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Gender, Power and the State: Don't ask Don't Tell

6 comments

Posted by PunkJohnnyCash on May 28, 2010 in Current, feminism | 6 comments

Current talks and legislation of the Don’t ask Don’t tell policy has limited impact on state power and bias in issues of gender and sexuality. This may be a step in the right direction, but a very small step to where we need to go. Within military structure there are issues and questions that must be addressed as well as in culture and state power over culture. It is time the state was eliminated from all gender issues and power structures that revolve around gender. Oppression based on the individuals gender must be eliminated. Even relationships between people of opposite genders are regulated by the state. This regulation came from an attempt eliminate interracial relationships with Anti-miscegenation laws. The same laws are now used to oppress people of diverse sexual orientations. Often the loudest voice then was the church with concepts such as ‘The Curse Of Ham‘ and still to this day is the loudest oppressor in gender issues while teaching the virtues of the polygamist patriarchy of the Tanakh.

In the case as something as simple as transvestitism, we begin to see how a power structure of the state begins to make issues. The U.S.M.C.’s strict dress standards are based on gender. That will quickly become an issue for someone like a transvestite. These dress code standards reach to the personal time of the Marine, not only when they are in uniform. A transvestite is not someone with Gender dysphoria necessarily, they are simply one who dresses the opposite gender. This is not always the same as one with gender identity issues that may go beyond the case of an occasional dressing in ladies panties.

There are many issues of sexuality that can be addressed by the elimination of the state power in the don’t ask don’t tell policy. It is not limited to the military. The majority of people fill out state documentation without considering the questions that are being asked. You may look at the question Male or Female and have no difficulty answering it. You may joke about how easy it is to answer the question.This is not the case with all people. Intersex individuals or people with Gender dysphoria and other issues of gender ambiguity are people who are often one gender externally and another gender internally either biologically, mentally or in their chromosomes. These individuals are most often by the state forced to check the Male or Female box and find their role in society based on this rigid concept of gender that they may not biologically fit.  Imagine the humiliation of knowing the state does not even acknowledge how you were born.

We must not take a perspective that is ‘gender blind’ but one that does not restrict or decide upon gender in it’s many forms. Often to equalize gender we look at bringing the female gender into the patriarchial system. The girls get to join the ‘boy’s club’ and the women who can ‘make it in the boy’s club’ are the ones who are successful. In a political system founded on the rules of a rich white male slave owning patriarchy is it shocking it evolved to their favor? This is liberty to follow the existing state and power structures, it is not liberty structured for each individual regardless of gender or gender association. When this structure does not recognize the other issues of gender ambiguity how can we begin to say this minority will ever have liberty or equal acceptance or power within the structure?

The structure of the state is not set up to handle the ambiguity that truly exists in gender or gender roles. The state goes further to perpetuate traditional gender biases in roles. The state honors a time of male ownership over the woman by perpetuation of the concept of a father giving away the woman to her husband. Here a form of symbolic ownership is marked the legal changing from the name she inherited from her father to the name of the husband. The system of power the state claims in the structure of families and divorce is another example of perpetuating sexist roles. The state often clings to a barbaric concept of the hunter gatherer model when dividing and enforcing responsibilities in cases of divorce and custody of children and child support. The male is often expected to be a financial provider and little more while the female is often expected to take the motherly child raising role. There was a time when it was common for a man to take the children because he held all the power in the law. Now we see the ‘power’ and opportunities given to women in these cases is to ‘raise children’ while the male takes on the ‘hunter’ role and is often forced to pay for this model financially.

From everyday common practices and accepted cultural norms such as marriage and relationship control to the minority intersex individuals the state must relinquish it’s power. It’s power and assumptions of sexual and gender norms alone have restrictive abilities on an individuals liberty. If this restriction is not direct it can be seen indirectly by perpetuating the superiority of the ‘normal’ of the majority. All power structures must be questioned and abolished. The abolition of state power is essential in this. We can never consider yourself a free country if we are only truly free to be born a certain gender or orientation.

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  • Bart

    Well done article.

    One thing though, you might want to use the word transgender, instead of using transvestite. Transgender is generally the word of choice now, due to the negative connotation of the word transvestite.

    Otherwise, very well done article.

  • Bart

    Well done article.One thing though, you might want to use the word transgender, instead of using transvestite. Transgender is generally the word of choice now, due to the negative connotation of the word transvestite.Otherwise, very well done article.

  • http://twitter.com/momus1978 Jay Batman

    There are several issues that I would raise in regards to your theme. First, we've come a way from the days when "a rich white male slave owning patriarchy" held sway over the rules and regulations of this country. There is more than ample evidence that even George Washington was aware of how morally wrong slavery was. He referred to it as an evil in his personal correspondence with others. Suffice it to say, George Washington did nothing to challenge the dominant ideal of his day. What is more, even if he had, he would likely have failed. This is not to excuse Washington from culpability; instead, it is merely to not that he was aware of the wrong and did nothing to oppose it, despite a legacy of exhorting the troops under his command to abstain from torture even as the British routinely engaged in that abhorrent practice. The issue of our history is not as simple as painting our Founding Fathers with broadstrokes as rich white patriarchal types. They were, as you and I are, creatures of their time and era. Today, we can speak of these things with far wider latitude. What is more, a measure of just how far we've come is this: I did not ask my wife's father for her hand in marriage. He was not even invited to the wedding. The two of us decided to have a wedding on the beach in La Jolla by ourselves, with just the officiant and his wife as our witnesses. America, despite all of the aspersions cast upon her, is a land of greater freedom and self-determination relative to any other land on this planet. Is she perfect? No. No nation ever is. But a measure of her greatness is this: she holds to her bosom even those recalcitrant children who demonstrate the temerity to rebuke her for failings. In fact, those children are the same before her as those who slavishly offer up their unquestioning adoration. We have a rich heritage of acclaiming dissent as the highest form of patriotism. We've tolerated the iconoclasts, the heretics, and the dissenters. Has their path been easy? No. But before our Constitution they were the same as everyone else. The resistance came from those individuals who, in the course of trying defend America from perceived denigration, acted in a manner that flouted what America really is: a land of many beliefs, ideologies, and creeds, all interacting in a commerce of arguments and exchanges. I do not believe the state has any role perpetuating anything other than national defense, laws against fraud, the enforcement of contracts, infrastructure, and the administration thereof, at least at the federal level. Under the 10th Amendment, states enjoy wide latitude to regulate virtually every area of our lives. And, oh, how they have enjoyed this power. Change is gradual and incremental in our society. Most of the states have repealed their laws against sodomy. They've relaxed their enforcement of other laws on moral behavior and decision making like adultery as well. For the fire breathing revolutionaries and dissenters, of which I happen to be in the forefront, this is perhaps not fast enough for our liking. But it is part of the peculiar genius of those men who founded our nation, imperfect as they were, recognizing that other imperfect people would come along and want to amend their little creation. They allowed for that through the process of amendment, and also through the notion that rights not enumerated were not non-existent, but rather reserved to the people. They went on to delegate powers not explicitly reserved to Congress and the federal government to the states and the people in the 10th Amendment. That last bit, with power falling to the people, tends to go by the wayside according to states' rights advocates. Nonetheless, it is there, a potent reinforcement of the notion that individuals who possess unenumerated and unquantified rights also have powers beyond those of Congress. For all of the invective we may hurl at our forefathers, we cannot deny them one thing: they knew that they weren't right about everything, and they left us a process by which to amend and correct their narrow view of the world as they experienced it. They bequeathed to us a means of expanding the liberties they passed down to us, a means of making freedom more widely available. If we fail to do so, the fault does not lie with those who came before us. It lies squarely on our own shoulders. No matter how we protest, or how much we attempt to dissociate ourselves from the blame for the society we inherited, the fact remains that we have two hands, two feet, minds, and a process by which to change that with which we so vehemently disagree. Hurling invective at men long gone, or slandering a state for our own failures to effect the sort of change we want does not disguise the fact that the shortcoming, if there is any, is ours and ours alone. I don't pretend to get transvestites. I consider myself to be a pretty tolerant person. I've attended pride days, parades, and not as an opponent of gay rights, but as an ardent enthusiast for their expansion. I've had three openly gay fraternity brothers, one of whom was my chapter's alumni advisor. We elected him to the position. One of my roommates in college was gay. He's one of the few friends from college that I socialize with today. Like all heterosexual men, I love lesbians. This is a source of great consternation to some of their ranks. The transgenders and the transvestites are not individuals I dislike or disdain. I just don't pretend to be some enlightened being who understands them or their particular identification. Our inclinations and outlooks are totally different, I suppose. But there is something within me that recoils at the notion that any individual, especially an individual in an extreme minority, ought to have to suffer bullying by a state or a democratic majority. I've always rooted for the underdog. I'm no enthusiast of statist coercion outside of certain enumerated and limited areas either. With that said, I'm not going to resort to ad hominem slams at patriarchy. I like my dad. He's a good guy, even though he beat the hell out of me quite a bit growing up. In a lot of respects, I hope to be as good and as involved with my children as he was. I enjoy being the head of a household, and my wife enjoys it as well. I suppose I don't thump my chest in the traditional way, or dominate her in a way that one would typically associate with a patriarchal relationship. My authority, insofar as I have any, exists to provide her with a better, freer, and more secure existence. Would it were that the state had the same view of its authority towards all of its citizens. I go forth to see that it one day will. Jay Batman

  • http://twitter.com/momus1978 Jay Batman

    There are several issues that I would raise in regards to your theme. First, we’ve come a way from the days when “a rich white male slave owning patriarchy” held sway over the rules and regulations of this country. There is more than ample evidence that even George Washington was aware of how morally wrong slavery was. He referred to it as an evil in his personal correspondence with others.

    Suffice it to say, George Washington did nothing to challenge the dominant ideal of his day. What is more, even if he had, he would likely have failed. This is not to excuse Washington from culpability; instead, it is merely to not that he was aware of the wrong and did nothing to oppose it, despite a legacy of exhorting the troops under his command to abstain from torture even as the British routinely engaged in that abhorrent practice.

    The issue of our history is not as simple as painting our Founding Fathers with broadstrokes as rich white patriarchal types. They were, as you and I are, creatures of their time and era. Today, we can speak of these things with far wider latitude.

    What is more, a measure of just how far we’ve come is this: I did not ask my wife’s father for her hand in marriage. He was not even invited to the wedding. The two of us decided to have a wedding on the beach in La Jolla by ourselves, with just the officiant and his wife as our witnesses.

    America, despite all of the aspersions cast upon her, is a land of greater freedom and self-determination relative to any other land on this planet. Is she perfect? No. No nation ever is. But a measure of her greatness is this: she holds to her bosom even those recalcitrant children who demonstrate the temerity to rebuke her for failings. In fact, those children are the same before her as those who slavishly offer up their unquestioning adoration.

    We have a rich heritage of acclaiming dissent as the highest form of patriotism. We’ve tolerated the iconoclasts, the heretics, and the dissenters. Has their path been easy? No. But before our Constitution they were the same as everyone else. The resistance came from those individuals who, in the course of trying defend America from perceived denigration, acted in a manner that flouted what America really is: a land of many beliefs, ideologies, and creeds, all interacting in a commerce of arguments and exchanges.

    I do not believe the state has any role perpetuating anything other than national defense, laws against fraud, the enforcement of contracts, infrastructure, and the administration thereof, at least at the federal level. Under the 10th Amendment, states enjoy wide latitude to regulate virtually every area of our lives. And, oh, how they have enjoyed this power.

    Change is gradual and incremental in our society. Most of the states have repealed their laws against sodomy. They’ve relaxed their enforcement of other laws on moral behavior and decision making like adultery as well. For the fire breathing revolutionaries and dissenters, of which I happen to be in the forefront, this is perhaps not fast enough for our liking.

    But it is part of the peculiar genius of those men who founded our nation, imperfect as they were, recognizing that other imperfect people would come along and want to amend their little creation. They allowed for that through the process of amendment, and also through the notion that rights not enumerated were not non-existent, but rather reserved to the people. They went on to delegate powers not explicitly reserved to Congress and the federal government to the states and the people in the 10th Amendment. That last bit, with power falling to the people, tends to go by the wayside according to states’ rights advocates. Nonetheless, it is there, a potent reinforcement of the notion that individuals who possess unenumerated and unquantified rights also have powers beyond those of Congress.

    For all of the invective we may hurl at our forefathers, we cannot deny them one thing: they knew that they weren’t right about everything, and they left us a process by which to amend and correct their narrow view of the world as they experienced it. They bequeathed to us a means of expanding the liberties they passed down to us, a means of making freedom more widely available.

    If we fail to do so, the fault does not lie with those who came before us. It lies squarely on our own shoulders. No matter how we protest, or how much we attempt to dissociate ourselves from the blame for the society we inherited, the fact remains that we have two hands, two feet, minds, and a process by which to change that with which we so vehemently disagree. Hurling invective at men long gone, or slandering a state for our own failures to effect the sort of change we want does not disguise the fact that the shortcoming, if there is any, is ours and ours alone.

    I don’t pretend to get transvestites. I consider myself to be a pretty tolerant person. I’ve attended pride days, parades, and not as an opponent of gay rights, but as an ardent enthusiast for their expansion. I’ve had three openly gay fraternity brothers, one of whom was my chapter’s alumni advisor. We elected him to the position. One of my roommates in college was gay. He’s one of the few friends from college that I socialize with today. Like all heterosexual men, I love lesbians. This is a source of great consternation to some of their ranks.

    The transgenders and the transvestites are not individuals I dislike or disdain. I just don’t pretend to be some enlightened being who understands them or their particular identification. Our inclinations and outlooks are totally different, I suppose. But there is something within me that recoils at the notion that any individual, especially an individual in an extreme minority, ought to have to suffer bullying by a state or a democratic majority. I’ve always rooted for the underdog. I’m no enthusiast of statist coercion outside of certain enumerated and limited areas either.

    With that said, I’m not going to resort to ad hominem slams at patriarchy. I like my dad. He’s a good guy, even though he beat the hell out of me quite a bit growing up. In a lot of respects, I hope to be as good and as involved with my children as he was. I enjoy being the head of a household, and my wife enjoys it as well. I suppose I don’t thump my chest in the traditional way, or dominate her in a way that one would typically associate with a patriarchal relationship. My authority, insofar as I have any, exists to provide her with a better, freer, and more secure existence. Would it were that the state had the same view of its authority towards all of its citizens. I go forth to see that it one day will.

    Jay Batman

    • http://www.gonzotimes.com/ PunkJohnnyCash

      If an economist were to create a test it would most likely favor other economists over artists. The same way is with our system. A system created by Rich White Males would favor the rich white male. It may not even be by intent, simply by the natural bias that has occurred this seen as evidence in looking at who holds the majority of the power.

      So to say a Rich White Male Patriarchy is not a slam as much as a point of who has held the most success in the country. The fact remains they laid down a system that was repressive and remains repressive. Look at the advancements in the civil rights movements and the hindrances that were put in place in the same era.

      The interstate highway acts of the 50′s and 60′s catered to the existing class of wealth which was mostly white. It enabled a class segregation at a time that the upper class and middle class was almost exclusively white male. This would cut off the inner-city and poverty by outer-belts. This creates restrictions of who can obtain the wealth which was taken from the cities to those who had the financial resources to purchase cars and to pay the state for the ‘privilege’ to drive. Why did the lower income not just move to the newer areas? They could often not afford to. Some made it out, but zoning restrictions in place by the state would eliminate a diverse array of living options that was once being created in cities. Multi-family dwellings which were affordable and available to lower classes would be prohibited in most areas of concentrated wealth.

      It was not the invention of the car that brought the suburbs about. It was the state’s interstates, and it was directed to the upper class at a time the upper class was very much the image of the white male patriarchy.

      It’s as if the rules were laid down to favor one group and on top of that they stacked the cards. It is not only the power of the state I oppose it would be all power over another within race, gender or sexuality also. If I allow another group to do what I oppose in the state I see that I have double standards in only opposing the government in it.

      I can not blame the oppressed for being oppressed. The oppressor or those who use power are the ones for who I place blame on. Do I say that the abused woman is to be blamed for not ending her abuse? No. We must address the perpetrator of the crime and not just leave all blame on the victim.

  • http://www.gonzotimes.com/ PunkJohnnyCash

    If an economist were to create a test it would most likely favor other economists over artists. The same way is with our system. A system created by Rich White Males would favor the rich white male. It may not even be by intent, simply by the natural bias that has occurred this seen as evidence in looking at who holds the majority of the power. So to say a Rich White Male Patriarchy is not a slam as much as a point of who has held the most success in the country. The fact remains they laid down a system that was repressive and remains repressive. Look at the advancements in the civil rights movements and the hindrances that were put in place in the same era.The interstate highway acts of the 50's and 60's catered to the existing class of wealth which was mostly white. It enabled a class segregation at a time that the upper class and middle class was almost exclusively white male. This would cut off the inner-city and poverty by outer-belts. This creates restrictions of who can obtain the wealth which was taken from the cities to those who had the financial resources to purchase cars and to pay the state for the 'privilege' to drive. Why did the lower income not just move to the newer areas? They could often not afford to. Some made it out, but zoning restrictions in place by the state would eliminate a diverse array of living options that was once being created in cities. Multi-family dwellings which were affordable and available to lower classes would be prohibited in most areas of concentrated wealth.It was not the invention of the car that brought the suburbs about. It was the state's interstates, and it was directed to the upper class at a time the upper class was very much the image of the white male patriarchy. It's as if the rules were laid down to favor one group and on top of that they stacked the cards. It is not only the power of the state I oppose it would be all power over another within race, gender or sexuality also. If I allow another group to do what I oppose in the state I see that I have double standards in only opposing the government in it.I can not blame the oppressed for being oppressed. The oppressor or those who use power are the ones for who I place blame on. Do I say that the abused woman is to be blamed for not ending her abuse? No. We must address the perpetrator of the crime and not just leave all blame on the victim.