Miles Powell

Dr. Gonzalez

GSS 101

19 February 2016

Steel Nerves

What do Anderson Cooper, Tim Cook, and Neil Patrick Harris have in common? Beyond mere fame, they share wealth, white skin, and urban lives; in other words, each involuntarily matches stereotypical public perceptions of LGBTQ+ (hereafter “queer”) existence. In fact, Out.com’s recent “Power 50” list of “the most influential voices in LGBT America” includes only sixteen women and twelve non-whites, with significant overlap between categories (“Out”). If Out’s list is indicative of Americans’ perceptions regarding queer demographics, then the public may believe white gay males actually comprise fifty-two percent of the entire queer community. Such parochial assumptions are troubling for numerous reasons worthy of confrontation. In Dr. Anne Balay’s 2014 work Steel Closets: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Steelworkers, she challenges popular public stereotypes of queers as invariably educated, middle-class, gay Caucasians. Balay accomplishes this through an enormous five-year research monograph including forty personal testimonies related by queer steelworkers, whose lives operate in the dangerous intersection of archaic labor, ossified masculinity, and public blindness. Already, Steel Closets has won the Lambda Literary Emerging Writer Award and the Sarah A. Whaley Book Award for its compelling narrative organization (Author).

Balay didn’t set out intending to complete such laborious research. But no such data or stories had ever before been collected and published. Even in encompassing Ivy League libraries, research on blue-collar queer existence was woefully lacking, forcing Balay to pursue field work in steel mills, gay bars, even remote trailer parks. Dressing in a car mechanic’s jacket from prior work, Balay shed her professorial image to emerge approachable and relatable, thereby maximizing her ability to connect with potential interviewees. While transcribing forty queer steelworkers’ personal testimonies and distilling them into a coherent call-to-arms, she discovers the incredible courage of a vulnerable population. As Balay relates, “there is no safe way to be gay in the mills” (Balay p. 59). And yet, queer steelworkers “would always keep [their] heads up and try and carry on [their lives] the way [they] wanted to,” demonstrating a remarkably persistent flame of humanity flickering on Lake Michigan’s windswept shores (p.156).

But public perceptions of queer existence remain grounded in a singular, stereotypical narrative: gay, male, white-collar, educated, urban, monogamous. This is problematic for many  reasons, ranging from the fact that “gay” represents only a speck along the greater spectrum of sexuality, male isn’t even half of the population because the binary is falsely dichotomous, white-collar ignores both blue-collar workers and non labor –force individuals, few Americans ever receive college diplomas, many queers reside outside major metropolises, and sexual liberation applies not only to heterosexuals. By examining queer existence in perhaps the most repressive, masculine, industrial environment still operating, Balay increases visibility of all queers outside popular imagination and thereby redirects the ears of policymakers towards an audience never before considered. Already, her channeling of marginalized working-class queer personal testimonies has produced reform momentum.

Balay is uniquely qualified to investigate and translate queer steelworker life. Having both a PhD in English from the University of Chicago, and experience working in an auto shop as a gay women, Balay possesses the ability to contextualize and empathize with her subjects in profound ways.

Balay grew up in New Haven, Connecticut, the daughter of a Yale University librarian (AB’86). After earning a Doctorate in English from the University of Chicago, she “promptly” became a car mechanic, a fact she now relates with a wry chuckle (SPEECH AT DAVIDSON). She spent several years navigating this physical, blue-collar job– a heterosexual, masculine, men’s club offering “more danger and dirt than respect—“   as a lesbian woman, later recalling bonding with coworkers by sexualizing women and procuring bulk sales of “girlfriend parts” (p. 8, 16). Never did she challenge underlying assumptions of attraction to women present in her hypersexualized work space. Quite contrarily, she played up her “shared interest in women” to “gain respect and fit in” with coworkers (p. 13). This background, bringing calloused hands, forward self-presentation, a mechanic’s jacket, and blunt humor, would prove invaluable during subsequent career stages.

Balay eventually abandoned auto repair work and returned to academia to teach at the University of Illinois and at Indiana University Northwest. Throughout her teaching career, however, even amidst university pomp and polish, she always retained strong interest in blue collar environments. In Gary, Indiana, her curiosity manifested itself in her compulsion to unearth queer steelworker stories. However, no germane research existed, so she changed “costumes” from professor to mechanic, and began a relentless five-year hunt for knowledge, balancing her previous and current images to optimize research. Because Balay is a white, well-off, educated, monogamous, committed lesbian, great irony exists in that the stereotype incarnate is fights its own propagation. In a sense, she isn’t particularly distanced from the singular narrative whose perceived ubiquity she seeks to disprove.

Though Steel Closets is divided into seven chapters, Balay’s ethnographic work can be segmented into three rhetorical sections: structural chapters about mill history and operation, human chapters about queer invisibility and gender-specific experience, and policy chapters about vulnerability and union involvement.

Age is etched into daily working in steel mills. It’s inescapable; steel and associated metaphors frame American lore. Sheer factory enormity intimidates workers and represents an era gone by. Balay is blunt: “Resistance to change… characterizes the physical space of the mills and rubs off on the people whose lives are shaped by them” (p. 22). Moreover, what little change has occurred is concentrated in technological advancement, leading to reductions in the work force and thereby reducing mill visibility in steel regions. This isolation, according to Balay, constitutes a “closed community” in which inherited patterns are reinforced (p. 23). Thus, separate and apart from evolution just outside mill boundaries, within the complexes, everything stereotypical hyper-masculinity entails has been preserved and propagated. Steelworkers take substantial down time to bond over shared “palpable bitterness and insecurity,” often being extremely explicit (p.35). This creates tremendous anxiety among queer workers, because in detailed conversations meandering through family and romantic relationships, they must toe the line between friendliness and self-preservation. Workers have been yelled at for not socializing enough, for not sharing enough— of necessity, queer “steelworkers perfect the art of talking without saying anything” (42). Such conditions preclude community development and are both demoralizing and dehumanizing.

Human conditions are as impersonal as the physical and hierarchical structures maintaining them. Even when harassment isn’t explicit, there is a prevailing “atmosphere of constant antagonism” (p. 65). Public presuppositions about queerness and blue-collar labor create mutually-sustaining social attitudes toward both. Inhospitality is so cutting, and protective laws so nonexistent, that queer populations suffer significantly heightened rates of alcoholism (around Gary, Indiana, some queer millworkers refer to Alcoholics Anonymous as “Gay A” (p. 69)). Queer men and women run different gauntlets each day at the mill. Steel’s masculine history effectively erases femininity from contemporary mills. Women, typically lesbian, must exhibit masculinity and sexually objectify women to “fit in” at work—sometimes even as a “price of admission” (p. 87). Women are also subjected to intimidation up to and including rape. Despite attempts to change gende Female mill workers can be sexist; Fern, a worker, believes few women can take a “true ass-chewing” without tears (p. 81). Men, by contrast, exhibit masculinity not to fit in, per se, but as a defense mechanism implying heterosexuality. Risk-seeking behavior in particular helps men assert masculinity, with gay men often taking chances especially desperately (p. 110). Interestingly, owing to the working-class homoerotic continuum, masculinity is determined not by sexual partners but by gender presentation (p. 115). But perhaps most tragic is the inescapable sense of entrapment many queers feel knowing that coming out and remaining closeted both “foster self-loathing and self-blame” (p. 67).

Policy structures accomplish similar end results by pandering to popular support in a cowardly method failing to uphold any normative judgments. Unions do woefully little to safeguard members’ rights, preferring to stick to the “straighter path” to maximize popular support (p. 152). This effectively means ignoring queer suffering entirely, even as queers express concern at being killed by purposeful coworker negligence and at becoming mere statistics (p. 123). Generally speaking, unions are helpful in processing external claims against firms, but tend to turn a blind eye toward internal harassment of queers. In such alienating environments, is it any wonder “most [queer] folks… believed they were the only gay person working in basic steel” (p. 9)?

Balay exceeds expectations in her unique ability to bridge the socioeconomic divide between privileged target audience and silenced sample population. She distills, rather than dilutes, the heart-wrenching narratives of abuse and trauma suffered by queer steelworkers. She thus delivers a concentrated jolt to readers’ hearts and minds alike, engendering perspectival broadening and painful realizations of the duality privilege and subjugation constitute in modern America. Who could argue? Working class bodies are devalued and queer bodies even more so. Of the forty people interviewed, twenty-five currently have cancer. Many more are, presumably, currently developing serious career-related health complications. Steelworkers interviewed by Balay agree: “it’s a man’s world… a good meal ticket at the price of ten years off your life” (p. 30). Furthermore, Balay exhibits a unique emphasis on empowering women’s voices; (AB’86) only two percent of millworkers identify as women (four transgender people were interviewed) but women receive half of Steel Closets’ interview slots. Though some might regard such over-representation of women as underrepresentation of men, given Balay’s explicit aspiration to provide invisible and silenced peoples with opportunities to be heard, relative overrepresentation of women reinforces functionality of form.

Systemic underrepresentation is also present, however. The glaring flaw in Steel Closets is lack of racial diversity. In Balay’s sample group of men, nineteen of twenty are white. Women’s diversity is hardly better, with fourteen of twenty being white. When considering systemic subjugation and silencing of sexual and racial minorities, providing representative anecdotal data is crucial. Especially considering de facto segregation, in which the “hot side” of steel mills “houses the hardest, hottest, and most dangerous work… [and] the lowest-paid jobs… and the most minority workers,” hearing these voices is necessary for Balay’s undertaking to achieve well-roundedness (p.33). A truly phenomenal iteration of Balay’s project would seek to tease minority queer steelworkers from their work “against the brutal scale of the mill and its machinery” (p. 5). However, given the difficulty in connecting with white queer workers, it is unsurprising that so few even less privileged minority queer workers responded. Compounding queerness with racial minority status and the innumerable burdens thereby imposed by society creates a perfect storm of vulnerability, so Balay cannot personally be held accountable for such little minority representation when lacking participation is borne of a need for survival.

Balay’s Steel Closets has not only disproven conventional stereotypes about queer existence, but has helped redefine what it means to be queer across socioeconomic spectrums. LGBTQ+ existence can so conveniently be imagined in terms of educated, white, well-off gays, but that ignores the vast majority of queer populations. And even though social acceptance of non-heterosexuality is increasing, “working-class and poor gay people don’t benefit from this change as much as urban, middle-class queers do” (p. 6). It is only through forceful distillation of raw personal testimonies that ideological, social, and policy change can be catalyzed- other mediums lack the brutal pathos Steel Closets so deftly. After all, as Balay states, “stories are power” (p. 6).

 

 

Works Cited:

“Anne Balay, AB’86, AM’88, PhD’94.” University of Chicago LGBT Alumni Network. Web. 19

            Feb. 2016.

Anne Balay at Davidson College. By Anne Balay. Hance Auditorium, Davidson, NC. 4 Feb. 2016. Performance.

“Anne Balay — Author, Professor, Activist, Mother.” Anne Balay. Web. 19 Feb. 2016.

Balay, Anne. Steel Closets: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Steelworkers. Chapel Hill,

NC: UNC, 2014. Print.

“Power 50 Famous Gay People.” Out. Web. 21 Feb. 2016.

 

 

Until recently, little work has been done to sufficiently address the extensive history of women in the Middle East. Much of this shortcoming arises from the inherent difficulties of finding documentation and sources to trace the history of a marginalized group. As women in the Middle East have traditionally been confined to roles in the home, little is known about their unique history. Middle Eastern history in general is problematic because of the lack of written documentation until around the third Islamic century (tenth century C.E.).^[1] Nikki Keddie’s book Women in the Middle East Past and Present serves to correct the faults of recent histories by bringing pieces of this complex puzzle together and attempting to create a broad overview of the field. To accomplish this daunting task, Keddie’s work attempts to take current work pertaining to Middle Eastern women’s history and compiles them into a singular narrative history ranging from pre-Islamic times to the present.

In the introduction to her work, Keddie lays the groundwork for her analysis, engaging with the reader and discussing her arguments and choices in compiling this history. Within the book, she divides her discussions of women’s histories largely by country. Although she does acknowledge that the borders in the Middle East are largely arbitrary, Keddie uses them as an appropriate means of analysis given that different nations have adopted different legal policies on gender. Though she deliberately engages in country division within chapters, she states that her divisions between chapters are fairly random as she traces this history.

Engaging with so many different sources also lends itself to a variety of interpretations. Within this work, Keddie attempts to capture the different viewpoints and stances that people take on various historical artifacts. She makes this choice because historians decide to spin sources uniquely. Historically, Western interpretations have heavily focused on the negative side of the treatment of women, while in fact many of these documents contain nuanced takes on gender relations. However, until recently sources have been limited to elite men writing about upper class women, and thus there has been a lack of information on the life of the “everyday” woman in the Middle East.

Keddie later addresses the issue of Islam and its link to women’s subjugation. She writes, “it is impossible to escape an emphasis on early Islam and the Quran, as these have been central themes of local discourse about women over the centuries and to a degree remain so today” (10). It is important to recognize that in the Middle East much of women’s subjugation has come about as a result of Qur’anic interpretation and judicial rulings rather than the actual text itself. Too often, the West tends to intricately link Islam to the oppression of women when in fact the Quran proves to be a fairly gender-egalitarian text for the time it was written in. Furthermore, Keddie points out that gender relations in Middle Eastern countries were often more egalitarian in practice than texts would suggest. Women for centuries have been finding ways within existing structures to find agency and empowerment in subtle, subversive ways.

Keddie bases her analysis not just on other people’s work, but also explores legal and official state documents from Middle Eastern empires. Furthermore, she uses information from present-day Middle Eastern states to inform her analysis of more recent history. She opens the book by examining gender roles in pre-Islamic times, demonstrating the differences that existed in a decentralized society. Essentially, gender roles arose out of the necessity to protect male honor. Keddie talks about how, historically, female virginity and chastity have been primary components of the preservation of male honor (17). Because of this emphasis on male honor, wealthier urban families tended to isolate their women in the home and veil them. Conversely, nomadic tribes could not afford to do the same because the women were central to everyday life in their societies. Keddie writes, “nomadic tribes had far less economic surplus and hence less social and gender stratification, as everyone had to do various physical tasks” (16). Keddie’s next section of the book focuses on the solidification of gender stratification in Middle Eastern society after the rise of Islam. Islam led to the collective unification of much of the Middle East, and as a result much of society settled in towns or villages and nomadic tribes ceased to be prevalent. During this time period, legal rulings and precedent solidified gender roles in Islamic nations for hundreds of years to follow. Keddie asserts, “the writings of the strict ulama (men with Islamic education and functions) stressed the importance of clear definition and separation of male and female, with no cross-dressing or homosexuality permitted” (31). Thus, Islamic jurisprudence played a central role in dividing men and women and creating a divided, heteronormative society. For the rest of the book, Keddie divides her discussion into specific time periods, including the invasion of the Mongols in the Middle Ages, the 19th century, the start of World War I to the end of World War II, and then all the way up to the present. Within each of these periods, she examines the changes that occurred in Middle Eastern civilization in different countries, specifically looking at them through the lens of gender relations. Her discussion is too broad to examine in detail, thus I will be looking at some specific examples discussing Egypt from each of her sections to demonstrate how she paints this broad picture.

During Mamluk rule in medieval Egypt, women found ways to circumvent social codes or avoid them altogether. Indeed, one scholar was extremely distraught at all of the activities that women were partaking in. Keddie writes, “these included women’s going out in several ways that allowed their being in contact with men, including shopping, … , partying and picnicking with their families in public parks, and even receiving unrelated men in their homes” (52). Even though women were restricted, they worked around the rules to take control and agency over their circumstances. Dissent towards legal discourse tended to be dispersed until mainstream discussion and writing arose in the late nineteenth century. Qasim Amin, a notable Egyptian writer, voiced loud dissent in The Liberation of Women (1899). Keddie writes, “Amin advocated Western ways and strongly criticized Egyptian ones, especially the ulama’s ideas. Amin used Islamic modernist arguments to oppose patriarchal oppression” (71). Later as time went on women became more influential in mainstream discussion and discourse, “their role is often ignored in discussions of Middle Eastern intellectual history. Their writings on scientific domesticity included much practical advice on homemaking and child rearing, including health, hygiene, and child care at a time when infant and child mortality was high” (92). Finally, modern day discussions about feminism and modernity often concern the imposition of Western culture. Keddie elaborates, “Egypt, like several Arab countries, has also seen growing concern about ‘authenticity,’ both Islamic and national, in part against feminisms that are tainted as being Western” (126-127). This idea has been a major hindrance towards the advancement of women’s rights in Egypt and the Middle East in general.

I would argue that the major strength of Keddie’s book comes from her effective synthesis of vast swaths of information. She tackles a large mountain of information and delivers it in a digestible manner. She successfully takes hundreds of years of history and packs it into 150 pages of valuable information and analysis. Furthermore, taking a narrative approach allows the history to unfold like a story. While her synthesis is powerful, Keddie’s narrative plays into the weaknesses of previous narratives and focuses largely on the experiences of the elite, creating a narrow viewpoint of class. Though this weakness comes as a result of the nature of the sources she works with, she does little to address different classes given the opportunity in her chapter addressing modern times. Ultimately, Keddie’s overview comes at the cost of painting too broad of a picture that groups diverse Middle Eastern women together.

Keddie seeks to offer a general overview of the field in as simple a way as possible. She was extremely qualified to write this book based on her past academic work. For decades, Keddie has been one of the foremost academics in the field of Middle Eastern studies. Within this field, her specialty has always been women’s issues. By tracing this history she creates a more comprehensive narrative than ever before created. Overall, it presents a good starting point for further comprehensive work on the subject of Middle Eastern women’s history.

^[1] Nikki R. Keddie, Women in the Middle East Past and Present, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 9.

Almost a year ago same sex marriage was legalized in the United States. After the legalization, homosexuality became a more integrated topic of conversation in the media. However, it is easy to forget that legalization of same sex marriage does not solve all of the struggles of LGBTQ persons. There are still communities within the encompassing queer community that need more representation. With all of the recent discourse surrounding the LGBTQ community, there has not been much mainstream discussion on minorities within the already minority community. However, diversity within the LGBTQ community is important and should be discussed. I wanted to research a minority group in the LGBTQ community so I chose to focus on LGBTQ Muslims. In Living Out Islam: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims, Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle brings the rarely heard stories of gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims to the forefront of discussion by exploring how Muslims reconcile their sexuality with their faith through a series of interviews.

Kugle begins with problems he found in past research on gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims and challenges previous notions of identity formation. In order to set up his argument, Kugle situates himself in opposition to Joseph Massad’s Desiring Arabs in the introduction of the book. According to Kugle, Massad contends that the “gay and lesbian identity is imposed upon Arab and Middle Eastern societies as part of a ‘gay international agenda’ of American neoimperialism in the region.”[1] Massad faults the “gay and lesbian identity” on an American agenda, which demeans the identities, that queer Muslims form. Massad’s attempts to find blame for homosexuality or to make homosexuality seem “imposed” contrast what Kugle seeks to accomplish in his research.

While Kugle challenges Massad’s work, he also notes that his work is “theoretically indebted”[2] other authors, including Saba Mahmood and Talal Asad. In Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity, Asad invalidates the assumption that religion and secular practices are “contradictory loyalties.”[3] Kugle pushes Asad’s work further by proving that a person can be openly homosexual while still maintaining a deep respect and commitment to Islam. Kugle also uses Mahmood’s theoretical approach from her book The Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and Feminist Subject where Mahmood delves into Michel Foucault’s theory of subjectivity.[4] Mahmood recognizes that individuals have more agency in their lives than writers like Massad attribute them. Kugle draws from both Asad and Mahmood’s arguments in order to further his own argument regarding the lives of gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims.

Kugle elucidates, “this book documents the lives of the kind of activists who Massad denounces.”[5] In Kugle’s case, “activists” are people who want to change the social relationships in their lives in order to achieve justice. He credits the mere desire to create social change as activism, which makes the term “activist” more accessible to the average person. Reinterpreting the term “activist” is important because by doing so Kugle avoids alienating people who do not want to be in the forefront of the queer activism. Essentially any queer person who struggles with his/her/their plight as a minority is an activist. Living as an out homosexual is difficult in Muslim communities, so he recognizes the interviewees’ bravery whether or not they are actively involved in organizations.

Keeping in mind his definition of “activist,” Kugle interviewed fifteen lesbian, gay, and transgender activists to document an oral history of an underrepresented minority within the Muslim community. Kugle only interviewed Muslims living in countries with democratic constitutions such as the United States, South Africa, Canada, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. While Kugle does have diverse accounts in the book, he limits himself by only focusing on countries with democratic constitutions and therefore neglects the countries with the largest Muslim populations like Indonesia, Pakistan, and India. Another limitation Kugle grappled with in his research was sexual orientation. Kugle does not use the term LGBTQ in the book because he only has interviews from gay, lesbian, and transgender persons and within that group he has significantly more interviews from gay men than lesbians and transgender persons.[6] Despite the fact that Kugle focused only on certain sexualities, his research opens the door for more writers to explore the complex lives of queer Muslims.

Even with such diversity of location, the stories of those Kugle interviewed are all connected through a deep understanding of their faith as well as with their struggles sexualities and gender identities. Each chapter of the book explores a different “mode of activism,”[7] which are “patterns of action, decision, and compromise”[8] that disclose one’s identity formation in the setting of Islamic communities. The structure that the specific modes of activism provide allows Kugle to pair certain parts of certain interviews together in a fluid and cohesive manner that helps the reader draw connections between experiences naturally. Kugle weaves the various interviews in order to give a multi-faceted view of lesbian, gay, and transgender Muslims while simultaneously illuminating a common thread between them.

The first chapter introduces the first mode of activism, which is activism through “engaging religious tradition.”[9] Here Kugle focuses on the stories of a gay man, a lesbian woman, and a male-to-female transgender woman. He questions all three about their experiences with religion and sexuality, specifically how important the both are to their identity formations. All three participants stress the significance of Islam in their lives and present nuanced interpretations of the Qur’an that allow for self acceptance of their sexual orientations. One of the interviewees, Muhsin, who is an out gay man, spoke extensively on ways to interpret the Qur’an to be accepting of one’s nature. Muhsin helped start the Al-Fitra Foundation, which one of the first support groups for gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims in Cape Town. Kugle uses this passage from the Qur’an to demonstrate how Muhsin chooses to read the Qur’an:

‘So set your face toward the moral obligation in a true way, according to the essential nature granted by God, upon which God fashioned people, for there is no changing the creation of God! That is the original and steadfast moral obligation, but most of the people do not understand.’ (Q 30:30)

Most people interpret “original and steadfast” as referring to the Islam and subsequently a universal human nature but many gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims see it differently. They believe God makes each person with an original nature and that nature cannot be altered. Then the “original and steadfast” religion is to “return to God in harmony with one’s own nature.”[10] With this interpretation one’s sexual identity becomes an unalterable part of them and therefore a homosexual person is following the Qur’an by being true to their nature. This example of activism by engaging religious tradition is just one of many unique ways that gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims justify their sexual identities and their commitment to Islam.

Kugle captures how his interviewees employ both an open minded and analytical approach to the Qur’an, which again offsets assumptions that gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims have to choose between their religion and sexual identity. Kugle focuses on the Qur’an as his primary evidence as he unpacks the passages that Muhsin, Nafeesa, and Tamsila (the third interviewee in this chapter) bring to his attention. The focus on the Qur’an and testimonies from real people as the main sources contributes to the authenticity of the book. Kugle dispels previous perceptions of how gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims engage with Islam, particularly the assumption that queer Muslims must leave Islam in order “to live with dignity and pursue social reform.”[11] Muhsin, Nafeesa and Tamsila all prove that it is possible to have a non-heterosexual identity and remain a devout Muslim. Kugle also uses this chapter to uncover where the stigma surrounding homosexuality comes from in Islamic communities. Trans woman, Nafeesa, simply states, “Show me that the Qur’an says being gay is not allowed in Islam!”[12] Nafeesa has a point since nowhere in the Qur’an does it explicitly condemn or approve homosexuality[13]. With the new interpretations of the Qur’an, Kugle makes the reader question where the stigma comes from if the Qur’an does not present an opinion on homosexuality? Muhsin, Nafeesa, and Tamsila agree that the shame surrounding homosexuality comes not from Islam but from the dominant interpretations of Islamic tradition.

The Islamic community is the main focus of the second chapter, in which the mode of activism is “challenging family and community.”[14] This type of activism is different from the previous chapter since it more actively engages family expectations rather than Islamic tradition. This chapter delves into how personal relationships are affected when someone comes out in an Islamic community. Nargis, a lesbian woman in Cape Town, South Africa, describes her struggle with her parent’s control over her after they discovered her relationship with another woman. Nargis notes that it was the “prospect of community shame”[15] that drove her father to withdraw her from university and isolate her from society. Her family used the Qur’an and shariʻa law to argue with her about her sexual orientation so Nargis joined support groups like The Inner Circle and The Triangle Project for solace. Nargis used religion to help her come out again to her family by using the example of Sufi woman, Rabiʻa of Basra who never married due to her love of God. The use of religious tradition helped Nargis’s family understand her sexuality. Kugle notes that for many gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims, Islam is important as “a symbol of family cohesion and care.”[16] The coming out experiences of queer Muslims in Islamic communities are difficult due to the stigma surrounding homosexuality but Kugle points out the that the emergence of support groups like The Inner Circle and the Al-Fitra Foundation help create new Islamic community where religion and sexuality are not at odds. Disowned gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims often recognize members of their support groups as “found families.”[17]

Kugle’s interviews and analysis provide the reader with an insight into of the lives of gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims today. Many of the people Kugle interviewed had been disowned by their families because of their sexuality or gender identity. While Kugle brings awareness to their pain, he also focuses on how they got to where they are now in terms of self-acceptance. The answer for many of them was religion. Kugle cleverly anticipates our outside assumptions from the beginning and works at disbanding them in order to provide an authentic perspective on the intersection between religion, sexuality and gender identity. I think that Kugle’s sharp analysis of the Qur’an contributes to the persuasiveness of the text. Where the Qur’an is used by some Islamic communities as a reason to reject homosexuality, Kugle interprets the Qur’an in a way to justify a person’s nature, which encompasses sexuality and gender identity.

 

[1] Kugle, Living Out Islam: The Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims (New York: NYU Press, 2013), 4.

[2] Ibid, 5.

[3] Ibid, 5.

[4] Ibid, 6.

[5] Ibid, 4.

[6] Ibid, 21

[7] Ibid, 3.

[8] Ibid, 3.

[9] Ibid, 21.

[10] Ibid, 25.

[11] Ibid, 53.

[12] Ibid, 39.

[13] Ibid, 25.

[14] Ibid, 55.

[15] Ibid, 61.

[16] Ibid, 78.

[17] Ibid, 40.

Work Cited

Kugle, S. A. (2013). Living Out Islam : Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims. New York: NYU Press.

Imposing Decency: The Politics of Sexuality and Race in Puerto Rico, 1870-1920 by Eileen J. Suárez Findlay highlights the changing politics in Puerto Rico from 1870-1920, focusing on how sexuality and race impacted politics and vice versa. Imposing Decency also looks at how race and social class were indicative of sexuality, or at least perceived sexuality. Findlay shows that politics, sexuality, and race are interdependent and impact history, urging us to look at history through a lens broader than simply looking at political events by themselves or the rise of feminism and instead see their relation.

Eileen Findlay teaches in the Department of History at American University. Professor Findlay also is involved with Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies at the University. Imposing Decency: The Politics of Sexuality and Race in Puerto Rico, 1870-1920 was her first book, but since she has written another book and two articles on Puerto Rico’s issues of sexuality and gender. She has numerous other works in progress. Her PhD is in Latin American History, and she is fluent in Spanish. Findlay has won several awards, including the Alice Paul Award for Life-long Achievement in the Advancement for Women, and others recognizing outstanding teaching and involvement in multicultural affairs and international students (American University).

In her book Findlay depicts 50 years of roller-coaster-esque, back and forth change in Puerto Rico, specifically in relation to politics of sexuality and race. According to Findlay, “this book demonstrates that throughout the period in question, race was quite important to Puerto Rican familial, community, and national politics, but often in subtle, shifting ways” and that “ ‘Cultural competencies and sexual practices,’ as well as material resources and physical phenotype, helped create individual and collective racial identities” (Findlay 7). Findlay acknowledges the impact of Spanish rule and later United States political rule on race and sexuality. Specifically, Findlay shows these political changes via the treatment of prostitution during the time as well as the shift to a legal divorce system. Findlay walks through the progression of views on prostitution, beginning with the non-confrontational acceptance of prostitution during the mid 1800’s and Spanish rule. In the 1890’s a “moral panic” emerged and prostitutes were pushed towards poor areas and were required to register as prostitutes as part of “Reglamento de Higiene” (150, 83). Along with registration came rough, embarrassing physical exams every other week to check for venereal disease (89). A positive result would end in confinement in the Hygiene Hospital (89). Then came the influence of the United States and their push towards revamping other areas of politics, so prostitution is momentarily overlooked once again until the U.S. realizes the state of prostitution in the country and begins to work on eliminating that as well. However, prostitution was seen as the fault of the woman, and not the reaction to desires of men (88, 94).

Additionally, Findlay relates race to sexuality. As in many parts of the world, whiteness was the ideal and often denoted the elite. In Puerto Rico during this time, there did exist “plebian white(s)” as well (32). Whiteness was the ideal, and as such people of color strived to achieve whiteness through action as well as physical change of color (23). Since there were many people of mixed-race, the lighter a person was, the better (23). One could “whiten” themselves through dress, marriage, respectability, manners, money, and more (23). On the other hand, “blackness” was seen as dirty and as such linked to sexual promiscuity, especially by women, and poverty (168). In terms of race and class, lower class people tended to live with their sexual partners in consensual unions (121). The lower in class and the “blacker” a person, the less likely that virginity was inferred, and the more likely that a rumors of sexual impurity would be understood to be true and have to be disproven rather than proven (25). Additionally, the elite had to worry about reputations and honor being lost due to a loss of virginity, which was not as high of a concern for lower class Puerto Ricans (23). The lower classes and racially inferior for the time were also used by the elite for sexual pleasure both consensually and through rape (147-148).

To make her claims, Findlay relies on past literature as well as personal interviews with Puerto Ricans. Findlay many times references an interview where a person directly commented on an aspect of history or sexuality, many times in relation to the legalization of divorce, as relating to a direct ancestor, such as a grandmother.

In terms of other literature, Findlay references many authors we have looked at so far this semester, including Foucault and Capetillo. Importantly, Findlay recognizes Capetillo’s harsh accusations at other women as potential areas that created enemies and limited her popularity (164). Findlay cites particularly harsh views Capetillo has of other women, including the idea that women who did not leave abusive or unsatisfactory mariages/relationships were “stupid” or “idiots” (162). Findlay would use this statement to bolster her argument that Capetillo was not as popular as she could have been; however, I would point to this to argue Capetillo was a bit hypocritical as well. Capetillo used her children’s father for financial support, allowed herself to be under strict surveillance of him, and knew he was off having sexual relations with other women (159). Only after he left did she begin to work to provide for her family and begin criticizing masculine roles and feminine submission. Though influential and important, I would argue Capetillo not only criticized other women but also hypocritically criticized other women. Findlay certainly is valid in saying Capetillo could have been more popular without the backlash towards other women. She may have been more productive if she had fought her battle and empowered the victims rather than blamed them.

Findlay also acknowledges 19^th century feminists’ views that “educated mothers were essential in the creation of a responsible citizenry,” but she also acknowledges views on education that push past simply education for stereotypical female purposes as a mother and wife (67). Interestingly, during around the same time Elizabeth Cady Stanton was arguing for education of women in America for purposes related to raising children and bolstering the current male-centered regime (Stanton 123).

In terms of the book itself, it is well laid-out and flows together nicely. The book’s points are understandable and Findlay does a good job of indicating how the time period, the politics, and society are all connected. However, the book is not as concise as it could have been and often repeats seemingly unnecessary points to the arguments being made. The inclusion of anecdotes and short stories are not only interesting and add dimension and a personal feel to the book, but also solidify information given and arguments made by Findlay.

Imposing Decency: The Politics of Sexuality and Race in Puerto Rico, 1870-1920 was highly informative and caused me to think about race and sexuality in a greater context than simply the United States. Often we get stuck thinking about issues only in terms of the environment we are in, but culture and history around the world plays a large role in influencing issues such as race and sexuality. Not being particularly inclined to history myself, this book surprised me in how engaged I was and how much knowledge I took away from it. Being a psychology major, I enjoyed the anecdotes about real people and what they went through. I also highly enjoyed how Findlay structured the book so that you could clearly see what influenced what and why it was influential. For instance, the changing politics and people in power were important to understanding the changing views and policies relating to prostitution. Findlay also interestingly portrayed the impact of Puerto Rico’s gendered and sexual inequalities on racial discrimination.

 

**information regarding Eileen J. Suárez Findlay found at http://www.american.edu/cas/faculty/efindla.cfm

Findlay, Eileen J. Suárez Findlay. Imposing Decency: The Politics of Sexuality and Race in Puerto Rico, 1870-1920. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1999. Print.

Stanton, Elizabeth Cady. “The Solitude of Self.” The Essential Feminist Reader 1892: 122-127. Print.

Erica Miller

Professor Gonzalez

GSS 101

18 February 2016

Gaga Feminism: Radical or Realistic?

Lady Gaga has become an iconic 21^st century figure through her radical costumes, performances, and songs. Author J. Jack Halberstam[1] argues that if society follows her push against normality and continues forward with a rebellious attitude, an unstructured society will emerge in which equality is a reality for everyone. By eliminating all social norms, there will be no such thing as a social outlier or ‘freak.’ Halberstam argues that many of the modern feminist and gay-rights movements actually reaffirm society’s need of a ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ way of life, which ultimately only benefit the ‘white’ feminist and gay culture.

Halberstam breaks his argument down into three main points: ‘Gaga Genders,’ ‘Gaga Sexualities,’ and ‘Gaga Relations.’ He then uses the arguments made in these three sections to create his overarching idea of ‘Gaga Feminism’ and what it would mean for society to take on these ideas. For Halberstam, the entire point of going Gaga is to express the most radical parts of yourself so that eventually it will not be seen as ‘heroic’ to have radical self-expression. Instead, this will be understood as everyday expression and there will no longer be limiting sexual, gender, or relationship categories to which people must belong. Instead, people will just be seen as people. The constraining labels forced upon us by society will no longer have a purpose and everyone will “value mutation and uniqueness, no longer investing in the normal and the lack of difference, because there will no longer be a ‘normal’ to identify with” (141).

Jack Halberstam is a known gender theorist and professor. Self-identifying as gender-fluid, he has transitioned from female to male, but retained the name Judith, as well as Jack. Jack is in a relationship with a self-identified queer female, who remains unnamed throughout the book, but whom he often looks to when creating personal narrative and dialogue. As a gender studies professor, he has visited numerous countries, and often draws on these experiences to portray the differences in American gender and sexual relations from other countries around the world. However, Gaga Feminism is more closely directed at the American public, using examples from movies and television shows that are primarily American to illustrate his different points.

In order to make his points relatable to his reader, he uses examples that come from Hollywood that seem to ‘push the boundaries’ of subject material. Instead of praising these movies and shows that finally seem to highlight scenarios other than the ‘typical nuclear family,’ he criticizes them by explaining how putting them on display actually codifies that specific type of relationship, so that any variant of that relationship is perceived as atypical.

With new technologies becoming available that make it easier for non-traditional families to become pregnant and have children, society must reevaluate the different boxes it has for gender and each gender’s reproductive capabilities. In the section titled Gaga Genders, Halberstam reflects on societies obsession with breaking out of the typical gender roles and recognizing famous variations in these roles. In examples such as the “first pregnant man” and the movie The Switch, Halberstam points out how society believes it is being progressive for showcasing these non-traditional families. In the movies such as Switch Up, society is tricked into believing it is promoting female liberation from men, and celebrating the newfound independence of women in the 21^st century. However, Halberstam points out “these new narratives about female independence tend to be white, because it is white women who see single motherhood as an opportunity rather than a burden” (40). These narratives are necessary, because they are “correct in predicting that when shifts occur in the realm of reproductive technologies, social change is inevitable” (35). However, when these narratives only look at the “white stereotypical lesbian” and are encouraged by the general population, a sense of ‘correct lesbian’ and ‘weird lesbian’ is embedded in societies mind.

This is a strong point made, as much of the feminist and queer activist literature is produced with racial blind spots. Halberstam does a good job of critiquing the typical feminist approach, applying his approach, and then explaining how his approach will help those of color instead of ignoring or hindering them. For example, when talking about gay-rights and social activism, Halberstam brought up the issues faced in San Francisco in the early 1970s. In order to try to achieve social equality, many gay-rights activists argued for further protection of the San Francisco queer population. However, “this drive to make the streets safe for white queer people resulted all too often in increased policing for people of color” (106). By adopting Halberstams policy and ‘going gaga sexually’ there would no longer be a need for protection for specific individuals. The idea of sexuality itself would be completely reimagined in which there were no categories of gay, straight, or lesbian. Instead, people would be individuals, with a fluid sexuality, in which people would appear to be located on different parts of the spectrum, but this spectrum would be identical for everyone.

Similarly, Halberstam takes a stand against the legalization of gay marriage. He argues that marriage as an institution is plagued with historical hatred and exclusivity. Instead of promoting the “pricey and pretentious wedding ceremony” (96) he supports the idea of a completely new system, dismantling the old system. Legalizing gay marriage within the classical marriage system would create two separate ideas of ‘homosexual marriage’ and ‘straight marriage’ creating a sort of “speciation within the homosexual and heterosexual people” (99).

I will agree that marriage as an institution has a long history of class exclusion, racial segregation, and religious purity. However, I do not think that it is reasonable to call for the complete disbandment of marriage ties. Socially, this is an idea that will never take hold. Too many of our social relations rely on the idea of a marriage vow, and I believe Halberstam underestimates the importance today’s youth puts on the marriage title. He tries to make the argument that in a sexually fluid society, it would be considered normal for individuals to live together without any title. This social community would be inclusive for all individuals, no longer having the ‘typical’ families that are arranged by marriage. This argument is set up for a communistic society, could never flourish in America. Couples are too dependent financially, and often time’s marriage is able to relieve some of the burdens. In addition, individuals are already living together free of the marriage title, however, many still desire this state recognition of their love.

By going Gaga, Halberstam is arguing for more than agreeing with the ideas that Lady Gaga promotes in her speeches and songs. Instead, he is promoting social chaos and becoming a “wretch in the machinery that is society” (140) that she embodies in all her social expressions. Society cannot advance with individuals sitting around complacent and falling into compartments that are created for them. Halberstam does a good job explaining how these compartments could be eliminated from society. However, the complete elimination on the scale that he is looking for is not one that I believe can be achieved. With everyone trying to ‘clog the machinery’ society would break apart. Anarchism would rise and there would no longer be a society in which to function. In a hypothetical world, Halberstam has created the ideal living situations. However, in reality, these situations cannot be produced.

[1] The book in which Halberstam makes these claims is Gaga Feminism.

Halberstam, Judith. Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal. Boston: Beacon, 2012. Print

In Racial Castration, David Eng quotes Song Liling from David Hwang’s play M. Butterfly, “I am an Oriental. And being an Oriental, I could never be completely a man” (Eng 1).

Thus, Eng sets the tone of his book to analyze the image of the emasculated, homosexual and “never-completely-a-man” Asian American male. Currently an English Professor at University of Pennsylvania, Eng brings his specialized knowledge in Asian American studies, psychoanalysis, critical race theory, queer studies, and gender studies to deconstruct the Asian American masculinity as influenced by racism and sexism. Using psychoanalytic theory as foundation, Eng observes the images evoked in canonical and noncanonical Asian American texts. He situates the literature within their historical contexts, splitting his book into four focus: “the building of the transcontinental railroad, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, the era of cold war diplomacy, and the rescinding of immigration exclusion and the liberalization of immigrant policy from 1943 to 1965” (Eng 29). Eng uses a variety of literary texts to analyze the authors’ uses of racial and sexual images that influence the Asian American male characters’ psyche. Offering a unique analysis of the emasculated Asian American man, Eng provides an intriguing reevaluation of the science of psychoanalysis as a key component of Asian American male identity formations, arguing that racial and sexual fantasies intersect as legibility and social powers that form narratives of the Asian American man.

Eng insists on psychoanalysis as a science to properly dissect the construction of Asian American male narratives due to the convergence of sexual and racial differences in early psychoanalysis theories. While this particular field heavily influences feminist and queer theories due to its direct ties with sexuality, not much work has been done to connect psychoanalysis with racial concepts. However, race and sexuality have gone hand-in-hand to form the white man’s fantasies of the Oriental. Eng argues for the “impossibility of thinking about racism and sexism as separate discourses or distinct spheres of analysis” because “Asian American male is both materially and psychically feminized within the context of a larger U.S. cultural imaginary” (2). Incidentally, feminist and queer theories have a major blind spot. Their emphasis on “(hetero)sexual difference over and above every other type of social difference” provides a limiting understanding of masculinity, especially within Asian American discourse (5). Eng reexamines psychoanalysis, citing Freud’s “logic of fetishism” and narcissism, to insert race as a major factor that constructed the notions of aberrant and sexual perversions. Freud characterizes two important figures in his writings – the primitive and sexually degraded man in Totem and Taboo and the homosexual man in his essay “On Narcissim.” In the former, Freud pinpoints “primitive” sexual practices against the “civilized” man (6). Coincidentally, the primitive man symbolizes the “dark origins” of the “contemporary European psyche” and has not developed the modernity of the white European man (6). The primitive man captures a “well-preserved pictures of an early stage of [white European man’s] development” because he can’t control his wild sexual desires (7). Freud’s works reveals the racialized description of sexual acts, providing the foundation of a philosophical science that “helps authorize and reinforce the (re)production of social hierarchies, such as sexuality and race, as the essentialized and naturalized order of things” (5). In “On Narcissism,” Freud establishes the homosexual man as the model of “a stalled and pathological narcissism” and further connecting narcissism with the sexual libido and mental lives of “children and primitive peoples” (10). Freud’s descriptions of the uncivil primitive man, children and homosexual man – all who represent everything opposite of white racial progress – normalizes heterosexuality simultaneously with whiteness and stumped growth. Citing Judith Butler in Bodies That Matter, Eng further shows the layered identity of Asian American male bodies that experience sexualization and racialization. Butler, too, argues that compulsory heterosexuality works in hegemonic forms where the “threat of homosexuality” connects with “hegemonic, unmarked whiteness” (13). As race images reinforce sexual images and vice versa, the Asian American man becomes racially and sexually perverse, excluded from the normative.

Eng’s description of Asian American masculinity is nuanced and full of plurality. His careful reconstruction asks us readers to be cautious of constructing an antisexist identity that only serves to reaffirm white supremacy. Eng looks at the history of Asian American men such as their economic feminization (Asian male immigrants worked feminized professions such as in laundries, restaurants and tailor’s shops), political disenfranchisement (voting rights were not granted to Asian men until 1943-1952) and antimiscegenation and exclusion laws (such as the Page Act Law of 1875 that made communities like Chinatowns “exclusive ‘bachelor’ communities). These incidents stripped Asian American men from their rights to “normative (hetero)sexual reproduction, nuclear family formations, and entitlements to community” (18). Within this history, Asian American men internalizes this dominant narrative and exercises “self-regulation, “constrain[ing] the psychic limits of Asian American male subjectivity” (19). Eng cites the editors of Aiiieeee! as those who have met this constraint in thought. They argue that Asian American masculinity will be restored through a pure Asian martial tradition. Unfortunately, this tradition ties with “strident cultural nationalism, with its doctrine of compulsory heterosexuality and cultural authenticity” (21). The figure of the Asian American homosexual man is banned from the landscape. On the other hand, using psychoanalysis thought as well as gender and queer theory, Eng challenges racial black and white, as well as black and white sexuality. Thus, he puts the plurality of Asian American masculinity and identity at the forefront of his studies.

Despite it’s strong psychologically analysis of the Asian American man, Eng fails to give a strong analysis of the relationship between Asian American man and Asian American women. His chapters analyze Asian American male characters’ actions and their influences on women in literary texts, yet the direct relationship between the two genders of the community could be studied with more depth to understand gender relations within the community. This could be valuable in determining the mutual gaze of the two genders influenced under the context of white supremacy. Finally, Eng makes Freud’s works and theories relevant to convey new ones. With a political agenda to reaffirm positive images of Asian American men, Eng will find limits in this psychoanalysis tool due to the problematic ideas embedded in Freud’s oeuvres. Do we really need to make Freud relevant in new theories? I believe in the essential understanding of Freud, yet we should give him a critical eye when we want to adopt certain theories.

Racial Castration examines the patriarchal and sexist institution that formed the emasculated Asian American male identity. Eng provides us with a theory that is both “descriptive and political” (28). He uses psychoanalytical theory to describe the Asian American identity formation and subjectivity in terms of its racial and sexual conditions. At the same time, he “reformulate(s) and … transform(s) the conditions under which we claim our identities and communities” (28). The self-assertion tone, based on interdisciplinary groundwork, gives the book a powerfully positive agenda to reconstruct a healthy racial and sexual image of Asian American men.