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#I feel like he equated lgbt rights as a political issue as well
wenellyb · 3 years
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I saw what you said about the Mackie situation not being black and white and I completely agree. There were parts of his statement that made me as a queer person uncomfortable however I don’t think he’s homophobic nor do I think that this is even as big a deal as anyone is making it out to be.
It frustrates me that people can’t understand that I can say “I think there were parts of his statement that were slightly hurtful/tone deaf” and also say “I don’t think Anthony Mackie is a bad person” at the same time.
Honestly I feel like if we all collectively decided to stop talking about it, it would be infinitely better than whatever the fuck is going on the Sambucky tag.
Yes, you are right,
I'm staying away from this whole mess as much as I can because there seems to be only 2 sides and everyone is mixing everything up, thinking that this is a shipping issue only and that it's a problem for Sambucky shippers... And I hope people realize that this is not the discussion here, even though some people want to make it about the shipping.
Just to clear things up, about the shipping part, first of all, the Variety interviewer mixed up some parts, and put whatever they wanted in the written interview, but even if Anthony had said that didn't see Sambucky as romantic or anything, it would be his right... He's an actor, he has his script, he's not responsible for what was written in the script...I hate people making it about shipping and saying that actors should always give vague answers when talking about ships so people can keep their hopes up and use their imagination.
But I also know from experience in other fandoms that if Anthony had given a vague reply about Sambucky some people would have complained that it was queerbaiting. There is no winning with the fandom so let's stop trying to frame this as a Sambucky ship issue I'm tired of people trying to frame this whole story as a shipping issue:
- Oh Anthony doesn't support Sambucky, our ship is dead
- And I'm also tired of people pretending that the accusations/comments are just from jaded Sambucky shippers who are mad because Anthony didn't say what they wanted to hear about the ship.
I will not be talking about the shipping part and I feel like the people who are focusing on the Sambucky part are completely missing the point.
Can we just talked about what happened? Yes, he was clumsy in some of the wording, but I saw nothing in that interview indicating that Anthony was homophobic.
But it doesn't mean that some of his sentences weren't rooted in homophobia...( I don't know how to phrase this so I hooe you understand).
And I don't understand why it is so hard for people to acknowledge it without villainizing him-
Whether we like it or not, we live in homophobic societies, and Anthony himself has acknowledging that he was brought up in communities where homophobia was present and he did a lot of growing and learning.
And sometimes he can use the wrong word, or sentence... It's not just Anthony, it's literally anybody on the whole planet..
A lot of people have internalized homophobia, and Anthony is one of the rare Hollywood male actors who has acknoweldeged it, and worked on it and he showed his support the LGBT community on many occasions.
And yes, clumsiness, mistakes and wrong words happen, but the correct behavior isn't behaving like nothing happened.
But NO... People want to make 2 teams, and 2 teams only...
1. Anthony is homophobic
2. Anthony did nothing wrong
Yeah well, none of that is true and acknowledging it POLITELY and without insluting and throwing slurs is possible. I mean it should be possible... but some people don't seem to understand that.
People know full well that what Anthony saying about fandoms wasn't homophobic, the discussion of the toxicity in some fandom circles is an ongoing one is spot on.
But on the other side, people know full well that even though what he said wasn't homophobic, and we could understand the general idea, he didn't word things perfectly and was mixing stuff and I don't like it when they pretend they don't understand why some people were hurt by what Anthony said...
Also, when you say something similar to "guys can't be close anymore or hang out at a bar together without being seen as gay" you make it sound like being seen as gay is a problem... And it seems inoffensive but in reality, the implications can be hurtful...
I have absolutely no interest in taking part in a debate where people are just stating stuff and not interested in having a discussion.
And honeslty I am 100% in the Anthony Mackie defence team because people on the internet do not know how to raise an issue without being rude or insulting, which is why I will support him when needed, but I'm also not here to pretend that I don't understand why some people are genuinely upset and that the people who are genuinely upset are not just shippers upset about the ship.
(And of course there are shippers upset about the ship but I cannot do anything for them)
I need other people to stop missing the point on purpose or unintenionally and pretend the discussion about homophobia is unfounded. But it's complicated because some people have been waiting for the moment a Balck actor missteps so that they can be racist in peace.
Tumblr is the worst place to engage in any discussion because 90% of the users are already on their high horses and have chosen the position they will have until the end of the debate.
I hate doing that... I enter the debate, learn new information, adapt and change my mind if I need to.. .Like at the beginning, I read the interview but I didn't know that there was also a podcast, and that some of Anthony's answers during the podcast had been misplaced, so I took that information account as well.
Why do we always have to have firm positions...
The only thing that I'm very cautious about is that Anthony is a Black man and the fandom and the Internet in general have a tendency to be harsher with Black men than with their White counterparts...
People who have never supported Anthony is the first place come and insult him and everything, but don't even try to go deeper and actually read the article or try to learn more?
And that also explain why some of the people defending Anthony are more defensive (me included) because when the racists come into the equation it becomea just awful... And that's why Anthony needs a strong support system in the fandom.
If there hadn't been people pushing back and supporting Anthony, you can be sure that what you would have seen in the Sambucky tag would have been 10 times worse and Anthony would have been the target of all that.
The other 3 posts I have made on the topic, more of less saying the same thing that this wasn't the best time to discuss this... when evryone was talking in the heat of the moment.
HERE HERE and HERE
I'm so sorry I was tired while writing this, so if some parts don't make sense let me know and I will explain it better, I just wanted to reply to you today.
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mikhalsarah · 3 years
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The Emperor’s New Gender
How can you help a 3-year-old to stop misgendering family friends who are transwomen? She isn't trying to insult them deliberately, but just doesn't perceive them as women and won't remember being corrected the next time she sees them. -Quora
First of all, as per further information in the comments, this is not your child and it is NOT your place to be interfering in how this family handles the issue unless they have specifically ASKED for your advice. This is something for the offended friends and the parents to work out, and if you value your friendships you will back out of what isn’t your problem. The entire fact that you feel entitled to force your personal beliefs on other people’s children and intervene in their parenting and other social relationships is extremely disturbing. I suggest you get a good book on Co-dependence recovery.
Secondly, this is an “Emperor’s New Clothes” problem. There is NOTHING “wrong” with this toddler (who at 3 is actually a preschooler), so there is nothing the parents can do about it. You can’t fix what isn’t broken. This reminds me of medieval parents getting the idea in their heads that crawling was too animalistic and ungodly, and strapping their children to little roundabouts to force them to skip crawling and go right to “proper human” walking. Crawling is developmentally necessary for most children and they rarely skip over it, and their lower leg bones and muscles are not yet ready to bear their full weight, leading to possible bow-leggedness. You cannot force children to skip developmental stages because it offends people based on some ideology they have. It has consequences. It is grown-ups here who must accept the natural development of children however inconvenient it is. This is called ACTING LIKE AN ADULT.
This is a normal stage of neurological development. At a certain point in the developing brain it starts to categorize things as a means to understand them. The ability to understand who is biologically male and producing sperm and who is biologically female and producing ova is self-evidently crucial to the survival of every species on the planet that has sexual reproduction. Even for species that can literally morph from one sex to the other, it is still crucial to recognize which members of their species are in which sexual form, and to have that skill locked well down before puberty hits. Therefore that ability is hard-wired into us, just like our ability to acquire language is. This child has reached a stage where they can now identify key markers of biological sex in people’s body shapes (hip to waist ratio, shoulder to hip ratio) and faces (relative size and placement of eyes, nose and philtrum lengths, chin length and width etc) but they have no idea yet what “gender” is as a concept because their brain is not mature enough to entertain a concept that still confuses many adults, apparently.
Children are notorious for mis-gendering everyone, not just trans people. I was mis-gendered by two preschoolers yesterday when I appeared at work in a skirt instead of my typical jeans. There was even a story decades back in Reader’s Digest illustrating how they mix up and conflate sex and gender roles. It was submitted by a parent who allowed their 4 year old to go to JK wearing his sister’s barrettes, only to have the teacher overhear him arguing with another boy about whether he was a boy or a girl. The boy eventually became exasperated and pulled down his pants to show the other boy his penis to prove he was a boy, to which the other boy dismissively said, “Everyone has a penis, only girls wear barrettes.”
Here I will suggest that you also need some good books on child development and evolutionary biology.
This situation would not have been a problem even a few years ago, before “transsexual” was turned into a dirty word and transgender was foisted on us, instead. Once upon a time you could just tell a child that:
A) not everyone who is male or female fits neatly into the typical or average appearance for their sex (or behaviour, for that matter)
B) some people who are born into one sex are unhappy about it for reasons we don’t yet understand. They feel strongly that they are the other sex internally (in their mind/brain) and are much happier if everyone just lets them live as the sex they feel inside as much as possible, and they can have hormones and surgery to help them do so. Since most of those people don’t fully understand themselves until past puberty, they develop outwardly like their biological sex and it can take a lot of time and money to change that.
and
C) It’s impolite and unkind to make personal remarks, or to draw attention to physical features or other differences which people have no control over.
We don’t yet fully understand the biological working of things like gender development, gender identity, or sexual orientations, but there is more than enough evidence that they are “real” events with correlates in the material world. We know that people with conditions that are known to affect the structure and function of their temporal lobes are much more likely to be GLB (including sudden shifts in their sexual orientation after events like head injuries, strokes and seizures) and much more likely to identify as trans or otherwise not conforming to the gender binary (including again, sudden changes to their sense of self-identity in the wake of neurological events). Obviously the majority of people who are LGBT haven’t had a head injury, stroke or seizure, so being LGBT is not “caused by” those things, they’re just some of many things that can “flip the switch”; genetics, pre-natal hormone exposure, birth order, and developmental life experiences have all been tentatively cited as having a role to play.
*People on both the Right and Woke Left will be determined to misunderstand me here as saying that being GLB or T is evidence of a “sickness” of some sort…either agreeing and using this information as “proof” that it’s so or becoming angry at me for equating the two. So let’s just head off that nonsense at Go. ALL MANNER of changes can happen in the wake of neurological events in the temporal lobe or elsewhere. One man who had a head injury suddenly became a mathematical genius…do you think that’s evidence that being good at math is a “sickness”? One person finds they become more emotional, another less so (neither is a pathology unless taken to extremes that prevent the person functioning). Some people who develop Temporal Lobe Epilepsy suddenly take up writing or (less often) the visual arts. Is being a writer or artist a biological flaw? Obviously not. The linkage of any trait with an area of the brain is not evidence that the trait is pathological (it might be, it might not), it is merely evidence that one or more neurological substrates that control that trait resides in that particular part of the brain. As regards gender identity, it tells us that there is some part of our brains where sexual self-identity arises and therefore the person’s experience may be subjective (only they experience it, others cannot perceive it unless told of it) but is not imaginary.
In the past children gradually acquired the ability for more complex categorization and learned to differentiate between someone’s biological sex, their gender presentation (how closely they match others of their sex), and societal gender roles. Children are remarkably accepting of diversity and exceptions to rules when they are presented matter-of-factly. More so than adults who apparently can’t accept facts which don’t fit with their ideologies on the Left, any more than Evangelical Young-Earth Creationists on the Right can, and feel the need to tie themselves into mindless, slogan-droning intellectual pretzels as a result.
The fact that we now view even toddlers with suspicion of “transphobia” and seek to indoctrinate their natural neurological development out of them should be a GIANT F*ING RED FLAG that we are NOT becoming more aware of diversity and more accepting, we are becoming LESS able to see the full extent of how diverse humans really are and are being forced to pigeonhole them into categories that the average five year old is supposed to be outgrowing. What we are seeing is an extremely judgmental, rigid and abusive cult that denies an obvious reality that even a child can see, that biological sex is real and important, and cannot be replaced by or conflated with gender identity or roles, even if we also agree that gender presentation and gender identity are also important biological realities. It used to be only children who foolishly did so, but now we have adults telling children that everyone can have a penis and only girls wear barrettes.
In the original story of The Emperor’s New Clothes, the child’s lack of indoctrination into social hierarchies left them nonconformist, and free to state what they saw with their own eyes with impunity. The child was not punished because children are not expected to be politically correct. In fact, it led the adults to realize that they had let fear and desire to conform and be thought clever blind them to obvious reality. It is the adults in the end who feel foolish and ashamed, and change their ways. We’re not yet at the end of the story of The Emperor’s New Gender, but based on the current trajectory the “adults” are going to double-down and I will soon be looking for a new career, as I will be expected to throw away everything I know about child development so that daycares can be run like Orwellian indoctrination camps. I will not participate in the ideological and developmental abuse of children so that a tiny minority of adults can live in a fantasy world in which they deny an aspect of reality when it has the temerity not to give a shit about their ideology.
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messiestobjects replied to your post “messiestobjects replied to your post “We talk a lot about consent,...”
idk why i never got informed of the response to this? but basically my perspective is that there can be a "treadmill" type effect which leads to people saying things like "you should ask for consent before telling your friends that you had a bad day and need someone to be there for you, and accept that if they say no, they're standing up for their own boundaries and you shouldn't feel abandoned by that." and this kind of treadmill effect can cause people who really need to learn about sexual consent to think, “ahh, it’s all too hard, i’m not doing this, i’m going back to the old ways.” i think phrasing like “do unto others” makes it a little clearer for people, whereas the phrasing of your original post DID set the sexual and nonsexual consent stuff right next to each other in the very first line. i used to hang out in belgium a lot and people kiss as a greeting even upon first meeting sometimes, and due to the cultural “what i’m most used to, what i was taught is polite,” a lot of people got offended when i didn’t let them faire la bise. but i know it’s a cultural norm thing, i know they didn’t think it would also be unfair if i didn’t want them to grope or rape me. so i don’t think that small things always equal big things either. big stuff is often way easier easier for people to understand. a small violation is a small violation and that’s why they allow it, the line is literally at the big violations. it took me years of recovery to learn that someone who jostles me at a bar probably does still see me as human and doesn’t think i’m disposable trash. it was trauma that told me otherwise. i don’t mean to be rude here, i’m trying to discuss only 
I probably shouldn’t be dignifying this with a response but here we go.
Look, I don’t mean to be rude here, but I’m gonna get firm with you. I completely fail to see you making any point that in any way invalidates what I’m trying to say in my original post.
I’m sorry that there are people out there who see it as a treadmill effect. But those people, frankly, are assholes, and it’s not my problem, or anyone else’s problem, to re-frame arguments in a way that they can understand. If they decide it’s “too hard” to be a decent human being that’s on them, that’s not on the rest of the world to find a way to cater to their needs.
Let’s put it this way. A gay person tells someone to stop using the f-slur. If that someone decides that’s “too hard” and that all these “small things” aren’t a big deal, would you blame the gay person for standing up against casual homophobia and microaggressions? Would you tell Black people saying “hey don’t use the n-word” that if they tell people that, those people are going to say ‘fuck it this is too hard let’s bring slavery back’? Because forgive the graphic metaphor but that’s the kind of backwards logic you’re working with, here. Any actual decent human being is not going to say, “ugh remembering not to hug this one person is too hard, I’m just going to start raping people.” What. The actual. Heavenly. Fuck.
Again, I did not say sexual consent violations and other consent violations were the exact same thing. I said, “since we’re talking so much about sexual consent, which is great, let’s talk about another way in which consent is violated.” It’s like if I’d said, “hey, since Jaskier from The Witcher TV show is so popular right now, may I interest you in the TV show Galavant, which has a very similar vibe?” I genuinely do not know how else I can phrase this for you to understand it. But frankly, I’m not your parent or your teacher or your therapist so it ain’t my job to do that!
To be perfectly honest here, you not only seem to be missing the major point of my post, you’re missing the subtext that I was trying to keep subtext so that everyone who read the post could relate to it. You want to know why I mentioned hair touching? Because Black women get their hair touched without their consent all the time and it’s demeaning and racist. You want to know why I mentioned “don’t share that someone’s got a boyfriend if they say not to”? Because LGBT+ people are outed in unsafe places in that way all the time. So actually, those ‘small’ violations are bigger than you thought.
I’m sorry that you’ve decided it’s society’s job to phrase consent issues in exactly a precise perfect way for people to understand, but if you ask me, if someone’s not willing to listen to me when I say “don’t hug me” or “don’t post my real name online” or even something small like “don’t tell anyone I have a crush on this celebrity,” then they are DEFINITELY not going to listen to me when I say “don’t fuck me.” “Save it for the big stuff” is NONSENSE. Because if you start small, then it’s easy for the person to be ready for the big. When a man makes a joke about me and I tell him to stop and he doesn’t, you think I’m going to say, “well it’s just a small thing, I feel safe having sex with him, I’m sure he’ll stop when I say to”?
NO. I DON’T SAY THAT. Small, non-sexual things are how we figure out if we even want someone in our bed in the first place! And again: it might seem small to you, but small violations of consent still hurt. And they can ruin friendships and build up and lead to problems. So they do need to be talked about. Just because it might seem small to you doesn’t mean it wasn’t big to other people. Friends telling people when my birthday is doesn’t seem like a big deal to them, but it’s a big fucking deal to me, and it hurts me deeply when people share my birthday date with others (for reasons we’re not getting into here). Small to them, big to me. Who are you to decide what’s “big” and what’s “small”? Just respect people’s boundaries, whatever they are!
And I fail to see what “a stranger bumping into me at the bar” has anything to do with what I was saying. I was saying when you tell someone not to do something and they do it. That doesn’t equate to someone accidentally bumping into me. You’re bringing up a completely different issue there. To quote a friend, “accidents are not violations of consent.” And I’m not talking about cultural differences either! I’m talking about when someone says no, don’t do the thing, and you do the thing anyway!
You’re not making the argument that you think you are. I stand by my post. And I’m finished talking about this. Sexual consent needs to be discussed but so does violating consent in non-sexual ways. That’s what my post was talking about. Sorry it’s gone over your head. Twice. Here it is, in plain language:
Non-sexual violations of consent need to be talked about. Respect people when they tell you not to do something. Big or small.
Hopefully everyone has now gotten it through their skulls. I’m going to go eat an entire pint of ice cream and not talk to anyone on this godforsaken hellsite ever again. Any further replies to this post attempting to further the discussion will be ignored and possibly deleted.
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hamliet · 5 years
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I always hate how some people try to push real life politics in fiction that it doesnt fit or try to act like if some villain is representative of a real lfie politician they dont like or spout bs like if you are right wing and like stories with anti racism or xenophobia message you dont know what they are fighting for which is false its nothing more than an attempt to equate right/conservative to racist or xenophobia it reminds of of a phrase that conservatives see liberals as idiots 1/2
I never got the second part to this ask, but I think you’re discussing two different things. When I say not to equate I’m discussing specifically, say, equating Dany’s actions in King’s Landing to Hiroshima, calling everything abuse when it’s contextually not, etc. (Sigh, antis.) A trigger isn’t equivalent to portraying the memory triggered, either.
I’ve personally yet to see a flavor of conservatism that isn’t racist and xenophobic, sexist and restrictive for LGBT+ groups too, and I say this as someone who grew up in a highly highly conservative cult and who has seen conservative radicals come to power in now multiple countries while I lived in them. When Dr*mpf won in 2016 it was deja vu for me, because M*di in India isn’t any better (he’s kinda worse with a genocide already under his belt). I am not saying every conservative harbors personal hatred towards people of other races/origins, women, LGBT+ folks. What I am saying that supporting a movement that does restrict their rights, that doesn’t listen to them, is… well, apathetic at best, and if it feels like racism/sexism/homophobia, then what would you call it? I think people think of racists, for example, as like skinheads setting out to destroy. That’s not all it is. It’s not always malicious in intent, but in consequences it is. Racism isn’t always about intent.
While I certainly believe that the far left has major issues too (oh, trust me, I think cancel culture is no different in functionality from purity culture, and ideals don’t always translate well practically speaking, plus communism in practice has seldom led to anything but death and censorship), they at least have a heart. The far right seems to be motivated by an attitude of, quite honestly, “f*ck you, got mine” and an unwillingness to see society progress when it’s been progressing for thousands of years. When it comes to me and myself or the people society doesn’t value, I want choose the people society doesn’t value. That’s my ideal. That’s what I believe is right. In practice, yes, things get complicated and hard, but that doesn’t make it less right.
I am a bleeding heart liberal and fairly socialist. I don’t care if people think I’m an idiot (I know I’m not). I love many conservatives as people (like almost my entire family is extremely conservative fundamentalist), but I also am disgusted by their support for people who pass policies that directly harm people like me and people I love, and it’s not often a “keep the peace” situation. I’m a fairly opinionated person and I don’t want to coddle those society already protects when they’re discussing making uncomfortable the ones society already makes uncomfortable.
I’m not going to try to argue with you or convince you. All the conservative arguments I had washed into my brain in middle school, and I know them front and back, parroted many of them in high school. They didn’t hold up when I met people from other walks of life.
I think every single human being deserves the best chance at life. As might surprise people to know since I’m also talking about being very liberal, I’m also quite religious, and it’s in large part thanks to my religious beliefs (prioritizing the people society scorns is like a very Jesus Thing) that I support policies that give everyone healthcare, food, the ability to move around as they please, hold people accountable for racism and sexism and homophobia, etc. It’s also thanks to just this amazing thing called being human, and experiencing humanity in various cultures and stories. Humans are capable of a lot of evil, but also so much good and so much beauty, and I want to see everyone get a chance. I’ve never met a human I thought didn’t deserve every opportunity.
Fiction isn’t removed from politics. Fiction isn’t reality, but it isn’t separated from reality either. Politics do influecne fiction. George Lucas’s Star Wars was very much influenced by the Vietnam War and other politics of the 70s. To Kill a Mockingbird addressed a real social issue. It’s a thing. ASOIAF literally has the zombies named the “wights” and they aim to kill and erase all culture. Not saying there are no problematic elements in these, but politics do influence fiction. It’s not wrong to see a political reality reflected in fiction; many times it’s intentional.
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caleb-1193 · 7 years
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With Trump's inauguration tomorrow, the irony being the theme "unity," there's one thing I want to bring up. One of the most aggravating things I hear when I become visibly annoyed or frustrated with the Trump supporters in my life is when they turn it all around and ask me where my "love" is, and there is this expectation even among leftists that we must come together in unity for the sake of the country as if bipartisanship isn't responsible for facilitating the same neoliberal bullshit that got us in this mess in the first place. And to a degree they are right. We should love. But love is not always a feel good reconciliation with our enemies. Love is also love for the oppressed and is thus expressed as loud and ceaseless opposition to their oppressors. Christ's revolutionary ideology involves love, but not always a love that reconciles but one which also demands justice, one that flips over tables in frustration, one that walks around calling out the privileged and elite, one that steam rolls over the traditions and teachings of men that seek to nullify the love and grace of God. Love is not just empathizing with the oppressed. Love is joining the oppressed and suffering in solidarity with them. And that's when things get messy. When people begin moving beyond unity or charity and towards justice and solidarity with the suffering, as Christ did, they get in trouble. Once we become intimate with folks in struggle, or even when we find ourselves to be in positions of disadvantage or marginalization, we start to ask why, which is never as popular as unity. A Catholic bishop once said, "when I fed the hungry, they called me a saint. When I asked why people are hungry, they called me a Communist." I know I'm showing my colors as a liberation theologian, but I'm convinced God has a preferential option for those in suffering. When we draw lines between the oppressed and the oppressors (I believe these are the only two categories that exist), God always stands firmly on the side of the oppressed, the poor, the out group, the excluded, the group on the margins, no matter who they are. We know who Christ associated with in his lifetime two thousand years ago and I believe this predilection of his hasn't changed in that span of time. He still is here, not for the righteous, but for those drowning, not for the rich but for those struggling through poverty, not for those at the top of the social ladder, but for those trodden down by systemic injustice. When any person was oppressed, abused, dehumanized, Christ was there with them, affirming their humanity, suffering and enduring what they suffered and endured. God does take sides and it's not always in the safe, proper, orderly churches or the well-ventilated suburban homes. For as soon as we start pushing people, any people, to the margins, we push God right out with them. Neutrality, or "unity," has never been an option for the ones who strive to follow Christ. Unity wins awards and applause. Unity wins popularity, but joining the suffering gets you killed. People are not crucified for helping the suffering. People are not crucified for unity. People are crucified for solidarity with the oppressed. So it isn't that I don't love the Trump supporters in my life, but I have lost respect for them. Not because I am mad that Clinton lost, or that they voted one way and I another, or even because they have different politics (even though I believe right-wing politics inherently has a sense of immortality to it). I have lost respect for them because they watched an adult mock a disabled person in front of a crowd and still support him. I think less of them becasue they watched a man advocate for war crimes and still think he should run this country. I have less respect for them becasue they saw a man spouting racism and islamophobia and still support him. I think less of Trump supporters because they watched a man equate a woman's worth to her appearance and got on board. I find their politics repulsive, but it's their personal willingness to support Trump in particular that truly repulses me more. By virtue of voting for Trump, they have granted onto themselves the title of oppressor. They have sided with a bully and it seems they will always side with a bully when it matters most. You cannot possibly expect to vote for someone like Trump and believe there should be no social consequence for it. I keep hearing calls for empathy and healing, civility, polite discourse, and unity as if supporting a man who would fill his administration with white nationalists and misogynists is something to simply agree to disagree on. You don't get to vote for a man who brags about sexually assaulting women and expect the women in your life to shrug their shoulders. You don't get to vote for a man who appoints a literal white supremacist as a senior adviser and expect the people of color in your life to sit and be comfortable around you. And you certainly don't get to vote for a man who appoints an attorney general with perhaps the worst record on LGBT issues and expect me to believe you have even an ounce of genuine good will towards me and people like me. You don't get to play the victim when people disassociate themselves from you, as if being disliked for supporting a bigot is somehow worse than the suffering that marginalized people will endure under Trump. Absolutely not. I will not "get over it." I will not be coming together in unity to move forward. I hope this presidency not only brings a revival of real leftist politics, but I hope it also calls forth some of the brightest (and youngest) minds, minds full of new ideas and innovation. I do not yet know my role in Trump's America. But as for me and my house, I will serve God in loud opposition. I will exemplify the gospels in these days by promoting community over the individual. You will see me at protests, and demonstrations, and Prides. You will find me in streets singing my heart out and holding hands unafraid. From this point on I am reminded of how I was meant to live my life: in complete and obstinate defiance. So whether it's that classmate, or that by-stander, or that relative at the table, there are people in this country, right now, who should be made to feel uncomfortable. Do I love the Trump supporters in my life? Sure. But it is the fact they he doesn't disgust them that will stick with me long after this presidency. And in a time where there is so much to protest, so much work to do, the uncomfortableness is necessary and shame on us if we ever stop.
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The Crossroads of Race and Sexuality
A Public and Political Example of Blatant Social Hypocrisy
Recently, Pete Buttigieg, democratic candidate for President and mayor of South Bend, Indiana, found himself the butt of an uncomfortable Washington Post headline that seemed to imply that he equated the queer struggle with the black struggle, and thus thought his being gay would help him relate to black voters. As often happens with newspaper headlines, the truth was buried in the article and the headline was an argument-inducing form of clickbait designed to frustrate the masses on Facebook and Twitter. In truth, the mayor didn’t equate the two at all. What he said, during a debate, was “While I do not have the experience of ever having been discriminated against because of the color of my skin, I do have the experience of sometimes feeling like a stranger in my own country, turning on the news and seeing my own rights come up for debate, and seeing my rights expanded by a coalition of people like me and people not at all like me.”
Kamala Harris was the first to take issue with this, arguing that it was a naive viewpoint. As a queer woman, I could equally argue that Harris’ assessment that, essentially, queer people don’t experience discrimination is, in itself, incredibly naive. If white people, no matter their other stripes, are required to stay silent on the matter of racial discrimination, I think it’s only fair that straight people be held to the same standard. Al Sharpton argued that Pete had some growing to do on the topic, which I find incredibly amusing since I don’t remember any of the gays laying claim to the notion that Barack Obama had growing to do when he was running in 2008. This despite the fact that he was, at the time, openly against gay marriage. There is an incredible double standard where white, male, politicians are concerned. We want them to be “woke” and to be understanding, while simultaneously wanting them to be willing to admit that they don’t understand. Which becomes a problem when, in fact, they actually do understand. 
As a queer woman I understand the desire to look at a white man and roll my eyes when he says he “gets it.” I really do. Male privilege has insulated him from basically every major disadvantage that accompanies being a woman. White privilege has insulated him, as it has me, from the impact that being born black in America can have on a person. The problem is that privilege does not stop at race and sex. There are dozens of ways, big and small, that one can be privileged in this country, and until we get serious about acknowledging them we’re going to continue to be pretty easily divided by people bent on using our differences against us. 
When asked to clarify his remarks during the debate, remarks that really don’t need any clarification at all if you’re capable of objectively reading the English language, Buttigieg did. Stating “It was people like me and people not like me who came together — starting before I was born and through my lifetime — who have made it possible for things like my marriage to exist, or honestly for somebody like me to even be taken seriously as a candidate for president. Having seen that, having seen how that alliance can make an impact, makes me reflect on how I can turn around and make myself useful, not only to the LGBT community but to people whose life experiences are very different.” 
It is difficult to see a person who has been historically viewed as the oppressor, a white man, and be asked to think of him in terms of the oppressed. The reality, however, is that the disenfranchisement of queer people (primarily legal, at this point) does not cease simply because the disenfranchised was born white or male. One’s maleness generally guarantees a person will not be judged as harshly as they would if they were a woman. Their gender will not be something they will have to overcome. Likewise, one’s whiteness ensures that racial inequity will not be the reason they face hardships in life. Neither of these traits are guarantees of an inherently easy life, and they’re certainly not guarantees that other forms of disenfranchisement or oppression will simply cease. 
To argue that a white man is incapable of feeling disenfranchised for reasons unrelated to his sex or race is to argue that sex or race are the only two metrics by which disenfranchisement can be measured. If that’s the case, I think we need to at least be consistent. We can no longer have conversations about how queer women of color have it harder than men of color, because queerness is apparently not a relevant form of disenfranchisement. Their lives are simply harder because they’re women. More to the point, queer people of color can no longer argue that their lives are harder than straight people of color, because somehow sex and race became the only two metrics by which discrimination or oppression are measured. To argue that a white man who is queer cannot have experienced oppression or a feeling of othering simply because he is white and male is to argue that queerness does not matter in this country. 
Except, the two are not comparable, as is shouted at white, queer, people every time we have the audacity to point out that, despite our pale skin, we do have experience in being othered. As this most recent debacle with Mayor Pete illustrates, it doesn’t matter how carefully you choose your words, if you attempt to empathize with a disenfranchised group of people on the basis that you belong to a different, but nonetheless, disenfranchised group, you will be told the comparison is high-handed and ineffectual. You will be told you do not know what you are talking about. You will be told that it is not the same, it is not comparable, you should be quiet. A judgement that, when passed in the absence of actual comparison, does little more than make it clear that the speaker actually thinks they are comparable and has simply deemed your oppression less worthy of discussion.    
Is it, though? Is Buttigieg’s status as a queer American less worthy of discussion? Is America at a point where queer issues no longer need to be discussed? Have we reached a level of equality at which it’s no longer accurate to make the assessment that we have experience being “othered” in this country? I’m not sure it’s safe to say these things. 
As recently as 2008, President Obama ran for office on a platform that treated LGBTQ individuals as people, but didn’t grant us full rights under the law. He was vocally against same-sex marriage, a position he has since “evolved” on, though the credit he gets for the passage of same-sex marriage in the Supreme Court is misplaced. That was Anthony Kennedy’s doing, not the President’s. He made limited to no mention of the lack of federal protections for queer individuals and, really, why would he? When he was elected, it was still illegal for queer individuals to serve openly in the U.S. military. We talk about gay rights in this country as though they are something that have been won and are now done, completely forgetting that it was only a decade ago that the military formally let us in. In the decade since then, the culture has changed but most of the laws surrounding our lives have not. 
While it is legal for queer individuals to get married, there are still no federal civil rights protections for individuals based on sexual orientation or gender presentation. This means it’s legal to discriminate against us in work, housing, federal assistance, and credit. We can be denied housing not because we are ineligible, but because we are gay. We can be fired not because we did something wrong, but because we are gay. The Equality Act, which passed the House earlier this year and will undoubtedly die in the Senate, would change this, even as many people claim the protections it would add are redundant because this type of discrimination is almost never reported. But then, of course it’s not. 
Fewer than half the States in this country have statewide legislation that protects people on the basis of sexual orientation or gender presentation. Within those States that lack it, certain cities have protections, but those protections will stop at city limits. If I work in a city that lacks protections, in a State that lacks protections, and I’m fired following unceasing abuse regarding my sexual orientation, it’s pretty obvious why I was let go. There’s also nothing I can do about it. To contest the firing would require I have the time and the money to mount not just a legal challenge, but a full scale battle to change the laws. The average person doesn’t have the resources necessary to do these things, which means the average firing resulting from someone’s sexual orientation is unlikely to be reported. Who would we report it to? The EEOC? They cannot, legally, do anything about it. 
Culturally, the LGBTQ population has made more progress than it has legally. Over 70% of the population is generally in favor of ensuring queer people have equal rights under the law, which is a massive improvement over where we stood just a decade ago. The biggest issue is that our primary detractors, conservative religious movements, tend to have a decent amount of backing in the political sphere, are Constitutionally protected, and often have support even amongst those who disagree with their treatment of queer people. This has made it so that, even as support for queer individuals climbs, the number of Religious Freedom Acts being enacted has climbed, as well. 
When we think about “religious freedom” and “gay people” we usually think about them in terms of wedding chapels, cake, and photographers, since that’s the scenario that has been cast. It’s a little more intense than just coffee shop owners who think the gays don’t need caffeine, though. Religious freedom referendums allow individuals to opt out of participation in basically anything they would otherwise be legally compelled to do, if that compulsion is a violation of their sincerely held religious beliefs. So, yes, it grants people the right to avoid making us cake. But it also grants them the right to avoid giving us medical care or psychological help. This is a problem if you live in a small town where your options are limited, or if you find yourself in an emergency room being treated by a doctor or nurse who thinks that allowing your spouse to act like your spouse is a violation of their sincerely held beliefs. 
We are getting there. We are making progress. But we are not there yet. And, more often than not, the people standing in our way are doing so because they feel that allowing us to live our lives is somehow a hindrance to their ability to live their own lives. When white supremacists make the argument that business owners should be allowed to discriminate on the basis of skin tone, pretty much everyone who isn’t a white supremacist decries that notion as utter bullshit. When Christians make the argument that business owners should be allowed to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, the number of people who decry the notion is significantly less. After all, they do have a right to practice their faith however they’d like, don’t they? Are they really hurting anyone by refusing to make them a cake or serve them coffee? I don’t know. But I do know if anyone worth anything asked that question about people of color, they’d be the next thing on the internet that was cancelled. Bigotry on the basis of one’s faith is still remarkably acceptable in today’s America, and that bigotry is overwhelmingly pointed at the queer population.  
Even when you can manage to make it clear that the LGBTQ population is, in fact, disenfranchised, the idea that this marginalization may be something worth talking about is met with a scoff should it be mentioned in the same conversation as race based marginalization, as Buttigieg did on the debate stage. “Oliver Davis, a black council member in South Bend, Ind., where Buttigieg is mayor, said that African Americans, unlike gay people, don’t have the option of ‘coming out’ at their chosen moment — as did Buttigieg, who disclosed his sexual orientation after he had been elected mayor. ‘When you see me, you would know that I’m African American from day one,’ said Davis, who has endorsed former vice president Joe Biden. ‘When someone is gay or a lesbian, unless they tell or they are seen in certain situations, then no one is going to know that. They are able to build their résumés and build their career.’”
Putting aside the fact that Davis is endorsing someone from an even more privileged background than Buttigieg, the idea that queer people are somehow not oppressed or, at the very least, less oppressed, is a “hot take” so lacking in understanding of the queer experience it actually reads as homophobic. Anyone who thinks that homosexuality is something that can just be taken off and left at home has never, not in their life, had to comprehend how intrinsic their sexuality is to the way they live their lives. They also, quite clearly, think that gay people’s differences from them are a function only of who we want to have sex with, and that having sex is quite literally all we will do with those people. 
Trying to explain this is like beating my head upon a brick wall, however. So, let me illustrate what I mean, instead. 
Let’s pretend that instead of working where I do, I work somewhere that doesn’t offer protections based on sexual orientation, and my boss is pretty homophobic. Because of this, I make the decision not to be out at work. I would, sadly, not be in the minority of queer individuals since, even today, over half of all LGBTQ people are closeted to some degree at work. This decision comes with consequences beyond just pretending my spouse is a different person, though. My emergency contact is annotated as my “roommate” or my “best friend,” instead of my wife. Because my spouse’s sex would have to be noted on the paperwork, we make the decision not to put her on my health insurance. The thousands of dollars she’s racked up in dental bills? Those are now coming out of pocket. Since I cannot take sick time off work for the illnesses or surgeries of a roommate or friend, I now have to make up a masculine name for my spouse and hope that actual medical documentation isn’t needed. Alternatively, I can use my vacation time anytime my spouse needs me to take time off work for medical reasons. 
Socially, my work life would be uncomfortable and awkward. Try talking about your home, your weekend plans, your holidays, or your hobbies without mentioning your relationships and, thus, your sexual orientation. I suppose this is a little bit easier if you’re single but, even then, things get tricky. Single queers go out to bars and go on dates, things you can’t talk about at work if you work somewhere that it could get you fired. And before you say that we shouldn’t be talking about our personal lives anyway, I’d challenge you to try that first. For years on end. Despite knowing and seeing and being with the same coworkers every single day. The expectation that queer people hide at work is absurd, for the same reason it would be absurd to expect heterosexuals to hide their orientation at work. Unless you work in a cubicle where you never see another human, this isn’t a plausible solution to discrimination. 
The list of things that gets pretty complicated if you’re actively trying to ensure that no one ever finds out about your relationship, is pretty long actually. For starters, you’re probably not ever getting married. Even if you can get away with not telling your employer about a new marriage, if you’re already married there’s no real way you can hide it, since so many employers demand to do a background check before you start work. A marriage certificate will show up. This is the same reason that at least one of you won’t be able to lay legal claim to your children. But then, only one of you would be able to be listed as their parent or guardian at school, anyway. The part where you’re not married means that, should your spouse find themselves in medical trauma, you won’t be much help or have much say. And while a large ream of paperwork could, theoretically, ensure that you’re able to take care of each other if you need to, it’s also a verifiable paper trail that could disclose a relationship you’d rather keep secret. 
Your friends are going to be eternally confused about your personal lives, because you’ll either always be single and hanging out with your roommate or always be taken by a person who they’re not allowed to meet. This may seem like normal behavior with coworkers, but it’s going to start to get really weird really fast when it involves people who you’re close to. You and your significant other will always be spending holidays separately, with your respective families, or together but lying about it. Sure, you’ve taken the most lovely European trip over Christmas, but your family and friends all think you had to stay home by yourself because you have the flu.
In a world as interconnected as our’s is, the cost of “hiding” at work is no longer just a more guarded work life. It’s effectively a life in which you let no one in and tell no one anything. The fact that some people think that queer peoples’ “ability” to hide like this is privilege says a significant amount about the level of respect that person has for queer lives and queer relationships, and the level of understanding that person has regarding queer history. 
There was a time, not too terribly long ago, when hiding wasn’t just a privileged option queer individuals had, it was the expectation placed upon us. Homosexuality was a shameful thing that disgraced everyone around you, thus there was an expectation that it be hidden. This expectation is why AIDS ran rampant for years before it was acknowledged. This expectation is why it took until 1987 for the DSM to stop listing homosexuality as a form of mental illness. This expectation is why suicide rates in queer communities were then, and remain, higher than in their straight counterparts. This expectation is, still today, one of the primary reasons that LGBTQ teens have the highest rates of homelessness in the country. If I had to guess, I’d say this expectation that our gayness be hidden from the world is also why, in well over half the states in this country, conversion therapy is considered a perfectly acceptable thing to expose a child to.
The marginalization faced by queer individuals in this country is absolutely nothing like that faced by people of color. As I am only one of these things, I cannot tell you which is worse and, frankly, neither can straight people of color because they, too, are only one of these things. Attempts to discern which is “worse” really don’t solve either problem, though. They don’t eradicate race-based violence. They don’t pass the Equality Act, thus ensuring LGBTQ individuals actually have fair and equitable access to things like housing and job opportunities. They don’t convince people that the systemic racism faced by people of color in this country is not only real, but a real source of disenfranchisement that keeps black Americans from reaching their full potential, doing permanent damage to the entire American economy.They don’t convince people that my desire to live my life- to have medical access, buy a house, or get a cup of coffee- is not an inherent violation of someone else’s religious liberties, and thus should not be infringed upon on the basis of those religious liberties. 
Saying “I know how you feel” to someone who’s just lost a parent, if you’d recently lost a good friend, is inaccurate. You don’t know, unless you’ve also lost a parent at some point. Saying “I’m sorry. I know that losing someone important to you fucking sucks,” is a statement of empathy that is steeped in truth. A queer person saying, “I know that disinfranchisement sucks because I have been disinfranchised myself,” is not the same thing as a queer person saying, “I know how black people feel.” One of these things is true, one is absolutely not unless that queer person also happens to be black. Anyone, black or white, who honestly thinks queer people cannot have experienced bias because they can hide who they are, should be challenged to say exactly that to a queer person of color. I question the sincerity of someone willing to argue that queer people have is easy because we can “hide,” but only if the queer people they are accusing are white. To me, it seems like an obvious showing of their hand. They have placed a value upon queerness such that, as long as it is effecting a white person, it is not a challenge to be faced after all. They have done precisely what Buttigieg has not- assessed their own struggle as worse and, thus, more worth discussing. 
Hypocrisy is a terrible way to start a conversation, but an excellent way to end it.    
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itsfinancethings · 4 years
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List season has hit particularly hard this year, as the end of our first full decade of social media immersion has culminated in a multi-month spree of ranking and revisiting the likes of which humanity has probably never seen before. So I feel compelled to open by thanking you, the reader, for giving yet another highly subjective hit parade your attention.
My hope is that along with a few of the zeitgeisty critical darlings (Fleabag, Watchmen, Succession) you’re sure to find in every other top 10 of 2019, this list will point you in the direction of some equally wonderful series (Vida, David Makes Man, Back to Life) that haven’t gotten the shine they deserve. What you won’t find here, incidentally, is anything from the initial slate of shows on brand-new streaming services Apple TV+ or Disney+. Whether that disappointment turns out to be a pattern or a fluke, only time will tell.
10. Back to Life (Showtime)
Few characters have embodied the saying “you can’t go home again” as fully as Back to Life creator Daisy Haggard’s Miri Matteson. Out on parole after spending half her life in jail for a crime she committed at age 18, Miri returns to her small English hometown—not because she’s missed the place, but because she has nowhere to go but her parents’ house. While enduring harassment at the hands of neighbors who will never forget what she did, she struggles to find work, companionship and peace. From the producers of Fleabag, this quieter, gentler traumedy weighs Miri’s crime against the less extreme but more malicious transgressions of her family and friends. It poses the question of whether anyone who pays their debt to society really gets a fair chance to start over—and it suggests that you can tell a lot about a community by getting to know its scapegoats.
9. When They See Us (Netflix)
Ava DuVernay is the rare popular artist fueled by an irrepressible optimism about building a better future as well as righteous anger about the past and present. She brought both of these defining traits to bear on this four-part drama about the Central Park Five—whom her miniseries rechristened the Exonerated Five. Along with exposing how and suggesting why a broken New York City criminal justice system was so eager to vilify blameless children of color in the aftermath of a monstrous act of sexual violence, DuVernay and her stellar young cast worked with the real Five to create multifaceted portraits of regular kids with hopes, ambitions and communities that suffered as a result of their incarceration. And she found echoes of their story in the current movement against mass incarceration and in the presidency of Donald Trump, who stoked public fury at the boys. When They See Us celebrates the righting of a grievous wrong while acknowledging that no vindication, or remuneration, could fully heal such deep wounds.
8. Watchmen (HBO)
For those of us who haven’t enjoyed our culture’s never-ending superhero craze so much as endured it, the news that the most prestigious of all prestige cable outlets was adapting a DC Comics book sounded kind of like a betrayal. Et tu, HBO? But we should never have doubted The Leftovers creator Damon Lindelof’s ability to make Alan Moore’s brilliant, subversive 1980s classic resonate more than three decades later. Instead of revisiting the Cold War, Lindelof set his Watchmen in an alternate 2019 where the events of the comic are canon, Robert Redford (yes, that one) has been President for decades and a white supremacist group called the Seventh Kavalry is slaughtering police who are loyal to the liberal administration. Into this mess rides masked vigilante Sister Night (Regina King, in the would-be hero role she’s long deserved), a cop who is supposed to have retired from crime-fighting. There is (or should be) enough carryover from Moore’s original to appease its cult fandom, but the show is at its best when contending with our confused, misinformed, politically polarized current reality. And in that respect, it’s every bit as intelligent, provocative and mysterious as it is entertaining.
7. Undone (Amazon)
Fans worried that BoJack Horseman mastermind Raphael Bob-Waksberg would turn out to be a one-hit wonder could take comfort in this wildly imaginative sci-fi dramedy that he co-created with Kate Purdy, about a disaffected young woman (Rosa Salazar’s Alma) who narrowly survives a catastrophic car crash. In hospital-bed visions tied to her sudden physical trauma and preexisting mental illness, Alma reunites with her long-dead father (Bob Odenkirk), learns that he was murdered and allows him to guide her on a time-travel mission to prevent the crime from happening. Yet Undone is more than just a high-concept mystery; it’s a journey into human consciousness, a beautiful example of Rotoscoped animation and a subtle meditation on family, identity and spirituality.
6. David Makes Man (OWN)
The success of Moonlight sent ripples through Hollywood, elevating writer-director Barry Jenkins and a cast including Mahershala Ali, Jharrel Jerome and Janelle Monáe to the highest echelon of their art form. It also opened industry doors for MacArthur honoree Tarell Alvin McCraney, who wrote the play on which the film was based. This year he unveiled David Makes Man, a lyrical drama about a smart, troubled 14-year-old (Akili McDowell, astonishing in his first lead role) in the Florida projects who’s struggling to get into a prestigious high school and avoid being drafted into a gang, while mourning a mentor. Though it shares a lush aesthetic and many themes—black boyhood, complicated role models, queer identity—with Moonlight, the expanded format allows McCraney to explore the people around David. His privileged best friend (Nathaniel McIntyre) suffers abuse at home. His gender-queer neighbor (Travis Coles) takes in runaway LGBT teens and plays a delicate role in the local ecosystem. And his single mother (Alana Arenas), an addict in recovery, holds down a degrading job to keep the bills paid. This isn’t just the old story of excellence and poverty battling for the soul of one extraordinary child; it’s the story of a community where both qualities must coexist.
5. Lodge 49 (AMC)
At least once a year, a series too smart for prime-time gets canned even as network execs re-up long-running bores like NCIS for 24 more functionally identical episodes. In 2019, it was Lodge 49 that ended up on the wrong side of the equation. A loose, semi-stoned account of a young man (Wyatt Russell’s Sean “Dud” Dudley) treading water in the wake of his beloved father’s death, the show expanded over the course of its first season into an allegory for the isolation of contemporary life. The Southern California landscape around Dud, an affable dreamer, and his self-destructive twin sister (Sonya Cassidy) had been scarred by pawn shops, breastaurants, temp agencies, abandoned office parks. Refuge came in the form of the titular cash-strapped fraternal organization, where Dud found two precious things late capitalism couldn’t provide: a sense of community and a mysterious, all-consuming quest. Both propelled him and his cohorts to Mexico in this year’s funny, bittersweet second season; perhaps sensing the end was near, creator Jim Gavin’s finale provided something like closure. Still, the show—which is currently being shopped to streaming services—has plenty left to say. Here’s hoping the producers find a way to, as the fans on Twitter put it, #SaveLodge49.
4. Vida (Starz)
In its short first season, creator Tanya Saracho’s Vida assembled all the elements of a great half-hour drama. Mishel Prada and Melissa Berrera shined as Mexican-American sisters who come home to LA after the death of their inscrutable mom, Vida—only to learn that the building and bar she owned are on the verge of foreclosure. It also turns out that Vida, whose homophobia destroyed her relationship with Prada’s sexually fluid Emma, had married a woman. Meanwhile, their angry teenage neighbor Mari (Chelsea Rendon) raged against gentrification. These storylines coalesced to electrifying effect in this year’s second season, testing the sisters’ tense bond as they found themselves in the crosshairs of activists who saw their desperate efforts to save the family business as acts of treachery from two stuck-up “whitinas.” Thanks largely to the talented Latinx writers and directors Saracho enlisted for the project, Vida brings lived-in nuance to issues like class, colorism and desire—yielding one of TV’s smartest and sexiest shows.
3. Succession (HBO)
Right-wing tycoons and their adult children have gotten plenty of attention in the past few years—most of it negative. So why would anyone voluntarily watch a show in which the nightmare offspring of a Mudoch-like media titan (Brian Cox) compete to become his successor? A rational argument for all the goodwill around Succession might point out the crude poetry of its dialogue (from creator Jesse Armstrong, a longtime Armando Iannucci collaborator), the fearlessness of its cast (give Jeremy Strong an Emmy just for Kendall’s rap) and the knife-twisting accuracy of this season’s digital-media satire (R.I.P. Vaulter). But on a more primal level, one informed by the increasingly rare experience of watching episodes set Twitter ablaze as they aired, I think we’re also getting a collective thrill out of a series that confirms our darkest assumptions about people who thirst for money and power. It’s a catharsis we may well deserve.
2. Russian Doll (Netflix)
To observe that there was a built-in audience for a show created by Natasha Lyonne, Amy Poehler and Leslye Headland in which Lyonne starred as a hard-partying New York City cynic might’ve been the understatement of the year. But even those of us who bought into Russian Doll from the beginning could never have predicted such a resounding triumph. In a story built like the titular nesting doll, Lyonne’s Nadia Vulvokov dies in a freak accident on the night of her 36th birthday. The twist is, instead of moving on to the afterlife or the grave, she finds herself back where she started the evening, at a party in her honor. Nadia is condemned to repeat this cycle of death and rebirth until she levels up in self-knowledge—a process that entails many cigarettes, lots of vintage East Village grit and a not-so-chance encounter with a fellow traveler. Stir in a warm, wry tone and a message of mutual aid, and you’ve got the best new TV show of 2019.
1. Fleabag (Amazon)
Fleabag began its run, in 2016, as a six-episode black comedy about a scornful, neurotic, hypersexual young woman caught in a self-destructive holding pattern of her own making. The premise didn’t immediately distinguish creator and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge as all that different from peers like Lena Dunham, Aziz Ansari and Donald Glover. But the British show’s execution was sharp, funny and daring enough to make it a cult hit on both sides of the Atlantic—and to anoint Waller-Bridge as TV’s next big thing. She went on to helm the exhilarating first season of Killing Eve, giving this year’s second and final season of Fleabag time to percolate. It returned as a more mature but, thankfully, no less audacious show, matching Waller-Bridge’s somewhat reformed Fleabag with an impossible love interest known to fans as the Hot Priest (Andrew Scott). The relationship offered a path to forgiveness for the kind of character most millennial cris de coeur have been content to leave hanging. By allowing Fleabag a measure of grace without sacrificing her life-giving vulgarity, Waller-Bridge conjured the realistic vision of redemption that has so far eluded her contemporaries—and closed out the 2010s with the decade’s single greatest season of comedy.
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demitgibbs · 7 years
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Sam Clovis: ‘LGBT Behavior is a Choice They Make’
If you’re a bigoted jerk in America you can trust that the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect sees you and isn’t afraid to call you out by name. On Aug, 21, @AnneFrankCenter Tweeted, “To hell – and he can’t get there fast enough – with Sam Clovis, @POTUS nominee at USDA who equates LGBT with pedophilia. Senate, vote no!”
In case you don’t know who Clovis is — and why should you? When’s the last time you knew U.S. Department of Agriculture nominees by name? — know this: he’s in no way qualified to work in any capacity as a scientist.
Yet he’s been tapped to be the undersecretary of agriculture for research, education and economics. He’s taught economics before and has a degree in public policy, but that’s not the same as being someone who understands and believes in science.
Trump was supposed to pick from a pool of “distinguished scientists with specialized training or significant experience in agricultural research, education, and economics.” Instead, he picked Clovis, a conservative radio host who supported Trump during the 2016 campaign.
Clovis doesn’t believe in climate change. “I have enough of a science background to know when I’m being boofed,” he told Iowa Public Radio about the overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change is real.
Thankfully the USDA has nothing to do with agriculture, and agriculture has nothing to do with climate. Because it’d be a bummer if growing crops was tied to, like, weather and stuff.
There’s another sciencey issue that Clovis also struggles with: the homo.
According to CNN, between 2012 and 2014 (a.k.a. very recent history), Clovis expressed some really gross views on homosexuality.
Writing for The Iowa Republican (which touts itself as “News for Republicans, by Republicans”) in 2013, Clovis argued that homos didn’t deserve protection under the 14th amendment unless homosexuality was genetic which, Clovis argued, it isn’t. Therefore, those arguing for equal rights were actually asking for special protections for the “homosexual acts” they, of course, chose to do.
“Someone who engages in LGBT behavior — I don’t know what the science is on this, I think it’s still out — but as far as we know, LGBT behavior is a choice they make, Clovis said later during a campaign stop for a campaign he ultimately lost (but, you know, Trump doesn’t like losers). “So we’re being asked to provide Constitutional protections for behavior, a choice in behavior as opposed to a primary characteristic.”
Never mind the fact that a “primary characteristic,” like race for example, is hardly as clearly defined as Clovis seems to believe.(A recent rash of stories about white supremacists finding out via DNA testing that they aren’t genealogically “pure” comes to mind. “Their reactions range from challenging the basic math behind the tests to accusing Jewish conspirators of sabotage,” PBS reported.) I, for one, don’t feel a need to provide genetic proof that I deserve civil rights.
Anyway, Clovis argued that protecting lesbians and gays (or, as I guess he’d put it, lesbian and gay behavior choosers) would open the door to, well, anything.
“If we protect LGBT behavior, what other behaviors are we going to protect?” he asked. “Are we going to protect pedophilia?”
Reducing LGBTQ people solely to sex acts and comparing them to pedophiles is, of course, a favorite way to dehumanize. And once a group is seen as less than human vilifying them and denying them rights is much easier.
Clovis continues down his slippery slope, arguing that LGBT rights are basically a gateway drug: “What’s the logical extension of this? It can’t be that we’re going to protect LGBT and then we’ll pull up the ladder.”
Never mind the fact that the sky hasn’t fallen since marriage equality became the law of the land. Remember we were warned that people would be marrying goats and toasters? Hasn’t happened.
Clovis goes on to say, “We’re not thinking the consequences of these decisions through,” which is actually the perfect motto for the Trump administration. So maybe he does belong there, keeping in mind, however, that Trump and his entire administration doesn’t belong in power.
D’Anne Witkowski is a poet, writer and comedian living in Michigan with her wife and son. She has been writing about LGBT politics for over a decade. Follow her on Twitter @MamaDWitkowski.
from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2017/09/05/sam-clovis-lgbt-behavior-is-a-choice-they-make/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.tumblr.com/post/165013195945
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cynthiajayusa · 7 years
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Sam Clovis: ‘LGBT Behavior is a Choice They Make’
If you’re a bigoted jerk in America you can trust that the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect sees you and isn’t afraid to call you out by name. On Aug, 21, @AnneFrankCenter Tweeted, “To hell – and he can’t get there fast enough – with Sam Clovis, @POTUS nominee at USDA who equates LGBT with pedophilia. Senate, vote no!”
 In case you don’t know who Clovis is — and why should you? When’s the last time you knew U.S. Department of Agriculture nominees by name? — know this: he’s in no way qualified to work in any capacity as a scientist.
 Yet he’s been tapped to be the undersecretary of agriculture for research, education and economics. He’s taught economics before and has a degree in public policy, but that’s not the same as being someone who understands and believes in science.
 Trump was supposed to pick from a pool of “distinguished scientists with specialized training or significant experience in agricultural research, education, and economics.” Instead, he picked Clovis, a conservative radio host who supported Trump during the 2016 campaign.
 Clovis doesn’t believe in climate change. “I have enough of a science background to know when I’m being boofed,” he told Iowa Public Radio about the overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change is real.
 Thankfully the USDA has nothing to do with agriculture, and agriculture has nothing to do with climate. Because it’d be a bummer if growing crops was tied to, like, weather and stuff.
 There’s another sciencey issue that Clovis also struggles with: the homo.
 According to CNN, between 2012 and 2014 (a.k.a. very recent history), Clovis expressed some really gross views on homosexuality.
 Writing for The Iowa Republican (which touts itself as “News for Republicans, by Republicans”) in 2013, Clovis argued that homos didn’t deserve protection under the 14th amendment unless homosexuality was genetic which, Clovis argued, it isn’t. Therefore, those arguing for equal rights were actually asking for special protections for the “homosexual acts” they, of course, chose to do.
 “Someone who engages in LGBT behavior — I don’t know what the science is on this, I think it’s still out — but as far as we know, LGBT behavior is a choice they make, Clovis said later during a campaign stop for a campaign he ultimately lost (but, you know, Trump doesn’t like losers). “So we’re being asked to provide Constitutional protections for behavior, a choice in behavior as opposed to a primary characteristic.”
 Never mind the fact that a “primary characteristic,” like race for example, is hardly as clearly defined as Clovis seems to believe.(A recent rash of stories about white supremacists finding out via DNA testing that they aren’t genealogically “pure” comes to mind. “Their reactions range from challenging the basic math behind the tests to accusing Jewish conspirators of sabotage,” PBS reported.) I, for one, don’t feel a need to provide genetic proof that I deserve civil rights.
Anyway, Clovis argued that protecting lesbians and gays (or, as I guess he’d put it, lesbian and gay behavior choosers) would open the door to, well, anything.
 “If we protect LGBT behavior, what other behaviors are we going to protect?” he asked. “Are we going to protect pedophilia?”
 Reducing LGBTQ people solely to sex acts and comparing them to pedophiles is, of course, a favorite way to dehumanize. And once a group is seen as less than human vilifying them and denying them rights is much easier.
 Clovis continues down his slippery slope, arguing that LGBT rights are basically a gateway drug: “What’s the logical extension of this? It can’t be that we’re going to protect LGBT and then we’ll pull up the ladder.”
 Never mind the fact that the sky hasn’t fallen since marriage equality became the law of the land. Remember we were warned that people would be marrying goats and toasters? Hasn’t happened.
Clovis goes on to say, “We’re not thinking the consequences of these decisions through,” which is actually the perfect motto for the Trump administration. So maybe he does belong there, keeping in mind, however, that Trump and his entire administration doesn’t belong in power.
 D’Anne Witkowski is a poet, writer and comedian living in Michigan with her wife and son. She has been writing about LGBT politics for over a decade. Follow her on Twitter @MamaDWitkowski.
source https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2017/09/05/sam-clovis-lgbt-behavior-is-a-choice-they-make/ from Hot Spots Magazine http://hotspotsmagazin.blogspot.com/2017/09/sam-clovis-lgbt-behavior-is-choice-they.html
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hotspotsmagazine · 7 years
Text
Sam Clovis: ‘LGBT Behavior is a Choice They Make’
If you’re a bigoted jerk in America you can trust that the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect sees you and isn’t afraid to call you out by name. On Aug, 21, @AnneFrankCenter Tweeted, “To hell – and he can’t get there fast enough – with Sam Clovis, @POTUS nominee at USDA who equates LGBT with pedophilia. Senate, vote no!”
  In case you don’t know who Clovis is — and why should you? When’s the last time you knew U.S. Department of Agriculture nominees by name? — know this: he’s in no way qualified to work in any capacity as a scientist.
  Yet he’s been tapped to be the undersecretary of agriculture for research, education and economics. He’s taught economics before and has a degree in public policy, but that’s not the same as being someone who understands and believes in science.
  Trump was supposed to pick from a pool of “distinguished scientists with specialized training or significant experience in agricultural research, education, and economics.” Instead, he picked Clovis, a conservative radio host who supported Trump during the 2016 campaign.
  Clovis doesn’t believe in climate change. “I have enough of a science background to know when I’m being boofed,” he told Iowa Public Radio about the overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change is real.
  Thankfully the USDA has nothing to do with agriculture, and agriculture has nothing to do with climate. Because it’d be a bummer if growing crops was tied to, like, weather and stuff.
  There’s another sciencey issue that Clovis also struggles with: the homo.
  According to CNN, between 2012 and 2014 (a.k.a. very recent history), Clovis expressed some really gross views on homosexuality.
  Writing for The Iowa Republican (which touts itself as “News for Republicans, by Republicans”) in 2013, Clovis argued that homos didn’t deserve protection under the 14th amendment unless homosexuality was genetic which, Clovis argued, it isn’t. Therefore, those arguing for equal rights were actually asking for special protections for the “homosexual acts” they, of course, chose to do.
  “Someone who engages in LGBT behavior — I don’t know what the science is on this, I think it’s still out — but as far as we know, LGBT behavior is a choice they make, Clovis said later during a campaign stop for a campaign he ultimately lost (but, you know, Trump doesn’t like losers). “So we’re being asked to provide Constitutional protections for behavior, a choice in behavior as opposed to a primary characteristic.”
  Never mind the fact that a “primary characteristic,” like race for example, is hardly as clearly defined as Clovis seems to believe.(A recent rash of stories about white supremacists finding out via DNA testing that they aren’t genealogically “pure” comes to mind. “Their reactions range from challenging the basic math behind the tests to accusing Jewish conspirators of sabotage,” PBS reported.) I, for one, don’t feel a need to provide genetic proof that I deserve civil rights.
Anyway, Clovis argued that protecting lesbians and gays (or, as I guess he’d put it, lesbian and gay behavior choosers) would open the door to, well, anything.
  “If we protect LGBT behavior, what other behaviors are we going to protect?” he asked. “Are we going to protect pedophilia?”
  Reducing LGBTQ people solely to sex acts and comparing them to pedophiles is, of course, a favorite way to dehumanize. And once a group is seen as less than human vilifying them and denying them rights is much easier.
  Clovis continues down his slippery slope, arguing that LGBT rights are basically a gateway drug: “What’s the logical extension of this? It can’t be that we’re going to protect LGBT and then we’ll pull up the ladder.”
  Never mind the fact that the sky hasn’t fallen since marriage equality became the law of the land. Remember we were warned that people would be marrying goats and toasters? Hasn’t happened.
Clovis goes on to say, “We’re not thinking the consequences of these decisions through,” which is actually the perfect motto for the Trump administration. So maybe he does belong there, keeping in mind, however, that Trump and his entire administration doesn’t belong in power.
  D’Anne Witkowski is a poet, writer and comedian living in Michigan with her wife and son. She has been writing about LGBT politics for over a decade. Follow her on Twitter @MamaDWitkowski.
from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2017/09/05/sam-clovis-lgbt-behavior-is-a-choice-they-make/
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The Shooting in Orlando, Terrorism or Toxic Masculinity (or Both?)
Syed Haider
First published September 16th, 2016
Abstract News coverage of the shootings in Orlando highlighted a tension between the two frames broadcasters used in their reporting. Was this a homophobic hate crime or was this terrorism? Many elided the difficulty by calling it homophobic terrorism, but this could not resolve the tension. This article contends that because terrorism is closely equated with radicalized Muslims, the tension was sublimated into an existing orientalist frame where homophobia became a marker of fundamentalist Islamic culture. Instead, this article argues, these two frames should not be taken as cause and effect but as problems that share a common ailment: the presence of toxic masculinities. Beginning from a position that sees masculinity as constituted through violence in patriarchal culture, this article works through the idea that when there is a disillusionment with violence, masculinity under patriarchy turns toxic. What emerges then is not merely violence but “rage” as the praxis of toxic masculinities.
Like many, I watched the horror of the Orlando shootings with alarm. As a Muslim, I watched it with dismay, knowing that yet again the media spotlight would fall on the religion I practice and feel helpless to rescue from the murderous cult currently ravaging its reputation and image. As a gay man, I was affected by the homophobia that informed Mateen’s worldview and determined his choice of target. Standing on intersectional borders with multiple identities, I wondered how to (re)cognize the horror depicted through news agencies. Soon though, I became fascinated by the competing frames that news broadcasters deployed to help cover the shootings. Was this terrorism, plain and simple? An attack on “our” freedoms and values? Was this a homophobic attack, driven by insecurity in the perpetrator’s own sexuality and better seen therefore as a hate crime? Disagreement about frames was played out almost immediately in a Sky News segment when journalist Owen Jones walked off set, appalled at presenter Mark Longhurst’s failure to recognize the shooting as a homophobic assault. As a gay man, said Jones, “I will not have people … appropriating [this incident]—people who never speak about gay rights, except when this happens, if they think a Muslim is involved then they’ll jump on the band-wagon and spout as much bile as they want.” He went on to state passionately that he was proud to live in a city where a Muslim mayor supported the right of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people to get married in defiance of many within the Muslim population (Sky News, 2016). Something in Jones’s anger resonated with me and I thought of Jasbir Puar’s (2007) monograph, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times. In that volume, Puar points out the way in which the LGBT subject has emerged as a new site through whom discourses of nationalism, American exceptionalism, and a broader right-wing imaginary is writ large. The queerness, I guess, consists in the oddity of discourses and political positions that previously (as recently as a generation ago) would have eschewed association with LGBT communities, now appropriating the homosexual subject, transforming him or her or they into an object by which to index anew minorities deemed progressive and those branded regressive. Despite being gay and belonging to a community that is often hostile to notions of diversity in sexuality, I nonetheless welcomed Jones’s cynicism and Puar’s suspicion of the process of homonationalism. The issue of LGBT rights remains an important civil rights movement that has the potential to reimagine the world for the better, and I feel strongly that it should not be instrumentalized for propping up the status quo and/or vested xenophobic and prejudicial interests. The frame therefore was important. Should the tragedy in Orlando be seen primarily as an act of terrorism or a dreadful example of homophobia? Some broadcasters got around this thorny issue by utilizing both terms (calling the incident an act of homophobic terrorism). Following the news coverage carefully though, it occurred to me that this did not solve the problem. After all, the question that immediately follows such a move to admit both as (equal?) causal explanations is: What is the relationship between these two frames? Was homophobia a symptom of the radical Islam (and the Daesh militia) to which (and to whom) Omar Mateen swore allegiance? Those wishing to foreground the terrorism frame insisted this was the case. To essentialize and locate Muslim violence and homophobia in the religion of Islam has long been the method of Islamaphobes in Muslim and non-Muslim countries. It is a standard refrain within the narrative spun by proponents and advocates of the war on terror, since it marks Islam and its adherents as the “other” of the West—read Christian, civilized, democratic, progressive, and so on. Instead, I want to forward an alternative position and one that I feel is more fruitful in terms of reengaging the tired and floundering discussions of terrorist violence (pushed too often into simplistic divisions of good Muslim vs. bad Muslim, modernity and the unmodern, and the ideological bias underpinning the discredited conveyor belt theory of radicalization). Rather than simply admitting both frames, I suggest reframing terrorism and homophobia not as cause and effect, but as conditions that share an underlying ailment, and that is the problem of toxic masculinity. By positioning the discussion in this way and laying the emphasis on homophobia (to begin with at least) retrieves from the tragedy of Orlando a new perspective. It frames homophobia as the problem, asking all communities and populations to consider this prejudice—be they Muslim, white Caucasian, black or Latino, and Christian or Jew. It raises the question of patriarchy and patriarchal constructions of a heteronormative masculinity that regards violence as both natural and integral. It opens up a discussion of the patriarchal underpinnings of securitocracy and the agencies and industries of a capitalist order in which food and water shortages plague the world, yet the manufacture and sales of firearms and other weapons offer ever more lucrative il/legal routes to making “a killing.” It would suggest that as a mode of violence, terrorism today (to bring that frame back) has something to do with the structure of patriarchy, and that what all terrorisms share is a certain toxic masculinity, regardless of the vocabulary that proponents of various “causes” expropriate. In my interpretation, it is the struggle over frames that provoked Owen Jones’s frustration in the Sky News studio. To favor the terrorist frame collapses the discussion back into the frayed sociolect of right-wing commentators, security experts, and politicians. The Orlando atrocity becomes merely a footnote in this saga, the protagonist of which is the “good” West (and our lifestyle and values), while the villain of the piece is Islamo-fascism. The world continues to turn as it has done on the binary logic of orientalism; Said spins in his grave, and Fox News bleats on. Choosing a new frame, I suggest, offers new ways of “seeing.”
“Toxic Masculinity”
Interestingly, the term toxic masculinity comes from the work of sociologists and psychologists working in the early 1990s, looking at different aspects of men’s relationship with their fathers and representations of masculinity, not (as may be thought) in reference to feminism per se. For example, in a paper published in 1996, Tracy Karner describes her findings of in-depth interviews with veterans of the Vietnam war. She carefully unpicks the disillusionment of a generation of young men, drafted through a social script that presented war and the military as spaces of idealized masculinity, and fathers who had themselves served in World War II (the good war) as models of heroism. “In the years following the ‘good war,’” writes Karner, “military service was seen as a natural rite of passage from boyhood to manhood. War movies of the era portrayed ‘war as a crucial ritual transition from male adolescence into manhood.’ Men who had served held a place of social esteem and were rewarded for their contribution to ‘the American way of life’ and to ‘keeping America free’” (p. 68). What is of interest here is that conflict, war, and militarism emerge as the “proving ground of masculinity” and what Susan Jefford (cited by Karner) suggests regarding gender, “[That the] arena of warfare … [is] not just fields of battle but fields of gender” (p. 65). This is not something new of course. The gendered nature of war—the fact that women are the dominant victims of conflict—is well established. What is salient in Karner’s and Jefford’s assessment though is firstly, the constitutive nature of violence in even normative notions of masculinity, and secondly, but most importantly, how disillusionment occurs when that violence is not available or when it does not deliver the power or prestige it is thought to. If violence is constitutive of masculinity, then violence becomes the mode by which one asserts one’s masculinity. This assertion can take the form of symbolic violence and extend to physical violence too. When a notion of masculinity is thus structured, what happens if there is a disillusionment with violence, because it is not available, because it is being perpetrated in theaters of war far away, or because the violence engaged does not yield the results expected? What happens when this disillusionment is enhanced by a diet of social media that showcases in gruesome detail violence of elsewhere, framed according to in-group and out-group loyalties? What happens for instance, when a sense of masculinity becomes conflated with a culture, a nation, or a religion whose defense is mapped along gendered lines (the feminine object being sullied and in need of defense)? Under such a schema, a masculinity already constituted through violence turns toxic. Something of this kind may be discernible in the spate of disruptive vigilantism that occurred within the British Sikh community last year, bringing to the surface an extremism that no community it seems is immune from. Sunny Hundal (2015) and others covered incidents of Sikh men disrupting interfaith marriages, particularly when these took place between Sikh women and non-Sikh men. The sexism was pointed out on a phone in program on the BBC Asian Network (2013) but also highlighted that within the matrix of patriarchy, masculinity is always defined in relation to femininity and toxic masculinities hyperbolize this binary opposition. It conflates the feminine as both an object of weakness and one upon which masculine power and authority may be exercised. When this shifts from female bodies to symbols (religion), practices (culture), and demography (region/nation/community), the defense of these becomes a question of one’s own masculinity. In fact, the shift does not have to be from women’s body to these other conceptual spheres; often, the female body becomes the embodied representation or repository of these other spheres, as was the case with the protests that arose following the production of Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s play, Behzti (Dishonor). A play about rape and murder in a gurdwara (though never shown on stage), Behzti took on multiple associations, and within its field of signification grew a toxic masculinity that manifested itself, not in expressions of peaceful or reasoned dissent, but violent mob-like behavior, justified always by claims of higher principles, but underwritten by violence. Under the rubric of patriarchy, male violence functions in a dialectic where it is both a function of male guardianship (of women, family, nation) and of policing and enforcing the patriarchal order. Where that violence is challenged—literally or, more often, symbolically—it produces a disillusionment with the normative apparatus of power and with the violence of that system too. What it does not lead to however, is a disillusionment with violence per se. This is because, if violence is constitutive of masculinity, a disillusionment with violence-qua-violence would mean a disenchantment with masculinity itself. Instead, disillusionment (of symbolic, quotidian violence) transforms masculinity into something toxic, producing rage as the praxis of toxic masculinities. Rage, however, is always enervating and cannot sustain itself, so it exists in flashes, moments of violence turned rage. What is thought to remain always, however, is the masculinity beneath the act, but this is an illusion of toxic masculinity that invests rage with modality; a mode for subjugating the body in terms of gendered norms. It is after all, in the intersection of rage where life and death meet, or in Freudian terms, the psychical moment when the division between the will to live (Eros) and the death drive (Thanatos) cross over. Lost in rage, the body is overcome with an energy and adrenaline, so that one feels as if they are pulsing with life, and in that moment the death drive is necessarily activated, for at the edge of life is the flirtation with death. At this point, Kalpana Sheshadri-Crooks’ analysis of Frantz Fanon’s work on (anti)colonial violence may be instructive. For Fanon, violence and aggression always have a libidinal core. The energy and potency of violence, however, are also informed in Fanon by the death drive that is indifferent to a discourse of ethics. This seems to me to be even truer of rage (as the praxis of toxic masculinities), which leads individuals to dismiss normative notions of good and evil. Crossing over, the libidinal and the death drive strongly foreground the (male) body, which, when politicized (according to Fanon) is “flooded by libidinal energy” (2002, 91). Hence, rage (imagined here as constitutive of toxic masculinity) has an orgasmic intensity, and just like an orgasm it does not subjugate the body in gendered terms, but dissolves the body, unmarks it, and collapses distinctions between self and other, inside and outside, between (from a Jungian perspective) Logos and Eros. Drawing on the work of Alphonso Lingis, Joanna Frueh (2012) writes, Lingis asks, ‘Does not the Orgasmic body figure, as a body decomposed, dismembered, dissolute …? Is it not a breaking down into a mass of exposed organs, secretions, striated muscles, systems turning into pulp and susceptibility?’ […] The penis becomes “dismembered” in the vagina, “cut-off” visually from the rest of the man’s body …. The penis “dissolves”, detumesces, in the female saline and mucosal genital secretions, in a sexual solution. The male “breaks down” as he comes, his penis and perhaps his entire body going limp. He becomes “pulp”, looking soft and juicy all over—from sweat—and because the skin of his penis is wet with his own and his lover’s cum. He exhibits utmost susceptibility to swelling, for his exposed organ, his penis, has changed form, “decomposing” from an erection to a soft, still very sensitive tissue. (p. 227) Toxic masculinity transforms violence into rage, but the latter dissolves difference, renders the individual into an unmarked body, and into a mere channel for “drives” and “impulses.” Action becomes an imperative and deemed a “cleansing force … [freeing] the native [in Fanon’s words] from his inferiority complex and from his despair [of] inaction [or in terms of the above analysis: His disillusionment with symbolic and everyday violence]; it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect” (Fanon 1965, 94). What’s important to note here is the fact that Fanon is not advocating violence but unpicking its deep psychological dimensions. Having said that, “It has often been remarked,” writes Sheshadri-Crooks, “that for Fanon revolution itself forms a cultural basis for identity and self-esteem” (p. 92). When a man picks up arms, says Fanon (remembering that Fanon’s context is anticolonial struggle), he rejects an order whose authority is humiliating and demeaning and emerges as a “new man.” According to Sheshadri-Crooks, however, “what has not been properly understood [about Fanon’s idea] is that this ‘new man’ is not a self-affirming ego, a cured, well-adjusted individual” (p. 92). Rather (and for the purposes of my argument), such a man and his masculinity are vacuous; the action and energy exhibited is not the mark of strength or vigor but, as Terry Eagleton (2010) says of evil, “it is the deceptive glow of the diseased” (“there may be a hectic flush on its visage, but … it is fever rather than vitality,” p. 123). Unlike an orgasm then, which pushes the body to the edge but reclaims it for the will to life (Eros), rage pushes the self toward annihilation (Thanatos), and this is why it is ultimately so destructive. Investing rage with a modality (a mode for subjugating the body in terms of gendered norms) is illusory for it is pure force, reducing everything to rubble. In an essay in memory of Derrida, David Lloyd (2007) identifies rage as “sheer manifestation, [which has] … neither subject nor object” (p. 353). What is more, “Rage is indifferent to what in its frenzy gets destroyed, the self as object or the self’s object,” If violence is agential … and, in its way, subject-forming [think of its constitutive role in masculinity], rage is a most un-Hegelian moment of suspension or stasis whose vertiginous oscillations are set in motion by a reciprocal annihilation …. The enraged does not see the other as subject or even as object: in the sheer transport of rage, differentiation is undone. (David Lloyd 2007) But as Lloyd proceeds, he insists that there is a gap between rage and violence and that the latter may not be a necessary result of the former; that in fact, “it would be wrong … to see rage as simply destructive, merely a modality of the death drive” (p. 366). He reminds us that, contrary to its name (death drive), in Freud’s conception, Thanatos was a force for conserving the ego in “homeostasis” and not one that sought to undo it. This leads Lloyd to a strange conclusion toward the end of his essay: If [rage] manifests itself in purely negative ways, as that which lacks story, subjectivity … we should perhaps not forget that the utopian horizon is always projected from the place of ruin and that the emancipated world, if such there be, is thought ahead in forms supplied by the very texture of damaged life and constellated with the refuse of the past. Might we not then trace in its annihilation of the subject the counterpart to another such annihilation whose name is love? (p. 369) The expectation of reaching “utopian horizons” may in fact be the problem. So while I disagree with Lloyd’s final analysis, what is clear is that in the concept of rage (as delineated even by Lloyd), there is something of a crossover between the power of Eros and the power of Thanatos. That rage may be interpreted as neutral or even positive does not follow however. Rage is precisely the affectation of a death drive that has overpowered Eros, so that the energy and action affected through rage “is indifferent to what … gets destroyed.” It is such a condition that underlies the shooting at Orlando. What helped foster it was a toxic masculinity that is the commonality between it and much of the violence we see, precisely because rage is the praxis of such masculinities, whose underlying violence transmutes into rage. Instead of subjugating the body in gendered terms, such a recasting of violence is an explosion of the will to destroy and its energy comes from a vacuousness/a gnawing lack at the center of rage. Here Lloyd may be correct, in that he casts rage as being nonnarrative or, stronger still, unnaratable. Capturing rage in words, especially in the moment of rage, is a strained endeavor at best and certainly difficult to manage in the moment. Indeed, even if one can, the disproportional reaction (the disparity between the energy one expends and the incident that provokes it) belies the coherence of any explanation or narrative offered. The gnawing lack at the heart of rage is precisely an experience of the Lacanian “real”—untranslatable and unable to mark itself and therefore exists as (what Lloyd calls) “pure manifestation,” because “what we have,” in the words of Sheshadri-Crooks, “is the breakdown of the signifier” (p. 88). Toxic masculinities produce “nothing,” say nothing, mean nothing; they are products ultimately of the violence that is constitutive of masculinity in patriarchal cultures.
Conclusion
While it suits many already invested in the discourse on the war on terror, to frame the shootings in Orlando as just one more saga in the ongoing story of the West’s battle with radical Islam, this terrible tragedy offers a unique perspective into what is actually happening when such violence occurs. Choosing a different frame helps us “see” differently and steer the world away from a reductive Manichean picture. The incident in Orlando was a homophobic attack, and whether Mateen was (a self-hating) homosexual himself or whether he had been “radicalized,” neither of these things detract from the fact that homosexuality challenges notions of masculinity in the modern world. Using homophobia as the frame to understand what happened in Orlando, one foregrounds gender and the construction of masculinity in the Muslim world as well as in the West. Advances in LGBT rights have been driven irrefutably by advances made by feminism; both have emerged as ways to challenge and undo the stronghold of patriarchy. In cultures where LGBT rights need protecting, one must look at the advance of women’s rights in those places, for the one is intimately tied to the other. That being the case, beneath a homophobic worldview lies the in/visible hand of patriarchy. Owen Jones was right to be frustrated on Sky News because his instincts were correct. Given the Orientalist nature of coverage of Muslim violence, there was pressure to frame the shooting of people in a gay nightclub as terrorism perpetrated by a radical Islamist. Doing so would leave uninterrogated the continuing LGBT struggle in the West itself, let alone in Muslim communities and societies. The incident would be appropriated by individuals and broadcasters as just another attack on the West, blinding us from seeing that violence of this sort—regardless of the ideology and ethnicity of the perpetrator—is carried out overwhelmingly by men. Framing terrorism in Orlando as homophobic terrorism invites us to ask a different set of questions; offers a different grammar which brings communities together under a banner of inclusion, freedom from violence—everyday as well as sporadic terrorism—and opens up a different route to solutions. The “loveislove” hashtag that trended after the shootings in Orlando can be interpreted as an insistence that the power of Eros prevail that one ought to be life-affirming and not death-driven. In her short report filmed for BBC Three, Stacey Dooley visited Orlando soon after the incident that shook the city. In her film, she spoke to Julia Lozada (a regular at Pulse) and asked, what has to change? Lozada’s response is worth listening to: There is something socially wrong with America that this constantly keeps happening. Our culture here is like if you’re a G. I. Joe, you’re the man, you’re the tough guy—that’s wrong. You know, it should be somebody who’s peaceful, somebody who doesn’t use aggression to get what they want. And that’s what America is about: We use aggression and we get what we want. (BBC iPlayer, 2016) Violence and gender are intimately connected. In her article for the website Rolling Stones, Soraya Chemaly identified the absence of any serious discussion of Omar Mateen’s violence toward his wife, broader than as a means of simply characterizing him as “bad.” There is a connection, she claims, between private violence, such as domestic violence, and public violence in America. “[Y]et the role that masculinity and aggrieved male entitlement plays [in such violence] is largely side lined.” She goes on to state forcefully that “Homophobia is nothing if not grounded in profound misogyny. Regardless of religion or ethnicity, anti-LGTB rhetoric is the expression of dominant heterosexuality that feeds on toxic masculinity and rigid gender stereotypes.” Soon after the shootings in Orlando, many commentators raised the issue of guns in America. In fact, Owen Jones’s co-panelist on Sky News, Julia Hartley-Brewer, spoke of this issue. What was missing, however, was recognition that guns are part of the iconography of masculinity in popular cultures across the world. Talking to Amy Goodman from DemocracyNow, Chemaly pointed this out: … very often on the gun advocacy side, you’ll hear the argument that women should just go get guns, which is kind of just absurd for many different reasons … But also, it just turns out that even when women have guns, they’re much more likely to be used against them in the home …. And if you look at surveys of men and women, there is a huge gap between the feelings of security that men and women have when they own guns, and that gap is really meaningful. Women do not tend to feel safe when there are guns in the home, but men do. So, insisting that women go and buy guns is simply going along a norm that is extremely calibrated to the way men are experiencing violence, not the way women are experiencing violence. (Democracy Now!, 2016) What Chemaly and others highlight is the need to understand the violence we are seeing as grounded in conceptions of masculinity which cut across race and ethnicities, nationalities, and cultures. In a world where we should all “man-up” (Asher 2016) and not “throw like a girl,” the issue of masculinity needs surely to be part of the conversation, and the issue of framing becomes more and more pressing. As the Labor politician David Lammy has written with regard to the British context, “It is not unreasonable to ask why British males of a certain age and demographic but from all backgrounds almost exclusively provide the talent pool for our legions of racists, football hooligans, rioters, gang members and terrorists” (quoted in Asher 2016, 129). When Goodman asks Chemaly about what Michael Johnson has called “intimate terror,” Chemlay’s (2016) response is instructive: … the degree to which women are living with everyday terror is undeniable. But we simply, in our media, do not categorize it that way. I mean, women are making tens of thousands of calls to domestic violence shelters a day.… And so, on the one hand … we have this national concern with countering violent extremism [but ignore the link with intimate violence] and that’s an incoherent way to approach this problem. The incoherence owes to the frames by which we (re)cognize different phenomena. The terrorism frame collapses the conversation (conveniently) into an “us” and “them” narrative, it recommends more funding for surveillance and security, and it continues to grease the wheels of capitalist industries that manufacture and distribute firearms and other combat arsenal. It keeps in place a patriarchal worldview, lauding competition, hierarchy, and strength (imagined too often as exclusively physical). Framing the attacks in Orlando as homophobic terrorism, ought to prioritize the need to address the relationship between gender and violence. The challenge is to reconstruct masculinity but not through imagining a binary of good masculinity versus bad masculinity. Rather, it is to see that the “fictions of masculinity serve the interests of an abstract concept of male power … but few individual men” (Robinson 2002, 144). As Sally Robinson avers, “masculinity isn’t something ‘owned’ by individuals” (p. 146) and that it is this individualization in fact which gets in the way of our understanding of masculinity as a social category and what causes “individual men to feel attacked by discussions of it” (p. 151). Instead, we must look elsewhere. Firstly, it is vital to see gender not as natural or even as socially constructed and individually apprehended, but (as Robinson terms it) “a system and an epistemological grid through which to approach the world” (p. 151). This grid divides the world into opposites—male and female—and establishes a heteronormative relationship between the parts. It then reaches beyond and does something similar: dividing the world of cultures into us and them and naturalizing the quest for power and dominance, the performance of roles and duties. In this matrix, masculinity is underwritten by violence and, as this essay has sought to show, when there is a disillusionment with violence (symbolic and everyday) such masculinities turn toxic. But the effort to reconstruct masculinity cannot involve a simple disinvestment in violence, for that would reproduce the binary logic of patriarchy. Rather, it is to redirect the power of Thanatos to the power of Eros—we must see the “self” as the other, compromise as achievement, and renounce violence for nonviolence by ceasing to see in violence neither bravery, courage nor strength, but rather learn to see nonviolence as the “summit” of all that (Gandhi quoted in Finkelstein 2012, 36). And it is in order to see things differently that we need to frame things differently. That is what I argue the tragedy in Orlando teaches us. Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. Funding The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Haider, S. (2016). The Shooting in Orlando, Terrorism or Toxic Masculinity (or Both?). Men & Masculinities, 19(5), 555-565. doi:10.1177/1097184X16664952
Article References
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Chemlay S. 2016. “In Orlando, as Usual, Domestic Violence Was Ignored Red Flag.” Rolling Stones [Online]. Accessed June 20, 2016. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/in-orlando-as-usual-domestic-violence-was-ignored-red-flag-20160613. Google Scholar
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Author Biography Syed Haider completed his PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies working on Muslim Modernities in India. His research interest is in Postcolonial Theory and Cultural Studies with a focus on the creation of culture and the role of cultural products as vehicles for the transmission of ideas. He is currently working on the possibility of an emerging British Islamicate culture as well as preparing his doctoral thesis for publication. He is also a qualified English and media studies teacher and teaches in the public sector.
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Islam & Christianity: The Demonization and Exploitation of Female Sexuality
Below is a guest post by : Michael Sherlock, which originally appeared on Michael's blog
I hope you enjoy this wonderful essay as much as I did. 
-Eiynah
***** The struggle of democratic secularism, religious tolerance, individual freedom and feminism against authoritarian patriarchal religion, culture and morality is going on all over the world – including the Islamic world, where dissidents are regularly jailed, killed, exiled or merely intimidated and silenced.[1]                                       
~Ellen Willis
Introduction
Sexuality is notoriously difficult to define.[2] Lemon describes it as encompassing ‘body image, self-esteem, social interactions, myths, feelings, and interpersonal relationships’,[3] whilst Lefebvre argues that sexuality is ‘verbal, visual, tactual, and olfactory communication that expresses intimacy and love’.[4] Thus, female sexuality might cautiously yet not exhaustively be defined as encompassing female body image, self-esteem, female-centred social interactions, sexual myths surrounding women, the feelings men and women have regarding women, and gender roles and expectations pertaining to the female as a sexual being.[5] These criteria are heavily influenced, if not entirely determined, by social, cultural, religious, and political pressures.[6] Therefore, the nature and qualities of a given society dictate and determine female sexuality.[7]
An honest and accurate discussion on Islam and Christianity’s obsession with controlling female sexuality[8] cannot adequately take place absent an appraisal of the pervasive patriarchal context in which both religions are firmly rooted.[9] Christianity and Islam are religions made by men and predominantly for men, and both religions have within their core doctrines and scriptures religious justifications for the disenfranchisement of women, as well as insurance policies which ensure that the issue of female sexuality remains within the firm grasp of men, both present and past.[10] Notwithstanding the efforts of modern feminist movements within these two patriarchal religions, Islam and Christianity, wherever they yield significant sway over a society, continue to suppress and oppress female sexuality in accordance with the ideological, philosophical, social, cultural and political building blocks that form their patriarchal foundations.[11]
This essay will examine the way in which “Islam” controls female sexuality by evincing core scripture and by examining historical and contemporary contexts. Further, this essay will contrast Islam’s treatment of female sexuality with Christianity’s to demonstrate that Christianity has been far more oppressive with regards to sexuality in general. Finally, this essay will briefly address the shortcomings of Islamic feminism and apologetics with regards to claims surrounding the alleged sovereignty of women to determine their own sexuality.
Patriarchy and Patriarchal Religion
Patriarchy, as initially defined by Maine and Morgan in the nineteenth century, describes an organizing principle based on the biblical model, upon which male-dominated societies place power in the hands of the father, husband and brother over the mother, wife, and sister.[12] Radcliffe-Brown extended upon this definition to assert that patriarchy describes a ‘society in which descent is traced through the male line, residence is patrilocal, inheritance of property, and succession is in the male line and the family is patripotestal or that there is male authority’.[13] Malinowski, however, simplified the term patriarchy to simply describe a patripotestal system which places power in the hands of men over women.[14] Feminist scholar Sylvia Walby defines patriarchy as a ‘system of social structures and practices in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women’.[15]
There is little doubt that both Christianity and Islam are patriarchal religions.[16] Both religions were constructed upon the acutely patriarchal Abrahamic religious system.[17] Discussing women in Islam, Byzantine Christianity, and western Christianity, Stearns argues: ‘Both Islam and Christianity faced a major tension in principle: they granted women souls and the chance of salvation, but they regarded women as inferior, more prone to evil. Neither religion undermined patriarchy’.[18] Further, in describing the purely patriarchal soil in which the religion of Islam was first sown, Inhorn states: ‘Like Judaism and Christianity before it, Islam came into being in a patriarchal society where patrilateral endogamy, the practice of marrying within the tribal lineage, set the shape for the oppression of women in patrilineal society long before the rise of Islam (Tillon 1983).[19]   The purpose of Inhorn’s argument here was to establish grounds for shielding the Islamic ideology from justified charges of female oppression, and to shift the focus onto the ‘social, cultural and political-economic conditions’,[20] which, ironically, Inhorn argued were the very building blocks for the patriarchal ideology she sought to defend.
Female Sexuality in Islam
There is no one thing which might rigidly be called ‘Islam’. Like all religions, Islam is a confusion of contradictions, variations, and nuances which have arisen due to the fact that religion is, like its creators, a messily evolving imperfect phenomenon. The ‘Islam’ of one Muslim can be vastly different from the ‘Islam’ of another. Yet the acknowledgment of such nuance in no way prevents the application of a definition of Islam cemented in uniting elements and principles. The primary scripture of Islam, the Qur’an, unites an otherwise diverse collection of individuals, however, interpretation enters the equation to once again divide those who call themselves Muslim. As such, there are Sufis, Shi’ites, Sunnis and within these schools there are even more divisions. There are LGBT Muslims, feminist Muslims, reformist Muslims, secularist Muslims, liberal and conservative Muslims. This diverse array of categories clearly indicates that a religion is more than just the sum of a few of its parts; it is a fluid phenomenon that must be interpreted and analysed as a whole. To add further nuance and confusion, a religion also involves an interactive process between individual adherents and their religion’s doctrines and traditions, which varies and develops over time and space.  Hence, a discussion on female sexuality within ‘Islam’ must be sufficiently cautious to avoid oversimplification. The safest means by which one may assess the relationship between Islam and female sexuality is with an examination of the Qur’an and the theological and historical contexts in which it was first transmitted, as well as by examining extra-religious influences that have contributed to the various evolutions and devolutions of Islam in this respect.
According to the Qur’an, a woman’s sexuality is not her own to determine, but a man’s.[21] A wife must submit to the sexual desires of her husband lest she be admonished, isolated, or even beaten.[22] A man may enjoy the sex with multiple wives, but such a right is not merely denied to a woman, it is incomprehensible.[23] A female captive becomes the sex-slave of her male captor, whom the Qur’an expressly gives to the male victor as a spoil of war.[24] The Qur’an expressly states that the wife is a tilth unto her husband, who is encouraged to enter his subordinate female partner when and how he pleases.[25] There are verses in the Qur’an that encourage husbands to be respectful of their wives,[26] yet such ‘respect’ should not necessarily be interpreted in a modern sense, but within the patriarchal context of male and female gender relations of medieval southern Arabia. Examining the hadith to provide some historical context, it’s clear that the primary exemplar of Islam, Muhammad, had great respect for his wives,[27] yet his ‘respect’ was able to accommodate violently striking his child-bride Aishah in the chest when she was mildly deceptive,[28] laughing when his father-in-law, Abu Bakr, beat two of his wives for annoying him[29] – he consummated his marriage to his 17-year-old Jewish wife, Safiyya bint Huyayy, shortly after his men killed her fiancé and her family,[30] he instructed an abused woman to return to her violent husband and submit to his sexual desires, even though, according to Aishah, her face so badly bruised that it was ‘greener than the veil she was wearing’.[31] The point here is that respect for women in both Quranic and historical contexts does not necessarily equate with the notion as we understand it today.
Yet such an obvious reality has not prevented numerous modern Muslims from pragmatically applying modern notions and selective readings of the Qur’an and the Sunna to arrive at a less patriarchal version of Islam.[32] Of course, in contrast to progressive movements within the Ummah there are increasingly popular Salafist movements, and such movements seek to return Islam to its medieval origins, a time Wahhabists and other Salafists see as representing a purer form of the faith.[33] It must also be acknowledged that there exists a wealth of passages and teachings within the Qur’an and ‘sahih’ hadiths that justify and legitimate their stricter application and interpretation of Islam. Having said this, it bears repeating that a religion is not merely the sum of a few of its parts. This being the case, the modern relationship between Islam and female sexuality is one underscored by extreme tensions between those who wish to apply strict seventh century Islamic values and those who prefer a more modern, selective, tempered, and pragmatic application of their religion.[34]
Dialmy argues that sexual standards in Islam are self-contradictory, stating: ‘Sexual standards in Islam are paradoxical: on the one hand, they allow and actually are an enticement to the exercise of sexuality but, on the other hand, they discriminate between male and female sexuality…Men are given more rights with regard to the expression of their sexuality; women are forbidden to have extramarital sex (with their slaves)…’[35]    This paradox distinguishes Islam from Christianity, because Christianity did not, and does not, generally speaking, entice the exercise of sexuality; on the contrary, it roundly renounces and represses it.[36] In fact, Islam’s more rational yet paradoxical acceptance of human sexuality represents one of the popular complaints made by many fathers and thinkers within Christianity over the centuries. Aquinas complained that ‘He [Muhammad] seduced the people [men] by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh goads us’.[37] Discussing the fifteenth century Christian theologian and translator of the Qur’an, Juan De Segovia, Wolf remarks: ‘…he [Juan De Segovia] repeatedly remarked to his readers that Islam was a religion that encouraged sexual licence, one of the most common charges made by medieval Christian polemicists…He was convinced that this promise of everlasting sexual gratification was a significant factor in the spread of this religion’.[38]
Sexuality in Christianity
The outright repression of human sexuality in Christianity is rooted in the New Testament, particularly within the Pauline epistles.[39] Christianity’s emphasis on controlling female sexuality, however, derives from its interpretation of the etiological/charter myth found in the first three chapters of Genesis, in which Eve, per the popular Christian exegesis, symbolically, and often literally, represents the inherent dangers of female sexuality.[40] She is the temptress who brought about the downfall of humanity and juxtaposed to her is the Virgin Mary. Mary is the antithesis of Eve, the blessed virgin, of whom Irenaeus in the late second century wrote: ‘As Eve was seduced into disobedience to God, so Mary was persuaded into obedience to God …That is why the Lord proclaims himself the Son of Man, the one who renews in himself that first man from whom the race born of woman was formed; as by a man’s defeat our race fell into the bondage of death, so by a man’s victory we were to rise again to life’.[41]
From this excerpt of Irenaeus’ ‘Against the Heresies’ two prevalent themes in Christian theology can be observed: Firstly, disobedient women are easily seduced by demonic influences and secondly, women possess the [sexual] power to influence men to the detriment of our entire species, which was a prevalent motif throughout the witch craze in late medieval Europe and Britain.[42] Thus, to guard against the female’s sexuality is one of the most crucial areas of concern for the pious male, who – should he fall prey to the beckonings of the flesh – will participate in the “literal” downfall of ‘mankind’. Such psychological pressure, it may be argued, appears to have resulted in an animosity toward women within not only Christianity, but also within Islam. The author of Ecclesiastes writes: ‘I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a trap and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner she will ensnare…while I was still searching but not finding– I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all’.[43] Here we find a parallel in Islamic scripture, with Muhammad alleging: ‘”I looked at Paradise and found poor people forming the majority of its inhabitants; and I looked at Hell and saw that the majority of its inhabitants were women.”’[44] Abrahamic Context
To understand the inherent animosity toward women and female sexuality in both of these religions, an examination of the historical contexts within which these religions were first formed is required. Further, being that both of these religions are theologically rooted in Judaism, it would be prudent to also examine their parent-religion’s influence in this regard. In her exposition on the image of women in the Old Testament, Ruether argues: ‘The wife’s primary contribution to her family was her sexuality, which was regarded as the exclusive property of her husband, both in respect to its pleasure and its fruit. Adultery involving a married woman was a crime of first magnitude in Israelite law (Lev. 20:10; Exod. 20:14), ranking with murder and major religious offenses as a transgression demanding the death penalty…The issue was not simply one of extramarital sex (which was openly tolerated in certain circumstances). The issue was one of property and authority. Adultery was a violation of the fundamental and exclusive right of a man to the sexuality of his wife. It was an attack upon his authority in the family and consequently upon the solidarity and integrity of the family itself’.[45]  Notwithstanding certain Muslim, Christian and Jewish feminists’ revisionist attempts to soften the patriarchal character of their respective religions, female sexuality in the Abrahamic religious context cannot be truly extricated from its patriarchal roots and the belief that an omnipotent God authored or inspired various patriarchal prescriptions as universal and enduring wisdom is a firm anchor that keeps ancient and medieval patriarchy alive and well in the twenty-first century.  An example of Muslim feminism’s attempt to justify and rationalize obvious patriarchy can be found in the numerous apologia offered to justify and rationalize the overtly patriarchal ‘modesty culture’, symbolized by the hijab, niqab, and other female-specific coverings.[46] British sociologist Linda Woodhead sees the veiling of Muslim women as a form of female liberation, because according to Woodhead, it affords Muslim women the opportunity to leave the home and participate in the public sphere without forfeiting their culture or their history,[47] which, ironically, are acutely patriarchal. Egyptian feminist Nawal El Saadawi, on the other hand, views the veiling of women as oppressive, saying: ‘The veil is a tool for the oppression of women…They [Muslim women in the west] defend the veil in the name of mulit-culturalism. It is a lie’.[48]
The disproportionate imposition of physical ‘modesty’ upon female sexuality, which is not unique to Islam, may be argued to lend weight to Ruether’s argument regarding female sexuality being the exclusive gift and property of her conjugal patriarch. A popular social media campaign in recent years that sought to normalize the veiling of women compared veiled women to wrapped candy.[49] The irony of this campaign was that the women involved were comparing themselves to pieces of confectionary – female sexuality was being discursively described and analogized as a delicious treat for sanctioned males, thereby once again evincing the inescapable patriarchal origins described in Ruether’s argument concerning female sexuality.
Islamic Feminism
Eyadat identifies four primary strands of Islamic feminism: apologist, reformist, hermeneutic and rejectionist. According to Eyadat, apologist feminists seek to reinforce existing patriarchal gender roles.[50] Reformists framed their reformations upon a ‘western framework’, and for this reason received little popularity, and yet their highest ambition was to ‘redefine certain notions of women’s rights and gender roles in order for women to better perform their given societal duties’.[51] Hermeneutic feminism, to which Eyadat subscribes, seeks to employ ijtihad (literally ‘striving’ or ‘exertion’  – legal term: ‘independent reasoning/thinking’)[52] in a modern Quranic context in order to provide a balance to an ‘almost exclusively male-dominated Quranic interpretation’.[53]  The final strain of Islamic feminism identified by Eyadat, rejectionist, holds that Islam is inherently patriarchal and incompatible with gender equality,[54] a view that could be argued to be the closest to the historical origins and minds of the early authors of the Qur’an and Sunna, for it is very difficult to reinterpret Muhammad’s pronouncement regarding the intellectual inferiority of women,[55] or his “revelation” concerning the inherent female drives that lead them more than men into hellfire,[56] without taking into account the time, culture and regional influences that underpinned his worldview. Furthermore, if Muhammad is the ideal Muslim, as the Qur’an claims,[57] then such negative beliefs concerning women, and his conduct toward them, although not always misogynistic and exploitative, must be held to be superlative, leaving little room for Islamic feminists to effectively extricate Muslim women from patriarchy. This in turn renders Islamic feminism devoid of any principle which might be even loosely associated with anything remotely resembling ‘feminism’. If such is in fact the case, and the rejectionists are correct, which scripture and historical context seem to suggest, then female sexuality in Islam will forever remain a male-owned commodity – a covered piece of confectionary for the exclusive enjoyment of conjugal patriarchs.
Conclusion
Islam and Christianity are both patriarchal religions rooted in patriarchal culture. As such, both religions are infused with patriarchal beliefs concerning female sexuality. Christianity has successfully demonized female sexuality by exploiting the etiological/charter myths of Eve and the Fall of Man, and by demonizing sexuality outright. Islam, on the other hand, has embraced sexuality, yet predominantly for the male’s use and enjoyment. Patriarchal beliefs concerning female sexuality are evident within the core doctrines of these religions, which, as discussed above, place the dominant discourse surrounding female sexuality in the hands of men, past and present. To rebuke or reform the patriarchal prescriptions concerning female sexuality in either religion is to rebuke or reform the essential building blocks of both religions – namely, the Bible and the Qur’an. Put simply, to reject the oppressive constraints placed upon female sexuality in either religion is to reject the “omniscient wisdom” of the foundational texts. For this reason, many feminists within Christianity and Islam have had to resolve their dissonance by placing their religion ahead their feminism, thereby contributing little more than vain rationalizations which have done little more than justify and excuse patriarchy. On the other hand, it may be argued that the fluid nature of religion itself can afford religious feminists room to manoeuvre, yet the length and breadth of such room will always be confined and constrained by the significance each of these religions place on their foundational texts, which, in both cases, are believed to be divine manifestos dictated or inspired by an all-knowing patriarch, whose wisdom is incomprehensibly profound, and by whose patriarchal prescriptions such feminists must ultimately abide and obey. Herein lies the true power of these religions to regulate and control female sexuality, for in the abridged words of Voltaire, ‘It is difficult to free [the oppressed] from the chains they revere’.
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End Notes
Ellen Willis, The Mass Psychology of Terrorism, cited in: Stanley Aronowitz (ed.) and Heather Gautney (ed.), Implicating Empire: Globalization and Resistance in the 21st Century World Order, New York: Basic Books, 2003, p. 97.
Robert A. Padgug, Sexual Matters: On Conceptualizing Sexuality in History, cited in: Richard Parker and Peter Aggleton, Culture, Society and Sexuality: A Reader, London: UCL Press, 1999, p. 17.
A. Lemon (1993). ‘Sexual Counselling and Spinal Cord Injury’. Sexuality and Disability. 11 (1), 73-97, cited in: Eva Miller and Irmo Marini, Sexuality and Spinal Cord Injury Counselling Implications, cited in: Irmo Marini (ed.) and Mark A. Stebnicki, The Psychological and Social Impact of Illness and Disability, 6th Ed., New York: Springer Publishing Company, LLC, 2012, p. 135.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Pat Caplan (ed.), The Cultural Construction on Sexuality, London: Routledge, 1987, pp. 1-10.
Gail Hawkes, A Sociology of Sex and Sexuality, Philadelphia: Open University Press, 1996, p. 8.
Dr DCA Hillman, Original Sin: Ritual Child Rape and the Church, Berkley, California: Ronin, 2012, p. 26; Cheris Kramarae (ed.) and Dale Spender (ed.), Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women: Global Women’s Issues and Knowledge, Vol. 1: Ability – Education: Globalization, ‘Christianity’, New York: Routledge, 2000, p. 169; Haideh Moghissi (ed.), Women and Islam: Critical Concepts in Sociology, Vol. 1: Images and Realities, London: Routledge, 2005, p. 18; Haideh Moghissi, Populism and Feminism in Iran: Women’s Struggle in a Male-Defined Revolutionary Movement, London: MacMillan Press Ltd, 1994, p. 76; Etin Anwar, Gender and Self in Islam, London: Routledge, 2006, p. 145.
Vern L. Bullough (ed.), Brenda Shelton (ed.), Sarah Slavin (ed.), The Subordinated Sex: A History of Attitudes Toward Women, Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1988, pp. 113-114; Fatima Mernissi, Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1975, p. 82; Haideh Moghissi (ed.), Women and Islam: Critical Concepts in Sociology, Vol. 1: Images and Realities, London: Routledge, 2005, p. 177; Deborah F. Sawyer, Women and Religion in the First Christian Centuries, London: Routledge, 1996, pp. 110-114.
For example, The Qur’an, 4:34, 2:223, Yusuf Ali translation; The Bible, Genesis 3:16; 1 Corinthians 11:3, 14:34; Ephesians 5:22-23, NIV.
Kamila Klingorova and Tomas Havlicek, ‘Religion and Gender Inequality: The Status of Women in the Societies of World Religions’, Moravian Geographical Reports, Feb., 2015, Vol. 23, cited at: http://ift.tt/2jgrvH1490676/Religion_and_gender_inequality_The_status_of_women_in_the_societies_of_world_religions, accessed on 10th Jan, 2017; Sally Baden, ‘The Position of Women in Islamic Countries: Possibilities, Constraints, and Strategies for Change’, Bridge Development Gender, Sept., 1992, Report. 4, cited at: http://ift.tt/2jse7gFre/img_documents/15_rep_so1.pdf, accessed on 10th, 2017.
Ranjana Subberwal, Dictionary of Sociology, New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill Publishing Company Limited, 2009, cited at: http://ift.tt/1V7p4zZ/books?id=lNgIfUqkwusC&pg=SL16-PA2&dq=Sociology+patriarchy+definition&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjp1LuWxpjRAhXLE7wKHSlrAdYQ6AEIKjAC#v=onepage&q=Sociology%20patriarchy%20definition&f=false, accessed on 29th Dec, 2016.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Sylvia Walby, Theorizing Patriarchy, Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1990, p. 20.
Arvind Sharma (ed.), Women in World Religions, Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1987, p. 17; R.W.J. Austin, Islam and the Feminine, cited in: Denis MacEoin and Ahmed Al-Shahi, Islam in the Modern World, New York: Routledge, 1983, pp. 36-37; Rosemary Radford-Ruether, Women in World Religions: Discrimination, Liberation, and Backlash, cited in: Arvind Sharma (ed.), The World’s Religions: A Contemporary Reader, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011, p. 145.
Melissa Raphael, Introducing Theology: Discourse on the Goddess, Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999, p. 32; Aaron W. Hughes, Abrahamic Religions: On the Uses and Abuses of History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 79.
Peter N. Stearns (ed.), World History in Documents: A Comparative Reader, 2nd Ed., New York: New York University Press, 2008, p. 90.
Marcia C. Inhorn, Infertility and Patriarchy: The Cultural Politics of Gender and Family Life in Egypt, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996, p. 31.
Ibid. p. 32.
The Qur’an, 2:223, Yusuf Ali translation.
The Qur’an, 4:34, Yusuf Ali translation.
The Qur’an, 4:3, Yusuf Ali translation.
The Qur’an, 33:50, 23:5-6, 70:29-30, 4:24, 8:69, Yusuf Ali translation.
The Qur’an, 2:223, Yusuf Ali translation.
The Qur’an, 4:3, 4:19, Yusuf Ali translation.
Jami’ At-Tirmidhi, Vol. 1, Book 46, hadith No. 3895, cited at: http://ift.tt/2jsfXxZ830, accessed on 10th, 2017.
Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 4, hadith 2127, cited at: http://ift.tt/2jgjn9hm/sahihmuslim/132-Sahih%20Muslim%20Book%2004.%20Prayer/9023-sahih-muslim-book-004-hadith-number-2127.html, accessed on 10th, 2017.
Sahih al-Muslim, Book 9, hadith 3506, cited at: http://ift.tt/2jsk2SSm/9/3506, accessed on 10th, 2017.
Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 1, Vol. 8, hadith 367; Book 59, hadith 522, cited at: http://ift.tt/2jgp2fK.com/Pages/Bukhari_1_08.php, accessed on 10th, 2017.
Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol. 7, Book 72, hadith 715, cited at: http://ift.tt/2jgp2fK.com/Pages/Bukhari_7_72.php, accessed on 10th, 2017.
Kecia Ali, Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith and Jurisprudence, London: Oneworld Publications, 2016, p. 196.
Joas Wagemakers, Salafism in Jordan: Political Islam in a Quietist Community, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, p. 228; Zoltan Pall, Lebanese Salafis Between the Gulf and Europe: Development, Fractionalization and Transnational Networks of Salafism in Lebanon, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013, p. 37.
Bassam Tibi, Political Islam, World Politics and Europe: From Jihadist to Institutional Islamism, London: Routledge, 2014, p. 284.
Abdessamad Dialmy, ‘Sexuality and Islam’, The European Journal of Contraception and Reproductive Health Care, June 2010;15:160–168.
James A. Brundage, Laws, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987, pp. 80-86.
Thomas Aquinas, On the Truth of the Catholic Faith, Book One: God, Anton C. Pegis trans., Garden City, NY: Image, 1955, p. 73.
Anne Marie Wolf, Juan De Segovia: Lessons of History, cited in: Simon R. Doubleday (ed.) and David Coleman (ed.), In the Light of Medieval Spain: Islam, the West, and the Relevance of the Past, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008, p. 37.
The Bible, Galatians 5:16-21; Romans 7:5, 8:5; 2 Peter 2:10, Ephesians 2:3,
Robert Crooks and Karla Baur, Our Sexuality, 11th, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2010, p. 12; Robin May Schott, Cognition and Eros: A Critique of the Kantian Paradigm, University Park, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988, p. 44.
Irenaeus, Against the Heresies, cited in: Sophia Institute for Teachers, Love and Mercy: The Story of Salvation: Teacher’s Guide, Washington D.C: Sophia Institute for Teachers, 2015, pp. 30-31.
Hans Peter Broedel, The Malleus Maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft: Theology and Popular Belief, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003, pp. 6-7.
The Bible, Ecclesiastes 7:26-28, NIV.
Sahih al-Bukhari, hadith number 3241, cited at: http://ift.tt/2jsjQmw/30280, accessed on 2nd Jan, 2017; Sahih al-Muslim, hadith number 2737, cited at: http://ift.tt/2jgtaMG49, accessed on 2nd Jan, 2017.
Rosemary Radford Ruether (ed.), Religion and Sexism: Images of Woman in the Jewish and Christian Traditions, Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1998, p. 51.
Hanna Yusuf, ‘My Hijab has Nothing to Do with Oppression, It’s a Feminist Statement’, The Guardian, June, 24th, 2015, cited at: http://ift.tt/29kbAC4m/commentisfree/video/2015/jun/24/hijab-not-oppression-feminist-statement-video, accessed on Jan. 7th, 2017; Celene Ibrahim, ‘Wearing the Headscarf is a Matter of Feminism, Aesthetics and Solidarity for Me’, New York Times, Jan. 6th, 2016, cited at: http://ift.tt/2jgiFJdmfordebate/2016/01/06/do-non-muslims-help-or-hurt-women-by-wearing-hijabs/wearing-the-headscarf-is-a-matter-of-feminism-aesthetics-and-solidarity-for-me, accessed on Jan. 7th, 2017; Shelina Zahra Janmohamed, ‘Calling all Feminists: Get Over the Veil Debate, Focus on Real Problems’, Aljazeera, 25th, 2013, cited at: http://ift.tt/1GWTtPindepth/opinion/2013/09/calling-all-feminists-get-over-veil-debate-focus-real-problems-201392573343242621.html, accessed on 8th Jan., 2017.
Linda Woodhead, Women and Religion, cited in: Linda Woodhead (ed.), Paul Fletcher (ed.), Hiroko Kawanami (ed.) and David Smith (ed.), Religions in the Modern World, London: Routledge, 2002, p. 400.
Aditi Bhaduri, ‘Interview: Dr Nawal El Saadawi’, News Line Magazine, July, 2006, cited at: http://ift.tt/2jgsxCBm/magazine/interview-dr-nawal-el-saadawi/, accessed on 10th, 2017.
Maha, ‘Why the Wrapped vs Unwrapped Candy Analogy is Wrong When it Comes to the Hijab’, Mahavalous, 2nd March, 2014, cited at: http://ift.tt/2jsbLOQ4/03/02/why-the-wrapped-vs-unwrapped-candy-analogy-is-wrong-when-it-comes-to-hijab/, accessed on Jan. 9th, 2017.
Zaid Eyadat, ‘Islamic Feminism: Roots, Development and Policies’, Global Policy, Vol. 4, Issue 4, (Nov. 13th), 359-368.
Ibid.
John L. Esposito (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 134.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol. 3, Book 48, hadith 826, cited at: http://ift.tt/2jguqiC/52/22, accessed on 10th, 2017.
Sahih al-Bukhari, hadith number 3241, cited at: http://ift.tt/2jsjQmw/30280, accessed on 2nd Jan, 2017; Sahih al-Muslim, hadith number 2737, cited at: http://ift.tt/2jgtaMG49, accessed on 2nd Jan, 2017.
The Qur’an, 33:21, Yusuf Ali translation.
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