Oppressive Gender Relations in Heteronormative Societies - Essay Example

20 October Oppressive Gender Relations in Heteronormative Societies and Fields Heteronormative societies enforce stereotyped gender roles and expectations that continue to shape modern mainstream gender identities and relations. The term “heteronormative” is used in the essay as the worldview that produces and strengthens beliefs, attitudes, and practices, where heterosexuality is considered as the only dominant valid sexual orientation and where the male sex dominates over the female sex and other genders (Bedford 2). The essay explores several readings and how they portray the prevalence of heteronormativity in their respective fields of study. These readings reinforce one another by describing and analyzing different oppressive heteronormative sexual relations that exist in varying degrees and for varied reasons across different public and private spaces, and furthermore, based on learning and personal experience, oppressive gender relations and experiences can be removed through educating stakeholders about the individual and social harms of heteronormativity and pursuing perspective and policy changes that must be conducted to eliminate heteronormativity. Gender, politics, and race intersect in producing repressive heteronormative gender relations. Lindsey Feitz and Joane Nagel explore the intersections of gender, war, and sexuality in “The Militarization of Gender and Sexuality in the Iraq War.” They assert that although the U.S. military employs more women in army operations nowadays, the same heteronormative relations are imposed on the latter. Feitz and Nagel add the complication of race, as sexuality and gender issues intersect. They talk about the example of the rescue of Private First Class Jessica Lynch, whose race and gender contrasted to those of her takers, where “American men [were] saving a pretty, young, white American woman from the possible sexual and personal assault by dark and dangerous Iraqis” (206). Political realities interconnect gender and ethnic desires, thereby reinforcing hetenormative norms based on gender and race. Heteronormative gender relations can be argued, thus, to come from and to reinforce male political power. Heteronormativity can impact the male gender in racialized ways too. Gil Z. Hochberg presents heteronormativity that is more racial than sexual, although the causes and effects have gendered dimensions in “‘Check Me Out’: Queer encounters in Sharif Waked’s Chic Point: Fashion for Israeli Checkpoints.” Hochberg shows how checkpoints in West Bank and Gaza depict heteronormative exploitation. In his analysis, he asserts that checkpoints serve to “produce the Palestinian body both as a symbol of imminent danger (“the terrorist”) and as the object of complete subjugation lacking any political agency (“the occupied”)” (578). Because these checkpoints target both men and women, heteronormativity is depicted in a regional scale, wherein one male nationality controls and suppresses a different male and female nationality. Sex and gender become political arenas of power over those who are more powerless or those whom the dominant race wants to render powerless. The male gaze is an important image of heteronormative sexuality production in several articles. How the heteronormative male sees women affects how they treat them. Feitz and Nagel indicate the role of gender in the male military gaze. Military personnel, for instance, continue to see military women in their stereotyped roles (Feitz and Nagel 204). Female soldiers continue to be embedded into the heteronormative aspirations of the military in specific and the American society in general. In “Securitizing Gender: Identity, Biometrics, and Transgender Bodies at the Airport,” Paisley Currah and Tara Mulqueen explore gender issues in the U.S. Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) gender and biometrics practices. They describe that by using biometrics and comparing its results that to gender information, TSA’s programs “operationalize” gender in heteronormative terms (558). By seeing gaps between the stated gender and physical sexual organs, in particular, the state enforces the heteronormative perspective of “seeing” and maintaining heteronormative gender rules and practices. Male voyeurism is present too in Israeli checkpoints. Hochberg notes the irrationality and indecency of “check out” process for Palestinian men and women. He asserts that Chic Point questions the “conflation of nationalism and masculinity” (Hochberg 580). The essay understands Hochberg’s concern of how sexualization through the dominant male gaze can lead to racial exploitation and antagonism. These articles underscore the male gaze’s role in heteronormative power play across gender and races/ethnicities. The workplace, in particular, can mask and unmask oppressive gender relations that have wider implications on how power relations are conceived and applied in the former. Feitz and Nagel understand the roots and manifestations of gender identities by explaining them in the context of the women in the military and in war. They underscore that in war, women are “extensions” of their men, so what Private First Class Lynddie England did with the torture of Iraqi prisoners is an extension of the identities and power of white male American soldiers (Feitz and Nagel 212). They present a disconcerting image of how war becomes a justification for gender repression against the “Other,” specifically the repressed ethnic minorities, this time, the sexual subjugation of male Iraqi prisoners through sexual exploitation. Whether the minorities are enemies or civilians, friendly or otherwise, they are lumped into a subjugated status under the dominant male white race. In addition, even within the workplace itself, gender oppression can take place. Feitz and Nagel underline the existence of military rape within its institution and society, as they cited the examples of Army Specialist Suzanne Swift and others who experienced sexual abuse under their superiors or from other soldiers (213-214). Without racial or ethnic differences, hetenormativity continues to affect gender experiences through the subjugation of the female sex. To continue with workplace examples, Kate Bedford focuses on the gender-based lending program of World Bank in “Loving to Straighten out Development: Sexuality and “Ethnodevelopment” in the World Bank’s Ecuadorian Lending.” Bedford is concerned that by not criticizing the program of the World Bank, it introduces new heteronormative relations that might counter the aims of gender equality in the workplace and private spaces: “By overlooking such references to sexuality we miss a key policy solution to the social reproduction dilemma enacted by the Bank, and we thus fail to critique it” (22). The workplace, in this case, can affect heteronormative relations in other countries, where potential impacts of worsening them can happen because of the absence of further outcome analysis and appropriate interventions. These articles demonstrate the varied role and effects of institutions on private and public spaces that portray and promote heteronormative power. Using learning and personal experience, oppressive gender relations and experiences can be removed through educating stakeholders about the individual and social harms of the former and pursuing perspective and policy changes that must be conducted to eliminate heteronormativity. Bedford provides a useful example of how programs can be analyzed for its naturalizing effect on heteronormativity. Government programs, international and national, must be design with the goal of eradicating heteronormativity. Nevertheless, one cannot overlook the power status and relations at play. As long as dominant institutions have heteronormative males and females in leadership and management positions, heteronormativity cannot be realistically removed. Instead, those who are involved on promoting equal gender relations must rigorously educate stakeholders, especially the youth. These educators can explain the harms of heteronormative existence on both men and women and how gender quality through perspective changes (among other actions) can help launch genuine and lasting gender orientation changes that can improve the general welfare of society. Policies, furthermore, can be enacted to prevent the naturalization of heteronormativity. Guidelines on gender equality must be present for all policymakers, especially in education and social welfare, so that social class, gender, and race can be unbundled in positive ways, wherein unbundling means that the poor and the female no longer have to suffer because of gender and class differences, since they can access self-improvement opportunities and social and political power. Thus, education and policymaking can have a large impact on the incremental removal of heteronormativity. These articles show the image of gender relations as a manifestation of uneven power patterns. Hochberg explores oppressed gender identities by connecting gendered realities to the metaphor and experience of checkpoints, while Bedfor emphasizes gendered realities in the economic and political context through the institution of lending. Currah and Mulqueen study heteronormative transportation practices in airport, while Feitz and Nagel question the militarization of sexual relations and gendered identities in war. These articles show that how societies and institutions literally and figuratively see gender is not detached from economic, political, racial, and sexual issues of their times. Therefore, to end heteronormativity, it is important to analyze and to present interconnected economic, political, racial, and sexual solutions. Works Cited Bedford, Kate. “Loving to Straighten out Development: Sexuality and “Ethnodevelopment” in the World Bank’s Ecuadorian Lending.” Feminist Legal Studies 13.3 (2005): 295-322. Print. Currah, Paisley, and Tara Mulqueen. “Securitizing Gender: Identity, Biometrics, and Transgender Bodies at the Airport.” Social Research 78.2 (2011): 557-582. Print. Feitz, Lindsey and Joane Nagel. “The Militarization of Gender and Sexuality in the Iraq War.” Women, Violence and the Military (2008). Print. Hochberg, Gil Z. “‘Check Me Out’: Queer Encounters in Sharif Waked’s Chic Point: Fashion for Israeli Checkpoints.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies (2010): 577-597. Print. Read More