Normalizing the Queer - Paper Example

During the historical times, queer was used to explain someone who was not normal, that is, peculiar, odd, or strange. In the 90s the name was changed to refer to sexualities and non-normative gender identities. In the recent times in Canada, the word refers to several non-heterosexual identities.

Queer theory pursues to resist the regimes of normal. The politics of normalizing the queer offers individuals a way of dismantling customs which suggest that there are only one sexuality and two genders.

Family as a Site of Contestation

A family is often thought to be a group of people who care, support and love each other. Sociologists view the family as a small unit of the society that provides intergenerational continuity and necessary arrangements of living while anthropologists consider it as the traditional fabric of a community.

Responding to a routine duty that marital anarchy could arise if same-sex marriages are legalized, different apprenticeships assures readers that countless homosexual couples, especially lesbians ones, have shown that they are as capable of fidelity, responsibility, and devotion as heterosexual couples.

Transnational Feminism

Transnational is a term that is used to define how ideas, money, good and people move across various national boundaries. Issues that are related to transnational feminism include refugees, displacement of people, militarization, and war. It also allows us to carefully look at how individuals in various parts of the world experience unequal and uneven relationships economically concerning supremacy and authority.

From our lessons, we learn that transnational and postcolonial feminism reject unidirectional flows of social, knowledge and culture change as well as historical views and the hierarchies of the South/North.

The Prison Industrial Complex

The Prison Industrial Complex is a scheme which is positioned at the intersection of private interests and government. This complex uses prisons as a solution to economic, political and social problems. It comprises the elimination of disagreement, political prisoners, the media, policing, slave labor, the death penalty and violations of human rights.

The overlapping interests of industry and government use imprisonment, policing and surveillance as solutions to various problems.

Section Two

2. In the article, Gender Politics for Men, R.W Connell

Explain what Cornells statement means within the larger discussion of the article.

From the statement, Connell says that not all interests are egocentric. According to them, relationships can form the basis for the relational affairs of men in reforms. For instance, men relationships with women in their lives involve their wives being free of rape or threat of intimidation, in having equal pay and job security. He also talks about men having a concern in their daughters not facing sexual harassments while schooling and them having access to all occupations and pieces of training.

The interest of men in the gender hierarchy should be cross-cut by interests that they share with women. Men who try supporting politics that support feminism whether straight or gay are in for a harsh ride. In her opinion, men who seek progressive masculinity reforms can be comfortable despite living in a world marked by gender inequality and violence. Also, there is masculinity therapy which gives personal comfort as an alternative to social change.

What does Connell view as mens role to feminism?

As part of Connells theory of gender order, he recognizes many masculinities which vary from an individual, culture and time. In relation to feminism, he proposes to explain why and how men maintain social roles that are dominant over women and other identities of gender that get perceived as feminine in a given society.

Also, in her view, power and gender are emphasized in that gender is a social structure that is large scale and not just a matter of personal identity. In relation to feminism, men have interests that could lead to reform.

What does he mean by stating that men can be advocates for a politics of gender justice?

Connell emphasized that gender is a social structure that is large scale and not merely personal identity. Also, he warns that groups of men which have operated around male positivism and solidarity agendas tend to abandon social issues of justice. In the case of specific groups of men, Connell proposes that alternative models of political alliances for anti-sexist men should be introduced. In her argument, it is not necessarily true that masculinity politics require mens movements.

4. Bell Hooks (1990) States ones homeplace was the one site where one could freely confront the issue of humanization, where one could resist.

Explain this statement

Historically, people of the African-American race believed that the building of a homeplace no matter how thin and fragile had a radical dimension. Black women formed resistances by the construction of homes where all people of the black race strived to be subjects and not objects and where their hearts and minds could get acknowledged despite deprivation, hardship, and poverty. Also, homeplace was the site they could restore to themselves the dignity that was denied from them outside the public domain. In her book, Hook emphasizes the role of black women.

How does Hooks define homeplace

According to Hook, home place has a particular importance to the black society. An individuals homeplace was thought to be a persons home in addition to somewhere where one could nurture, develop, grow, their spirit, and resist. It was a place full of love and of free of white oppression.

Provide two examples which Hooks uses to demonstrate the gendered and racialized aspect of home and what it means to her.

i. Appreciating the African-American women and all they did and still do.

In her emphasis on black women, they were responsible for creating a homeplace setting and provide for the family. Her grandmother, for instance, had to care for white children, clean, and cook, and at the days end, she had to go home and take care of her own family. Fellow black women worked in the streets or fields. They did what was required to make enough money for survival. Hook informs her readers of the hardships that black women overcame and the legacies that they left behind. They were devoted to their families and did whatever was necessary to be responsible for them.

ii. Definition of a homeplace and the reason as to why

The hardships of isolation which the African American women endured are explained in Homeplace: A Site of Resistance. It represents and shows the fine lines or borders of segregation and how bad it became a well as the cozy comfort of a homeplace. For instance, Hooks says that she walks to her grandmothers house and feeling intimidated and tense, this happens through the ghettoized neighborhoods. She then deliberates the deeper meaning of homeplace and expounds on the importance of the black woman and their attainments in the society as females.