Group 4: National Discourse of Identity

Posted on July 18, 2012 by | Leave a comment

National Discourse of Identity

Round Rose is Iva Toguri, an American citizen that was made into a scapegoat for the Tokyo Rose announcer on Radio Tokyo- a Japanese propaganda broadcast. Tokyo Rose does not exist- fictional name given by Allied troops to numerous female broadcasters. Iva called herself, for example, Ann after Announcer, and then Orphan Ann- orphan alluding to how Allied soldiers in the Pacific front could be referred to as orphans. Clements’ fictional representation of Iva Toguri is Round Rose-mentioned to be bitter and waiting for an apology.

Rose is Metis (May-tee) and a dreamer.

The national discourse on the identity of a citizen is very interesting in these two lives because it becomes problematic: both realize that their ethnicity and gender do not given them a fair playing field in terms of equal and fair opportunities. This is made tougher by the historical time period of the 1950s as well-Iva went to university, and Rose can lift sacks of bread heavy as ore while wearing a dress but assumptions about race and sex still matter, and even matter more than the fact that they are citizens. Round Rose and Rose realize the reality of what it means to be a citizen that is recognized by the state.

Round Rose and Rose want to live a different life narrative, one of their own choosing, but they fail in doing so because it is not one that is being accepted or considered. Their race and gender overwhelm and dominate their identities-Round Rose cannot just be a UCLA student that knows about as much Japanese and about handling chopsticks as the next average Californian in the 1950s; and Rose cannot do anything with her dreams, whatever they are, because she skirts defined boundaries by being mixed. Clements questions the reality behind being a citizen-the power structure behind a national discourse of identity.

Are you blond enough for someone to love you? Is your skin light enough for someone to save you? 41

Round Rose is bitter because she sees that Caucasian people are more likely to be given a second chance when they screw up than when it is someone else of colour.

Lindsay Lohan – given so many chances. Does she deserve them? Does she deserve to have so many comebacks?

Everybody’s sorry they got caught sticking it someone else…they could give a rat’s ass about you, or me, or the people they are saying sorry to. be sorry before you have to say you are sorry. Be sorry for even thinking about, bring about something-sorry-filled 101

Round Rose is misanthropic-pessimistic seeing people as only being sorry for being caught in the act of doing something horrible or wrong to another person not doing the horrible thing itself. Which is interesting considering she is waiting for an apology-she is slamming apologies here. How it’s all just words-discourse that do not mean anything.

~

I am not Japanese. I am American 52

I look just like you like me 50

Round Rose emphatically states how American she is, and it echoes the upbringing Iva had-Americanized lifestyle- she only was in Japan to look after an ailing relative, bringing suitcases of western food with her to tide her over-wrote about handling chopsticks- wrote about getting used to eating rice three times a day- when she was broadcasting as Orphan Ann, Major Cousens picked her because her “masculine style, deep, aggressive voice would not make GIs homesick” like Japanese army wanted them to.

Being an American citizen however is not ethnicity-it is culture- ideas- living on the land. Yet if she is trying to find her salvation through the discourse of being an American-it does not work. It shows there is no escape through discourse-Round Rose believed she was a loyal American but she was not the final voice on that. Her stand with America failed her-America was the one to show some true reservations. How she chooses to define and see herself does not rest on herself alone-it lies outside.

Rose

I dream I could be anybody if I was born somewhere else because she realizes that people are not big enough to accept you for what you are- the depth of your dream 91.

Rose Complements Round Rose’s struggle. They both realize they cannot do anything with what they are given, that with all their efforts, this will be the farthest they can get: Round Rose- an apology. Rose – her son.

Conclusion: Hope is a bird

What are we left with?

Round Rose vs. Rose on Hope

Hope is a disappointed white bird (not bitter) 109 VS. hope is inside her: Thorn (product of inter-racial, international union 112

*Yet the beating of Rose’s son’s heart is interspersed with clocks of the radium painter and the Geiger counter of the brothers Labine. Ambiguous ending?

Question:

What do you think of Tokyo Rose’s story? What do you think of Rose’s? Do you see their lives as losses to discourse and power structures or is there improvement-is there hope for real change in how people whose identities straddle boundaries.

It sometimes seems  the play offers a simplistic way of approaching race and gender in terms of identity. Sometimes Clements seems to suggest race does not matter, it should not matter, but we can see it does, and can be special-deep. But where is the line in determining the importance of race in our lives? It matters but when should it matter? Can there be a distinction made for when race is important and when race isn’t? Ex. national identity; branding; target audiences. What if you like someone because of their race? Is that just as bad as hating someone because of their race?

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Group 4: Hegemonic Masculinity in Burning Vision

Posted on July 18, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Discussion:

My presentation focused on the creation and maintenance of a hegemonic masculinity, and the discussion was action-oriented on how to create alternate masculinities that can engage the dominant masculine ideals. My argument was that although the citational legacy of gender describes, creates, and reinforces a gender binary, the complication of gender within the preexisting categories could be a valuable way to create effective change. This would involve altering our valuation systems that promote particular traits as masculine.

Articles:

Gender & Society-2005-Connell-829-59

http://webcat2.library.ubc.ca/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=3911239

http://gas.sagepub.com/content/17/3/370.full.pdf+html

http://www.jstor.org/stable/190181?seq=1

The first article is probably more with your time than reading through my presentation, but here it is for reference anyways.

Transcript:

Much of our debate in class has been about exceeding the gender binary, however, we often hit a wall at the point of understanding what that actually looks like. We understand the discursive aspect of constructing gender, the various institutional methods of reinforcing a heteronormative identity, and the tendency to regulate non-normative modes of being. As spoken about in the first class, if gender is constructed discursively, then it must also be performed. Judith Butler talks about “doing gender,” and argues that it requires repeated gendered speech acts to maintain a gendered identity. Obviously, as stated by Foucault and Butler, and as we’ve seen ourselves to be true, this creates the gender as much as describes it.

We may wonder why we keep repeating these acts if it reinforces what we see as a repressive and even destructive system of self-identity. Butler also argues that we really have no choice in the matter, due to what she calls a citational legacy—-starting with the famous moment of inception after birth when one’s parents declare “it’s a boy” or “it’s a girl”–and then is repeated through our own and other’s actions that then reinforce the initial gendered construction.
What is the ideal against which we are comparing ourselves, however, and who are we emulating in our personal process of doing gender? What is the archetypal male or female that is the thing we are judged against, and can only come short of? For the purposes of this presentation, I will focus on the construction of male identity, and the valuation system that reinforces it as expressed by Fat Man in Burning Vision.

Before we start that, though, here are two videos that superficially play with the idea of masculinity, power, and social construction. Notice the focus on the male genitalia, violence, national identity and systems of power and domination.

>> Washington
>> American man

Obviously we could write a paper just on the first video, but we’ll take a few lessons from it. First, what is a man? Or a real man? Or, who typifies real manliness?

–Discussion–

Those of you who are in my art history class will appreciate this. Kasmir Malevich painted an imperfect black square to represent the impossibility of humans achieving the abstract idea of a square in real space. Similarly, we reproduce the abstraction of an ideal male despite the obvious contradictions within the actual realization.

In Burning Vision, Fat Man is the prototypical male character. As the character introduction states, he progresses from being a test dummy to a real human throughout the play. Similarly, he progresses from being the perfect archetypical American man to being a much more human and sympathetic character by the end of the play. To make it completely clear, he is named after the larger of the two bombs that were dropped on Japan. He therefore can be seen as a literal representation of the bomb as well as the archetypical idealized American male citizen.

Fat Man’s first quote is telling of his attitude throughout the whole play:

“I am a part of the world. I am part of the world just like this new Hi-Fi equipment. Just like this Playboy which states: “A high-fidelity system is commonly accepted as a badge of sophisticated masculinity.” A badge of sophisticated masculinity concerned with their environment. Or should I say lifestyle?

If I was the interior designer I would’ve went with plaid, but hey, a piece of highly trained man material like myself shouldn’t concern themselves with bare walls. That’s for the loonies. I look good. I mean I’m dressed for the part and frankly between you and me that’s half the battle.

Fat Man is concerned with the material signifiers of his male identity as well as acting the patriotic soldier. He works hard to buy the beers, as well as the perfect 50s American domicile. He also alternately acts the husband, father, and the heterosexual agent. He also falls desperately short of being a real man.

Connell and Messerschmidt talk about this in their 2005 paper on Hegemonic Masculinity. The concept was developed in the 1980s as a way to explain the dominance of a particular kind of masculinity in social hierarchies. There has been a significant amount of research and criticism of the theory, and I present it not as an absolute truth but as a critical conceptual framework to help us deconstruct the methods of acting male.

If we are to stop doing gender and start undoing gender, it would be valuable to have a framework through which to understand the initial construction, which I would call Butler’s citational legacy. But I would disagree that attacking the citational legacy directly is the most effective way to subvert it. An example is the couple who decided not to disclose their baby’s gender until it made a choice for itself. This is an admirable move in theory, but it relegates their child to the unknown third gender rather than attacks the systems that produce that gender. This is where I think the idea of a hegemonic masculinity comes closer to giving us an effective critical tool, since it deconstructs the processes that continue to value a specific set of traits as masculine and understands masculinity to be a source of dominance and power.

Connell and Messerschmidt talk about a ethnographically-confirmed plurality of masculinities. We can see this as true in Burning Vision. There is the wizened and authoritative Dene See-er. The sympathetic, subversive and destructive Little Boy. The capitalist Bros. Labine. The strong and husbandly Dene Ore Carrier. And of course, the loud, brash, and crass Fat Man.

Connell and Messerschmidt establish that to have a hegemonic masculinity, you need complicit and subordinated masculinities as well as a heterosexual female participation. They also pointed out that the hegemonic masculinity is not a thing that any one person can possess all of the traits from: look back to our discussion of who is the perfect male. The hegemonic masculinity is one that we use at times when it is necessary for social, economic, political, or cultural reasons. It’s, like Prof. Cavell says, a cultural technique, used by both men and women, and any other form of gender, depending on the correct context. For example, I may play more male when hanging with the boys, than in sociology class. For Fat Man, nationalism and masculinity go hand in hand, and those are directly related to sex.

I’ll go to the masturbation scene. Fat Man’s inability to get himself off reduces his manliness. Sexual dysfunction is not manly. Round Rose’s descriptions immediately goes to sexualities outside of the norm, as she briefly describes Fat Man’s wife engaging in adulterous group sex. A promiscuous wife is probably not a sign of manliness either, yet this invigorates Fat Man. He is willing to defer aspects of the hegemonic masculinity for sexual gratification. In part, this is how the hegemonic masculinity survives: not only does it turn off at times, but it can assume aspects of other masculinities as needed. We can see this in the case of the metrosexual. Heterosexual males who saw the sexual benefit of grooming could appropriate what was seen as aspects of gay culture into their lives without compromising their manliness because it was all in the name of further sexual conquest.

It’s hard to remember the human aspect of the sex and gender debate. I think it’s properly quite confusing. Fat Man is not sure whether he’s lonely or horny, or could be afraid to be lonely as an attempted alpha-male, and therefore is horny. I think this is a salient point, well-put by Connell and Messerschmidt:

“Without treating privileged men as objects of pity, we should recognize that hegemonic masculinity does not necessarily translate into a satisfying experience of life.”

In Fat Man’s case, he is both subject to and the creator of his own destruction. He is the bomb that going to kill himself. We might wonder why those who benefit the least from the dominant discourse fight so hard to uphold it. Or, secondarily, why we ourselves might be complicit.

It’s pretty similar to the idea of hating capitalism but buying a daily coffee. Or hating Walmart but stopping by when you need a cheap pair of socks. You can self-conceive as a highly-principled anti-capitalist activist but occasionally assume the role of a shopper without compromising who you identify as.
If we are automatically complicit in the idea of hegemonic masculinity, then how do we exceed it? Are we trapped like Fat Man in his own house? Connel and Messerschmidt contend that our only hope is to create a positive hegemony. Does that work and how would that look?

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From The Onion:

Posted on July 10, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Revolutionary New Homophobia Immersion Therapy Involves Lowering Patient Into Tank Of Gays

February 23, 2011 |ISSUE 47•08

BOSTON—During a widely publicized press conference at the Boston University School of Medicine Friday, researchers announced a breakthrough new technique that cures homophobia by immersing patients in a large glass tank overflowing with gays. “Rather than avoid one’s fear of homosexual men, we believe it’s crucial to face it head on,” behavioral psychologist Dr. Dolph Kleineman told reporters, explaining how homophobic subjects are hooked up to a harness and lowered into a room containing bare-chested men dancing suggestively to the latest club hits, kissing, and feeding one another strawberries. “So far the treatment has been successful, with early test subjects being able to go out into the real world and see a gay couple hold hands without making a bigoted remark.” When asked if there was a risk of subjects getting stuck in the tank of writhing men, Kleineman said the gays would be so oiled up that patients would have no trouble slipping in and out.

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Removing Morality as the Impetus

Posted on June 27, 2012 by | Leave a comment

“The paint in the public areas is still fresh – always has been” (Maynard 71).

– morality seen through historical development: a veneer, ultimately surface level, yet most visible

– Foucault exploring Catholic ‘confessional discourse’

move towards somewhat more secular “purity” reform movement

– moral coding of language in early distinctions of “the mental, moral and physical expression of sex”(StM 31)

– the idea of a life in excess

– surface level morality structure of prevailing notions characterizing men as sexually lustful/aggressive versus the apparent sexual passivity of females

– true happiness of women defined by the state to coincide w/ state happiness

– “Race Suicide”: declared “physical and moral rottenness” of the poor (who might be lucky enough to be reformable but most seen on the surface level as beyond redemption) as compared to the most moral citizens who have the “most comfortable homes, the largest dwellings, and abodes of the most affluent and respectable in any city … best credit … most influential in business … men who direct and control the commerce of the world” (Bliss 45)

– The so-called “boring old white males who dominated the traditional history”

 – Immorality assumed to be a natural consequence of gender mingling in workplace structure

– “Canadianization” of immigrants (connected w/ race suicide), establishing rule over non-English elements, called “moral regulation reformation”

– Symbolic emphasis on whiteness, cleanliness and purity, “vigour of the race”, “loss of semen is the loss of blood”

– Sexual relations among students as “evidence” of people in authority’s racist beliefs about the “sexual primitiveness” of Native peoples (and non-Anglo-Saxon people in general)

– Tendency in sex-scientific literature to blame “foreign” cultures for perversion

– Non-heterosexual relationships considered “a weakening of moral fibre, a waste of mawkish sentimentality”

“Non-sensitive positions” → not a moral position but rather a cohesion/se(curity issue

  • Constructing the relations of “the closet” through exclusion

– Homophobia reducing structural features of oppression to misguided prejudice or irrational fear – moral character of homosexuals tied to pedophilia, assault, abuse, etc. but these terms are not attached to the term ‘heterosexual’ thus ensuring the hegemony in place continues

“Hockey pays the price for gay tolerance” → emphasis on fear-induced effect w/r/t tolerating things that Canadians supposedly “shouldn’t”

– Prostitution, and non-normative sexualities and activities “fundamentally an economic rather than a moral issue” → connection to cases of Oscar Wilde and Maple Garden as being transactionary in nature (even “abnormal” sexuality is transformed through capital)

– “Morality Department” as just a form of regulation and control: a power structure, not a moral structure (otherwise why the preoccupation with only sexuality as related to “moral” policing?)

– “This suggests an important linkage between social purity agitation, the municipal State response, a heightened media focus, and stepped up police activity.”

“Sexuality was not just an index of moral behaviour, however; it was also an aesthetic marker” (StM intro) and the state was able to make use of both.  Nationalism’s control on sexuality allows sexual dimension while supporting a system of moral classification of citizenry – mainly the privileged center (still: requires suppression of ambiguities to create illusion of coherence and commonality) → Nationalism-infused sexuality allows for greater complexity yet remains within the dominant power systems (patriarchal, Anglo-Saxon) of before.
Contemporary Examples:

(i) the “vagina” gaff (moral coding in language, projection of morality from patriarchal power onto women) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2159911/Lisa-Brown-Michigan-lawmakers-silenced-using-word-vagina-abortion-debate.html

(ii) control of contraception (Jon Stewart video Daily Show clip 02/13/12, section ‘The Vagina Ideologues’) http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/daily-show-vagina-ideologues http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-february-13-2012/the-vagina-ideologues—sean-hannity-s-holy-sausage-fest

(iii) the so-called “same-sex tourist marriages” and how the arguments have become predominantly legal, not moral, in their nature http://www.globalnews.ca/validity+of+same-sex+tourist+marriages+continues+to+hang+critics+warn/6442668049/story.html

(iv) Gloria Taylor, assisted suicide issue, regulating bodies http://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters/article/1215331–assisted-suicide

– the morality center is now secular in nature and only the bedrock for ensuring the continued cohesion of society by resisting what many see as a potential morale problem and also uneasiness with the concept of death itself (especially when chosen). Issue: Do we have control of our rights? Do we have a say in defining them? (“protecting the vulnerable” as fear-inducing language, a kind of moral coding)

– “The court has recognized that the government has no place at the bedside of seriously ill Canadians who have made firm and considered decisions about the amount of suffering to endure at the end of life and the level of care they will or will not receive in their final days.” (echoes Trudeau’s line) http://www.vancouversun.com/news/judge+strikes+down+banning+assisted+suicide+Canada/6793319/story.html

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Purity and Truth

Posted on June 27, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Sylvanus Stall, D.D.

(8 October 1847 – 6 November 1915)

– Released What a Young Man Ought to Know in 1897.
– The text is divided into “Cylinders” rather than chapters, because Stall’s treatise was originally recorded as a sermon on phonograph cylinders. (These cylinders were sold alongside the transcribed editions, and may have been the first audiobooks.)

Mrs. Mary Wood Allen, M.D.

– National lecturer of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union on heredity and hygiene (Appointed World Purity Superintendent).
– Regarded as a medical as well as moral authority in matters of sex and health. Contemporaries stressed her medical know-how, and credibility as a health educator.

Mrs. Emma F. Angell Drake, M.D.

– Also W. C. T. U. lecturer on Temperance and Social reform topics in United States and Canada.

—

Foucault on the Interplay of Truth and Sex (The History of Sexuality, p. 56)

“Around and apropos of sex an immense apparatus for producing truth, even if this truth was to be masked at the last moment. The essential point is that sex was not only a matter of sensation and pleasure, of law and taboo, but also of truth and falsehood, that the truth of sex became something fundamental, useful, or dangerous, precious or formidable: in short that sex was constituted as a problem of truth.”

—

“What Eminent People in America Say” of What Every Young Girl Should Know.

—

—

Links to Sex and Self ebooks:

What a Young Boy Ought to Know
What a Young Man Ought to Know
What a Young Husband Ought to Know
What a Man of 45 Ought to Know
What a Young Girl Ought to Know
What a Young Woman Ought to Know
What a Young Wife Ought to Know
What a Woman of 45 Ought to Know

+ Successful Selling of the Self and Sex Series

—

Denied access to the morning after pill, 17 April 2012, by Sarah Arboleda

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Canadian Law, Canadian Sexual Identities

Posted on June 26, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Dr. Brian Burtch of Simon Fraser University’s School of Criminology, in his book The Sociology of Law, presents two key forms of law: “Formality referred to the employment of criteria, standards, and logic in the legal system. Ideally, in formal legal systems, legal rules and procedures would be confined within the legal system and not be influenced by external factors. Conversely, substantive legal systems would be swayed or directed by political or ideological criteria” (Burtch, 38); he further explains that no legal system truly fits in either category but exists on a continuum (Burtch, 38). This continuum which legal systems seem to traverse along, with regards to legal implementation, creates a tension within the system itself between what the public, the state, and the culture at large demand of the legal system and its own central practices against irrationality. In turn, the beliefs, desires, and wishes of the state/public sphere must be distilled into concrete truth, realities, definitions, and well-reasoned facts, if the legal system is to produce definitive laws to enforce. In other words, clear criteria, that are well supported, must be presented in order for laws to be implemented rationally to like cases, as is the “goal” of the system, regardless of it actually working out that way. However, sexuality and sexual identity is not concrete so much as it is fluid. For this reason, when the Canadian legal system was propelled by the fears or aspirations of the state to outlaw homosexuality, it struggled to create a definitional box for sexual identity to fit into where it could punish, prosecute, and imprison individuals with a sense of clear reason. We have, as Foucault writes, “surreptitiously transferred the pleasures that are unspoken into the order of things that are counted” (Foucault, 4). With all the aforementioned in mind, I would like to suggest that the Canadian legal system’s history of struggling to define criminal / non-criminal sexuality became a repressive power that forced the gay, lesbian, and bisexual communities to shape themselves as a definable group in order to resist the artificial definitions construing their sexual identities and create equality for themselves in a system that requires definable parameters. Consequently, this struggle provoked homosexuals to manifest their own strong discernible Canadian identity. In other words, these sexualities evolved as a survival mechanism, and subsequently the evolution and history of Canadian law is reciprocated by the evolution/ emergence of Canadian sexual identity.

Substantive vs. Formal Legal Thought: The Struggle for Definition

  • Sir John Thompson was the 4th prime minister of Canada, though he only lived for two years after becoming prime minister; his major achievement was his contribution to the Criminal Code of Canada in 1892.
  • Sir John Thompson’s assimilation of the English criminal code proved to be problematic for the sensibilities of the law and emphasises the clear tension between formal and substantive legal concerns; there was a strong fear of male-male inter-relations that was clearly evident- this being the substantive cultural fears of the community at large. However, “buggery” needed to be identifiable in order to “sensibly” prosecute an individual equally with others who commit the same crime.
  • 1869 the act of buggery was classified as an “Unnatural Offense”, but even this doesn’t compensate, in the least, as a presentation of the emotional capacity, consent, and humanity that can be associated with a physical act. The term “unnatural” is also irrational and vague; how do we define something as natural and unnatural? It seems eye glasses are an unnatural entity, does it then follow that wearing eye glasses is an unnatural act?
  • The offense of buggery was then defined as the award winning “gross indecency”, but was restricted to men: “anyone who in public or private is a party of the commission of or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of any act of gross indecency with another male person” (437). But, what constitutes an act of “gross indecency”? There are some pretty “vulgar” acts that private heterosexual couples can perform? Why was sodomy against a woman not punishable by a 5 year prison sentence with a chance of being whipped?
  • It becomes evident that the court was merely attempting to accommodate the concerns of the state and broader social sphere in a substantive manner which conflicted with their formal senses of reason as is evident by the discourse in the House of Commons in  1892 as well as Sir Richard Cartwright’s comments: 1.) Sir Cartwright: “the words he has used, “gross indecency”, are not sufficiently precise, and might lead to consequences he does not intend…I am quite aware the particular crime which he has in mind is one which, I very much fear, has been on the increase in certain sections of society” (437). 2.) “Mr. Mills: All these offences against morality have crept into the common law from the earlier ecclesiastical law, and they were rather sins than crimes, not being attacks upon property or life, or upon any other members of the community”(438). [Symbol] Here we see the “fears” or substantive concerns clashing with the legal system’s need to instill reason and resist irrationality.

Concerns of the State Influencing the Law:

 

  • “Sir John Thompson:  We only punish them as crimes when they are offensive to people, or set a bad example” (438)[Symbol] This idea of “setting a bad example” is an indication of the state’s central fear regarding homosexual acts/ conduct; they thought that it would spread like a disease and contaminate the public at large, swaying young men to suddenly desire to be homosexuals, thereby dismantling the strength of the hetero-conditioned normative public.  Because, as we know, that’s exactly how sexuality works: I see two men kissing and suddenly the only thing that turns me on is kissing another man[Symbol] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGL-c1-5K0c&feature=relmfu–> 11:01 “going gay” This is a contemporary example of the exact same fear that the state had with a comedic twist.
  • We can see further evidence of this fear of infectious homosexuality in Kinsman’s exposition of RCMP initiatives and conduct in the early 1960’s when police were investigating “suspected” homosexual individuals via surveillance techniques. In Kinsman’s book The Canadian War on Queers, RCMP officer Fred (last name undisclosed) discusses the procedures he had to follow which are more than telling of the state’s concerns: “He asked informants about gay house parties and who was present, taking particular interest in learning if anyone new attended these events” (165). Officer Fred was impelled by higher powers constructing procedures that he was to look for “new” individuals within the gay community, and especially if they were government employees. This is because, according to Kinsman, “homosexuals were constructed as suffering from an unreliable and unstable character” which was feared would spread to the central social structure of power and make it weak. This is evident in a memorandum written by Don Wall (secretary of the Security Panel): “From the small amount of information we have been able to obtain about homosexual behavior generally, certain characteristics appear to stand out- instability, willing self-deceit,  defiance towards society, a tendency to surround oneself with persons of similar propensities, regardless of other considerations-none of which inspire the confidence one would hope to have in a persons required to fill positions of trust and responsibility” (7).  This reads like a horoscope filled with vague personality characteristics that could easily be applied to even heterosexual individuals; furthermore, it indicates that the state was concerned about being made up of “weak” characters, which explains their fears about the “spread” of homosexuality.

The Legal System’s Construction of Homosexual Identity in Response to State Concerns: The Homosexual “Type”

 

Canadian Comedian Darcy Michael: “Under Cover”

  • Because the law requires clear parameters in order to make convictions, there was an attempt to specify markers of homosexuality that were definable, discernible, and clear cut. However, as we know sexuality is not as cut and dry as a fixed personality type. For this reason, we can see that the legal system was taking a repressive initiative to form sexual identity, and it was up to the homosexual communities to resist this definition if they were going to survive within a system that requires “classification”. In other words, the resistive actions of the homosexual community were a way of saying, “If we have to be classified, we’ll do it on our terms”.

 

  • What was the homosexual identity being constructed by the legal authorities? Nothing is more telling of this construction than what was called the “the fruit machine”, which consisted of a questionnaire used to identify characteristics of homosexuality, but what becomes evident is that it consists of pure stereotype because it tried to measure masculine characteristics in women and effeminate characteristics in men with the following statements to be marked as true or false: “I like mechanics magazines; I think I would like the work of a librarian; I would like to be nurse; I very much like hunting; I think I would like the work of a building contractor; I think I would like the work of a dress designer” (177).

 

  • The Royal Commission on Security was the governing body employing these characteristic definitions of homosexuality, and it wasn’t until 1994 that a memorandum was written to the Royal Commission on Security “a gay group known as the Association for Social Knowledge made a submission to the Mackenzie Commission” (218) This was one of the first attempts by a group to control their own definition of their sexual identity: “I didn’t have any notion of the purges, so in that sense the [gay] constituency was not a data source because of my preconceptions…So I wasn’t driven by local concerns or perceptions of local reality and there it had a very kind of abstract character to it in the way it was argued”[Symbol] “Sanders critiqued the two main arguments used to deny homosexuals security clearances: that they suffered from a character weakness…He used and relied on Hooker’s work and the Kinsey Report, which undercut the psychological construct of homosexuals”(218)Link to Evelyn Hooker and her work: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Hooker

“Equality before and under law and equal protection and benefit of law

15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

Affirmative action programs

15. (2) Subsection (1) does not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.–> Text from the Department of Justice Canada.

  • The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was developed in 1982 and is the primary tool that allowed the homosexual communities to redefine themselves within the Canadian system via the use of section 15.
  • A case that forced homosexuals to step forward and present their own definable characteristics under law was that of Egan v. Canada in 1995. The case surrounded a gay couple, Jim Egan and Jack Nesbit, who had been with one another for 47 years and were “challenging their exclusion from the spousal allowance provisions of the Old Age Security Act. Now, the important thing about this case is that homosexuals had to come out and define themselves, in the face of fervent stereotypes, as being the types of people who have long term relationships in order to have equality within the system; they needed to lay out clear the manifestations of their sexual identities as a means of survival within the system. A writer for the majority of the Supreme Court in 1995 wrote: “Sexual orientation is demonstrated in a person’s choice of life partner, whether heterosexual or homosexual. It follows that lawful relationship which flows from sexual orientation should be protected…The definition of ‘spouse’ as someone of the opposite sex reinforces the stereotype that homosexuals cannot and do not form lasting, caring, mutually supportive relationships…The appellants’ relationship vividly demonstrates the error of that approach” (4-2/4-3).

Contemporary Battle between Substantive and Formal in Alberta

 “CTV.ca News Staff

Date: Wed. Jul. 13 2005 7:41 AM ET

Premier Ralph Klein has announced Alberta would reluctantly recognize same-sex marriage, but is adding new legislative protection for anyone who opposes it on moral or religious grounds.

“We will proceed to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, much to our chagrin, following proclamation of the federal Civil Marriage Act,” Klein said in a press conference in Calgary Tuesday.

“We will develop legislative options to ensure the rights of religious officials and those Albertans who hold social or cultural beliefs or values, whether religious or non-religious,” Klein said after meeting with his cabinet.

“No one will be required to advocate, promote or teach about marriage in a way that conflicts with their beliefs.”

In other words, Alberta will allow same-sex marriage but not force ministers or marriage commissioners to perform the ceremonies if they don’t want to.

That goes slightly further than Bill C-38, which also offers protection for those who oppose same-sex marriage, but only on the basis of religious beliefs.

Keith Purdy, who was refused a marriage license in Alberta just days after Ottawa opened the doors to gay marriage in Canada, told CTV News it was “a great day for human rights in Alberta.”

Alberta’s Conservative government has long opposed same-sex marriage and said it would use every legal option to fight it. However, Mr. Klein has now conceded that after consulting with his legal advisers, “our chances of winning are virtually none.”

Alberta New Democrat leader Brian Mason had previously called the Klein Government “Neanderthals when it comes to this issue.”

The Civil Marriage Act has passed in Parliament and is now before the Senate. Same-sex civil ceremonies are already allowed in all provinces except Alberta and Prince Edward Island. P.E.I. has indicated it will also start performing the marriages.”

 

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Bodies Regulating Bodies

Posted on June 24, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Kinsmen

  • Article examines the “socialization” of character and the creation of a Canadian citizen
  • The criteria was classist and racist. Street culture was seen as a breeding ground for immorality and vice, thus society needed to control the “juvenile delinquents”
  • School systems tool the role of disciplining and socializing children into moral Canadian citizens – ie controlling their sexuality- no masturbation, etc. Even the age of consent was under question- many outspoken religious people wanted it to be raised
  • White people were considered to have “good” moral character, effectively excluding Native people, African-Canadians and Chinese immigrants. White women were continually warned against the opium-toting Chinese men seducing them, causing riots against Chinese populations
  • Working women were immediately deemed immoral because male workers create an immoral work environment, and thus their morality suffers.

Bliss:

  • Shows an example of the school system’s “purity” sexual education through Max Braithwaite’s memoir- a Canadian Novelist who grew up in Saskatchewan. Braithwaite discusses a teacher discussing the harmful repercussions of masturbation on a person’s character, body, and mind. He says “I was so ashamed, I couldn’t look at him. The socialization of shame is shown in all the articles as one of the main weapons to control people’s sexuality
  • Arthur Beall, known for his purity lectures, was hailed “one of the best informed men on educational matters in Canada” by the Globe and Mail. Showing one example of how media also works to socialize sexuality in Canada.

Maynard

  • Media’s role is further explored in Maynard’s article- which states “Journalists ability not only to describe but to determine contexts for sex scandals draws attention to the pivotal role of the media.
  • Look at examples where the Media plays a key role in constructing categories such as “pedophiles” and “victims”
  • Graham James vs Tornoto Maple Leaf Garden’s scandal- often lumped together in reports due to the fact that they occurred a month apart
  • Fundamental differences: power, agency, representations
  • Previous times of the juvenile delinquents Kinsmen discussed and “bad girls”- in the time of the Maple Leafs Scandal- discussing the sexual agency of children “seems almost entirely beyond discursive possibility”
  • Foucault mentions “where children are concerned, they are supposed to have a sexuality that can never be directed towards an adult.
  • While it is true there are differences of context to the Graham James/Kennedy- Feminist Kate Millet reminds us that “the main point about children and relationships between adults and children, is that children have no rights. They have no money
  • Calls for society to define poverty and economic inequality as forms of “abuse” and not to judge the Garden’s boys from taking advantage of our society’s commodification of sex for their own material advantage.

Today’s example of public shaming: Saundra Fluke asking forBirth Control

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Sexual Identities and Canadian History

Posted on June 23, 2012 by | Leave a comment

1900s: Canadian identity

  • ideal Canadian was white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, and upper or middle-class
  • First Nations, mixed women, Irish-Canadians, French-Canadians (Catholics), Asians, blacks, all seen as “a stable, efficient, disciplined work force.”

Female identity

  • female identity centered around the home (domestic sphere), motherhood and childbearing; seen as determined by God
  • working-class women portrayed as being inadequate mothers because they couldn’t spend all their time with their children
  • initially, women were not supposed to work, encouraged to stay home
  • later, women were supposed to work for a few years before having children so they could prepare their children for schooling, ensuring that the male children would be prepared to work and support their future families and the female children could, in turn, prepare their own children

Female sexual identity

  • 2 opposing views of female sexuality
  • women were supposedly incapable of sexual desire, if they slept with a man before age 21 they could legally claim to have been “seduced” without consent, and if they ended up being prostitutes, it was because they were trapped in the “white slave trade”
  • if a woman did desire sex or became a prostitute, she was considered to have an “abnormal development of sexual desire… [that was] more pronounced in women than in men”

Sexual identity

  • sexual identity was marriage because sex was either within marriage, or illegal prostitution
  • there were serious concerns over the supposed undermining of marriage caused by prostitution, adultery, living together before marriage, etc
  • sexual identity was all about the home and and the family

Homosexual identity

  • the first terms to describe men who had sex with other men were “sissy” and “fairy”
  • there were many reports of men dressing up as men in order to deceive other men, and women doing the same
  • female identity became divided into “”two distinct types of womanhood”… the “timid, confiding woman” who comes to realize that her mission in this world is a domestic one”… the self-confident, self-asserting self-reliant, fearless, masculine women” for whom “domestic duties have but a secondary attraction””
  • “lesbian” and “gay” identities did not exist; there was only one “homosexual” identity
  • not all men saw themselves as “homosexual”- some preferred other terms

Interrelated and changing identities

  • all identities at the time were tied to the ideal Canadian identity – women were supposed to not desire sex and produce contributing citizens, (“motherhood as the highest form of patriotism… “No Baby – No Nation””) men were supposed to support this practice through working, homosexuality was bad because it did not contribute to these practices supporting the nation
  • new identities for men, women, immigrants, First Nations peoples, homosexuals, developed because people did not fit into the one identity that was allowed
  • this led to a broadening of the “Canadian” identity as well, so now in order to be “Canadian” one barely needs to do anything at all
  • identities often overlapped – in Maynard text, men meeting for sex with men in the Gardens, which were also used for sex with boys

Current controversies in identity

  • Maynard talks about the historical (and current) practice of equating “homosexuals” with “pedophiles”
  • moreover, the culture of victimhood persists to this day – preteens at the Gardens willingly participating in sex acts with men in order to obtain money, tickets, hockey gear, etc
  • Maynard proposes viewing them as “sexual agents” rather than “victims” because they were never forced into anything
  • current view of “sexual predator” and “sexual abuser” does not necessarily apply to every situation
  • perhaps the next shift in Canadian/sexual identities will see pedophile as an orientation rather than a legal label

Question In the case of Charlotte Whitton – should we try to apply our modern views and identities to people from times with much more limited view and identities? Was she a lesbian or wasn’t she? It is impossible to know since that identity did not exist to her.

Answer (From Maynard): “We must guard against projecting into the past our current constructions of sexual abuse and sex across generations; instead, we must try to understand them in their shifting historical terms and contexts”

Possible transition to legal regulation – gays and lesbians kicked out of civil service and military for apparently suffering from “character weakness”

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