Assimilation in feminism and the queer community.
The summer 2005 issue of Bitch Magazine has an interview with Mattilda aka Matt Bernstein Sycamore, an author and queer activist. She has an upcoming book, That's Revolting, that deals with radical queer issues and such. In the interview, a question was posed about the fight for same-sex marriage within the spectrum of feminism and queer radicalism, dealing with the idea that by striving for marriage, queer couples are essentially assimilating into the heterosexist patriarchy. I thought it was interesting.
Q: The idea of reforming marriage is often brought up within certain threads of feminist and/or queer organising.
A: How can you be a feminist and support marriage? Marriage is a central institution of misogyny, patriarchal violence, and opression. If we're trying to get rid of these things, we gotta get rid of marriage. It's just very basic.
People talk about marriage as a privilege--the state sanctioning this one type of carnal coupling, this monogamous, long-term, "stable" relationship. A relationship that maybe will get you a really bad health plan, or maybe get you some inheritance rights, or maybe will get you to stay in the country for a little longer instead of, again, talking about universal access to things like that. Take hospital vistation rights: Anyone should be able to choose anyone to visit them in the hospital--whether it's someone who's related to them or someone they met three days ago. So this argument that marriage solves the issue--what does that solve? It means that the state is sanctioning this one type of carnal coupling so that one person is allowed to visit you? [Laughs.] And only if you have that one person. And people ask all the time, "Can't marriage be a stepping-stone, a beginning?" My answer, of course, is no: Becoming part of a violent system that despises you is just a stepping-stone to suicide and cultural erasure. If those are the goals, sure, marriage will get us there.
She also answered a question dealing with assimilation within feminism.
Q: Do you think feminism is also dominated by a similar assimilationist agenda, where the issues are more about accessing privilege than about dismantling hierarchies and deconstructing gender?
A: Yeah. Feminism at its origins was about challenging power. But it's been transformed into accessing power. Especially for white women--it's like, "How do white women get to the same place as white men?" instead of looking at how we can take apart these systems. I mean, George Bush's whole cabinet is a perfect example of the nightmare of assimilation; it's very "diverse." There's Condoleezza Rice figuring out ways to kill more Iraqis, Alberto Gonzales perfecting ways to torture more Iraqis... You get all the different target-marketed minorities in positions of power who will do absolutely anything to keep their privilege and be part of the status quo. And we can see that model of "diversity" all over.
I found the whole article rather interesting, but can't find the whole article online. These were just the two responses that intrigued me the most.
Q: The idea of reforming marriage is often brought up within certain threads of feminist and/or queer organising.
A: How can you be a feminist and support marriage? Marriage is a central institution of misogyny, patriarchal violence, and opression. If we're trying to get rid of these things, we gotta get rid of marriage. It's just very basic.
People talk about marriage as a privilege--the state sanctioning this one type of carnal coupling, this monogamous, long-term, "stable" relationship. A relationship that maybe will get you a really bad health plan, or maybe get you some inheritance rights, or maybe will get you to stay in the country for a little longer instead of, again, talking about universal access to things like that. Take hospital vistation rights: Anyone should be able to choose anyone to visit them in the hospital--whether it's someone who's related to them or someone they met three days ago. So this argument that marriage solves the issue--what does that solve? It means that the state is sanctioning this one type of carnal coupling so that one person is allowed to visit you? [Laughs.] And only if you have that one person. And people ask all the time, "Can't marriage be a stepping-stone, a beginning?" My answer, of course, is no: Becoming part of a violent system that despises you is just a stepping-stone to suicide and cultural erasure. If those are the goals, sure, marriage will get us there.
She also answered a question dealing with assimilation within feminism.
Q: Do you think feminism is also dominated by a similar assimilationist agenda, where the issues are more about accessing privilege than about dismantling hierarchies and deconstructing gender?
A: Yeah. Feminism at its origins was about challenging power. But it's been transformed into accessing power. Especially for white women--it's like, "How do white women get to the same place as white men?" instead of looking at how we can take apart these systems. I mean, George Bush's whole cabinet is a perfect example of the nightmare of assimilation; it's very "diverse." There's Condoleezza Rice figuring out ways to kill more Iraqis, Alberto Gonzales perfecting ways to torture more Iraqis... You get all the different target-marketed minorities in positions of power who will do absolutely anything to keep their privilege and be part of the status quo. And we can see that model of "diversity" all over.
I found the whole article rather interesting, but can't find the whole article online. These were just the two responses that intrigued me the most.