How Gender and Sexual Minorities Struggle in The Political Scene

The Political Struggle for Minorities of Sexuality and Gender

For thousands of years, sex, sexuality, gender and politics have been intertwined with many laws and mindsets spurring almost exclusively from religious beliefs and heterosexual patriarchy around the world. Even in a country that prides itself on the separation of church and state and being a land of freedom, a citizen’s sexuality is under constant political scrutiny. Not only in political laws but in our education system funded by the government, businesses that rely on the government, and the media that is controlled by the government, we are subliminally taught the societal norms that men rank above women, and straight is better than gay. Margaret Atwood’s story The Handmaid’s Tale presents a frightening representation of what this country could be if women and the LGBTQ community had no rights at all. Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home illustrates the results of the implications our country has set towards the LGBTQ community and the tolls this can have on the individuals in the LGBTQ community. Both these books, and the reality that we live in today, prove there is an undeniable tie between politics and sex and this connection, more often than not, leads to negative outcomes for the people who do not have power.

The negative implications towards the LGBTQ community and women are undoubtedly tied to lingering outdated religious beliefs that tell us people of these communities are lesser than others. Along with that, the laws and lawmakers in a country can influence the beliefs and morals of its citizens meaning that in some cases a law becomes a moral belief and hatred or dislike can form or grow towards the community targeted by the law. The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Politics points out that;

If we look at some of the key issues that constitute the partisan divide between political parties in the United States—whether it is reproductive rights or same-sex marriage—we can see that many of the ‘culture wars’ issues are fundamentally questions about which sexual and intimate behaviors of men and women should be accepted and supported by the society at large (Waylen, 2)

Many people that are fighting for more rights are asking the question “why are my sexual rights and the control of what I do with my body up to lawmakers at all?” This is a relevant question that we are still battling in our land of “freedom” in the 21st century.

Women and the LGBTQ community around the world have different levels of freedom in different places, but one common theme seems to linger: men hold most of the power. Despite the uprise of feminism, “the world and the disciplines are still male dominated even today. The global average for women in the lower house of legislatures was still only 20 percent in November 2011… At the United Nations, only 6 of 37 under-secretary generals (16 percent) were women” (Waylen, 5). I am not sure how many of these men are LGBTQ, but I will go out on a limb and guess not very many. I do not blame the men in power for this imbalance of representation, seeing as it has been woven in to cultures around the world for hundreds of years. However, I do propose the question, how are we supposed to change the inequalities regarding sex and sexuality if women and the LGBTQ community have little to no power to do so?

In The Handmaid’s Tale, we are presented with a world where the government controls practically all human rights; however, the limitations of sexual expression are a prominent theme. The government in this book defends their actions by claiming they are taking away the rights they deem unnecessary in order to protect everyone. The main character, Offred, and her handmaid counterparts are told, “There is more than one kind of freedom… Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it” (24). The idea here is that if laws controlled everyone’s sexual deviance, women would be safer.

Offred reflects on the dangers of the freedom in the time before the Republic of Gilead saying, “Women were not protected then. I remember the rules, rules that were never spelled out but that every woman knew: Don’t open your door to a stranger… If anyone whistles don’t look. Don’t go into a laundromat, by yourself, at night” (24). Although, unfortunately, these are unspoken rules that still apply to being a female in our society today, it is hard to imagine a life where the government controlled sexuality to the point where women had no choice regarding anything. Despite being told they are protected, and seeing the differences (such as men not whistling on the street or checking them out), the handmaids seem to long for that freedom of choice.

At times the handmaids conformity, which is necessary for their survival, does start to control their views with a mindset that they never held before. After seeing a group of Japanese tourists where the women wore shorts and bared their legs and arms, Offred observes, “We are fascinated, but also repelled. They seem undressed. It has taken so little time to change our minds, about things like this. Then I think: I used to dress like that. That was freedom” (28). This is an example of how the ideology of a government can influence the beliefs of citizens in that country over time. In many cultures it is evident the sexist laws have become the norm and if Atwood’s depiction is anything like real life totalitarian countries, it is likely many women around the world have begun to believe that the laws that limit them are just.

The tricky part about assuming what life is like for oppressed women in other countries and political structures, and in Atwood’s case, writing books modeled off of those societies, is pointed out in the essay Under Western Eyes by Chandra Mohanty. Mohanty argues that from a Western feminist point of view, there is this idea engrained in people’s minds that women in third world countries are powerless and sexually constrained from the day they are born. This contrasts the self-representation of western feminists, who often pride themselves on gaining freedoms and fighting for their rights. We have this western tendency to pity the third world women and perpetuate the stereotypes of people that will not speak up for themselves because they are used to the oppression. This is a curious assumption that has been proven untrue by many non-western women who have stood up for themselves and others time after time. For example Malala Yousafzai, at only 18, is one of the most famous feminists in the world and grew up oppressed by the government and societal norms of Pakistan. There is also a whole movement called “Islamic Feminism” thriving in the Middle East that the western public rarely hears western feminists speak about. It is possible that Atwood’s underground rebellion was representing the bravery of some women in oppressed cultures to fight for their rights, just as many Western feminists openly do with our more abundant freedom of speech.

In Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, we see the results of the pressure felt by many LGBTQ people, especially in the 1970’s, although I would argue it has not changed for them as much as people would like to think. When a person’s identity is deemed illegal by their government, or there are laws that make them unequal to those who fit the accepted norm, that person struggles with whether or not to embrace who they are or suppress it. In fact with something that our government has made a taboo topic of discussion, like being LGBTQ, a person may not even know what their feeling of being different means. At one point Alison recalls, "I had recently discovered some of Dad's old clothes. Putting on a formal shirt with its studs and cufflinks was a nearly mystical pleasure, like finding myself fluent in a language I'd never been taught" (182). The idea of dressing in a masculine manner felt so natural to her, yet it was something she had never heard of as being normal or knew how to classify.

In my Social Psychology class we discussed how humans often base their actions and beliefs off of what they think others will accept. We have a biological need to be liked by others and feel part of a group for protection and happiness, thus more often than not we act according to the norms and ideas we see around us. This idea applies both to countries that oppress women and LGBTQ people. If being straight and dressing based on our biological gender is what will make people like us, then that is what we tend do. In Fun Home, we see how unhappy and distant this feeling of needing to hide himself makes Alison’s father. Alison guesses he is afraid of what his extended family would think and what his life would become if he were openly gay, and thus lives a double life. For women this need to be accepted often results in our conformity to prejudice stereotypes and inequalities in our communities. Even in the United States where feminism is alive and thriving, many women choose not to speak up about issues that affect their entire lives such as the wage gap, or the lack of education and laws to prevent sexual assault.

Sexuality and politics are bound together in a knot we struggle to untie. It is the reason experts say, “Men and women across the globe will not receive equal salaries until 2133 based on current trends” (Grimley). In fact, “In several countries, more women are now going to university than men but - crucially - this is not necessarily translating into more women occupying skilled roles or leadership positions” (ibid). The disparity here stretches into the LGBTQ community where it was found that, “transgender workers who transition to female see sharp drops in wages, while those who transition to male actually go on to make more money” (Pinsker). It seems to be that political systems are waging a war to ensure the feminine aspect of sexuality stays out of power more than anything.

In the United States, we seem extremely inhibited by the constant battle of the two political parties and their views on the rights of women and LGBTQ people. This statement could not be more relevant even today. Just this week a headline from The Guardian read, “Oklahoma Court: Oral sex is not rape if victim is unconscious from drinking.” A CNN headline says, “Alabama City: Use bathrooms matching biological sex or face 6 months in jail.” A Pioneer article is titled “Gender wage gap in the U.S. makes women lose $500 billion every year.” The presence of inequality is shoved in our faces everywhere we turn; yet, our inability to unify on a national scale leaves us a country lying to our citizens when they are told they are in a land of freedom, and then read a list of things they can not do or rights they will not receive based on their sexuality and/or gender. This notion of constantly arguing over women and LGBTQ rights is especially frustrating, given that straight males, who are not affected by the consequences at all, have a disproportionately larger power in deciding the laws.

This problem goes far beyond a lack of diversity in leadership. Even in many countries like Costa Rica, Liberia, South Korea, Argentina, and Chile, where women are the presidents or prime ministers, inequality still poses a glaring presence. Many democrats use the argument that if Hillary Clinton becomes president of the United States, life for women will greatly improve because she will fight for our rights. I have to disagree. The deeply engrained degrading attitudes held by people worldwide regarding women and the LGBTQ community are something that will be near impossible to get rid of. When there are people in power actively working against a positive change, it is hard for the people fighting for equal rights to make progress. The only way this inequality can truly change is through changes in perspectives starting with world leaders, and trickling down to world citizens. We can make progress through implementing laws that give more rights to discriminated individuals, but as long as parts of the government are working against those rights, countries will not be equal.

Maybe we can blame the discriminatory parts of religion, maybe it is simply the long drawn out battle of male superiority, maybe it is that we fear those who are different, maybe the hatred of minorities is just so deeply rooted into history that people jump at the chance to keep discrimination alive. It all seems like quite a hopeless mess, but I admire those who fight against the norm. With the history of our country in particular, discrimination is something we as a society have thrived on time after time; killing and taking land from Native Americans, enslaving those who had a different skin tone than the majority, segregating racial groups, creating internment camps, allowing the wage gap to continue, arguing over who gets to marry the one they love, telling people where they are allowed to use the restroom, and the list goes on. I hope people in power begin to learn that just because we handled the last disagreement by making one minorities life exceptionally difficult, repeating this process of discrimination does not have to be the solution we turn to for our next big issue.

Sexuality is a personal topic and each individual human being goes through a process to discover and understand it for him or herself. The government should not be able to tell people what they can and cannot do based on their sexuality, scare people away from being themselves, or tell them that if they have a Y chromosome they are more worthy. However, for now, that is the world we live in. Although for those with an advantage, it seems like no big deal, being told what we can and cannot do with our bodies and sexualities is something we will live with every day, likely for the rest of our lives.