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sophiaserpentia) wrote2007-06-11 02:16 pm
the personal is political
Originally published at Monstrous Regiment. You can comment here or there.
At Boston Pride i tabled for the Network La Red for a couple of hours. A Latino fellow came by at one point and said he’s against domestic violence too — and hinted (i don’t remember his exact words) that he was obliquely referring to INS raids and similar anti-Latino actions of the US Government.
But it’s all connected, really. Oppression of a minority by a government is much the same thing on a bigger scale. The mechanisms in prevailing ideologies and institutions which make it easier for someone to get away with battering their partner also enable and justify official racist violence. These webs of abuse interweave, for example when a woman is brought into the United States as a domestic worker and then turned into a sex slave; the people holding her threaten to reveal her undocumented status to the INS as a way to keep her compliant.
Personal, first-hand experience can be unreliable; but it’s also the only thing we have that cannot be taken away from us. The messiness of our lives under oppression, the various survival strategies which “coincidentally” do not fit on religious moralistic laundry lists, make it more difficult for anyone to sympathize with us. That we live in a society that teaches us to compare other peoples’ lives to ideological checklists makes it easier for us to stay divided as well.
Understanding the way the world works, the way our laws and doctrines and “common sense” and logic and language have been constructed in order to maintain privilege for those who have it, is an important part of working for justice. But, just as “upholding the law” is taught to us as the way we know justice has been done, upholding ideology is taught to us as the way we know we’re right.
Which is why it’s significant and subversive to say “the personal is political.” Those of us who live, inconveniently and untidily enough, outside the lines like a stray crayon mark can give direct personal testimony to the wrongness (or at least incompleteness) of an ideology. This is true even when the ideology is radical; and the results can be disastrous for the unity of the radical community.
For example, during the 1970’s and 1980’s a prevailing ideology throughout much of the feminist movement was that “women are good and nurturing while men are bad and abusive.” (For the record, it’s worth noting as an aside that Andrea Dworkin, often cited as a gender essentialist, took a lot of grief for taking a vocal public position opposed to the idea of “natural female superiority”.)
In that climate, women who came forward seeking shelter because they were being abused by their lesbian partners were quite often silenced. Battered women’s shelters had been set up on a “female victim, male abuser” model and women who had been beaten by women were inconvenient and unwelcome. When they did gain admittance to shelters they had to deal with homophobia from staff and other survivors.
Lesbian abusers, like battering husbands, used prevailing misogyny to frighten their partners. But they could use the threat of outing to keep their victim in line. They could use their partner’s lack of knowledge about lesbianism to keep them in the dark about the abusive nature of their relationship (”This is what lesbian love is like,” etc.) They knew, too, that their partners would not find sympathy within the women’s shelter network. Ideology, institution, and abuse woven together in a web keeping women down — and the experience from the survivor’s point of view is quite similar whether their batterer is a man or a woman.
Lesbian (and gay) abuse survivors were also silenced by the gay and lesbian activist community, seeking to establish an image of our community as “clean and upright.” They were afraid that seeing us discuss things like gay or lesbian partner abuse would place ammo in the hands of homophobes. Abuse survivors would just have to “take one for the team.”
Now, fortunately, there is some recognition of the issue, and movement in some areas, even though it is still largely uphill.
The thing is, anyone who silences another person on the basis of a prevailing ideology is doing the work of domination. Why is not as important as what. That is a part of what we are saying when we say the personal is political.
I think we should make it a kind of radical oath that we must resolve to hear what people say about their experience before ideology. It’s hard — it’s very hard. I see myself violating this all the time.
no subject
Your criticism of my position actually simply does not apply. One major problem is that you incorrectly assume that "holding governments responsible for their decisions" implies "a necessity for 'more laws'".
The converse is actually true. "More laws" is a kneejerk, unconsidered reaction that results from an absence of real responsibility and accountability.
Nowhere did I call for more laws, either directly or indirectly.
I'm actually not an American, so this "state versus federal" thing is totally off the map for me. I understand it's an issue for Americans, though.
Accountability is a simple thing, logically and ethically The difficulty in untangling practical issues belies the simplicity of the theory. Once an action is deliberate and has predictable results, the actor is morally/ logically responsible. Governments make deliberate decisions, so they should be held responsible for the predictable results of those actions. This does not imply jail; jail is not an appropriate response to all wrongdoing- that's another peculiarly American error. The USA has a higher proportion of their populace in jail than any- other- country, partially because that error is a common one.
Another problem lies with my use/your interpretation of the term "government". The use of the term does not imply universal governmental responsibility for localised governmental misdeed. Responsibility follows power, and sections/ actors within government can only be held responsible for actions over which they had actual power.
So I understand your points, and even agree with them to a degree, but see them as refuting odd American warpings of my point, and not actually addressing my point at all.
I hope this clarifies,
adrian.
P.S. I share your affinity for precise communication; but normal, routine differences in idiom mean that such affinity can increase misunderstanding if we are not careful!
P.P.S. Don't take my references to America as constituting anti-Americanism; America is a country of unusual error as well as unusual virtue; her virtue is, however, outside the scope of this response. :-)
no subject
and America is its own beast. :) Though I love it!
no subject