women's studies, week 3

The following is my response from this week's readings in my women's studies class:

A common thread through this week’s readings is the privileging of heterosexuality and the construction of sexuality, which are mechanisms that perpetuate the subordination and oppression of women. Another common thread is how women are co-opted into perpetuating this construction of sexuality.

Cott and MacKinnon discuss how sexuality is constructed in a way that relegates women to a second class status. Cott argues that the construction of female sexuality as passionlessness was an attempt by conservative British Evangelical reformers to elevate sexual control as one of the highest human virtues. Women were considered to be morally superior, so moral agency was linked to female character; hence, passionlessness and modesty were enshrined as female virtues. MacKinnon extends Cott’s construction of sexuality by arguing that to understand how gender is constructed, we have to understand how sexuality is constructed. She argues that “sexuality is a social construct of male power; it is defined by men, forced on women, and constitutive of the meaning of gender.” Men decide what sexuality is, and this is what creates and maintains a system of male supremacy and dominance. MacKinnon rejects the “rape as violence” ideology because she argues that sex is inherently unequal because sexuality is constructed to be about male dominance and female submission. She also argues that pornography is a means through which sexuality is socially constructed: it constructs women as things for sexual use and constructs its consumers to desperately want women and possession of women.

Rich and Wittig discuss how women’s oppression depends on compulsory heterosexuality. Rich argues that heterosexuality is necessary so men can ensure their male right of “physical, economical, and emotional access;” one important mechanism to do this is to deny the lesbian existence. This is done “by asserting that primary love between the sexes is normal, that women need men as social and economic protectors, for adult sexuality, for psychological completion; that the heterosexually constituted family is the basic social unit, and that women who do not attach themselves to men are condemned to a devastating outsider existence.” Wittig discusses how the category “woman” inherently depends upon heterosexuality because women are defined in relation to men, and to be a woman means to be oppressed by men. She argues that lesbians subvert this ideology because they show that there is not a natural group called “women.” Lesbians are not women and not men because by refusing to become heterosexual means that they refuse the role “woman” and the “economic, ideological, and political power of a man.”

While reading this past week, I thought of one of last week’s readings in which Riley argued for a rejection of the categories of “woman” and “man” because these can contribute to sexual antagonism. I think that this fits nicely with Rich’s discussion of the lesbian continuum, or the bonds among women, networks, and woman identified experiences. Rich says that when women turn to other women, it is assumed that this is out of hatred for men. What would happen if we did not have “women” and “men”? Without categories of gender, we would not have this sexual antagonism that pits women against men. This might make a lesbian continuum possible, thereby obliterating compulsory heterosexuality.

Another common thread is how women have been co-opted into perpetuating a construction of sexuality detrimental to them. Cott argues that linking passionlessness and women’s sexuality was appealing to women because it gave women a social and familial power. Women were on board because passionlessness gave women self-respect and a special power. Wittig discusses how women are co-opted into accepting the category of woman through this mantra of “woman is wonderful.” This encourages women to emphasize their best features instead of questioning the political categories of gender. In this way, women are defending the category of “woman.” Finally, MacKinnon argues that in order to cope with sexual objectification, women’s strategy to acquire self-respect and pride is to convince themselves that they choose sex, possess their sexuality, and value their sexuality.

It is really interesting to see how women play a role in furthering this construction of sexuality, and I was surprised that none of the authors discussed the institution of marriage. Marriage is a patriarchal institution, and women have been co-opted with the enticement of romantic love, diamond rings, and pretty dresses. At a young age, girls are socialized to want to get married, and they are imbued with this idea that they get to be a princess on their wedding day. Once women enter a marriage, they are subject to economic inequalities and the sexual division of labor, no matter how egalitarian they believe their partnership to be. And, since society regulates procreation and delegitimizes births out of wedlock, there is a pressure to marry if one wants to have children. Marriage plays a large role in maintaining the family unit and perpetuating patriarchy, and I think this is one way in which women are co-opted.