerpt on the “Great Frost” is diminished to only a shot of a nobleman peering through the ice at people frozen below, and one couple floating by Orlando when the ice finally thaws. In comparison, the text spends several pages describing the impact of the “Great Frost” on the operations of society and several more describing the people stuck in the river as it thaws, unrealistically still alive. In cutting this and other absurdities out, the frame of fantasy with which Orlando’s non-binary gender and sex are approached is replaced with a sense of seriousness closer to Left Hand of Darkness’ take. Likely, this was thought up and was successful because the social acceptance of LGBT identities had expanded and gender queerness was palatable, if not yet acceptable with equal rights in the 1990s. One modern criticism of Left Hand of Darkness has been that despite their anatomical androgyny, the Gethenians are largely represent-
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ed in masculine roles, descriptions, and using masculine pronouns. The theorist Keri Weil referenced in “Aliens, Androgynes, and Anthropology: LeGuin’s Critique of Representation in ‘Left Hand of Darkness’” finds that in respect to traditional masculine and feminine roles, the masculine “known” seeks to connect with the feminine “unknown”, thus completing the known. In Keil’s view, androgyny then can have no result but the favoring of the masculine and ascends from patriarchy (Fayad 60). While it is true that Genly Ai represents Gethenians as more male than female in his accounts, the novel overall constructs that this is not the fault of the Gethenian androgyny but of the imposition of bisexuality onto them by Ai, if unintentionally. This complicates the question of intention in a personal reading of the text in modernity. On one hand, LeGuin wrote Ai’s accounts, and can therefore be viewed as the one imposing bisexual theory of gender onto a genderless society. On the other hand, it is possible that the vehicle of Ai’s accounts as the way LeGuin writes this imposition is a way of making it visible and further questioning whether that is what happens to humans in our own societies. The defining figure in this duality is whether Weil stands correct in that androgyny is the patriarchy disguised. Unfortunately, LeGuin and her readers are only as human as Weil, and both are part of a discourse, not a solution to this
predicament in defining androgyny as a theoretical construction. Today, in reading the two texts in their original forms, Left Hand of Darkness’ serious approach to the “what if” of gender queerness may appear more progressive than Orlando’s fantasy, given than the politics and discourse of gender, sex, and sexuality has come far and been more recognized since both texts were originally published. However, it is essential to view both texts through the social contexts which motivated both authors to write with varying degrees of weight to their considerations of alternate gender, sex, and sexualities. Even as LGBT rights have come a long way since the 1920s, there are still constant acts of violence committed against people of those identities as a result of some being unable to conceive of alternatives to binary, heterosexual societies. This fact alone is enough to justify the ongoing relevance of both texts and show the necessity in comparing their paradigms.
Bibliography Branigan, Tania. “Pride and Prejudice in the Gay 1920s.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 3 July 2004, www.theguardian.com/ uk/2004/jul/03/gayrights.world. Burgess, Adam. “Orlando by Virginia Woolf: Gender and Sexuality Through Time.” Literary Ladies Guide, 12 Feb. 2017, www.literaryladiesguide.com/book-reviews/orlando-by-virginia-woolf-gender-identity-and-sexuality-through-time/. Butler, Octavia E. Bloodchild. Headline, 2014. Fayad, Mona. “Aliens, Androgynes, and Anthropology: Le Guin's Critique of Representation in ‘The Left Hand of Darkness.’” Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, vol. 30, no. 3, 1997, pp. 59–73. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44029822. “Grieving, Loving Ursula LeGuin.” How to Survive the End of the World Podcast, created by Adrian Maree Brown, and Autumn Brown, season 1, episode 8, open. spotify.com/show/2L1l487PAAYFdtiLsTBWbL?si=zR9-0m5DSni4FEzYO7UyDQ. LeGuin, Ursula K. The Left Hand of Darkness. Orion Publishing Group, 2018. Pennington, John. “Exorcising Gender: Resisting Readers in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness.” Extrapolation, vol. 41, no. 4, 2000, pp. 351–358., doi:10.3828/extr.2000.41.4.351. Potter, Sally, director. Orlando. Amazon Prime Video, Amazon, www.amazon.com/Orlando-Tilda-Swinton/dp/ B005599SG8/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3BPYS18QHI0UU&keywords=orlando+tilda+swinton&qid=1575546012&s=instant-video&sprefix=orlando+til%2Caps%2C226&sr=1-1. Shmoop Editorial Team. "The Left Hand of Darkness Theme of Gender." Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 6 Dec. 2019. Woolf, Virginia. Orlando: A Biography. Penguin Random House UK, 2016.
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About the Author Maddi strives to put most of her energy into environmental justice, immigrant rights, and the eradication of global poverty. If the world were easier, she’d like to spend her life frolicking through the forest. At present, she is a student at the American University of Paris, and can often be seen shamelessly sporting socks and sandals in the fashion capital of the world. Oh yeah, and she writes sometimes.
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An Exposition of Sapphic Passion Or
Your Soul and Mine by Isabella Beach Editor’s Note
were children could outshine the sun; I do hope you have kept up with it. (I always said the world needed your stories to make life a little brighter.) Pardon my rambling, dear Anne; you haven’t heard from me in years and, within the first few sentences, are taken back to the traumas of girlhood. I do apologize. My memories overwhelm me. Love, Eliza P.S. It’s twenty years late but congratulations on your wedding. It broke my heart that I wasn’t able to attend.
Inclosed are a series of letters depicting the horrid and manipulative ways of sapphic passion. When I came upon these words of sin and debauchery in the floorboards of my flat in Athens, Greece I knew not what to do with them. I thought of sending them to the papers or even burning them for their contents disgusted me so. But I soon realized that it may be used as a teaching method to ward young women away from the lure of sodomy. I am compelled by my moral spirit to publish this correspondence that has highlighted and expose the method homosexuals use to corrupt and ruin good, God-fearing people. It is an unspoken epidemic today that needs to be stopped. Christian households are being tormented by their crimes. Even my own family has been affected by the charms of amoral people. Please read carefully and wisely; it is important that we are conscious of the ways in which our lives can be corrupted by these devilish creatures.
Letter 1 18 May, 1817 My dear friend, I hope this letter finds you well. It’s been years since we last spoke but I felt inspired when the other day I came upon a stack of our old letters from when we were girls. Oh, how funny we thought we were! The one I read before picking up my pen recounted the time you fell in the sea while on a trip to visit your Aunt Charlotte in Tynemouth. “I swear I thought my shift was showing!” you wrote to me. I remember laughing until I couldn't breathe at the stories you sent me. You were such a funny writer, my dear, and could always make me laugh, on the page and off. Do you still create such wonderful stories? Your passion for it when we
Letter 2 21 May, 1817 My Darling Miss Eliza, You have no inkling how pleased I was to find your letter to me in the mail this morning. We were such wild young women, weren’t we? It gives me a chuckle to think upon the trouble we got ourselves into. But no matter the conundrum you were always by my side; I was never fearful or unhappy when with you. The day you left for London to marry Mr. Loch was the day marking my first heartbreak. How much I missed you, my dear, and wished you were with me in those whirlwind days to come. I am well, my friend. My husband, Orville, is away visiting his mother in London but I decided to stay home and watch over the estate. It can be lonely while he is away, as he often is these days, but I must say that I enjoy the solitude. However, that is not the only reason for my not accompanying him in London. I am not afraid to admit it to you, confidant of my heart, that the Lady Catherine Brisbane still disapproves of me, even after all these years. As you might remember, Orville and I’s courtship was tumultuous, and, while it resulted in an agreeable match, my mother-in-law is still bitter that her son married the daughter of a clerk. I do still write though not as often as I would like. Over the years I have lost my passion for most things but writing still has a spark. It’s restricted to letters and small poems that I scrawl on scrap paper but I try to do it every day—if only to keep me sane. I even completed a novel a few years back; the one about the young woman and the disappearing castle, and tried to publish it but Orville greatly disapproved. The manuscript ended up getting damaged in a storm. Orville says I left it out while we were walking in the gardens but I specifically 73
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remember taking it… Still I was so distraught by the loss of it that I stopped writing for almost the entire summer. But tell me of Paris! I heard you moved there after selling the Loch estate here in Bath. I’ve always wanted to travel but marriage has kept me at home for the past fifteen years. I look forward to reading your reply, my dear friend! You have no idea how much I have longed to talk to you, darling. And now that my wish is fulfilled, I cannot get enough of you! All my love, Anne P.S. Please, my dearest Eliza, do not apologize for missing my wedding. Seeing a friend gain a husband when you have just lost one would have increased your grief tenfold. I would never expect, nor ask of you to put on a good face for my sake. My heart went out for you when I heard of Mr. Loch’s passing and all I wanted was for you to have the time to heal and grieve that most tremendous loss.
Letter 3 26 May, 1817 My Dear Anne, I am so glad to hear you are well. But I am sorry that your Mr. Brisbane has left you on your own. My own husband, when he was still living, would often go on long business trips to Italy and leave me in that big house for weeks, even months on end. A small, guilty part of me was glad to see him gone for performing wifely duties were never something I enjoyed and Fredrick needed me to attend to him almost nightly. However, it was still lonely while he was away on his trips. Though his abilities as a companion were lacking and I much preferred his absence to his presence, I often wished myself some company who understood me and to whom I could confide in. I must admit my thoughts wandered in those times, and still now when loneliness strikes, to our friendship. I do believe, lovely Anne, that you are the one person on this earth whose soul matches with mine. If time allows it I was considering a trip up to Bath for a few weeks to visit a great aunt. Unfortunately she is very old and her memory has since gone so she is in no shape to take houseguests. I was putting off the trip due to the problem of having to find an inn with a room—nearly impossible during this season—but if you are in the mood to entertain a childhood friend, perhaps I could stay with you. You have my full consent to decline without any retribution for I
know that my request is quite forward; especially from someone who you have not seen in years. Paris is grand! Remember our childhood wishes? You a writer and me a hatmaker. Well, with the assets my husband left me I was able to open a hat making shop near Notre Dame! When my landlord handed me the keys I very nearly began to weep from joy. After getting married to Mr. Loch I pushed aside all thoughts I deemed as frivolous; I never thought such deep desires as this could ever really come true. And business is great; I was worried that a hat shop wouldn’t be very lucrative but I’ve been getting so many new customers by the day. (I even made one for some aristocrats, though I mustn't say who.) I should love for you to come visit me here one day. I live in the apartments just above my shop, which has a wonderful view of the river Seine. I want so desperately to show you these old cobblestoned streets and the food and the bookstores. Oh, the bookstores, Anne, you would think they are just positively devine. Everytime I walk into one I think of you and imagine that some of the stories on the shelves are yours. So please my dear, consider visiting. If not for yourself, then to indulge me. You are welcome here any time, my bed is big enough for two. I miss you dearly, my friend. Writing to you these past few days have reawakened an adoration I thought had long since retired in our childhood. I feel known once again… in a way I have not felt since I last laid eyes on you. I must admit that I selfishly long for your company and to see your face again. Write back soon, dear Anne! Love, Eliza
Letter 4 31 May, 1817 Darling Eliza, You are, of course, welcome to stay with me during your visit to Bath. If it were any other way I would absolutely have to throw a fit; throwing myself at your feet and begging until you relented and stayed with me. Please let me know when you are arriving so I can prepare the guest room and dig out some of Orville’s wine—the best England has to offer! And, my dear friend, I do desire some company; Orville won’t be back in Bath for at least another month. His mother has gotten much better and has no need for Orville to dote on her anymore. However, my husband’s younger brother, 75
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Thomas, has been studying in Berlin for the past year and his mother just received a letter from him saying that he has just gotten engaged. Lady Catherine, who is well but still too weak to travel, is sending Orville to Germany to investigate the girl and her family. He’s planning on staying there for as long as he can and says he probably won’t be back until August. Orville takes many business trips, just as your Fredrick did—though I often wondered how much “business” gets done on my husband’s little excursions. I think I should feel more distraught about what he does while I am not around but I don’t; not even when it’s right before me. I once found a very intimate letter from a Sicillian woman in his desk drawer. It chronicled a night she has with him while he was away on business in Venice and, as I read it, all I could think of was: “this poor woman needs to work on her punctuation.” How ridiculous is that! I find out that my husband is unfaithful and all I can think of is the proper use of the comma. Though I must admit I feel as if this unfaithfulness is my own doing. What you said about your husband and “performing wifely duties” for him every night was once true for me as well. I hated it. I really did, but we wanted a baby, or at least he wanted an heir. I did end up getting pregnant about five years ago but I lost the child. I was completely distraught and because of my grief stricken state, Orville stopped trying to touch me. I feel horrible to admit it but I was relieved. Even after I had let time pass and healed, I still told Orville that I couldn’t be with him, that I was too scared that I would miscarry again. I don’t know if he believed me or not but we haven’t slept in the same bed since. Even though things have changed, a part of me is sad that Orville will be gone for even longer than he already has been. But another part of me is somewhat relieved. For this loneliness I often feel does not subside when he returns to me; sometimes I am even more lonesome when he is around. (My loneliness is like yours, my darling; I long for the one person who truly knows me.) So much of my feelings have dwindled for him since the day we wed. I try not to think of it as an unhappiness or a dissatisfaction, but I don’t know how else to describe it. I do love my husband, Eliza, but I’ve come to realize it is not the overwhelming, all encompassing love it once was… if our love was ever that wonderful to begin with. I believe the only time I have ever felt whole was in my girlhood with you. We were two singular ships in a vast and empty ocean, floating aimlessly until we one day found each other. Without you beside me all these years I’ve felt lost once again, the stars re-
flecting in this dark sea the only light to guide me back to you. It is true what you say, your soul is the only one that matches mine. It’s been so long since I’ve felt the kind of true companionship; in writing to you these past weeks the love we shared has come rushing back to me like a returning rainstorm. Please visit as soon as you are able, for my heart aches for your company. With love and devotion, Anne
Letter 5 3 June, 1817 My dear Anne, Your pain is mine; I am so heartbroken to hear of your miscarrge. That is terrible and something that no woman should experience. I wish I was there for you in your time of need; especially since Orville couldn’t be. Even so I am honored that you would share this with me and that I am still someone with whom you can truly confide in. Through your persuasion and my want to see you I have booked my trip to Bath. I will be arriving on the 7th of June by two o’clock bearing gifts and all my love. I plan to stay for a fortnight at the very least, but no longer than a month (for I need to water my plants). Pardon the briefness of this letter, my dear. I am preparing to leave for England as we speak. I cannot wait to see you, my dearest companion. Even now my heart beats in anticipation of seeing your face again. Wish me safe travels! Love, Eliza
Letter 6 2 July, 1817 Eliza, I’ve been sitting here at my desk for the last three quarters of an hour, pen in my hand, trying to find the right words to say to you. I am a storyteller but I cannot say the things I wish in a manner that is good enough for you to 77
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read. But I must say them, for if I don’t I will regret it till the day I die. I love you, Eliza. Not in the way that a friend should love a friend but in the way a man should love a woman. But I am not a man… and neither are you. I know I am supposed to be ashamed or fearful by writing this, admitting this. I am not. I am afraid but not of some divine wrath or what people will think… I only care about what you think and I fear that writing this will keep me from you forever. But I must. I am not ashamed and I don’t think I am wrong to feel the way I do. I did for a long time. I thought God was punishing me but I now realize that something as warm and as good as how you make me feel could never be bad. Seeing you for the first time after all those years brought forth all the lost emotion from our girlhood. You have not changed one bit, my love. A few wrinkles and some gray hairs, but nothing more. Your eyes still shine and your laughter is as bright and youthful as we once were. And that heartbeat between us… nothing has changed. It scared me, how much I began to love you again and so fast. And that night by the fire, the day before you had to leave, I felt for a moment that you might feel the same way. The way you looked at me, so closely, I have never been looked at like that in my life. Like you were peering into my very soul and saw something you loved. I do not know what will become of this letter, Eliza. And what will become of us. If I send this and you never speak to me again, I might be relieved, for I don’t know what I would do if you felt the same for me. I don’t know what I could do… what we could do. But I need you to know how I feel… you are the only one whose soul matches mine and I couldn’t live with myself if I never let you know. I love you, Eliza. If you do not write back I will know not to contact you again. Anne
Letter 7 6 July 1817 Anne, I have no words. I have loved you my whole life. Nothing you could do or say could ever change that. I love you, Anne. I love you how you love me. I was never brave enough to even utter it under my breath. But you, you have made me brave. I love you… and we are no longer alone. My heart races now as I write this letter. I never dared to dream you felt the same way. It is wrong, at least it is supposed to be wrong, how we feel. But you are right… nothing as good as this could ever be wrong. You are the one who makes me happy. The only one who has ever truly known me. When
I was a girl I thought that what I felt for you was only friendship… but when I married Frederick I realized it was more. His love was never like yours, not even close. Only in recent years, after his death, did I come to fully understand my feelings for you. I realized that there is no God, no man, nor woman or child who could ever stop me from loving you, Anne. That scared me… it scared me so much. I read all of our old letters as if to find some solace but it did the opposite. I longed for your companionship even more. I wrote to you in the hopes that I could see you and things would’ve changed… that I would see that I was wrong… we were just good friends. But no, our correspondence sparked a love in me too. And seeing you after all this time did the same tenfold. That night by the fire, Anne. I did see something I loved, love… I saw you. And I know that you saw me too. I know not what the future holds for us, but I do know this… I want no future if you are not in it with me. Come to Paris, Anne. Before your husband returns at the end of the summer. Come to Paris and see me. You can write… I will make hats. I don’t know how long you can stay with me but I want to be with you for as long as we are able. At least for the summer… come away with me, Anne. I love you… more than words can say. Eliza
Letter 8 24 August, 1817 Dear Mother, I write to you bearing some disturbing news. Upon my return home from visiting Thomas and his new wife in Berlin, I came to understand from our butler that my wife has been gone for the past few months. Richard says Anne is in Paris and gave me the address of the childhood friend she is supposed to be staying with. I sent a letter to an old chum, Louis, who lives in Paris, asking him to go check on her and, if possible, bring her home. But to my shock and dismay, I received a letter from him, just this morning, telling me that he went to the apartments of a Mrs. Eliza Loch and found them to be empty. He spoke with the landlady and she said that Mrs. Loch packed up her shop and apartment only a month ago and moved out of the country! Louis was greatly surprised, as you may imagine, and asked her where she went. She said she was not sure but remembered the lady mentioning either Greece or the Americas or Africa though she wasn’t sure which (all completely different places, mind you). Then Louis inquired after Anne and the landlady told him that there was another woman staying here with Mrs. Loch and it’s quite possible she went with her to whatever foreign country she decided to move to! 79
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Mother, I have no idea what has happened to Anne or what has become of her. I fear the worst. Perhaps she has been kidnapped by this Mrs. Loch woman. Please send any advice you may have. I have already contacted authorities to help search for her. Love, your son, Orville
Letter 9 25 August, 1817 My dear Orville, Horrid news of Anne. But alas I am not surprised. I never liked her, you know. Her impoverished family was lucky I let you marry her. Without my fortune, they would’ve been thrown out of their house, I’m sure. And Anne, always an opinionated young woman. I doubt she has been kidnapped but I wouldn’t be surprised if she left you… probably on the influence of that friend of hers that she was staying with, Mrs. Loch. If only you listened to me about Anne. I warned you about marrying her, Orville, don’t you remember? But you didn’t listen to me. You thought you loved her… well look at where we are now. I knew something like this would happen one day or another. I’ll contact an old friend living in the Americas to see if she can send out the call to look for her. Though I doubt much will come of it. Good luck, my son. Regards, Mother
Letter 11 31 July, 1817 Orville, I do not know when or where this letter will find you but I hope it finds you well. I will not be seeing you again. Do not bother to come looking for me; I do not want to be found. I realized I have not been happy for a long time now. Happiness was foreign to me, freedom was unimaginable… until someone showed me that it didn’t have to be. I did not know until these past few months but I now understand that I can never come back to England. I’m sorry, Orville. There isn’t much more that I can say that will not hurt you even more than I am sure I already have; and I do not want to hurt you, so I will leave it at this. Godspeed, Anne
Letter 10 27 August, 1817 Mother, Attached is a letter I received from Anne today. It is marked July of this year, sent from Paris. I regret to say it but I believe you were right about her… Orville
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Postcolonial Feminism and the Challenges of Intersectionality
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istorically, there has been a connection between patterns of colonization and the oppression of women. Because of the patriarchal values inherent to colonization, women were often left out of missions of colonization because of perceived subordinate qualities- these qualities both explaining this subordination and legitimizing it. Theories of postcolonialism began to become popularized after many colonized locations won independence from their oppressors, and then were able to be in the position of examining their role in their society and culture from a perspective that does acknowledge how colonization has reshaped their society and culture. These theories however, emulated some aspects of ‘colonial theory’ in their lack of analysis of women’s role before, during, and after colonization, which eventually led to the development of a postcolonial critique from a feminist perspective. Now we are able to examine
"Roaches" by Caroline Sjerven
by Maura Lucy Patrick not only how colonization has impacted the locations it infiltrated, but furthermore how women within these locations were treated in conjunction with colonial and patriarchal values, and what effect this has had on the women within these locations today. Women in postcolonial contexts are at odds with postcolonial values, nationalist values, and ‘western’ understandings of feminism, all of which homogenize and universalize women’s oppression. To universalize and essentialize all women’s experiences and struggles as the same does not account for differences in experience based on race, class, sexuality, and other social factors. This issue of universalization and generalization is a particular aspect of ‘western’ feminism that de-legitimizes the struggles of women in ‘non western’ locations, and continues to be pervasive and imperative to understandings of not only ‘western’ 83
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feminism but feminism in general. In order to further understand this complicated relationship between ‘western’ forms of feminism, postcolonial theories, and postcolonial feminist theories I will seek to answer the following questions: how have feminist beliefs and practices been influenced by the colonization of ‘third-world’ countries and the imposition of western ideologies, and how have feminists and women within these locations been placed in a position of being seen as emulating western ideas as opposed to locating and confronting specific national and cultural issues that they are involved in and impacted by? How do both ‘westernized’ theories of feminism and male-dominated theories of postcolonialism work in different ways to deny the conception of a new theory of feminism-postcolonial feminism- that acknowledges the gaps in understanding the relationship between women’s subordination and the mission of colonization that the other two lack? How do nationalist movements, specifically those centered around patriarchal ideas, contribute to ‘western’ feminist universalizations of postcolonial feminism? Lastly, what can be done to relieve the issue within postcolonial feminism itself of dominant identities monopolizing
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discourses and activism, continuing the vicious cycle where even in circles of the oppressed, dominant identities still have the most power and influence. There are many different forces that work against postcolonial feminism: male-dominated theories of postcolonialism, ‘western’ concepts and a universalization of feminism, and nationalists refusing to acknowledge women’s oppression. Theories of postcolonialism and postcolonial feminism have a somewhat oppositional relationship, where theories of postcolonialism have been critiqued for lacking an analysis of women within postcolonial discourse and not acknowledging how gender differences were constructed within both colonial and postcolonial discourses. The emergence of postcolonial feminism is credited to this lack of a proper analysis by men of women’s place in the process of colonization and subsequent discourses. Postcolonial discussions that do not acknowledge an idea of “double colonization,” that is “the ways in which women have simultaneously experienced the oppression of colonialism and patriarchy,” are not sufficient in analyzing and explaining women’s position throughout the process of colonization, and
how patriarchal ideas of colonization contributed further to this systematic oppression. Furthermore, many feminist conversations are unable to account for this double colonization, where ‘western’ and ‘white’ feminists are notorious for not including differences in women’s experiences based on race, class, and political and cultural specificities.1 These are some important reasons why a theory of postcolonial feminism was necessary to develop, where women within these sites of colonization can have a conversation that acknowledges the gaps in knowledge and understanding that western feminist theories and male-dominated theories of postcolonialism cannot produce or account for. Theories of postcolonial feminism need to expect resistance from both ‘western’ conceptions of feminism, theories of postcolonialism, but also a universalization done by nationalists who not only conflate postcolonial feminist and ‘western’ feminist ideas, but refuse to acknowledge any oppression based on gender at all. Considering all these factors postcolonial feminism has to strategically interact with, there should be more consideration within ideology and practice of how postcolonial feminists might
be unknowingly replicating these hierarchies and thus replicating some oppressive aspects of these conflicting ideologies that leads to postcolonial feminism still not being an accurate representation of women in colonial contexts. A connection can be made between postcolonial feminism and ‘western’ or ‘white’ forms of feminism because both movements struggle with the issue of universalizing women’s oppression. ‘Western’ forms of feminism have become increasingly criticized for lacking a proper analysis of women within ‘non-western’ locations, where patterns of generalizing and universalizing all women’s experiences are found. It is evident that these feminist analyses are not sufficient in understanding and explaining how differences in race, culture, location, caste, and socio-economic factors lead to differences in how women are regarded and treated in certain contexts. Within ‘western’ feminism there is the emergence of a difference between ‘white’ feminists and feminists of color, most notably Black feminist, Chicana feminist, and Asian Pacific American feminist movements which, like postcolonial feminism, recognize the limitations in a ‘western’ feminist analysis. Uma Narayan in 85
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her article “Contesting Cultures: “Westernization”, Respect for Cultures, and Third World Feminists” briefly makes the connection between Indian postcolonial feminists and American feminists of color, where in the same way that postcolonial feminists in India are criticized by nationalist discourses because their theories are results of “westernization”Feminists from some communities of color in Western contexts are sometimes charged with “westernization”, the charges of “inauthenticity’ leveled at many Black or Chicana feminists often take the form of asserting that they are embracing a ‘white’ rather than a “westernized” politics.2 Because the United states is itself a western location, it would not be accurate to label Black feminists and other feminists of color as appropriating ‘western’ feminist discourses because they also constructed their discourses in a western context. This association rather points towards the pattern of minority groups within groups of the oppressed- women within the United States- being accused of simply echoing dominant discourses instead of creating a discourse specific to their oppres-
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sion. With the conception of the idea of ‘intersectionality’ first introduced by Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989, this universalization done by ‘western’ feminists was able to be articulated and critiqued. Intersectionality established the above mentioned considerations of how race, class, gender, and other social factors intersect with one another in determining how an individual experiences their identity in relation to others. Modern feminist ideologies and theories usually integrate intersectionality into its analyses, because this concept of intersecting identities determining an individual’s experiences is assumed to be understood by most modern feminists as inherent and an essential part of any developed feminist critique. This modern feminist ideology is why a conception of feminism from a postcolonial standpoint is important, where these social factors that systematically oppress women are are recognized and considered in a new feminist critique of women’s subordination. As noted,theories of postcolonial feminism were developed in response to a lack of proper analysis by postcolonial theorists of women’s social position throughout the process of colonization. A
similar lack of consideration surrounding differences in gendered oppression can be observed in a majority of nationalist beliefs, and furthermore, not only do these nationalist critiques ignore the reasoning behind the conceptualization of postcolonial feminism, they also criticize and accuse postcolonial feminists of simply echoing ‘western’ feminist ideologies. These nationalists not only do not acknowledge the importance of a postcolonial consideration of feminism, they also refuse to acknowledge the importance of feminism in general, and instead perpetuate this ‘westernization’ or universalization of women’s oppression, continuing this vicious cycle of misrepresenting postcolonial feminists by taking away their voice and their platform. Even more crucial than these conflicting ideologies- the crux of this thesis- is the issue within postcolonial feminism itself of a reproduction of dominant hierarchies, where identities with more power, usually based on socio-economic status, are still the dominant voices of the movement. This idea is similar to an issue that takes place within intersectionality, where even though there is a consideration of different modes
of oppression and how these differences in oppression impact an individual’s experience, there is still a pattern that emerges where these identities that coincide more with socially acceptable norms are again the dominant voice of the oppressed, leading to a lack of proper representation that addresses all aspects and differences within how a person or group is oppressed. The article “Dalit Women Talk Differently: A Critique of ‘Difference’ and Towards a Dalit Feminist Standpoint Position” by Sharmila Rege deals with this hierarchical issue within postcolonial feminism, where she examines India specifically because of its history of colonization, the existence of a caste system, and the ensuing ideological conflicts between postcolonial theories and nationalist theories, and postcolonial feminist theories. Rege explains how ‘difference’ became a category of analysis in feminist theory, inspired by postmodernist conceptions of difference, where there is the acknowledgement of said difference on the bases of race, class, gender, and caste. The use of these postmodernist concepts is now considered to be impractical, where what “we need instead is a shift in focus from ‘difference’ 87
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and multiple voices to the social relations which convert difference into oppression”.3 Postmodernist concepts are unable to trace how difference translates into oppression, and thus are not reliable in feminist analyses, especially those of postcolonial feminism which rely on the relationship between social differences and systematic oppression in explaining why this oppression occurs. Rege continues to outline an argument made by Partha Chatterjee in his 1989 works which locates the relationship between colonization and nationalism, specifically that of “ghar/bahar’ and the nationalist resolution of the women’s question”. This question is analyzed within another framework detailed by Sarkar which is that of “the association of historiography of colonial India with that of Indian Nationalism”.4 Here there is the understanding that the creation of a colonial history in India cannot be separated from nationalist beliefs and developments, this undeniable link leading to the development of hierarchies within circles of the oppressed. Chatterjee explains that “the nationalist counter-ideology separated the domain of culture into the material and the spiritual...these dichotomies matched with the
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identity of social roles by gender... where the ‘new woman’ became defined and therefore distinct from the common/lower class female”, where these ‘new women’ were upper class/caste and saw themselves as distinct from lower class/caste women, leading to their domination in feminist discourses. There was not only this upper class domination within feminist organizations and theories, but also within the society as a whole, where those belonging to the Dalit caste were considered inherently more impure, leading to unequal treatment on the basis of this idea of ‘purity’. Within the Dalit caste, there again is this hierarchy based on gender where the Dalit male experience becomes a representation of dalit experience as a whole, leading to the subsequent exclusion of dalit women which further limits conversations surrounding oppression based on caste. Comparable to these relationships between upper and lower classes, where the value of women was based off of their social and economic positioning, in ‘western’ locations, similar social relationships were being formed not only on the basis of economic position-
ing but also on the basis of race and ethnicity. In the same way that postcolonial feminists have recreated dominant hierarchies in circles of the oppressed, ‘western’ feminists have done this as well, where there is this obvious universalization that takes place, but even in movements towards racial equality for example, Chicana feminists will not be able to accurately represent Black feminist struggles, but they are still able to relate on the shared universalization done by ‘white’ feminists and recognize that some of their goals are different from each other and are based on the differences in how they are regarded in society based on their race or ethnicity. When I say ‘western’ I am referring to the locations of western Europe and the United States and thus it is imperative to also examine a history of clashing feminisms within these locations to see how theories of postcolonial feminism developed in response to this trend of universalization by ‘western’ and ‘white’ feminists.5 This clashing of feminisms within the United States particularly could be the subject of an entirely different paper, yet it is still imperative that we examine these ideological conflicts in an attempt to see how
‘western’ feminisms lack of an intersectional analysis impacted the conception of new forms of feminism for women who did not feel they were represented by this ‘central’ feminist perspective. For example, in the United States, the history of slavery and its devastating impacts on social relations and political and legal rights can still be observed, and the racism that existed before but erupted from slavery is still identifiable and systematic. In the same way that earlier ‘white’ feminist movements ignored racial differences, postcolonial theory ignores a gender difference, leading to discourse that is lacking such an important aspect of its analysis that its application and theory could be considered virtually useless. This is not meant to discount postcolonial theory but rather to question the effectiveness of theory that seemingly overlooks how race, class/caste, gender, and sexuality all interact with each other, and how women within a postcolonial context might experience this colonial oppression differently than men within the same oppressive postcolonial context. The terms “third world” and “first world”, “western” and “white” are used extensively in this paper and 89
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must be identified and contextualized as one is seen as inherently more positive than the other and because they have a significant historical context tied to colonial understandings of development and the economy. Colonization significantly predated the invention and use of these terms, but because of their ties to the concept of development, ‘third world and ‘first world’ are still used within academia and political and economic discourses, despite the rising number of debates surrounding the efficacy and accuracy of these terms. Although colonization can be understood as beginning significantly in the 15th century, the first usage of these qualifiers can be cited as erupting from the Cold War, in the mid-twentieth century, with the ensuing debate between capitalism versus socialism, where the term “third world” is meant to account for locations that did not ideologically align with neither the east nor the west. This developed over time to represent how economically developed each location was, where the west was aligned with capitalist values, the east with socialist values, and any location that did not align with either was considered unable to develop by themselves, leading to this invasion of colonist beliefs,
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mainly those which were ideologically capitalist. Not only are these terms widely used within this paper and within postcolonial feminist discourse, the economic theory they represent is one critiqued by many postcolonial feminists including Chandra Mohanty. When discussing her reasoning behind the need to revisit “Under Western Eyes” Mohanty addresses the lack of an analysis of political economies in connection to the oppression of groups around the world stating: The hegemony of neoliberalism, alongside the naturalization of capitalist values, influences the ability to make choices on one’s own behalf in the daily lives of economically marginalized as well as economically privileged communities around the globe.6 The ideologies of hegemonic neoliberalism being connected to capitalism in that neoliberalism embraces a free-market economy, where control of economic factors moves from the public to the private spheres, and corporations are able to create the norms of the economy and restrict access to individuals and communities usually those of women, people of color,
and people belonging to lower classes. Mohanty suggests that in order for the terms of “western” and “third world” to be coherent and applicable, there needs to be consideration of new categorizations first developed by Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri Prakash which are those of “One-Third World” and “Two-Thirds World”. Mohanty explains: Native or Indigenous women’s struggles, which do not follow a postcolonial trajectory based on the inclusions and exclusions of processes of capitalist, racist, heterosexist, and nationalist domination, cannot be addressed easily under the purview of categories such as “Western” and “Third World”.7 The advantage of using these different terms of categorization is that, in comparison to the categorizations of western, north and south, and third world, One-Third World and Two-Thirds World do not rely on “geographical and ideological binarisms” which restrict the ability to apply and understand these terms in a concrete setting. The use of the terms “western/eastern” and “northern/ southern” can be useful when examining a history of colonization
but they are only practical when combined with a use of the terms One-Third World and Two-Thirds World which account for an analysis of power and agency that was lacking in the terms “western” and “third world”.8 This is crucial to theories of postcolonial feminism because of how colonization influenced the creation of binaries based on gender for example, where westernized and colonial conceptions of how society should be structured in terms of power were transformed during colonization leading to the favoring of certain identities- white, male, heterosexual, ‘upper class’as being more capable of being in power than others. While this paper does not focus on the economic history or development of capitalism, it is a subject discussed in many feminist texts, both postcolonial and ‘western’, where capitalist ideologies have had a role in the oppression of women and those of different races and classes. A brief history of the development of capitalism in relation to global conflict provides insight into how this economic system was able to develop in a way that relied on the systematic oppression of women, people of color, and people belonging to lower classes, and how it can no longer 91
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be separated from this systematic oppression. This concept of economy is especially important to the case study of Sati, public outcry over the practice did not really develop until women of upper castes started engaging in this practice of Sati. Women, and individuals, belonging to lower classes and castes are consistently disadvantaged by a capitalist economy that values profit above all else. Many women in postcolonial contexts are economically disadvantaged because they are thought to not be participating in or contributing to the economy, despite the fact that they are responsible for most if not all of the domestic labor that takes place such as cleaning, cooking, and teaching. This lack of consideration for the importance of domestic labor in the capitalist system allows for women to continue being oppressed because the work they do is consistently minimized as it is not considered profitable. The role of class is integral to intersectional understandings of oppression, and thus must be taken into consideration by postcolonial feminism and theory. In the book “Can the Subaltern Speak: A Critique of Postcolonial Reason” by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Spivak addresses this is-
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sue of dominant hierarchies in circles of the oppressed, not only as it relates to postcolonial feminism but nationalist ideologies as well. Thesubject of the “subaltern” is explained by Spivak as she confronts the question “can the subaltern speak?” where the subaltern is defined not only as “a person holding a subordinate position” but also The object of the group’s investigation, in this case not even of the people as such but of the floating buffer zone of the regional elite-is a deviant from an ideal--the people or subaltern--which is itself defined as a difference from the elite.9 Spivak continues to expand upon this term, defining those who exist in a decolonial or postcolonial state who are in the subordinate position, but even further are seen as ‘heterogeneous’, meaning they are analyzed as being indistinct from the non-subordinated, allowing for differences based on socio-economic, political, and caste inequalities to continue and be legitimized. These issues of both heterogeneity and the question of whether or not the subaltern can speak are the main subjects of Spivak’s criticisms,
because of these heterogeneous qualities and assumptions produced by not only postcolonial and nationalist theories but theories of postcolonial feminism as well, have rendered those part of the ‘subaltern’ and the subordinated without a voice. While this is a critique of postcolonial reason, one cannot make much of a distinction between postcolonialism and postcolonial feminism according to Spivak’s analysis because they both share this scrutinized issue of dominant identities within communities of the oppressed continuing to be a representation for a community or issue they do not fully speak for. Critical to Spivak and to postcolonial feminism is the term ‘essentialism’, which has been criticized because of its ability to render difference based on sex and gender as inherent, and therefore any oppression based of this difference is natural and legitimized. This is critical to subjects of postcolonial feminism because many theories of colonization and postcolonialism essentialize the position of women in infiltrated locations, further legitimizing their oppression and naturalizing these inequalities based on gender, class, and race. This essentialism of op-
pression allows for the oppression of women and other minorities to continue, because it is no longer seen as being produced by social factors but is rather something innate and biological that is unaffected by social influences. Spivak offers a new consideration of essentialism- strategic essentialism- where It was important strategically to make essentialist claims, even while one retained an awareness that those claims were, at best, crude political generalizations... to battle effectively against the poverty of some women requires the strategic essentialism of highlighting the gendered nature of economic inequality.10 This strategic characterization in direct opposition to “leftists who romanticize the oppressed essentialize the subaltern and thus replicate the colonialist discourses they purport to critique”.11 The essentialization of the subaltern takes away any opportunity for those subordinated to speak for themselves, because postcolonial and postcolonial feminist movements concern themselves with “giving silenced others a voice” rather than affording the privilege for the other to be able to artic93
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ulate their subordinate position themselves. The introduction of this ‘strategic essentialism’ seems to be important to postcolonial feminism in that postcolonial feminism is a development of postcolonial and feminist theories and this new consideration is a development in understanding and applying essentialist theories. While it is important to highlight patterns of sexism that do impact all women regardless of other social factors, there needs to be the understanding that (as an example) white women in the United States will have a different economic context than black women in the United States, even then there is still a similarity in that they are both economically unequal on the basis of their gender. This is criticized further by Spivak in the case of Bhubaneswari Bhaduri, where even though Bhaduri hanged herself of her own volition rather than commit a political crime, the reasoning behind her suicide is still told as one influenced by an assumed illegitimate pregnancy, because this is the only tragically acceptable and understood reason why a woman would end her own life. Even amongst Bhaduri’s female ancestors, there
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is still the assumption that she committed suicide to avoid the social consequences of having a child out of wedlock, and among scholars as well, there is the question of why the story of Bhubaneswari Bhaduri is so important. As Spivak mentions, Bhaduri was not located within the subaltern as she was “middle class with access to the bourgeois movement for Independence”. Her social standing is a critical part of her story, where not only she was in a position of power and privilege through her economic status, but that she was able to even exist in the independence movement, a privilege most women would never have access to, especially those belonging to the subaltern. And even though she was situated in a privileged context, her story was still misrepresented in a way that her true intentions were never articulated, leaving her again in an intentionally overlooked position that she attempted to avoid by taking her own life. In this way her story is important to postcolonial feminists because it only reinforces the understanding that women either cannot or will not articulate their oppression, where even a woman who seemingly had some privilege, at least enough to participate in political movements,
was still silenced and her story manipulated to fit a narrative adequate for nationalists and other movements that refused to acknowledge this gender difference. The only way in which this issue within postcolonial feminism can be resolved is by acknowledging that there still exists these hierarchies within circles of the oppressed, understanding how it can echo discourses and theories of ‘western’ feminism and postcolonialism, and moving forward to discover how this issue within postcolonial feminism can be resolved to represent what it was conceptualized to represent.
Endnotes
1 Ritu Tyagi, “Understanding Postcolonial Feminism in relation with Postcolonial and Feminist Theories”, International Journal of Language and Linguistics Vol. 1, No. 2; (December 2014) 2 Narayan, Uma (1997). Contesting cultures: 'Westernization' respect for cultures, and third-world feminists. In Linda J. Nicholson (ed.), The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory. Routledge. P 543 3 Sharmila Rege. 1998. “Dalit Women Talk Differently: A Critique of ‘Difference’ and Towards a Dalit Feminist Standpoint Position.” Economic
and Political Weekly 33 (44): WS39. http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy.aup. fr/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.4407323&site=e ds-live&scope=site. (p. 40) 4 Ibid (p. 41) 5 It is important to note that even though the United States is a ‘western’ location, it is also a site of colonization, and even though studies of a theory of postcolonialism and postcolonial feminism can be located there, it will not be the main location in which I analyze postcolonial feminism because of its ‘western’ context and its role in the perpetuation of universalizing women’s experiences and struggles. 6 Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. “‘Under Western Eyes’ Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society, vol. 28, no. 2, Winter 2003, p. 499. EBSCOhost, 7 Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. “‘Under Western Eyes’ Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society, vol. 28, no. 2, Winter 2003, p. 499. EBSCOhost,(p. 506) 8 Ibid (p. 506) 9 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Can the Subaltern Speak: A Critique of Postcolonial Reason, Basingstoke: Macmillan (p. 2119) 10 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Can the Subaltern Speak: A Critique of Postcolonial Reason, Basingstoke: Macmillan, (p. 2112) 11 Ibid, (p. 2112)
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Brown Eyes. “Your eyes are very beautiful,” I say to my friend, who has blue eyes that look like a clear spring day sky. She smiles and thanks me and I tell her, “I wish I had blue eyes.” She doesn’t say anything. For who would want brown eyes? I play around with the Instagram filters that make you look prettier. I watch as the filter distorts my face completely, my nose small and face whitened and my lips fuller, and my eyes. My eyes are bright and blue, and I sigh as I study my face. I would look so much prettier with blue eyes. I think to myself as I remove the filter, and look into my brown eyes, almost obsidian. I release a sigh, feeling my thoughts feeding my insecurities. Back when I was little and growing up to my adulthood, I had this conception that blue eyes or green eyes made you beautiful. I would watch Disney Princess and Barbie films, marveling over their big, colorful eyes and ask myself why I was born with dull, brown eyes. As time went on, I felt like my eyes were ugly. I became insecure about my eye color. My eyes are beautiful just the way they are. This Eurocentric conception of beauty is just in my head. I tell myself now. My standard of beauty has changed and I find my eyes beautiful. My brown eyes are the color of sun-kisses and honey, and cocoa and the earth. I admire my eyes and hug the little girl who was insecure about her eyes, wishing on the stars that she would wake up with colorful eyes. I squeeze her tight and tell her, “You’re going to be alright. You’re beautiful just the way you are.”
by Melissa del Carmen Gomez "Mya, 2019" by Hannah Yang
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The Representation of Dido and Sita: Victims of the Patriarchy or Sacrificial Victors? by Caroline Sjerven
A
lthough geographically separated, texts from the ancient world diverged in contexts of religions, cultures, and literary styles- an overarching feature that ties these works together is the blatantly sexist and patriarchal representation of women. These narratives feature women in common tropes that perpetuate untrue and hateful stereotypes and cruelty towards women. The ancient Sanskrit epic romance, The Ramayana of Valmiki: An Epic of Ancient India by Valmiki (c. 600 BCE) and the Latin epic poem The Aeneid by Virgil (c. 19 BCE) both exhibit these classic tropes, but with underlying themes of strength in their synchronous acts of immolation. Because of these underlying traits of feminine strength, it begs the question of whether these women succumb to their victimization by the patriarchy or if through their acts of immolation, they come out the moral victors. In the Roman epic, The Aeneid, the
queen of Carthage– Dido– is featured as a queen driven mad and to the point of death by Aeneas’ abandonment. Virgil’s epic, derivative of Homer’s epics The Odyssey and The Iliad, creates another narrative of Aeneas, the supposed founder of Rome and follows his journey from the past perspective, as Virgil was already living in the Augustan period of the Roman Empire. Dido falls for Aeneas after his recounting of the Trojan War and they enter into an unofficial marriage, but Aeneas is called back to duty to leave Carthage and continue on to Rome. Aeneas leaves Dido behind to fulfill his prophecy to create the Roman Empire, leaving her with
the emotional wreckage of her broken heart. Dido’s curse of “a war between all our peoples, all their children, endless war!” (Virgil IV.784) also references the three Punic Wars of Carthage against Rome. Maddened by Aeneas’ quick and quiet departure, she claims to take revenge and “her torments multiply, over and over her passion surges, back into heaving waves of rage”, (Virgil IV.665) and plans to burn herself on a pyre. The betrayal by Aeneas doesn’t outright vilify Aeneas because his destiny is understood and hoped for by Virgil’s audience, yet the audience also is made to sympathize with Dido as, “such grief kept breaking her heart as Aeneas slept in peace on his ship’s high stern”, (Virgil IV.690). Virgil also sympathizes with Dido’s abandonment by portraying the gods’ mercy, “since she was dying a death not fated or deserved, no, tormented, before her day in a blaze of passion”, (Virgil IV.865) and how Iris comes down to release her from her body. Dido is ultimately a sacrifice Aeneas makes in pursuit of his prophetic destiny, but Dido’s claim of control over her life creates a narrative that has more to it than a doomed damsel. Written in Latin, this epic compared in English echoes a powerful written language admired highly in scholarly literature at the time. Valmiki’s epic poem, Ramayana, tells
“Sita’s and Dido’s stories echo the same sacrifice” the story of prince Rama, who is exiled from his kingdom by his father accompanied by his wife, Sita and brother, Laksmana. This ancient epic written in classical Sanskrit, the language of religious scholars of the time, is compared in its English translation against The Aeneid’s English translation from Latin. Rama’s journey leads to the kidnapping of his wife by king Ravana, and the war to win her back, followed by his eventual return to the kingdom to be crowned king. After having won her back, he believes her “virtue is now in doubt... for what powerful man born into a respectable family –his heart tinged with affection– would take back a woman who had lived in a house of another man?” (Valmiki VI.103.17-19). In this horrific rejection, Sita responds with elegance, defiance, and eventually her own immolation for the sake of truth, claiming that “my heart, which I do control, was always devoted to you. But I could not control my body, which was under the power of another. What could I have done?” (Valmiki VI.104. 9). This painful honesty is then matched by callous rejection, akin to Aeneas’ and Sita declares, “build me a pyre, Saumitri, the only remedy for this calamity. I cannot bear to live tainted by these false allegations”, (Valmiki VI.104.18)
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and although Sita is eventually taken back by Rama and saved from the flames by her truth, Sita’s and Dido’s stories echo the same sacrifice. In comparing Dido and Sita’s immolations after abandonment by their partners, it is critical to recognize where their motivations for this action diverge. While Sita enters the pyre to prove her innocence and loyalty, Dido does so to end her suffering and wish revenge on Aeneas. This exhibits that while Sita still believes in her husband, “who is not satisfied with [Sita’s] virtues, shall enter the fire, bearer of obligations, so that [she] may follow the only path proper for [her]”, (Valmiki VI.104.19), Dido gives up on men "terrified by her fate, tragic Dido prays for death”,
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(Virgil IV.566). These choices to avenge their indignity and subtextual anger while backed by diverging motivations still ring the same truth of a woman scorned. The funeral pyres also hold symbolic significance for both women in their quests for absolution. Fire represents, in both poems, the spiritual cleansing from the issues that plague them and an escape from their respective patriarchal terrors. The fire also symbolically alludes to marital unions from earlier in the epics. In The Aeneid, Aeneas and Dido run for cover when a storm comes and “Primordial Earth and Juno, Queen of Marriage, give the signal and lightning torches flare and the high skies bear witness to the wedding”, (Virgil IV.209-210). In the Ramayana, Sita acts “with complete detachment, she entered the blazing flames”, (Valmiki VI.105.25) which mirrors the ceremonial Hindu circumambulations in which couples walk around a fire seven times. This mirroring of the marriage and the death creates an ironic symbiosis between the characters’ highest and lowest emotional points. This adds three-dimensionality to the women's sacrifices and invites a moral superiority the women can claim over the men because of their betrayal, highlighted by the fire’s ironic juxtaposition of the pain their male counterparts have inflicted on them.
While these tales are both epic in their own text, they convey these acts of immolation differently from each other, in the most textual sense. While the Latic epic poem stylistically supports dense descriptions, definitions, and context, the Sanskrit elegiac style is much more focused on the aesthetic and simplistic storytelling.
“The authors acknowledge the depth and complexity that many female portrayals lacked in antiquity” The Ramayana makes use of more metaphors, similes, and allusions in short lines to convey the story, which inherently keeps Sita out of the spotlight of the story as the telling of it is economical in its descriptions, leaving room only for Rama’s perspective. Because of The Aeneid’s verbose style, Virgil is given the space in the story to dedicate many lines to Dido’s perspective on her inevitable death. Furthermore, the less didactic language in the Ramayana throws the reader into the story more as it adds very little outside context to what happens in the moment. Although these two stylistic differentiations change the tone and focus of the women's stories, the message stays the same: Dido and Sita’s sacrifices seek vengeance for their scorned heart, raising them above
the two-dimensional pit of patriarchal victimhood. In conclusion, the sacrifices Dido and Sita made to avenge their broken hearts and humiliation are conveyed in a three-dimensional manner that create a dynamic moral victory for the women. For the patriarchal society of the time, raising these women morally above the men of the story was bold and allowed for more complex and ethically ambiguous epics. The authors acknowledge the depth and complexity that many female portrayals lacked in antiquity and promoted dynamic women like with Virgil’s claim, “woman’s a thing that’s always changing, shifting like the wind”, (Virgil IV.710). These character types of Dido and Sita supersede the men of the tale- even if they do not have the tangible victories, they hold the moral high ground.
Bibliography Valmiki. The Ramayana of Valmiki: An Epic of Ancient India. Trans. Robert P. Goldman. Vol. 1. Princeton, NJ: Princeton U.P., 1990. Virgil. The Aeneid. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York, NY: Penguin, 2010.
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About the Author Venus is a sophomore sociology major studying at Hofstra University. These poems are excerpts of their first zine, "becomings". You can find them and more of their writing (sometimes) on Twitter @exxizm. 103
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The Evolution of Taxonomy and Treatment of Intersex Bodies — How does this inform Bioethics?
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his paper will address the controversial medical treatment and taxonomy of intersex bodies given the broad spectrum of disorders and conditions that are now categorized by Disorder of Sex Development or (DSD’s). This considers the history of intersex taxonomy as crucial to how we view biological understandings of sex and gender . Alongside the development of medical interventions of the 19th century, intersex births where sex characteristics appear ambiguous has often been addressed with nonconsensual and nonessential sex assignment surgeries. This will be discussed by evaluating the prevalence of intersex conditions throughout the natural world, and weighing the social and biological consequences of treatment of intersex individuals before arriving at an informed understanding of their own identity and physiology. Tackling such an issue will require insight from theoretical approaches to gender, sex and sexuality as there is the inextricably
BY KATIE TAYLOR bound issue of perceiving these interchangeably, and therefore undermining or misconstruing what is meant by treatment of intersex conditions. Additionally, this paper will contextualize records and depictions of intersex conditions that are traced to antiquity, understanding that stigma or mistreatment of intersex bodies predates modern medical attempts to reconfigure differences of sex based on socially arrived conclusions. There is thus an attempt to reconcile how the perception and treatment of intersex individuals throughout history has been informed by both science and society. Ultimately this will emphasize the need to address the ethicality of sex assignment of intersex infants, amongst other forms of intersex treatment that is not medically necessary. Current definitions of ‘intersex’ describes individuals whose biological sex characteristics may not ascribe to “what is typically
thought of as exclusively male or female” (Griffiths 2018). This arrived understanding comes with a history of social stigma which has resulted in the mistreatment and often derogatory classifications of intersex bodies throughout various cultures and geographies. Where in the western world, what was initially described as “hermaphroditism” is entangled in eroticism and violence, from revered depictions of the greek god Hermaphroditus to the numerous accounts of infanticide. Intersex as described in antiquity sets up the context of centuries of injustice and misrepresentation, but before the 19th century there was little to “no medical connotation, simply because medicine could not provide treatment options” (Grauman, 182). The age of modern medicine then introduces another another layer of injustice where the potential to correct bodies whose characteristics vary from a binary norm becomes an issue of bioethics. Because of the complicated evolution of intersex taxonomy, even the prevalence of various intersex condition in the global population is greatly debated, though the common projection is around 1.7% (WHO 2010). The more we are able to identify, diagnose and address
through biology and medicine, the greater the scope of consequences must be considered. Shifts in the medical perception of intersex conditions can then be traced in its taxonomy— where theoretical discussion and misunderstandings of biological sex, gender and sexuality have lead to practical consequences in the lives and bodies of intersex individuals. This evaluation of intersex treatment through science and society is not just a retrospective critique of bioethics, but points to the ongoing injustices that intersex individuals continue to face in modern medical practice as well as institutional policies that render them invisible. Incidentally, in recognizing the importance of its taxonomy, a paradoxical tension emerges. Where on the one hand, the social power which classification has tends to push for more inclusive terminology, there is also the desire to move away from any socially exulted boundaries. Such as the problematic understandings of sex, gender and sexuality as interchangeable or mutually exclusive. These considerations in the history of intersex treatment and taxonomy fuels the biological and social contention that 105
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essentially comes back to this questions of, why is are biological understandings of sex binary to begin with? Biological sex is typically described as the result of two processes that may occur in various stages of development: sex determination and sex differentiation (WHO). Variations or mutations which occur in either of these stages is then what leads to medically defined “Disorder of Sex Development” or DSDs. Sex determinism is essentially marked by chromosomal indicators that in humans and most other mammals is represented by the ‘XY’ system. Genetic differences of the X and Y chromosome is the basis of understanding the XX subset as female, and XY as male. Sex differentiation is then the developmental responses to the chromosomal makeup of an individual— whereby genetic markers then express through genitalia, gonads, hormone production and any other related physiological changes. Within these two processes, intersex conditions account for over 30 different classifications of DSDs, some which lead to ambiguous genitalia from birth, and others which don’t show in any observ-
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able differences but can only be traced in genetic, hormonal, or chromosomal abnormalities. Further, the primary sex characteristics which often dictate how individuals are classified at birth might be completely overturned in adolescence when secondary sex characteristic develop with the maturation of gonads and hormone production or receptivity. This just begins to outline the vast diversity of DSDs which the intersex experience encompasses, highlighting one of the biggest issues in its scholarship that, “Studies on this topic often do not differentiate between the diagnostic subgroups of intersexuality[34], although this is of great importance, as the different intersex conditions greatly vary in their underlying causes, their phenotype and development process resulting in different physical and psychological problems for the subjects” (Brinkmann et al, 966). While DSDs have been found throughout the animal kingdom, the evidence for it is harder to gather with the absence of our very socialized notions of femininity and masculinity associated with male or female. This is a bizarrely human phenomenon— whereby the intricate processes of categorizing biological sex is
informed by dichotomizing the feminine and the masculine. An example of this can be traced in the 20th century shift in understanding intersex conditions through genes and their role in feminizing or masculinizing sex differentiation. Sex hormones, such as androgens which make testosterone, or estrogen for progesterone are highly linked to appearance and behavior in secondary sex characteristics. While hormones have an impact on brain chemistry and physiology, how this knowledge is taken into social settings can be problematic. In the 1960s, an interest in the XYY variation of Kleinfelters syndrome arose from the hypothesis of “supermalenss” (Griffiths 2018), whereby the trisomy of extra male genes might express through higher levels of aggression and consequently lead researchers to look for XYY in prisons, asylums and other correctional facilities. Such publications had the potential to criminalize those with the chromosomal variation by tunnel visioned associations of masculinity with assumptions about genes and hormones. But through the lens of evolutionary biology, a binary in sexual differences might be found, though
not simply in physiological dimorphism of various species but in the mechanism of sexual reproduction whereby genetic information is shared through gametes. From this spurs numerous other theories surrounding biological sex— such as sexual selection or sexual antagonism, which opt to reason the evolutionary benefit of sexual difference. Yet returning to the tendency to masculinize or feminize sexual difference in humans uniquely, it is interesting that in learning about plant sexual reproduction, where the anatomical parts are also distinguished by male (stamen) and female (pistil), there is no further associations to masculinity or femininity. However, while defining sex differences from the perspective of the evolution seems to narrow in on the function of reproduction, we might consider this a limited scope in forming bioethical principles. Propagating life may depend on reproduction, but life and livelihood are not reduced to the evolutionary chain of events that occurred without conscious intention. Bioethics must tackle quality of life too— those who cannot reproduce naturally are undoubtedly still alive and human— and those who are naturally born beyond fixed bina107
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ries of sex are an equal product of evolutionary biology and nature. Yet historically, the fixed view of sex as binary has arguably even led to violations of reproductive rights, as will be explored later when attempts to mold intersex bodies into a binary has rendered many individuals infertile long before they could have consciously consented. As is becoming increasingly clear, biological understandings of sex is in fact rooted in the epistemological question of how we use knowledge to define truth— because in intersex history truth has often been complicated by scientific knowledge co-opted by socio-cultural standards. Professor of biology and gender studies, Anne Fausto-Sterlings has been outspoken about the medical intervention of intersex bodies in order to fit them into social categories of male and female. While she has suggested that up to 5 sexes is more inclusive of biological variations (such radical proposition is in fact rejected by many intersex individuals and activist)—whether one agrees with sex as binary or not ignores the fact that countless intersex individuals are continuously cornered by medical and social treatment
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which asks for a fixed binary— and a norm that is not defined by the naturally occurring DSDs, but by socialization. Faust-sterling elucidates this problem of scientific truth’s dictation by social norm in in her opening chapter of Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality, by helping the normal take precedent over the natural, physicians have also contributed to populational biopolitics. We have become, as Foucault writes, ‘a society of normalization” (28). In fact, this theoretical attachment echoed in the reference to Michel Foucault is also a crucial development to consider in taxonomy and treatment, as changes in the ways of thinking and perceiving the natural has promoted the correction of naturally occurring bodies. For most of the 20th and early 21st century, DSD’s were categorized with a five part system that used the language of “true sex” to determine where an individual’s body lay on spectrum of intersexuality. This notion of “true sex” is linked to the early 19th century medical conceptions to what was then called “hermaphroditism”. While surgery as a distinct practice of
its own was becoming defined, so were the accounts of ambiguous genitalia and gonads in medical journals. At this junction, intersex conditions were only looked at in phenotypic expressions— genes were yet to be discovered. Historian Alice D. Dreger, author of Intersex in the Age of Ethics, refers to this era of understanding (1870s-1910s) as the”age of gonads.” The obsession with determining the absolute sex of an individual was deduced by looking at their gonads if ambiguous genitalia and physiology were found. This would come to be the definition of “true hermaphroditism”, or the DSD which results in ovotestis at birth. But this age would also place intersex bodies in the context of homophobia and the fear of sexuality as a threat to the moral. In her chapter “Hermaphrodites in Love,” Dreger explains “one major assumption framed and governed the biomedical treatment of hermaphrodites... was the assumption that true males would naturally desire only females that true females would naturally desire”. Consequently, because sex was entirely determined by the gonads, regardless of other varying sex characteristics or the gender identity of an individual— their sexuality was
Figure I: “DSD nomenclature revisions” (Indyk,2017)
problematically constrained by presumptions of sex determination through anatomy alone. In Geertje A. Mak’s article “Conflicting Heterosexualities: Hermaphroditism and the Emergence of Surgery around 1900”, he elaborates on the view of “hermaphrodites” as a “moral monstrosity” because of their supposed deviation from heteronormative ideals: “anxieties about homosexuality increasingly informed clinical decisions about hermaphrodite patients from the last part of the nineteenth century onward. Their critical analyses are based on a shared theoretical concept: the normative heterosexual definition of sex and gender or its counterpart, the fear and avoidance of homosexuality in decisions about someone’s sex” (409) 109
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As a result, physicians often told those who sought medical attention but were classified as “true hermaphrodites” that they ought to identify with the gender that corresponds to their attraction to the opposite sex. Dreger additionally brings in the case of a French woman, Louise-Julia-Anna, who upon visiting her physician to address a hernia in 1892, was found to have testicles and a described “male looking naked body”. She was then accused of enacting womanhood with the knowledge of her true sex as a male, in order to deceitfully marry a man. This is an example of just one of the many ways sex, gender and sexuality cannot be viewed interchangeably. 19th century uses of “hermaphroditism”, (which in biology only applies to organisms which have both male and female parts that operate in sexual reproduction, a variation that does not occur in humans) is now considered derogatory as the perceptions that came along with it were. Further, such taxonomy of intersex conditions did not yet encompass the branches of DSDs that are diagnosed by genetic markers and not just anatomy beyond “a conviction that the gonads speak the ultimate,
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objective, scientific truth and as a medical diagnosis that ignored subjective feelings (Mak, 412). By the early 20th century, “intersexuality” began to replace “hermaphroditism” when geneticist Richard Goldschmit publishes his research on “Intersexuality and the Endocrine Aspect of Sex” in 1917. But even in the shift towards understanding the genetic underlying of intersex conditions, homosexuality and bisexuality were still considered to be subsets or consequences of being intersex (Santos 2014). With the advancement of karyotyping, which maps out an organism’s chromosomes, genes and sex determination was by the 1920s, defined by the “XY’ system. In the next two decades, karyotypes of two previously excluded DSDs known as Kleinfelters (the addition of either sex chromosome) and Turners (the lack of X chromosome) syndromes point to the existence of variation of the XX/XY binaries. While karyotyping lead to the inclusion of a wider range of DSD’s to be considered within intersex, it would define constrictions of sex in genetics which still doesn’t not necessarily manifest itself as either male or female. An example of this can be found back in
Fausto-Sterling’s chapter “Dueling Dualisms”, where she opens with the case of Maria Patiño who was barred from the 1988 women’s olympics as a hurdler after her mandatory lab results came back that she was ‘XY’. But further research into her condition revealed that “although she had a Y chromosome and her testes made plenty of testosterone, her cells couldn’t detect this masculinizing hormone. As a result, her body had never developed male characteristics” (25). In David Andrew Griffiths article “Shifting syndromes: Sex chromosome variations and intersex classifications” he recognizes how chromosomal understandings of Kleinfelters and Turners shifted intersex classification but was still limited in full understanding of the multiple processes involved in sex determination: “these syndromes became genetic ‘sex-reversals’ with doubt also cast upon gender and sexuality. While current conventional understandings of genetics are likely to focus at a smaller level than the chromosome (the recent DSD classification system goes beyond karyotype to consider the role of individual genes), during this historical peri-
od the karyotype was synonymous with ‘genetic sex’. (2018) Alluding to the “smaller level” understandings of genetics now in fact points to another misconception about sex that is only very recently being addressed in biology— the passivity that is associated with femaleness or feminizing sex differentiation. Prior to the 19th century, as understood by “one sex theory”, “male genitalia were seen as superior to the female, and the female genitalia were considered to be an underdeveloped version of the male, an unfinished organ” (Santos, 2014). Then the shift from “hermaphroditism” to “intersex” taxonomy still used the presence of testis as the determining factor of sex, and the lack of phallus which has an interesting correlation to the 20th century coeval rise of Freudian psychology. In genetics, it is the SRY gene which is labeled “Testis-determining factor” that is described as sex determining. Within the gradual narrowing in on all these intricate biological processes is this sense that sex difference is characterized by what females lack—as well as how conceptions of gender are deciphered by scientific understanding— until molecular genetics was considered. 111
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In a 2007 interview with geneticist Eric Villain that appeared in Scientific American, he explains the shift in looking for molecular mechanisms of sex determinism while considering the importance of shifting to DSD terminology when speaking medically: “we’ve discovered genes, such as WNT4, that’s female-specific and not present in males, and that’s sort of shifted the paradigm of making a male as just activation of a bunch of male genes... genes involved in brain sexual differentiation, making the brain either male or female, that were active completely independently from hormones.” (Lehrman, 2007) Situating this discussion within the shifts of understanding sexual differences indicates an increasing transition to separating sex from gender— as well as redefining a historical understanding of females and women as scientifically inferior or passive. But the continued misunderstanding between biological sex and theoretical gender in the 20th century unfortunately still resonates in the the surgical interventions of intersex infants and children that rise out a theory of
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“optimal gender policy”. In the 1960’s, psychologist John Money working with Johns Hopkins University had developed this hypothesis which regards gender as entirely socially constructed and conditioned into the individual during the early ages stages of child development. While at the surface this theory may seem to echo Fausto-Sterling’s progressive rhetoric of normalization, this lead to the promotion of sex assignment as early as possible for those born with intersex genitalia or gonads because their gender could then be swiftly socialized without having to deal with the stigma of being intersex. But gender is not an exclusively nurtured identity, as the case of David Reimer indicates when in 1967, under the supervision of John Money, the parents of Reimer were convinced he needed gender reassignment surgery after a failed circumcision at six months old left “irreparable damage” to his penis. But such lengths to conform his body into biological distinctions of male suggests a limited understanding of how gender manifests, believing that the presence of phallus is determining of whether one is male or man, and the castration or the lack of is thus female or woman.
Reimer, who was then raised a girl, reported to suffer severe gender dysphoria after years of taking hormones that allowed his body to develop female characteristics. By age 21 he sought gender reassignment surgery and hormone therapy to identify as a man, and began speaking publicly about the injustices of Money’s use of his circumstance to study optimal gender policy. Despite the tragedy surrounding the Reimer case after his suicide by age 38, optimal gender policy went on to influence the course of gender assignment surgery for intersex infants in the US for the decades there after, but on a problematic intersection of gender and sex in theory and biological understandings. “Reimer unknowingly acted as an experimental subject in Money’s controversial investigation...The case provided results that were used to justify thousands of sex reassignment surgeries for cases of children with reproductive abnormalities” (Gaetano, 2017). The case, along with Money’s approach to scientific research into gender theory reveals how violations of informed consent which surrounds gender assignment surgery at infancy were accepted into medical practice as necessary for the assimilation for non-
conforming bodies into society. From the mid 20th century onwards, most intersex babies born with both male and female sexual anatomy would be assigned a gender and put through reconstructive surgeries before having the chance to develop their own gender identities. Further, it was common into the 1970s and 80s, that intersex infants were more likely to be assigned female because of the higher chances of complications that came with male sex assignment surgery. This is despite the fact that most individuals born outside of the sex binary are fully capable to mature in their natural born bodies as healthy, but as the 19th century viewed the intersex body as a “moral monstrosity”, the latter half of the 20th century had deemed intersex births a medical emergency. This was common practice in many countries, not just in the west despite this paper’s focus on intersex taxonomy in western medicine primarily. Doctors are only now beginning to inform more parents about the highly destructive natures of these procedures, which often have physical and psychological consequences. A report published on Human Rights Watch 113
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titled “Medically Unnecessary Surgeries on Intersex Children in the US” elaborates on the physical and psychological risks associated with infant sex assignment surgery: “Genital or gonadal surgeries on intersex children too young to declare their gender identity carry the risk of surgically assigning the wrong sex. Depending on the condition, this risk can be between as high as 40 percent—meaning that many children will grow up to reject the sex that has been irreversibly surgically assigned to them... Removal of gonads can end options for fertility and will lead to lifelong need for hormone therapy” (Knight, 2017). Further, most cases result in the need for multiple surgeries afterward leading to more trauma of the body that can result in tissue damage, loss of sexual sensation and chronic pain. Especially since more recent international condemnation of human rights violations surrounding ‘FGM’ or female genital mutilation that are done under the premise
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cultural rights, nonessential surgeries done on intersex children and infants without consent must be held accountable for a loss of individual right to their body. But additional to the bioethical problem of medical intervention is the care of intersex patients concerning their diagnosis during and post treatment. In a 2007 German study which surveyed the medical experiences of 37 adults with varying DSD diagnoses from childhood (most resulting in repeated surgical interventions), the overwhelming conclusion was that “ aspects of secrecy, untruthfulness, and concealment were stated as most difficult and burdening” (Brinkmann et al, 966). The study further stated that “none of the participants stated to have decided on any of the operations themselves, but that the decision for the interventions was made by doctors and their parents”. With the increase of studies finding a correlation between physical and psychological trauma with the now matured patients of infant sex assignment surgery, the early 2000s also saw a shift from medical taxonomy of intersex to DSDs. “Part of the rationale for this change was to move away
from associations with gender, and to increase clarity by grounding the classification system in genetics” (Griffith 2018). But this was still controversial in intersex rights activism, because on the one hand it is more inclusive of historically invisible intersex conditions—- but many argued that it reduced the intersex experience to something too clinical. While both are used sometimes interchangeably in various articles— medically there is almost always a specification of which type of DSD is being examined as Eric Villain, continued in his interview with Scientific American that “Ultimately individuals who are intersex will each have their diagnosis with a genetic name. It’s not going to be some big, all-encompassing category... And that’s much more scientific, it’s much more individualized, if you will. It’s much more medical”. Which is why intersex, though was on the brink of being classified as a outdated term, is still used in discussing intersex treatment and experiences outside of the scientific and medical. But intersex treatment even in an age which has attempted to remove the political from the medical in taxonomical revisions has
yet to make the necessary strides to protect intersex people from various forms of discrimination. Very few countries have issued laws which protect intersex people from receiving misinformed medical intervention, with Malta being the first country in 2015 to legislate “an internationally groundbreaking new law: the ‘Gender Identity, Gender Expression, and Sex Characteristics Act’”, as one article reported by Vice news wrote (Hay 2015). Here we see the need to view bioethics in terms of human rights too— based on the aforementioned principle that bioethics should address biology and medicine through quality of life. What is essential to point out though, is that not all treatment for various intersex conditions is to be condemned or delegitimized. Intersex rights now calls out those bioethical violations, but does not try to reject a collaboration between the social and the scientific— rather it seeks a redefinition of how they interact given the historical of its treatment and taxonomy. It is a matter 115
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ensuring patients seeking treatment (or their family) are fully informed of options. It is also a matter of removing social persecutions surrounding gender norms and misinformed understandings of biological sex from the medical experience. Because undoubtedly, certain intersex conditions do lead to health complications such as Turners syndrome, where without the second copy of the X chromosome, development issues associated with lacking the extra genes such a diabetes, hypothyroidism, and heart defects can occur. But these may be addressed without trying to place biological sex within fixed binary, or associating gender identity to anatomy. Thus the influence of medical practitioners in the quality of life in intersex experiences is critical, as the German study of 37 adults with DSDs had suggested that “the primary aspects of criticism did not concern specific surgical methods or medical interventions but inadequate and untruthful communication and handling of the medical staff.” (Brinkmann et al, 977). But intersex struggles exist beyond the bioethical too, as can be seen in the ways that different institutions seem to exclude the intersex identity. Policies in
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competitive sports, which have become internationally viewed spectacles, makes for a pressing example as most divisions in competitive leagues are first and foremost categorized by gender, yet use testing for biological sex to determine if an individual qualifies for “men’s or women’s” competitions. In 2016, South African runner Caster Semenya lost her discrimination case against the International Association of Athletics Federation, which excluded her participation in the olympics unless she was to take hormone suppressing medication to address higher levels of testosterone produced by her body. She famously stated that “I am a woman, and I am fast” (North 2019), but responses to the ruling were described as “discriminatory but necessary”, that seem to dictate the inability to move beyond linking biological sex and gender identity to simplistic understandings of the many processes and combinations of factors they encapsulates. Consequently, these policies continue to ask that intersex individuals alter their chemistry or physiology completely outside of medical need, as seen in the various shifts in the evolution of intersex treatment and taxonomy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Katie Taylor, a current Junior from the US and China who is majoring in HLS and minoring in Film Studies.
Bibliography Brinkmann L., Schuetzmann K., Richter-Appelt H. Gender assignment and medical history of individuals with different forms of intersexuality: Evaluation of medical records and the patients’ perspective. Journal of Sexual Medicine, 4 (4 I) , pp. 964-980. 2007. Dreger, Alice Domurat. Intersex in the Age of Ethics. Univ. Publ. Group, 1999. Fausto-Sterling, Anne. “Chapter 1: Dueling Dualisms”. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2000. Print. Gaetano, Phil. “David Reimer and John Money Gender Reassignment Controversy: The John/Joan Case.” The Embryo Project Encyclopedia, 2017, https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/davidreimer-and-john-money-gender-reassignment-controversy-johnjoan-case. “Gender and Genetics.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, 1 Dec. 2010, www.who.int/genomics/gender/en/. Graumann, Lutz Alexander. “Monstrous Births and Retrospective Diagnosis: The Case of Hermaphrodites in Antiquity.” Disabilities in Roman Antiquity, 2013, doi: 10.1163/9789004251250_009. Griffiths, David Andrew. “Shifting syndromes: Sex chromosome variations and
intersex classifications.” Social studies of science vol. 48,1 (2018): 125-148. doi: 10.1177/0306312718757081 Hay, Mark. “What Will Malta’s New Intersex Law Mean for the Rest of the World?” Vice, 7 Apr. 2015, https://www.vice.com/en_us/ article/exqn77/maltas-new-intersex-legislation-is-the- most-progressive-in-theworld-192.
Indyk, Justin A. “Disorders/Differences of Sex Development (DSDs) for Primary Care: the Approach to the Infant with Ambiguous Genitalia.” Translational Pediatrics, Ohio State University, 2017, http://tp.amegroups.com/article/ view/16975/17489. Lehrman, Sally. “When a Person Is Neither XX nor XY: A Q&A with Geneticist Eric Vilain.” Scientific American, Scientific American, 30 May 2007, https:// www.scientificamerican.com/ article/q-a-mixed-sex-biology/. MAK, GEERTJE A. “Conflicting Heterosexualities: Hermaphroditism and the Emergence of Surgery around 1900.” Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 24, no. 3, 2015, pp. 402– 427. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24616516. North, Anna. “‘I Am a Woman and I Am Fast’: What Caster Semenya’s Story Says about Gender and Race in Sports.” Vox, Vox, 3 May 2019, www.vox.com/ identities/2019/5/3/18526723/ caster-semenya-800-gender-race-intersex-athletes. Santos, Ana Lúcia. “Beyond Binarism? Intersex as an Epistemological and Political Challenge*.” RCCS Annual Review, no. 6, 2014, doi:10.4000/rccsar.558. 117
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Risk it all for love They say risk it all for love. But, tell me, what is love? Is love tears and pain? Watching the boy I love become unattainable? Is it love when I stare into those lifeless, emotionless eyes that proclaim “I love you, be mine?” Is love the fear I feel when he creeps towards me and grabs my wrists, telling me, “Not a soul shall know of this.” Oh, love is most definitely the pain and troubles I’ve felt. The struggle of keeping a man. The pain of losing a man. And the tears from fearing a man.
“Self Portrait” by Reagan Espino
by Melissa del Carmon Gomez 119
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Third-World Feminism Under the Western Gaze: A Theoretical Analysis of Non-Western Feminism by Jensen Zack
In
“Contesting Cultures: “Westernization,” Respect for Cultures, and Third World Feminists,” Uma Narayan discusses how negative associations with the term “westernization” can be used to dismiss feminist critiques of non-western cultures. Narayan theorizes how politicized descriptions of the colonizer and the colonized create idealized but easily scrutinized constructions of cultural and national identities. Through the lens of Middle Eastern feminism, and by illustrating how visions of “national culture” can impede ThirdWorld and Non-Western feminists, this essay will analyze how the critique of “Westernization” can dismantle activism in communities with strong cultural traditions.
the label of “Third-World feminist,” an identity that Narayan considers “unsettled and unsettling (as identities in general often are).”
The title of “Third-World feminist” is a complicated one, and as Narayan says, “to try and define oneself intellectually and politically as a Third-World feminist is not an easy task” (542). There are a number of complex realities relating to a feminist’s experience, location, and perceptions that must be accounted for when working with
Third-World and Non-Western feminists who critique problems within their national context based on their relationship to their motherland, and their perception and experiences of antiquated and unjust cultural practices, are systematically dismissed from taking part in political discourse by being labeled as “Western.” Third-World
It is important to distinguish that, although the label of “Third-World feminist” can be highly politicized, it is no more than a label, of which we have many. Narayan explains, “Identities are not simple givens, but open to complex ways of being inhabited,” and it is imperative to acknowledge that the label “Third-World feminist” is inhabited by activists who criticize certain aspects of their national context not because they are tainted by westernization, but in “response to the problems women face within their national context” (543).
Appendix: Fig. 1: “Just like Master” from: Jain, M. A. (2018, September 30). Racism and stereotypes in colonial India’s “Instagram.” BBC News. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/ world-asia-india-45506092
feminists must confront attitudes that their criticisms are an “incarnation of a colonized consciousness, the views of ‘privileged native women in whiteface’” (Narayan, 542). Third-World feminists are forced to balance challenging certain aspects of their culture without seeming like they are challenging the culture as a whole, for fear of their criticisms being dismissed and dismantled based on accusations of a lack of respect for their cultures. The activism associated with those who choose to label themselves “Third-World feminist” develops before they are exposed to the Western world and learn the language of Western feminists. Narayan argues that her own contestations of her culture “have
something to do with the cultural dynamics of the family life that surrounded [her] as a child,” a family life that traversed generations and served as her introduction to the institutions that are ingrained within their society. Narayan details this in the comparison between her mother and her grandmother, who in their early years led very different lives due to changes in cultural traditions and access to “Westernized” education, yet as they grow older within the same context, mutually project the cultural pressure to be a “good Indian woman” upon Narayan (544). Narayan’s contestations of her culture grew from being witness to the injustice that her mother faced at the hands of her motherin-law, which was left uninterrupted 121
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by her father who, despite having a “Westernized education”, was fearful of acting inappropriately within their culture if he stepped in for the sake of his wife’s happiness. The culture of the family is hugely representative of collective national identities. By using the term “Westernization” as a tool to delegitimize negative analyses of traditional practices, those making the critiques are questioning a ThirdWorld feminist’s authority to evaluate
“The pure act of rendering the feminist the enemy i s c a l l i ng upon a longstanding and obviously tumultuous relationship between the colonized and c o l o n i z e r .” and interrogate antiquated systems and dismissing her legitimacy as a member of the culture.When contesting a Third-World feminist, the most damaging terminology possible is the association with “Westernization,” the pure act of rendering the feminist the enemy is calling upon a longstanding and obviously tumultuous relationship between the colonized and colonizer. In colonial India, Narayan describes the creation of idealized images of the colonizer as a means to delegitimize the colonial project and vice
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versa. These totalizing images are often very removed from the realities of both cultures, but they have a strong impact on attitudes towards the other. These stereotypes can be seen in what BBC journalist Mahima Jain calls “colonial India’s ‘Instagram.’” A series of postcards that were sent from India to Europe between 1900 and the 1930s collected and displayed by London’s SOAS university, showcase the highly politicized image of Indians created by colonial Britain. A card titled “Just Like Master” depicts an Indian man relaxing as his master should. It is part of a series of staged cards published that “was meant as a “humorous” comment on the master-servant relationship at the heart of British rule in India... also [playing with] “British anxieties”... about what the “servant” would do when the “master” was not around”(Jain) (Fig. 1). Dated in the early 20th century, this image, along with many others like it has a very clear intent: to enforce already present and negative stereotypes about the colonized, to spread them across borders, and into the minds of those back home. Transnational negative stereotyping erases cultural realities and weakens a community’s sense of national and cultural pride in international contexts. As stated in “contesting cultures,” this leaves the colonized community obsessed with what Narayan refers to as the “golden age,” or the pre-colonial era. Attempts to prove that col-
onization did not erase a colonized group’s national and cultural identity gives new meaning to ideas of “cultural authenticity” in post-colonial contexts. Notions of “national culture” and “cultural authenticity” become further inflated in colonized communities, and it is these inflated notions that allow communities to manipulate judgments of oppressive or abusive practices by labeling them as necessary to maintaining cultural bonds and national identity. The glamorization of pre-colonial practices is what gives oppressive voices the power to dismiss feminist voices on the accusation of “cultural inauthenticity.”
shame on you” is used casually in social contexts to express mild disbelief – for example, when friends argue over who will pay the bill. Because the context of the word is often associated with generally harmless and sometimes beneficial power dynamics (mother and child, elder and youth), those who are in positions of power often use the word when attempting to dismantle criticisms of power structures that benefit them.
Many traditions in the Arab world, whether they are based on the Shar’ia ( ) or other cultural identities, suffered the same fate under colonialism as those in India. In “Feminism – Environments with strong cultural or the Eternal Masculine – in the Arab traditions, like various Middle East- World,” Mai Ghoussoub describes “[a] ern communities, often adopt certain memory of a resplendent past when words or phrases that reflect the the Arabs ruled a gigantic empire.... complexities of their values and ide- when Islamic civilization was superior als within national and cultural con- to that of medieval Europe”(11). This texts. For example, the Arabic word memory of a “resplendent past,” is ayb which roughly translates to representative of the same complex “shame,” “disgrace,” and “dishonor,” is as what Uma Narayan refers to as a one of many Arabic words that trans- desire to restore culture to its “golden late as such but reflect extraordinari- age.” A relentless desire to re-define ly different things. For this analysis, impacts of colonization, and to prove ayb will be focused on because of its “superiority of [their] values to those varying usage. Somewhat lost in trans- of the West, inevitably [leads] to a suflation, ayb, has varying weights within focating rigidity of family structures the language; it can be used to refer and civil codes”(Ghoussoub, 11). to the genitals, but only when speaking with young children, or a mother In an interview of Suad Abu Dayyeh for will use it to comment on how inap- The New Arab titled “The Struggles of propriately her child is acting, wheth- Being a Feminist in the Middle East,” er it be through scandalous clothing journalist Diana Alghoul describes or rowdy behavior. Ayb Ealayk how the public attitude towards wom123
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en’s rights activists can quickly shift. Alghoul describes how, depending on the magnitude of the victory, activists can be seen as national heroes and sources of pride for the collective Arab identity (Alghoul). In some cases, activists can be congratulated on matters that have long been considered taboo. For example, when in 2017, after years of campaigning from female activists, many Middle Eastern governments repealed the “marry the victim” clause and closed loopholes that allowed for light sentences when dealing with rape. Following this landmark decision, female activists rejoiced in praise from their communities, but it was not long before their criticisms were once again deemed ayb – culturally inappropriate. Almost 30 years prior to these repeals, speaking in reference to the justification of the “relentlessly retrograde nexus” of laws that favor Western-educated men who are already in power, Mai Ghoussoub remarks “How many times has every Arab feminist had to listen to men’s arrogant refrain: ‘Do you want to become like Western women, copying the degenerate society that is our enemy?’”(11) “Retelling the story of mother culture in feminist terms is a political enterprise. It is an attempt to, publicly and in concert with others, challenge and revise an account that is neither the account of an individual nor an account “of the culture as a whole,” but an account of some who have the power within the culture.” Uma Narayan
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states when criticizing the powers that impose totalizing views of “our Culture” and “our Nation” as a means to further delegitimize “the voices, concerns, and contributions of many who are members of the national and political community.” (545) If not for feminists like Narayan that challenge “political accounts that distort, misrepresent and often intentionally fail to account for the problems and contributions of inhabitants of the context,” power dynamics which favor Western-educated males would go unchecked. The very men who are accusing “Third-World” and non-Western feminists of “copying the degenerate [West],” took part in influencing the voices they are working against. In further attempts to dismantle feminist criticisms, choosing to use dismissive rhetoric associated with traditional power structures (ayb), those opposing “Third-World feminists” are just offering a further reminder of the national and cultural politics that inspire feminist criticisms. The oxymoronic nature of the essentialist influence on feminist oppositions in the Non-Western world is stuck in an ironic cycle of utilizing Western ideals to accuse their critics of “Westernization.” The inflated sense of national identity is rooted in attempts to justify unequal power structures birthed in colonialism and will be dismantled by feminists with intersectional influence.
Bibliography Alghoul, D. (n.d.). Interview: The struggles of being a feminist in the Middle East. Retrieved November 8, 2019, from Alaraby website: https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/ indepth/2017/8/16/interview-on-the-shaming-of-arab-feminists Ghoussoub, M. (1987). Feminism—Or the Eternal Masculine—In the Arab World, January–February 1987. New Left Review, 161. Retrieved from https://newleftreview. org/issues/I161/articles/518?token=V0TDviPK5rFt Jain, M. A. (2018, September 30). Racism and stereotypes in colonial India’s “Instagram.” BBC News. Retrieved from https://www.bbc. com/news/world-asia-india-45506092 Jallad, N. A. (2010). The concept of “shame” in Arabic: Bilingual dictionaries and the challenge of defining culture-based emotions. Language Design: Journal of Theoretical and Experimental Linguistics, (12), 31–57. Laqueur, T. (2003). Making sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (10. print). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Narayan, U. (1997). Contesting Cultures:’Westernization,’Respect for Cultures, and Third-World Feminists. In The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory (pp. 396–414). Routledge.
“ The very men who are accusing “Third-World” and non-Western feminists of “copying the degenerate [West],” took part in influencing the voices they are working against.”
The New Arab. (n.d.). Jordan abolishes “marry the victim” clause protecting rapists from punishment. Retrieved December 2, 2019, from Alaraby website: https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/ news/2017/8/1/jordan-abolishes-marry-the-victim-clause-protecting-rapists
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A Letter from my Former Lover
baby, you never let me hold your hand outside the apartment or kiss your cheek outside the bed – i’m worried this might not work out. ii think you’re pretty, you don’t and i think you think i’m pretty. you never let me love you unless you’re good and drunk and we turn the lights off and you shut your eyes and let the sin wash over you. oh, the sin, the sin. like beach waves from our weekend by the bay. do you remember the waves baby? they were so strong but you wouldn’t let them knock you down and i wouldn’t leave the sand but you didn’t mind letting me watch you splash around in the sea until you were good and soaked and then, oh, the sin, the sin. baby if i were a man i think you’d let me love you. i think if i put on pants and cut my hair you’d let me devour your lips and bruise your neck down by the seine in the hot beer gardens. but you only let me squeeze your thigh in the packed subway car and look at me the way that makes my knees go weak and forget that you don’t let me hold your hand outside the apartment. i’m worried this might not work out.
There was a thirteen year old girl with a rock in her baby throat. Teeth too big, she chokes on unspoken hymns She cuts her lips on pink braces. There were pretty girls and she dragged herself after them by her fingernails. There were boys with holy eyes who spoke in scriptures. She tries to be pretty. A kind of pretty Swallowing tin bells to be heard Salty skin Bruised tongue. She feels ugly. Her bumpy face, Weird Wilting Wonky Teeth. Burning Broken Blistered Muscles.
Brittle are the bones of thirteen year old girls. Sometimes she felt like the skin was kissing her Blessing her And she smiled As amber ash wept onto her face. She sewed her mouth shut with the twine from her boots Her name was mediocre, Not her birth given name. She spits people out like bad meat Her soul is meatless Chaste white She tilts her baby face Up to the sky To the stars And the moon. They are still there.
She’s tired of crawling over the graves of every good feeling she’s ever had. Those looks the boys gave her When she feels good about this. Texting a boy she had never spoken to with her mouth Talking is a game continually lost And she wants things. Anatomically Opening her soft baby skin And letting him speak in hurling stones.
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Feminism in International Relations: Comparing and Contrasting the Four Core Theories Supporting a Global Movement by Caroline Sjerven
�T
he end of the cold war era and the emergence of the new theoretical debates of feminist international relations”1, are, as feminist IR theorist Helen Kinsella claims, the defining events that brought feminist theory to the international stage in the second half of the twentieth century. In delving into the context of feminism in the political sphere it is primarily impertinent to create the foundational understanding of international feminist politics, which includes defining feminism, how gender inequality effects politics, and the four international relations (IR) theories of feminism.
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First it must be understood that feminism is not a set, completed movement or definition. Feminism is a global concern that is ever evolving, adapting, and shifting to progress with the inclu-
sion of many marginalized groups of women that suffer from global insubordination. Feminism is the belief, movement, and understanding that women should be given equal rights, standards and voices that men receive. In the political understanding, this means the representation, support, and comprehensive understanding of female roles in governments, NGOs, and global communities that interact with political structures around the world. In this definition, it is important to understand the separation of feminist studies from gender and human rights studies. Although there is much overlap with political and social oppression, “feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general– but to choose to use a vague expression of human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender”2. “Feminism is fundamentally rooted in an analysis of the global subordination of women– which
can occur economically, politically, physically, and socially– and is dedicated to its elimination”3 . Feminism in the past half-century has also become important in historical and political reanalysis and acquisition of new knowledge that went previously unconsidered from the perspective of gender equality. For example, in the literary domain there is a notable resurgence of feminist-centric textual criticism that highlights
ganizations is one of the many problems with gender inequality in IR, and therefore one of the most accurate ways to quantify the occurrence and necessity for feminism in the global sphere. The United States Congress serves as a prime example of this disproportionality. There are currently 25 women serving in the US Senate out of 100 seats, and to date has only had 56 women serve in the Senate6 since the first woman was seated in 1922. In “There are currently 25 women serving the US House of Representatives, in the US Senate out of 100 seats, and there are currently to date has only had 56 women serve 435 voting seats, in the Senate since the first woman was of which 101 are occupied by feseated in 1922.” male represen7 tatives , making and constructs the normalization it just under 25% of the House. of the male-centric present nor- For comparison, females make mality of the literary world. Post- up 51%8 of the total population structuralism theorist Jonathan of the United States of America9. Culler notes, “feminist criticism”4 This makes it difficult to dispute undertakes, through the postulate that with just under 25% repreof a woman reader, to bring about sentation in Congress and over a new experience of reading and half of the US population, there is to make readers– men and wom- a significant gap that needs to be en – question the literary and po- closed. litical assumptions on which their reading is based”5. This evidence of gendered disproportion is also visible in the The female representation in in- international realm. In the UN International governments and or- ternational Court of Justice (ICJ) 129
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there are currently fifteen judges, three of which are women10. In the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC), there are currently eighteen members, where six are women11. This uneven distribution of power between genders in the systems can inherently bias laws and regulations either without consideration for or even against women. The European Parliament’s FEMM Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee is one of the few exemplary international organizations that has 60 female ministers and 7 males ministers12. These leading IGOs have few regulations or requirements for equality in gendered representations of ministers or committee members, and the statistics for governmental bodies show the same13. From this disproportionate inequality in representation and acknowledgement of gender and female issues in politics emerged the four theories of feminist international relations. Powered in large part by theorists like Marysia Zalewski, Ann Tickner, Jan Jindy Pettman, and V. Spike Peterson, these theorists individually critiqued, redefined, and identified new theories of IR in the context
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of feminism. These perceptions critique and acknowledge the problems with current international affairs and reflect on historical events that discredit the female perspective. The four main theories of feminist international relations all converge on the similar goals of eradicating sexism in IR and fighting for the equal rights and representation of women in government and law globally. These four theories, while diverging on their methods and perceptions of historical redefinition of feminism in politics, are neither mutually exclusive nor focusing on all the aspects of feminism in international affairs. The coexistence and interdependency of these four core theories arguable provide more success for the gender equality movements because of the sharing of knowledge and ability to unify under that common goal. The first dominating theory of international feminist politics is the Liberal feminist IR theory. This theory criticizes the unrecognized historical role many women played and exclusion of feminism in IR but doesn’t challenge its fundamental methodical
analyses and assumptions. The Liberal feminist theory establishes the struggle for representation and rights of women in the international sphere and focuses on eradicating institutionalized sexism in the global political sphere. Within the movement to reform international institutions, Liberal feminist theory seeks “increasing the representation of women in positions of power within the primary institutions of national and international governance”14. In Liberal feminist theory, there is a strong focus of military and gender roles in relation to international violence and how that perpetuates sexism. The biological propaganda that keeps women away from war15, both in politics and the military are an intertwined force of the masculine superiority complex16. Liberal feminist theorist Dr. Mary Caprioli warns that “rather than focusing on the genesis of, or justification for differences between the sexes, the more important question should concentrate on the how those differences are used to create a society primed for violence”17. Although some Liberal theorists focus on the agents of change more so than the history of the is-
sue, other feminists suggest they shouldn’t be mutually exclusive and its necessary to consider the two diametrically opposing aspects of the study congruently to
“These political feminists designate an important sector of the feminist international theories specifically for the recognition and emphasis of inequality in international female oppression.” truly understand and eradicate the problem18. The Postcolonial feminist international relations theory notes a correlation between everyday life and local gendered contexts and ideologies to the bigger, transgendered contexts and ideologies to the larger international, economic and political systems and ideologies of capitalism19. These political feminists designate an important sector of the feminist international theories specifically for the recognition and emphasis of inequality in international female oppression. This theory outlines the key levels of oppression and how they affect individual economic classes, 131
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r a c es, and cultures of women differently. Like with the Critical feminist theory, the Postcolonial theory is “wary of gender essentialism, which is the assumption of the sameness of all women’s experiences by virtue of being female”20 . Like with other fields of study build on the normalization of the middle to upper class, white, straight male/female, Postcolonial feminism recognizes there is no one model for the oppressed woman, especially seeking to avoid normalization of the affluent, white female as the universal experience. Postcolonial feminist theorist Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s “Under Western Eyes” creates a detailed and compelling outline of the “white feminism” that perpetuates an imperialistic sense of oppression for women in developing countries. Mohanty argues the colonial assumptions and definitions of feminism do not include, and even seek to exclude, nonwhite, non-western cultural and religious feminism. Furthermore, she notes:
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“...since no connections are made between first and third world power shifts, the assumption is reinforced that the third world had not evolved to the extent the West has. This mode of feminist analysis, by homogenizing and systematizing the experiences of different groups of women in these countries, erases all marginal and resistant models and experiences.”21 This recognition of gaps the communication and understanding between western feminist scholarship and “third world” feminist scholarship asserts that even within the relm of feminist theory, there exists oppression and opposition in possible attempts to prevent a power bridge22 between different cultures of feminism that could result in greater global feminist reform. In more recent decades with development and recognition of climate change, postcolonial feminist IR theorists also give acknowledgement to its disproportionate impact on women in developing and agricultural nations. Theorist Seema Arora-Jonsson attempts to steer clear of these binary observations as she denotes power constructs are complicated
and vary from place to place. In a case study on gender and climate activism of two small villages, one in Sweden and the other in India she notes: “Power and discrimination were veiled and subtle in Sweden. Paradoxically, the rhetoric of gender equality that is pervasive in Sweden serves to mask forms of subordination and makes it difficult to question the purported neutrality of given structures. The Indian women were more vocal about discrimination against them.” 23 The postcolonial feminist theory attempts to eradicate expectations and beliefs of what feminism should look like from the western imperialist perspective and instead assert feminism in terms of how it will benefit and empower women within their cultural and religious constructs, not the western construct of what liberal feminism is. Critical feminist international relations theories exist primarily as a reaction to Liberal feminist theories. Criticizing the Liberal feminist methods for “relying too faithfully on the neutrality of their methods”24, the Critical feminists place emphasis on the social and moral
good of a more politically and economically successful government that would theoretically result in the positive power shift towards gender equality. Acquiring inspiration from Marxist and other socialist theories, they prioritize the eradication of capitalism, predominantly in the U.S. relations to the rest of the world. Feminist scholars also critique works like Hobbes’ Leviathan and Morgenthau’s Principles of Political Realism, reevaluating the writings, especially considering women in a time when they were considered property of men. Putting pressure on the importance of gender dynamics and the patriarchy that supports the current sociopolitical government model of the northern hemisphere25, Critical feminists observe larger, fundamental government structural changes as the key to acknowledging and changing gender inequality in the political sphere. Critical feminist IR theorists also share the wariness of gender essentialism26 with the postcolonial theory. Asserting that postcolonialism and imperialism can manifest through western feminism, the two theories converge on the ideas of culturally respectful feminism, meaning liberal western 133
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feminism should not be imposed on other cultures that the west may view as misogynistic. During the Afghan and Iraq wars, President George W. Bush used the ideas of embedded feminism27, “a monolithic feminism to be wielded against a supposedly savage Islam, in order to once again ’save’ Muslim women”28. Critical feminist IR theory seeks to avoid male, imperialist propagation of feminism and accept political responsibility of feminism to remain empowering and respectful in avoiding appropriation of duty to ’save’ women from their cultures. Feminist theorist J. Ann Tickner’s reexamination of Morgenthau’s principles of political realism is a prime example of the feminist IR critique, reevaluating his six main points to include the power constructs and their issues. First, she reassesses that dynamic objectivity presents less potential for domination and that national interests are multidimensional- they cannot be defined only within the context of power. Tickner asserts Morgenthau’s claim of power as domination and the control of privileged masculinity, but that it ignores the possibility of collective empowerment. Furthermore, Tickner rejects the idea
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that separating moral command from political actions is possible as all political actions have moral impacts. Tickner “seeks to find common moral elements in human aspirations that could de-escalate international conflict and build international community”29 and finally denies the validity of the autonomy of the political. These six rigorous and assertive critiques to Morgenthau’s outline exemplify the reach and necessity for feminist critiques in international theory. Lastly, the Postructural feminist international relations theory, based primarily off the teachings of feminist scholar Judith Butler seeks to redefine the relationship between gender and sex in terms of feminism in the international political sphere. Butler asserts the relationship of sex not as the origin or reason for gender, but as a reaction in it of itself30. This theory disputes the social misunderstanding of “biology is destiny”, advocating instead for the concept of gender as actions, not physical identity. As well as working towards redefining gender and sex in terms of feminist international affairs, poststructural feminism “illu-
minates the constitutive role of language in creating gendered knowledge and experiences”31. Theorist Laura Shepherd’s commentary on the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 directs attention to the mislabeling of gender inequality problem as solely “women’s/girls” issues32, minimizing the overall issue in IR. More pertinently, Shepherd offers a detailed example of the previously mentioned problem of language and women’s perceived voice in these IR issues: “women’s agency, counterposed to the assumptions of passivity that the NGO statement argues against33, is fixed in these documents as benign”34. Kinsella aptly concludes “these scholars demonstrate how gender is created through the workings of international politics and, in turn, how paying attention to this construction reveals relations of power that are otherwise overlooked.”35 Superseding the four key IR feminist theories, the idea of biological destiny and heteronormativity present problems in the progress of feminist international affairs. Foremost the acknowledgement for working women of the double burden36 37 and the inherent disadvantage it brings with the
expectation of women to be the primary caregivers is crucial. Without adequate maternity leave or benefits, women will always be at a disadvantage in the workplace to their male coworkers who do not share the same responsibility38. Feminist IR theories also stays normative to the male-female household construct, but the poststructuralist theory touches on the concept of interdimensional to gender and sexuality that creates a more complex system that the heteronormative model. Adapting norms to include or even supersede the heteronormative feminist theory is important to the progression of the movement as advocating for and inclusive to all cisgender, transgender, and female or feminine identifying persons that gender discrimination affects.39 In response to the pressure exerted by women’s organizations, particularly the Women’s International Democratic Federation”40. This decade consisted of three international conferences in Mexico City (1975), Copenhagen (1980), and Nairobi (1985) focusing on the political issues like gendered violence, unequal pay, and other feminist and human rights issues that politically impact women globally. In these three conferences over the course of the 135
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decade, they discussed how to institute legal changes to promote gender equality, how to prevent violence, and the networking necessary for women to be supported in politics. Though it was well-received for the most part there was hesitation in many communities: “Although feminism was appealing to Northern women because it offered a vision of women’s empowerment and self-control, it did not resonate with Southern women, who in light of their experiences with colonialism and Northern development assistance viewed feminism as just another way to dominate and coerce them.”41 This relates strongly back to the postcolonial IR feminist theory of using feminism to cloak imperialism so this fear of recolonization through western feminism was a cause for hesitation. This decade also formulated many aspects of the for IR feminist theory and holds a lasting impact on gender politics in international affairs. These four core theories illustrate the impact of feminism in issues such as global governance, war and violence, and international political economy.
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Endnotes 1 Helen Kinsella, The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations (Oxford University Press, 2017), p. 190. 2 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists (New York: Anchor Books, 2012). 3 Kinsella, The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations, p. 191. 4 In the context of feminist literary criticism. 5 Jonathan D Culler, On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism After Structuralism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1982), p. 53. 6 “U.S. Senate: Women in the Senate,” Senate.gov, March 4, 2019, https://www.senate.gov/ artandhistory/history/common/briefing/women_senators.htm. 7 “Women in the U.S. House of Representatives 2019,” Center for Women in American Politics (Rutgers Eagleton Institute of Politics, 2019), https://cawp.rutgers.edu/ women-us-house-representatives-2019. 8 As of 2017. 9 Erin Duffin, “US Population by Gender 2010-2024 | Statistic,” Statista (Statista, August 9, 2019), https://www.statista. com/statistics/737923/us-population-by-gender/. 10 “Current Members | International Court of Justice,” Icj-cij. org, 2019, https://www.icj-cij.org/ en/current-members 11 “GQUAL | The Current Composition of International Tribunals and Monitoring Bodies,” Gqualcampaign.org, 2015, http:// www.gqualcampaign.org/1626-2/. 12 “Members of the FEMM Committee, European Parliament,” Europa.eu, 2019, https:// www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/femm/members.html?action=6. 13 “GQUAL | The Current Composition of International Tribunals and Monitoring Bodies,” http://www.gqualcampaign. org/1626-2/ 14 Kinsella, The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations, p. 196.
15 Kinsella, The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations, p. 197. 16 Mary Caprioli, “Primed for Violence: The Role of Gender Inequality in Predicting Internal Conflict” (International Studies Quarterly, no. 2, 2005), p. 161. 17 Caprioli, “Primed for Violence: The Role of Gender Inequality in Predicting Internal Conflict”, p. 161. 18 Kinsella, The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations, p. 197. 19 Chandra Talpade Mohanty, ““Under Western Eyes” Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles” (Signs 28, no. 2, 2003), p. 504. 20 Kinsella, The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations, p. 198. 21 Chandra Talpade Mohanty, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses”
Photo by Imaniushindi Fanga
(Boundary 2, no. 3, 1984), pp. 72-73. 22 This theoretical ”power bridge” is arguably inherently sexist, set up and maintained by patriarchal imperialism to prevent feminism from gaining power in unification. 23 Seema Arora‐Jonsson, “Discordant Connections: Discourses on Gender and Grassroots Activism in Two Forest Communities in India and Sweden,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 35, no. 1 (2009), p. 214. 24 Kinsella, The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations, p. 197. 25 Recent politically correct classifications denote the importance of shifting views of “third world” vs. “first world” or “western hemisphere” to be more accurately portrayed as a dynamic between the northern and southern hemispheres in cultural and sociopolitical differences that govern IR. <source> 26 Avoiding assuming the sameness of all
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About the Cover Artist Lydia Wiernik studies Linguistics and Classics and is partial to Pompeiian graffiti.
The American University of Paris Gender, Sexuality, and Society Program