>Mike,
>
>Thanks for bringing this up.
>
>One reaction I have is I like the pre-Foucault theories of class struggle
>and national/racial liberation better than Foucault's. So, I'm critical of
>the effort to generalize "heteronormativity" analysis to these other issues.
>Also, I'm not very open to categorizing heterosexuality like capitalism or
>white supremacy, if you follow. I can go with "homophobia" but not
>"heterosexism". What say you ?
>
>Charles
The reason why I prefer heterosexism is that, like the word sexism, it's intended to capture the _structural_ operations of this particular oppression. It's not some culturally induced fear (phobia) that is to be gotten rid of through proper education (which is the hallmark of a liberal approach to political theory). Rather, it's a phenomenon that manifests itself at the micro, meso, and macorlevels of social organization and, thus, demands solutions that address the issue at those levels. I pointed Brian to a link which quotes me as saying this, which I think is an example of the interaction between the micro and macrolevel operation of heterosexism, enacted in a specific meso-level social organization, an elist:
[W]hy do glbt activists feel compelled to frame their sexuality in what is, ultimately, a het[ero]sexist frame in which one's sexuality is natural, biological, given, outside of the social? Why do they feel that this is the only way to present the issue on the lit they writeespecially for PFLAG, an organization addressing itself to people who aren't glbt, who they think they have to convince of the "okay-ness" of their loved one's "sexuality" because, by gum, it's the only way they can be? Why is this? Why this political strategy that asks for 'acceptance' and tolerance rather than a fucking change in a social system that demands that sexuality be framed in this way, as either/or. AND
i can't recall which [email] list it was, but a woman wrote in to a list recently, obviously a bit confused and uncertain, looking for some help. she wrote something about wondering if she wanted to become a lesbian, detailed her "history" and reasons why she was thinking about latelywhy she was starting to allow herself to explore her feelings re a friend, but not really sure because she did enjoy being with men, and wasn't sure how she'd feel about a "relationship" as opposed to the obvious interest she had in having sex with a woman she was interested in, blah blah. you know the rave. i unsubscribed because the avalanche of responses was something on the order of "you don't just decide you want to be a lesbian" "women who are bi-curious make me sick" "you're just horny and want to get laid." "don't use another woman because you want to be 'cool'" and "lipstick lesbians are hip these days" ad nauseum. i unsubbed after the 100th flame of this poor woman. seems to me that the dominant response was to demand that sexuality be framed as natural, a force that exerts a power over you beyond all reason, ad nauseum . . . queerness or whatever you want to call it has to fall into the same patterns as het normativityyou either are or you aren't and no room for anything in between or anything that doesn't follow the het/homo by nature reasoning. Kelley, in a post to the LBO-Talk mailing list (Left Business Observer), February 7, 2000
>From: MRDelucia at aol.com
>
>Joanna Bujes continues:
>
>"...but I am puzzled why in rejecting identification as a mode of being one
>feels the need for the label of "queer". Why do I have to be anything or
>call myself anything in order to critique a political strategy?"
>
>Well, why did Marx believe that critique of capitalism had to be done from
>the proletariat position?
>I think two (related) answers:
>(1) practical: the proletariat was the only group for whom a criticism of
>capitalism would be the basis for beginning a new type of social
>organization (i.e. it was the strongest group with a vested interest against
>capitalism)
>(2) theoretical: the proletariat was 'the truth' of the capitalist system;
>that is, only the proletariat, as the group whose existence consistently
>shows the lie of capitalist ideology, can reach beyond that ideology.
>
>In perhaps the same way, only a theory which is both explicitly
>anti-identitarian as well as queer offers a way out of heteronormativity.
>Queer existence shows the lie of heteronormativity as well as showing the
>possibility for an alternative.
>Mike
>
>
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
"We're in a fucking stagmire."
--Little Carmine, 'The Sopranos'