The Impact of Race and Gender on Domestic and Foreign Policy

Society gives certain characteristics including race and gender a meaning which is why everyone somewhat lives in segregation depending on what race or gender they are. “Social construction is how society groups people and how it privileges certain groups over others” (Flores). The ideology of race and gender as socially constructed categories influenced, and are currently influencing, domestic and foreign policy issues in the United States. Societies views on both race and gender alter over time with the help of artwork, government, different types of media and more.

Racial discrimination has ancient roots lasting up to present day and has always played a huge part in domestic and foreign policy issues. Native Americans were one of the first to experience discrimination and according to Mathew Baigell, racism is shown through artwork. Paintings depicted Native Americans as “savages and barbarians who blocked progress” (Baigell 4), when in reality the whites were the ones who were cruel and brute. The paintings suggested that, "whites were entitled to western land, white settlement was inevitable, justice was on the whites side and whites were peaceful while Native Americans were warlike" (Baigell 6). White men felt superior which is where racism stems from. The Federal Government pursued a policy of containment with Native Americans and white farmers and ranchers often forced Indians into captive labor while others practiced in “Indian hunting.” Both the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the Trail of Tears were outcomes of racism towards Native Americans.

Later on in 1882 white American’s showed racism toward the Chinese when the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed. This was the first significant law restricting immigration into the United States. Many political cartoons about the Chinese Exclusion Act help show the racism towards the Chinese. One cartoon I found illustrates Uncle Sam trying to keep the Chinese immigrants out by using a door that has Exclusion Act written on it. This cartoon is showing America’s fear of a mass influx of Chinese into the country. It shows the Chinese “coming out of the wood work,” they are literally coming up from underneath the wood floors and through the wood door to try to get into America. This image reiterates that the Exclusion Act (the door) is America’s (Uncle Sam’s) only way of preventing the Chinese from entering America. Not only was this Act passed, but also anti-Chinese violence broadened. Riots broke out including the Rock Sprigs massacre, which occurred on September 2, 1885, which was the result of racial tensions and had an outcome of 75 Chinese homes burned. Also, in the 1900s, vigilante groups often lynched Asians.

Another example of racism in the United States, and probably the most well known is the racial discrimination against African Americans, which began during the time of slavery. It would make sense that the discrimination against African Americans would have stopped from 1861-1865 because during this time period, the Civil War ended slavery, Abraham Lincoln passed the Emancipation Proclamation and congress passed and ratified the Thirteenth Amendment. But racism against African Americans was far from over. In 1866, although congress passed a Civil Rights Act and the Fourteenth Amendment, this same year Black Codes, laws that sharply curtailed African American’s freedom and virtually re-enslaved them, were passed and the Klu Klux Klan was founded. According to Martha Hodes the KKK came to action believing in white supremacy. The KKK demonstrated brutal acts using “tactics rang[ing] from the destruction of property to whipping and maiming, castration, rape, and murder” (Hodes 405). The Klan’s actions helped keep the blacks in check ultimately reinstating their power as the dominant race. After Black Codes another set of laws came along stemming from racism towards African Americans. This new set of laws that lasted from 1876-1965 was called Jim Crow laws, which segregated black people from the white population. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries multiple acts and laws have been passed to de-segregate the black and white population. During these two centuries there have also been a tremendous amount of horrific events due to racism against black Americans, including but not limited to, the Red Summer of 1919, Race riots and 3,171 known black American lynching’s.

The U.S tends to become involved in wars with third world countries. These third world countries also happen to be filled predominantly, with one race. The Vietnam War lasted from 1955-1975 and displayed racism. Racial slurs are very common in boot camp because they help train US soldiers to hate the Vietnamese. The Mai Lai Massacre was a tragic event that displayed racism against the Vietnamese civilians. The soldiers from Charlie Company that were interviewed in the “Four Hours in Mai Lai” documentary explained since they could not make the distinction between the Viet Cong and civilians they simply killed everyone in sight. These soldiers also treated the Vietnamese as sub-human. They would beat and rape them on top of killing them. Racial tension has infected foreign policy that fuels backlash by people that are marginalized. Many American citizens did not agree with the Vietnam War and there were riots that were also apart of the civil rights movement. People opposing the war was opposing what the US was engaging in overseas. Race clearly had a massive influence on domestic and foreign policy but it was not the only socially constructed characteristic to influence them, gender has too.

Up until the mid-nineteenth century, women’s legal status was only slightly better than that of a slave leading to many domestic policies concerning personal rights and freedoms. A married American woman could not “own property, make a will, inherit, sue or be sued, enter into a contract, or exercise any other of her most basic civil rights. Even single and widowed women, many of whom owned large amounts of property, were deprived of political rights: they could not vote, hold office, or sit on a jury” (Rierson 89). Although, women did not receive as harsh discrimination as certain races did in America’s history, they did face “fierce opposition-from woman as well as men” (Time Inc. 3). After the Civil War, the woman’s suffrage movement took place and the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association were formed. Both groups advocated for a new constitutional amendment to allow woman the rite to vote. The outcome was the 19th amendment, which states “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation” (US Const. amend. XIX). As part of President John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier program the Equal Pay Act of 1963 was signed into law with the intentions to decrees gender discrimination. This law helps prevent employers from “paying wages to employees in such establishment at a rate less than the rate at which he pays wages to employees of the opposite sex in such establishment for equal work on jobs” (Equal Pay Act, 29 U.S.C. § 206 (1963). Anyone could see that woman’s rights have improved immensely, from what they were before the mid-nineteenth century, but with that being said discrimination still exists today.

Both Americans of different race and women have made big advancements since the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries as far as their rights go, and have multiple laws, acts and the 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th amendments to show for it. With this being said, racism and sexism still exist throughout the United States today. Michelle Alexander makes a strong argument in her book The New Jim Crow that mass incarceration in the United States has “emerged as a stunningly comprehensive and well-disguised system of racialized social control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow” (Alexander 4). She supports this argument further when saying, “Once they are released, they are often denied the right to vote, excluded from juries, and relegated to a racially segregated and subordinated existence. Through a web of laws, regulations, and informal rules, all of which are powerfully reinforced by social stigma, they are confined to the margins of mainstream society and denied access to the mainstream economy. They are legally denied the ability to obtain employment, housing, and public benefits – much as African Americans were once forced into a segregated, second-class citizenship in the Jim Crow era” (Alexander 4). Discrimination against woman still exists today, mainly in the work force. Although more doors are open for woman today, I have heard the term “glass ceiling” mentioned repeatedly. Unfortunately women today do face barriers to advancement in professions. There are very few women at the top of their occupational field and those that are high up and successful still face limitations due to their gender. Women today also face the harsh reality of unfair salaries even with the Equal Pay Act of 1963. In some professions woman who have been working for years could be earning the same salary as a newly hired male. Although, racial and gender discrimination is not as blatantly obvious as it was in the past it still exists today.