How does your sexual preferance define your social classification? When reading The Woman-Identified Woman the first thing that came to my mind was how nosey people are. I find it so intresting how on one hand we are told to mind our business, but on the other hand society goes as far as making rules and laws just to regulate someone elses life just because they dont fit into societies little box. When it comes to women in some form of fashion were are never seen as "real women". Personally speaking, i have a very close family member of mine who is a lesbian and when reading this i got an idea of some of the things that she may have gone thru and related this article to how her journey may have been. She grew up as a "tom-boy," thus already classifying her as not being a "real girl," in addition she also was a basket ball player due to that and i can only imagine how the lines of gender construction turned her life upside down. As the autor stated, the issue of homosexuality or being a lesbian is often dimissed as a "lavender herring" or i felt it as the big elephant in the room that noone talks about. As long as women use societies standards for what a "real woman" is they will continue to suffer in a sexist slavery . Men are often thought of to be the norm of society which continuously puts women in a second class status, but when deling with homophobia its seems ironic that there is still a hierarchy among such a controversial sexual category. The constant scrutinizing and bad mouthing of how one chooses to live or love behind closed doors will not change them nor will it diffferentiate them from being "real" or "fake". Before peolple decide to categorize what is right or wrong by their standards they should first reflect on themselves and their own oppression!
3 comments:
I do not think of it as being nosy. Rather, I think of it as a control effort sought out by the power elite in society. Those power elite mostly being white men. But what is a "real woman"? I am not sure that I quite understand. When I read that in your blog post, I immediately thought of the objectification of women and how we are not necessarily seen as a whole; instead, we are represented by our body forms. If a woman does not fall into the constructed categories, she is automatically regarded as deviant. As for lesbian women, who choose to dress "butch," this does not make them any less of a woman than you or I. However, because of the internal essence of the woman falls victim to societal constructions of identity, lesbians (and women) often are forced to live a reality that is fabricated. Live a reality that will allow them to move forth in society. LIve a reality that will ease the their internal battle. Live a reality that reduces the feelings of guilt. In other words, lesbian women are forced to conform and adhere to cultural norms in order to survive and not be ostracized.
I would have to agree with the comment that is posted above that was deep. I do believe that lesbians have a choice that any other woman in this world, however the choice that they may make society may not except and if they don't they just don't.As women we need to stand on what we believe and how we feel and if being a homosexual is you or a heterosexual then do you, and who cares about what others think they dont have the say so.
This seems to relate to some issues raised in class. If your gender performance does not match what society expects, it necessarily raises questions about your sexuality in our binary oriented society. People's gender performance is said to be a marker of their sexuality which is not necessarily the case. It does matter, but the task is to get it to matter in a more inclusive way perhaps?
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