Feminist Theories, Single Mothers & Queer Politics

I just finished this paper for my "senior sequence" course in Feminist Theories in preparation for researching and writing my senior thesis. It's lengthier and more academic than what I tend to prefer publishing here. ....I also feel like it's still a little rough and caught up in the limitations of its own theory-speak. But it may be the closest I've come to a comprehensive declaration of academic & activist intent.

Sexual “Dystopia:”
I have this concept for a dystopian short story. In the not-so-distant future, same-sex marriages are legalized, and married same-sex couples are granted the full set of benefits and privileges associated with the marriage institution. Our story opens with a wealthy married male couple deciding to adopt their first child. The couple is interracial, consisting of one Black man and one White man, although in this imagined future, the discourse of “colorblindness” has progressed to such an extent that the mere mention of “race” is social taboo. The White male is intentionally unemployed, while the Black male produces a popular television program that is an amalgamation of the racist minstrelcy of Josephine Baker’s banana dance and the exploitation of contemporary reality television. The program’s cast, consisting primarily of women of color, cohabitate while participating in performance-based competitions. The show exploits the dramas and tensions between the competitors, as the nation voyeuristically thrills to their every “catfight.” In a parallel storyline, a young, pregnant and unmarried Black female is apprehended by security staff at a corporate retailer while attempting a petty scam for pocket cash. She is subsequently arrested, and after police discover her pregnancy, transferred to the care of State-sponsored psychologists, who convince her, with Foucaltian invasiveness, to give up her child and submit to a “rehabilitation” program. This rehabilitation consists of her being cast in the aforementioned reality program in order to instill an appropriate “work ethic,” while her child is given away to be raised by the same male couple with whom our story began.

It may be inaccurate to refer to my story as “dystopian.” “Dystopian” implies exaggeration. In dystopian literature, potentialities are taken to their absolute extreme to render effective allegories. But rather than an exaggeration, I conceptualize my story as political realism, as possible, even probable, within our immediate future. Is my story as conceivable as I imagine it to be? Approximately one year ago, I wrote the following (somewhat overwrought) statement in a blog entry addressing same-sex marriage activism:

Although I frequently feel wired for a particular kind of intimacy, I do not believe mine should be the only acceptable organizational model for sex or love. I am repulsed because I know that so particular a model cannot function for everyone, and because there is literally no widely intelligible language available to legitimize others' choices. This is what terrifies me about marriage activism. That there will be no liberation for the street-walking youth sucking cocks in an alley, that the welfare mother will still be marked a "moral degenerate." So long as the language of respectability governs our lives, so long as we require outsiders to remind us we're inside, to order our senseless reality.

In response, a friend asked, “what does marriage activism have to do with welfare mothers?” His question is valid. Both my statement and my short story assume, but do not specify, certain connections between racist/sexist classism and sexual moralism. What theoretical frameworks have shaped my thinking with relation to sexuality’s intersections with race, class and gender? How do I conceptualize and characterize my own theoretical position?

What follows is a narrative of my intellectual and activist process, an exploration of the theorists who have influenced my current interest in single mothers, particularly poor single mothers of color, as sexually “othered,” potentially “Queered” figures within American heteronormativity, and with the successes and limitations of GLBT and Queer politics with regard to intersectionality and social justice. I begin with an exploration of multiple and interrelated theories of sexuality and power, including Black feminist analyses of sexual racism and concepts of “sexual hierarchies” that emerge from Queer Theory. I then introduce theoretical languages for identifying shifting realities of race and sexuality in the contemporary U.S. that more immediately foreground the need for radical coalitions at the intersections of these systems. Finally, I synthesize these various frameworks to address the contemporary politics of both poor single mothers of color and same-sex marriage activism. By identifying the theories that have brought me to my current location, I illuminate directions for my future research.

Sexuality and Power:

Before exploring Black feminist and Queer theoretical frameworks on sexuality and power, it is necessary to foreground this examination in the Black and multiracial feminist concept of “intersectionality.” Intersectional theories posit White supremacy, capitalist imperialism, patriarchy and heteronormativity as interlocking and mutually reinforcing systems, what Patricia Hill Collins calls a “matrix of domination.” (Zinn & Dill 357). This does not mean that these systems are simply similar in nature, but rather that they are interdependent and mutually reinforcing; you can’t have one without the others. As described in the Combahee River Collective’s seminal “Black Feminist Statement,” “the major systems of oppression are interlocking. The synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives” (164, emphasis mine). Activist strategies to combat one system of oppression must address its intersecting systems in order to be effective.

Black feminist theorists have long addressed the particular intersection of sexuality and race, providing a history of American sexuality that differs markedly from dominant narratives. This history is grounded in a developed critique of the sexual “othering” of African American men and women within American White supremacy. As Barbara Omolade describes, “the sexual history of the Unites States began at the historical moment when European men met African women in the “heart of “darkness” (362). U.S. racial history is inseparable from U.S. sexual history, as sexualization is always a fundamental component of racialization. Black feminists have consistently exposed, combated and explored constructions of Black Americans as sexual “deviants”. To offer but a few examples, Omolade, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Angela Davis, Patricia Hill Collins and Cathy Cohen have grappled with the situation Davis characterizes thus;
The fictional image of the Black man as rapist has always strengthened its inseparable companion: The image of the Black woman as chronically promiscuous. For once the notion is accepted that Black men harbor irresistible and animal-like sexual urges, the entire race is invested with bestiality (182).

The constructed hyper-sexuality of Black Americans has been used both to create and justify Black Americans’ position as a wholly separate and inferior category of humanity. As Cathy Cohen explains these histories, “marriage and heterosexuality, as viewed through…the ideology of white supremacy, were reconfigured to justify the exploitation and regulation of black bodies, even those presumably engaged in heterosexual behavior” (505). White South African-American Queer scholar Ian Barnard elaborates on the mutually constitutive nature of race and sexuality, noting “sexuality is always racially marked, as every racial marking is imbued with a specific sexuality…I do not see sexuality and race as disparate constituents of subjectivity or axes of power, but rather sexuality as always-already racialized, and vice-versa” (200). Regardless of their orientation within the dominant American sexual classification system of hetero/homo, all Black Americans are invariably situated outside the White heteronormative ideal.

Queer theorists and related theorists of sexuality contribute alternative frameworks for evaluating sexuality and power by exploring sexuality as it own axis of oppression. In doing so, they move beyond the reductive hetero/homo binary that dominates most U.S. discourse on sexuality to provide more broadly applicable conceptions of sexuality and power. In “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality,” Gayle Rubin famously introduced the concept of “sexual hierarchies.” In Rubin’s schemata, sexuality is hierachiezed into a “charmed circle” of “good, normal, natural or blessed” acts and identities and an “outer limits” of “bad, abnormal, unnatural and damned” personalities and behaviors. Rubin’s “charmed circleincludes such normative behaviors and identities as “married, monogamous, procreative, vanilla and coupled,” while the “outer limits” are occupied by “deviant” sexualities” like promiscuity, pornography, homosexuality, cross-generationality and public sex. Although different forms of deviance may be more or less penalized at different times in history, sexuality functions as its own axis of power. Socially validated forms of sexuality are defined against their invalid or demonized counterparts. Michael Warner’s concept of the “politics of shame” provides a similar language for identifying sexuality as a prominent axis of power and privilege. Warner theorizes sexual shame as endemic to societies and individuals. Shame experienced broadly at the level of dominant cultural interaction is frequently deflected onto particularly “othered” bodies. Politically specific deployments of sexual shame may then result in hierarchies of shame, with particular acts and identities carrying greater shame than others.

Both Rubin and Warner have severe limitations with regard to sexuality’s intersections with race, class and gender. Rubin’s project of establishing sexuality as an autonomous system of power is imbedded in its historical context. Rubin’s work was a reaction to earlier feminist theorizing that understood sexuality solely as a function of gender and sexual oppression exclusively as product of patriarchy and male supremacy. Thus, her language has a tendency to over-differentiate sexuality from its related systems, treating sexuality, race, class and gender as parallel and similar rather than interlocking and interdependent. Missing from her analysis are the race, class and gender-specific sexualities that inhabit both “the outer limits” and “the charmed circle,” as well as the ways in which sexual hierarchies are mediated by race, class and gender. With regard to the former, the work of Black feminists allows us to see how many, if not all people of color are always already positioned in “the outer limits,” constructed as sexually “abnormal” prior to any engagement with the “deviant” behaviors and identities listed by Rubin. With regard to the latter, we may think of how the privilege possessed by a White upper-middle class heterosexual male allows him to dabble in “damned” behaviors like promiscuity, sex with prostitutes or even homosexual sex without being subject to the same circumspection as less White, middle-class, heterosexually-privileged individuals. Here, Warner provides us with useful language. He differentiates between temporary forms of sexual shaming based upon particular deviant sex acts and the permanently embodied sexual “stigma” attached to particular identities. Where shame can be transcended, stigma is understood as a fundamental or inherent component of particular sexual “others.” But this differentiation also becomes his most profound limitation, as he identifies Queer individuals (here, defined solely as GLBT) as the only persons who experience long-term sexual stigma. This assertion denies the race, class and gender-specific forms of identity-based sexual stigma identified by Black feminists. However, both Rubin and Warner’s work is salvageable when synthesized with the intersectional frameworks outlined earlier. We may understand sexuality as an autonomous system of power and privilege while simultaneously seeing sexuality as a fundamental component of how race, class and gender function to marginalize and empower various groups and individuals. We can augment Rubin’s sexual hierarchies with race, class and gender-specific sexualities while noting the way these hierachies are mediated by race, class and gender. Similarly, we can employ Warner’s language of hierarchies of shame while acknowledging raced, classed and gendered forms of sexual stigma. These theories of sexuality and power provide us with tools for evaluating social and political location of poor single mothers of color, who are situated at multiple intersections of race, class, sexuality and gender. They also help us more accurately gauge the successes and limitations of Queer and GLBT political movements in intersectional activism for social justice.

Race and Sexuality – Shifting Realities:

Recent work by contemporary Black feminists and Queer scholars of color establishes the pressing need for radical coalitions at the intersections of race, class, sexuality and gender. The shifting character of race and White supremacy in the U.S. make race’s connections with sexuality, class and gender more prescient than ever.

In her text Black Sexual Politics, Patricia Hill Collins introduces the concept of “the new racism.” The “new racism” is only “new” insomuch as it illustrates racism’s sophistication and ability to adapt to new conditions, to reflect an illusion of progress while maintaining identical power relations. As Hill Collins establishes, the “new racism” is rooted in historical exploitation and segregation of Black bodies. Although the Civil Rights movements of the 1950’s and 60’s succeeded in abolishing legalized segregation, inequalities remain pervasive. Hill Collins names the disproportionate effects of joblessness, incarceration, HIV/AIDS and sexual violence as well as poor healthcare, education and housing on Black Americans as markers of contemporary inequality. Additionally, segregation remains a reality, particularly in large urban centers where “hypersegregation” through ghettoization occurs.

Manifestations of inequality have become gender and class-specific. Contemporary racial inequalities rely upon class-specific, sexualized masculinities and femininities both in their execution and justification. Realities of middle-class Black successes are used to demonstrate racial progress in a “colorblind” age. Racism, we are told, no longer exists. The social conditions of many African Americans, rather than being caused by systemic power differentials, are caused by cultural insufficiencies. As Hill Collins notes, biologically racist arguments are largely a thing of the past, replaced by arguments of cultural deficiency. Such “cultural” justifications for inequality rely heavily on longstanding hyper-sexualized constructions of Black women and men. As Hill Collins says, “African American progress or lack thereof in achieving the gender norms attributed to Whites has long been used as a marker of racial progress…within a Western sex role ideology premised on ideas of strong men and weak women, the seeming role reversal among African Americans has been used to stigmatize Black people. This ideology…claims that Black masculinity and Black femininity reflect equally problematic conceptions of sexuality” (44). It is necessary to reject dominant gender ideals, Hill Collins argues, as they are inseparable from White supremacy. The “politics” of respectability are no longer effective antiracist practice. Rather, antiracist activisms must direct their work toward class, gender and sexuality-specific manifestations of White supremacy.

Cathy Cohen also identifies class, gender and sexuality-specific forms of racism. Her notion of “cross-cutting” and “consensus” issues in Black political organizing describes the functioning of hierarchies of sexuality and respectability within Black communities. Cohen notes that historically, Black communities have shown a political unity rare among American racial groups. But within the context of the more sophisticated forms of contemporary racism identified by Hill Collins, this unity has begun to break down. As Cohen describes, the dominant political agendas of Black communities are frequently determined by those who wield the greatest degree of power within hierarchies formed by class, gender and behavioral/sexual stigma. Cohen makes a distinction between “consensus” issues understood to affect the black community in its entirety and “cross-cutting” issues understood as divisive. “Cross-cutting” issues tend to be associated with the most “shamed” or “embarrassing” of black individuals – sexual minorities, women and the urban poor. Poor single mothers of color, “othered” by class, sexuality and gender, represent one such stigmatized figure. Both Patricia Hill Collins and Cathy Cohen highlight the need for contemporary Black politics to address the intersections of gender, sexuality and class with race. These arguments highlight the need for radical coalition between Black politics and Queer politics. But these coalitions are additionally impeded by similar hierarchies of respectability within Queer and GLBT politics, as well as by some White and middle-class Queer and LGBT activists’ non-acknowledgment of sexuality’s intersections with race, class and gender.

Poor Single Mothers of Color and Queer Activisms:

In “Punks, Bulldaggers and Welfare Queens,” Cathy Cohen applies the theories intersectionality, sexuality and power outlined previously to the particular situations of poor single mothers of color and GLBT/Queer political organizing. The majority of Cohen’s essay is a critique of Queer theory and Queer politics’ failure to address sexuality’s intersections with race, class and gender. Similar to the limitations of Gayle Rubin and Michael Warner’s theories of sexual hierarchy, Queer theories and activisms frequently fail to address the diversity of heterosexual experiences, including the manner in which many heterosexual people of color are far from possessing the full set of heterosexual privileges. As Cohen declares, “an understanding of how heteronormativity works to support and reinforce institutional racism, patriarchy, and class exploitation must therefore be part of how we problematize current constructions of heterosexuality” (40). In Cohen’s argument, the needs and priorities of poor single-mothers of color, whose marginality is justified by heteronormative sexual moralism, could become key sites for emerging Queer activisms. For instance, welfare rights and universal healthcare might be understood as explicitly Queer concerns.

It is my contention that dominant LGBT and Queer organizing’s singular prioritization of marriage rights agendas inhibits radical coalitions and activism for intersectional social justice. In his article, “Welfare Moms and the Two Grooms: The Concurrent Promotion and Restriction of Marriage in US Public Policy,” National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) policy analyst Sean Cahill correctly identifies the discursive relationship between GLBT individuals seeking marriage and unmarried “welfare” mothers, as both are constructed by the Right as threats to heteronormativity. However, he problematically situates these groups’ interests as fully mutual, concluding, “women’s economic self-sufficiency will never be assured by coercion into economically dependent roles, from which many women only recently emerged. And the continued exclusion of lesbian and gay-headed households from the economic benefits that help ensure other families’ well-being will serve only to put them and their children at economic risk” (183). Cahill fails to question whether the social validation of GLBT “marriages” and two-parent GLBT families in the absence of broader reconstructions of White supremacist capitalist patriarchal heteronormative models may serve to directly disadvantage poor single mothers of color. The inclusion of married gays and lesbians within the “charmed circle” may only mean harsher penalties for those still occupying the “outer limits,” including those sexually “othered” primarily by race and class. Marriage is not a politically neutral recognition of one couple’s relationship, but rather a State-sanctioned social privilege. Within intersecting systems of race, class, gender and sexuality-based oppression, privileges for some invariably result in disempowerment for others. As Michael Warner argues, “as long as people marry, the state will continue to regulate the sexual lives of those who do not marry” (96). These realities lead a coalition of radical LGBT scholars and activists to declare, in contrast to Cahill’s statement, that “all families, relationships and households struggling for stability and economic security will be helped by separating basic forms of legal and economic recognition from the requirement of marital and conjugal relationship” (BEYOND).

Building upon my synthesis and application of various Black feminist and Queer theories to the experiences of poor single mothers of color and the successes and limitations of GLBT and Queer activisms for intersectional social justice, I believe my “dystopian” vision emerges as politically realist. It is far from unforeseeable that further marginalization of poor single mothers of color might result from the successes of GLBT marriage activism. However, additional research is necessary to more effectively approach these challenging questions.

Two potential research projects have emerged from my engagement with influential theories. One project is an analysis of single mothers of color -- their sexualization by the State and in social policy, as well as the ways women negotiate these realities. The second project is an in-depth study of GLBT and Queer organizations engaging issues of intersectional social justice, including these groups’ strategies for coalition, their challenges and their allies. How do they sustain their work? How are resources apportioned? How does the current political climate shape their activism? These question lead to broader questions about Queer activism more generally; how are Queer politics currently defined? To what extent does this acknowledge intersectionality? Finally, what may we learn from the groups inhabiting these spaces?


Works Cited:

Barnard, Ian. “Queer Race.” Social Semiotics. 9: 2, 1999. 199-212.

“Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision for All Our Families and Relationships.” http://www.beyondmarriage.org, July 260, 2006. Accessed November 18, 2006.

Cahill, Sean. “Welfare Moms and the Two Grooms: The Concurrent Promotion and Restriction of Marriage in US Public Policy.” Sexualities. 8: 2, 2005. 170-187.

The Combahee River Collective. “A Black Feminist Statement” Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives. Ed. Carole R. McCann and Seung-Kyung Kim. New York: Routledge, 2003.

Cohen, Cathy. The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.

.... “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?” Feminist Frontiers. Ed. Laurel Richardson, et al. Mc Graw Hill, 6th edition, 2004.

Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender and the New Racism. New York: Routledge, 2005.

Davis, Angela. Women Race & Class. New York: Vintage Books, 1981.

Omolade, Barbara. “Hearts of Darkness.” Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought. Ed. Beverly Guy-Sheftall. New York: New Press, 1995. 362-378.

Rubin, Gayle S. “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality.” Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality. Ed. Carole S. Vance. London: Pandora Press, 1989.

Warner, Michael. The Trouble with Normal. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999.

Zinn, Maxine Baca and Bonnie Thornton Dill. “Theorizing Difference from Multiracial Feminism.” Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives. Ed. Carole R. McCann and Seung-Kyung Kim. New York: Routledge, 2003.