Thursday, February 4, 2010
Kinsey and Rich
Describe the assumptions about gender detailed in the instruments and scales designed to measure a person's homosexuality detailed throughout chapter 5 of the text. How does the Rich article argue against one or all of these instruments and scales. Does Rich herself have any assumptions about gender? Explain.
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I think one of the main assumptions I gleaned from the reading is the view of heterosexuality as typical. I think most people, me included, unconsciously share the same view. I can say that I’ve thought of myself being gay as typical—for me. Yet, because gay is so often associated with minority status it begins to be equated with some sort of abnormality. I think though the thought of majority being normal could be detrimental in the future. The additional reading after chapter 5 talked about the search for the “gay” gene, and if its existence were substantiated a cure. I think that it is very serious to consider the implications of such a thing on the psyche of any parent. I don’t think every parent would choose the “cure” based on moral or social discrimination, I do; however, believe that many parents would choose to have their children lead lives with as little suffering and hardship as possible.
ReplyDeleteI think Rich sees “lesbianism” as a structure of opposition to the instituted patriarchy that dominates modern culture. I think she sees modern marriage and female/male relations solely as a force of oppression. She sees “lesbianism” as an invocation of sisterhood, and barrier against male dominance. For her being a lesbian is just about sex, but about bonding. Her lesbianism is presented as an alternative to what I think most people would view as the normative structure of today’s society. I think Rich assessments may be too black and white. She doesn’t appreciate fully that some men and women enjoy relationships of equality and mutual love and respect.
I agree with Rich as she states the equation of the lesbian experience to that of the gay man only serves to further diminish the female and lesbian identity. I often times find that gay men and the culture of men (gay and straight) is very exclusive of women in any form. The predominate view of gay culture in society is that of the gay man. I think this is obvious yet, no change has been made to the structure to help facilitate large-scale inclusion.
One of the biggest assumptions out of the chapter, that still continues today, was the fact that people seemed to believe that finding a reason for homosexuality was much more important than finding a reason for heterosexuality. Seeing as heterosexuality is considered the norm, anything that deviates from it must certainly have a particular root, so, rather than finding a reason behind our cultural norms (homosexuality is not natural and nobody should perform such acts) we instead try to find causation behind deviations. However, Kinsey did a remarkable job of taking homosexuality and placing it into a more understanding and natural position in society. This is perhaps that unlike psychologists and sexologists he instead saw it from a biological perspective and his position as a zoologist managed to objectify his view on homosexuality. He also saw that homosexuality was much more rampant than initially believed by society, and the mass selling of his book managed to make some people reconsider their stance on sexual norms. The fact that in 1973 homosexuality was taken out of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was an enormous victory for the ideology regarding homosexuality. People, especially in the medical practices, could no longer see homosexuality as a disease that needed to be cured, and rather it was simply a part of who someone is, even though some people today still see it as the contrary. Rich’s article seemed as though it was very biased against men; she seemed to have assumptions that all men, gay or straight, wanted to keep women’s position in the world lower than themselves. She also seemed to call more views upon homosexuality regarding women, she felt as though they were not only a minority, but an ignored one, rather than their male counterparts that usually crossed the mind of society when hearing the word homosexual.
ReplyDelete[Epiphani]
ReplyDeleteI'm going to guess (regarding the first line of Andrew's response) that the reason it's so important to so many people to know why homosexuality exists is because it's foreign to them. If you discover a new species of creature you want to know every single thing you can find out about its genetic makeup, its ancestors, its relatives, its eating and mating habits, etc. etc. but of course, as you said, homosexual individuals aren't exactly a new species.
I don't know, maybe the fact that it has always been something to hide made it harder (still makes it hard, really) to identify earlier instances of someone being gay or bisexual or what have you.
I have to pause for a second to say...stop the press, Kinsey was a zoologist first? What? Zoologist to sexologist? Now there's a logical transition for you.
I think I agree with Kinsey, somewhat, about the human brain not categorizing sexual responses to the sexes. I'm not sure I agree with it in full because that would mean I also agree with the implications of that, but it seems to stand to reason that people themselves are the ones who create labels and categories-- not nature or biology. Which means we also create the stigma and the negative/positive effects of those labels and categories, right?
Yeah, I'm totally off subject here...
One thing I noticed in this chapter that didn't surprise me all that much was the fact that Benjamin, in his typifying of the transsexual, completely disregarded the possibility of there being gender dysphoric females (I know we're rare but trust me, we exist). It seems to be a repeating pattern throughout history that whenever any form of deviancy, sexual or otherwise, is being studied, the people studying it completely throw out any thought o its applying to women-- except in the case of Adrienne Rich, who seems to go the other way and ignore men.
Do people do that on purpose? If a woman were studying transgenderism or transsexualism would she ever study it exclusively in men, or a man women?
I think if I were studying it I wouldn't just study people like me, I'd study transgendered men as well.
And then there's the assumption Benjamin makes that being a gay male means you're effeminate (an assumption VERY MUCH ALIVE TODAY). Not true, Benjamin, not true.
(actually, for a small example, one of the people in our class who professed to being gay surprised the hell out of me because he doesn't "act" gay at all to me. I wasn't aware I followed that kind of stereotype, but go figure.)
…is Adrienne Rich saying basically that she thinks of lesbianism in some form or other as a woman’s way of rising above the constraints put upon her by the male-dominated world? That seems to be what she means, in the context of unifying women and empowering them “to rebel against the compulsory heterosexuality imposed upon them by every culture in the world”.
So what, is she saying lesbianism is a form of revolution?
[Epiphani]