Untangle the red thread in your head
The ethic which admires the aggressive (heteronormative) male and despises the passive, isn’t it actually anti-female sexism? The “weak” male’s traits are seen as feminine, that is his crime. The dominant male might be despised secretly, but he is also feared.
There are at least two homophobias: The fear which keeps a sexual exploiter’s environment from reproaching his behavior and the self-loathing which drives “masculine” men to look down on “effeminate” men. The fear of the other’s sexuality and the fear of one’s own. The morality which condemns effeminacy in men and masculinity in women is part of the larger complex of sexism.
The stereotypical prison rapist is accepted by his immediate social environment, his victim is shunned, maybe pitied secretly. Rapists in the prisons of marriage or economic inequality also tend to escape not just conviction but moral condemnation. The Afghan commander who keeps a boy as sex slave is accepted by his fellow soldiers, and an Italian president who doesn’t abuse teenage girls is seen as a queer intellectual. Society even excuses the sexual exploiter: “At least he’s giving him/her a job.” Sexual exploitation is a form of profiteering. At the core lie economic power structures.
Race, skill, culture, religion, gender are mental constructs. All real inequalities between groups are economic. If you eat less than I and live in a shack, that’s a fact. The owner’s mind conjures all sorts of ideologies to justify his accumulation of property in view of poverty and his exploitation: sexism, classism, religion, racism…
Male power is based is based on the objective truth that men own more property than women. It has nothing to do with men’s physical or mental strength, although we often accept men’s greater average body mass as a justification for their legal supremacy. If strength determined social outcomes, big (wo)men would own more than small men, young (wo)men would own more than older men, slaves would own more than masters and proletarians would rule over bureaucrats.
Likewise, white power is based on the fact that white people control more economic resources than non-whites. Whites are in no way physically or mentally superior to other people, but they are legally.
Europeans, so proud of their female heads of state, should be aware that political power is useless without economic power. Appointing more female ministers or managers will change nothing about the underrepresentation of women among majority shareholders. Elections have little effect on these power structures. You can elect your president, but you can’t elect the boss of the central bank or of McDonald’s.
When you scream for minority power, you actually demand minority ownership. That is just the elevation of a minority to ruler status. It perpetuates the logic of private property under the guise of solidarity. Why not demand common ownership of everything? When everyone owns everything, no one owns anything.
I’m very intrigued by this post. And, I *think* I agree with it … well, most of it anyway. I do have two questions, though:
1) Do you think you’re painting with too broad a brush?
2) What do you think the solution is? Or, is there a solution?
I wasn’t on board until your last paragraph. That snagged me. Until then it sounded like any other anti-capitalist rants I’ve read. (No offense, please.)
1) Yes. I started thinking about homosexuality because there’s an exhibition of anti-gay phrases in a “red” café and wound up thinking about expropriation of the ruling class.
2) Economic equality. And economic equality is legal equality. Property, after all, is a legal right. If it does not exist where you live, go to a place where it does and compare.
Do you not see that heteronormativity and a culture of prejudice are particularly strong wherever economic inequality is great: the southern USA, South America, the Middle East, South Asia, Eastern Europe? I would even say that as a tendency, but not a rule, the lower classes and the upper classes are more sexist than the educated middle class. Imagined divisions of society (gender, race, culture) are just a reflection of real economic trenches. These trenches are the gaping wounds of all caste societies. As long as you live in such a society, all you can do is bandage them.
I understand your point and don’t disagree for the most part. The problem is this — I do not know of a society where some sort of caste system doesn’t exist. Even in former hardcore communist systems there were still those divisions. The only difference was that there were far fewer of them and the disparity between them was enormous. My point is that I don’t believe human nature allows for a truly integrated society. I’m not saying that’s a good thing because it’s clearly not, but I think it is what it is.