Discourse of Inequality: Racism, Homosexual Marriages, and Class Distribution - Term Paper Example

Women Studies From sociological point of view “race” is a communal difference constructed which gradually creeps to our analytical minds. Rather it would be better to say racism is a boundary created between population those who can and those who cannot belong to a particular collectivity of population on the basis of biological origin or some other differences. (Anthias and Davis, 1992, p.11)  Racism breeds racism. America is a country which nurtures racism even today may be not directly but subtly. If in the beginning we come to the Indians experiencing racism as kids we will find endless instances. During early days Indian kids were forced to boarding schools and given inhuman treatment. They were kept in dingy conditions, were not given proper dressings and were made to cut their hair short and they were forced to go according to their clocks and not according to their body clocks. For example if the kids were hungry they were forced to wait in front of mother superiors room before they could get their food to eat. They were kept in such way they after long years when they left the boarding by that time they have had already become unfit for both the white civilization as well as the Indian Civilization. Some of them would develop physical disabilities and were unfit for any kind of physical labor so many of them spent their time drinking and wasted their life because the Americans wanted so. In addition to it the kids were treated like dogs that could be beaten up and made to wag their tales like dogs. They were punished very harshly for every little offence they had to undergo pathetic physical torture and sometimes such corporal punishments not only included physical abuse it also included sexual abuse which was a major cause of harassment for the kids. The severe punishments for little or no offence had such ill effects on the kids that they started mistrusting almost all whites. (Rothenberg, 2003, pp. 403-406) The Japanese were no exception. The Japanese during the year 1941 were tortured like hells. They were denied almost every facility that was available to other whites of the country. There were no jobs for the Japanese; they were mostly engaged to the fishing profession and vegetable owners, even if they had equal qualification to those of the whites. The situation became worse after the Pearl Harbor incident. The Japanese people were taken to prison indiscriminately and were tortured miserably. They were asked to stop all payments to any Japanese organization. And a time came when all Japanese people were send to camps where they did not even have access to basic necessities of life. They were made to stay in horse stables, they were asked to make their own drainage system because the drainage system was inept. The Japanese were finally asked to stay in congregation and not to mix and match with the whites and not only that they were asked not to speak Japanese. Thus it can very well be understood the psychological torment the Japanese people underwent. The writer Paula S. Rothenberg says at a place that in the very beginning just after the Pearl Harbor incident they felt ashamed to be a Japanese but when they had led their lives in the camps they were no more proud to be Americans rather they felt a kind of hatred towards the Americans and were proud to call themselves Japanese. (Rothenberg, 2003, pp.407-409) Not only the Japanese all other Asian races who dwelled in America had to face a lot of dishonor in all aspects of their lives during their stay in America including both professional as well as personal fields and in most cases they had no other way but to tolerate it quietly because the Americans made all other non-Americans realize that America was the sole property of Americans and all others were intruders in their land.  The conditions of the blacks were even worse. The writer in page 434 says they right from the childhood the blacks had tremendous identity crisis. In every stop of their life they were humiliated even by the white children and gradually the blacks started losing confidence among themselves and they started questioning themselves about their identity like “who they were”? “And what purpose do they had in their lives”? Consequently that has led to personality disorders cause if an individual is subjected to immense humiliation right from his or her childhood it is obvious he or she will lose confidence and will not be able to build a strong personality What is gender? Gender can be conjured as, “Psychological, social, and cultural aspects of maleness and femaleness”. (Kessler and McKenna 1985, p. 7) The sexual intonation of the whites towards the black women was very embarrassing. The whites very easily treated the black women as commodities. In page 436 of the book the writer says that if some white men see a well dressed, beautiful, young black woman walking down the street, the first thought that comes to their mind is what should they with the woman should they rape her or kill her or they should do both. It is in the mind sets of most whites that the black women have no intelligence neither do they have the power to resist nor they are bound to be utilized by the whites as and when they require. Treating women, as commodity remains true throughout the world may be the kind of subjugation they face is different from one place to another. One very apt example of such subjugation may be the case of Arab women, the way they are veiled from head to toe, the way she is policed all the time; true enough this is not physical abuse but certainly it is a psychological torment because when an individual is considered only in bodily terms her self esteem gets completely ruptured. (Rothenberg, 2003, p.423)  Right from the initiation History of human beings a woman’s body has remained more important than her soul and this concept is so deep rooted in all our minds even the women themselves that tying to be a perfect beauty has almost become hegemony. Shamefully even today according to the data provided by the writer Paula S Rothenberg every 3 minutes a woman is beaten; every 5 minutes a woman is raped and every 10 minutes a small girl is molested. (Rothenberg, 2003, p.464) Sexual orientation is another important thing, which affects a person’s social life to a greater extent. Being a gay or lesbian is not a new concept it is as old as civilization itself. But the fact remains the homosexuals are considered fewer equals and we have seen various such evidences throughout the world, which includes countries like Romania, Iran, Cuba, and Soviet Union where homosexual men and women underwent extreme discomfiture. Harsh punishments, killings, booking by police, social isolation were meted out to them and they were so afraid that they did not give out their sexual orientation easily. (Heinze, 1995, p.3-5) Historically ethnic national or racial categories have come to existence through various ways like conquests, colonization and immigrants and to a certain extent due to modern day’s imperialism and capitalism. In countries like America racism was present in its extreme form. The whites treated the blacks as their properties and felt proud to inflict pain on them. It was against the status of whites to marry the blacks and the black off springs of white mothers was considered as burdens. (Rothenberg, 2003, p.33) The blacks were denied the right to family. The white women were called keepers of men’s homes whereas black women were called laborers. Also in case of wealth the distribution was made in such a manner that the slave owners or the whites had everything and on the contrary the blacks or the slaves remained extremely poor.    “Poverty does not beautify. Poverty does not teach generosity and allow sucker elements of tenderness and restraint. In white America hatred of black folks has imposed horrible poverty on us.” (Rothenberg, 2003, p.468) Rousseau (1984) said in his Discourse of Inequality all societies at present live under the rules designated by the poor in order to oppress the poor. In a situation where both the rich and the poor exists, there is prevalence of two kinds of contract one the legal one which states that all are equal and the other the real one by which the rich are licensed to dominate the poor. And the rich as they have the power of wealth it is as if their right to drive the society according to their whims and fancies. From this distinction between the haves and the have nots, which is prevalent in every society the power structure, gets started in a society. In simpler terms we can say that the basic difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich have access to all material goods rather all luxury items in the world very easily. In a hot summer day a rich family can easily afford to move about in an AC car whereas a day laborer cannot chose to stay back at home just because the sun is at its best. A rich youth can party out with his friends in Mc Donald’s without any issue but a poor chap is busy thinking whether he will be able to manage his one square meal. Society today is such that the rich becomes the richer and the poor remains poor and also becomes poorer in the due course of time because the rich shots of the society is busy grasping wealth for themselves without paying any heed to the need of others. Long back Karl Marx had spoken about Dialectical Materialism which states that there is a recycling in the power game that is once those who are powerless comes to the power position and those who were in the powerful position become powerless and Marx said that this happens automatically. Due to this a healthy society is maintained and there is no chance of monopoly being created by a particular group. But in the present scenario no such power reversal happens. The concept of middle class is a bit confusing in the sense whom to call the middle class, those who are close to the poor or those who are close to the rich. Generally the norm is to call people close to the poor as middle class. This middle class have a strong desire to migrate to the next stratum that is the rich and try their best to reach the status as fast as possible. Sometimes they just pose as if they belong to the richer section. Gender is a psychological construction. It is different from the biological sex received by Nature. Gender is something, which is externally imbibed among an individual’s mind right from his or her birth. Parenting of a child happens in away such that the child understands that he is a boy or she is a girl. Lot of restrictions is imposed on the body language of girls, the way they move, the way they laugh and also the way they eat. In a place of South Africa it is said that the boys can have their food with their mouths wide open but a girl has to eat with her lips only, this in clear terms is gender bias. (Rothenberg, 2003, pp.54-57) Today though men and women work in the same office and do the same work yet the work done by men is considered more important. Moreover not only that even today to a large extent expected that women are the ones who should take care of the domestic affairs. Even today parents are happier if they give birth to a boy child because they feel that the boy will be their worthy ancestor. Even today a homosexual is considered mentally sick whereas a rapist is considered only a criminal who is mentally sound just because he is a heterosexual. Isn’t it extremely strange even in such a modern society? A homosexual is made to feel isolated in the society, he or she is made to feel that they are doing something forbidden and hence should be penalized. On the contrary if a heterosexual maintains multiple partners then it has no harm. A homosexual is made to suffer from inequality, insecurity, inferiority, uncertainty and above all absence of comfortable self-acceptance. Homosexuals are even denied jobs if the employers get to know about their sexual orientation. Unlike heterosexuality where the age of consent is 15; the age of consent of homosexuality is 18. (Frederic Martel, Jane Marie Todd, p.132). As seen in the discussion citing various references from the book we can see that these inequalities do exist in the society and to a larger extent. We still can see that a girl is made to wear the ear ring so that the onlookers can understand that she is a girl in the same manner a baby boy is made to wear a essentially boys shoe so that people easily understand his boyhood. In case of racism also still we find that non- Americans are not very confident among the white skinned people and even the white skinned have a high nose towards the black. But this point may be contrasted by saying that America today has a black President Barrack Obama, comparing today’s situation with the yester years the situation is much better. Regarding homosexuals the stigma still remains very much prevalent. Till today homosexual marriages have not been legalized. The scenario with respect to the class distribution that is the rich, poor and the middle class the scenario has changed in a way that; according to the writer of the book today in USA there is no existence of the concept middle class only two classes are prevalent they are the extreme rich and the extreme poor and this is mainly because of the establishment of the capitalist society which gives birth to such sharp class distinctions. Regarding the question to what extent has it been overcome; the answer goes in the positive direction. Because today’s people have become quite conscious and they have also learnt to voice their needs. So when they are in distress due to any kind of discrimination they at least try to protest the wrong.                    References 1. Anthias, F. and Davis, N. (1993) Racialized Boundaries, Routledge 2. Heinze, E. (1995) Sexual Orientation, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 3. Kessler, S. and W. McKenna (1985), Gender, University of Chicago Press 4. Martel, F. and Todd, J.M. (2000) The pink and the black, Stanford University Press 5. Rousseau, J.J. (1984) Discourse of Inequality, Penguin Classics 6. Rothenberg, P.S. (2003) Race, Class, and Gender in the United States, Worth Publishers Read More