A short manifesto against: acting “responsible”.
Where ever social norms and attitudes discriminate and condone violence towards a certain stereotyped individual, class or group of people the notion that those who suffer from this oppression are also somehow responsible for it is deeply entrenched in the mind set of victims and oppressors. For example, I was talking to a group of strangers I had just met in a park in Ottawa, when one of the guys leaned towards me and nodding in the direction of a nearby womyn he winked and then remarked “she ought to be careful wearing those shorts, a guy can see everything”. His whole attitude told me that he thought it was ok to stare at, objectify and then suggest that by wearing ‘hot pants’ if she was sexually assaulted it would be her own fault. “What? People should be able to wear what they want. I don’t see anything wrong with wearing shorts on a sunny day”. I quickly moved away to the other side of the park to do hand stands in peace.
When discrimination towards a certain type of person or social group is prescribed as a universal norm, the process of internalizing this oppression becomes hard to resist and therefore even more dangerous for the persecuted individual or group. Openly expressing oneself or one’s desires in a society that perceives such forms of expression as subversive, ‘unnatural’ or immoral, become acts that an individual can be ‘justifiably’ punished for as they contradict the conformist psychology of the dominant culture.
Since I arrived in Guadeloupe I’ve met and come out to a number of people, nearly all of them have at one point remarked that ‘I need to be careful’, and that if I talk about my sexuality or relationships in any other situation that isn’t restricted to my home environment, basically my life will be a living nightmare and it will be my own big-mouthed fault. There are several ideas that uphold this form of reasoning, some of them come from genuine concern and a mutated sense of compassion; however, most are derived from a culture of homophobic sexism that regulates sexuality and experience into public/private spheres and generalizes gender into the immutable distinction between ‘man’ and ‘woman’.
A society that perceives the status-quo as normal and therefore permanent, not only condones discrimination but forces oppressed individuals to monitor their own behavior and assume responsibility for the aggressive behavior of others.
Because we all live in societies where the notion of identity has become fixed to stereotyped ideas of human behavior; good girls shouldn’t like sex, gays are ok as long as they don’t want to have children, heterosexual men don’t hold hands with other men; our lives and experiences become constricted to a generalized pattern that accepts diversity on a certain level but continues to impose a high price on individuals who express themselves openly.
I had lunch with a colleague the other day who told me she accepts gays (“not bisexuals”) but doesn’t like to see marginalized sexualities rubbed in the face of a heterosexist society: “everyone is protected by the law” but those who have street parades, wear make-up or kiss their lovers at the bus stop (daring to be visible) should accept the fact that they will be in danger. My colleague also told me that males would never truly understand love and therefore male-male relationships are just an extravagance that should remain behind closed doors. As I was tired of being condescended to and about to leave, I stopped myself from asking how she couldn’t see the irony in being against the gendered stereotyping of women and colonial racism that upheld slavery; but yet support the notion that homosexuality is limited to a certain lifestyle choice and heterosexist privilege does not exist.
Heterosexism enforces the idea that heterosexual (preferably monogamous) relationships should be upheld as the ideal form of human sexual expression. Privileged heterocentric liberalism that ennobles itself by ‘tolerating’ certain identities, leaves the conditions of homophobia and gender discrimination firmly in place; violence is supported by a diffuse process blaming the individual for being too visible as they are seen to be ‘pushing’ their identity onto others. In all situations where there is a dominant normative culture the majority become blind to their acts of oppression as they do not see the inequalities that exist between themselves and the identities they marginalize. In France the banning of head-scarves for Muslim girls who attend public schools was argued from the basis of religious equality and preserving the ‘secular’ education system. However, France like most Western European cultures has inherited a normative Christian culture: the banning of head-scarves can be seen as the imposition of these normative cultural values, those who do not conform must be made invisible for the sake of the majority’s social privilege.
Heterosexism pushes invisibility onto queer youth; in a homophobic society they no longer exist and ‘gay’ becomes an identity reserved for those who survive but lead their lives quietly as good ‘discrete’ law abiding people. When I hear someone say “Oh I have gay friends, it’s ok” and then turn around and suggest that if a teacher wants to keep her job she should be quiet about her lesbian lover, I want to say: “FUCK you and your well balanced bigotry. It’s not our responsibility to protect society from its own insecurities; we have the right to live our lives as freely as possible and as oppressed individuals of sexist homophobic violence, we understand better than anyone the risks we take just being ourselves. I certainly do not need your self-righteous liberal acceptance to validate my existence.”
People who want to support those who might experience gendered homophobic violence should not patronize them by saying they should or should have modified their behavior so as to not attract aggressive attention. This attitude only validates the actions of the aggressor and the system from which they learnt to fear, hate or want to control others.
whilst living in this foreign country I will refuse to let that fear and hatred become my responsibility: keeping safe is completely different to burdening myself with societal shame towards sexuality.
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