Month: February 2018

Queer Theory, from my understanding, is a method of cultural study that aims to reject traditional views on gender and sexuality as well as understand the construction and implementation of a binary system.  Looking at the world through the lens of queer theory allows individuals to deconstruct the binaries within our society, and reconstruct their own notions of societally imposed categories. It is a perspective that is useful for every individual no matter the field, including the sciences.  In the field of Chemical Engineering, this perspective is useful to have as one will meet a multitude of people from different backgrounds and cultures in the job. Chemical engineering is known as being dominated by white-males and in applying the perspective of queer theory to the relationships and power dynamics within the field, one is able to destruct the pre-existing patriarchy.

 In Cathy Cohen’s piece, Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens, draws on the relationship between marriage and white supremacy.  She writes: “… marriage and heterosexuality, as viewed through the lenses of profit and domination, and the ideology of white supremacy, were reconfigured to justify the exploitation and regulation of black bodies” (454). To explain this connection, Cohen uses examples that stem back to colonial times.   Interracial marriage was prohibited and laws were enacted during the seventeenth century to restrict it from happening. The “mixing” of the races caused such anxiety during not only the colonial times, but up until 1967 during the Civil Rights Movement, and arguably still causes a certain level of anxiety in society.  The “interbreeding” or marrying individuals from different “races” was regulated all the way into the nineteenth century as the “one-drop” rule comes to mind when thinking about tactics used to maintain the “pure” and hegemonic white race.  

The laws prohibiting miscegenation were not appealed by the United States Supreme Court until thirteen years after its Brown decision to desegregate schools. Prohibiting interracial marriage, as A. Leon Hibbinbotham, Jr., expresses in his book, The Matter of Color-Race and the American Legal Process: The Colonial Period, is representative of the American legal tradition of preserving the white race.  From this example, the regulating of behavior of people, namely heterosexuals that are/were considered on the outside of heteronormative privilege can be seen.  To marry someone that is of a different race than one’s own was viewed as threatening to a system of white, upper-class and heterosexual domination.

Cohen’s discussion of this relationship between marriage and white supremacy is relevant to her plea for “difficult work of coalition politics” as it is a relationship that marginalizes people across different races, ethnicities and sexes (462). In discussing this relationship, Cohen is “recognizing the link between the ideological, social, political, and economic marginalization” of different groups of people (462).  Coalition politics is difficult work in its attempt to unite marginalized groups towards a shared goal.  

Sources:

Cathy J. Cohen, “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?” GLQ 3 (1997): 437-465.

Queer Theory is a post-modernist approach to analysis that attempts to deconstruct existing preconceptions of sexuality and gender as they relate to larger structures such as social interactions, political institutions, and power dynamics.  It also helps to redefine expressions of sexuality and gender outside of the typical binaries, i.e. Homo/Heterosexual, Male/Female.

I think Queer Theory could be a useful topic of study for other Audio / Music Engineering majors simply to bring awareness of or to create a general context by which to understand and relate to people whose gender expression and/or sexuality falls outside of the typical binaries.  For those working directly with artists, e.g. recording/mixing engineers or producers, it is absolutely essential to be able to relate to and communicate effectively with the artist you are helping create art with.  In a traditionally cisgendered male dominated field, it is essential that engineers understand and help to facilitate and solidify the message of the artist.  With queer artists starting to become more and more visible in mainstream media, studios need to function not only as places of business but also safe spaces for artists of all gender identities  and sexual orientations.

Cathy Cohen as a queer woman of color has a great deal of insight into the necessity for the intersectionality of queer politics.  She argues that marriage and homosexuality plus the ideology of white supremacy were reconfigured to justify the exploitation and regulation of black bodies.  One such example of this reconfiguration is evident in the illegality of mixed race marriages which remained in place from colonial times until 1967 with the notion of keeping the white race “pure” at the center of its enforcement (454).  In this way black Americans became even more “other” to whites and without the legal intervention that eventually allowed mixed race marriage would remain even more segregated.  This argument ties into Cohen’s discussion of coalition politics in that it presents a parallel to the illegality and suppression of gay marriage with a similar argument involving purity, thereby tying two marginalized groups together and relating their struggles rather than feeding into the divisive dichotomy of straights vs. queers.  Coalition politics is difficult in this way as it necessitates cooperation and a shared sense of marginalization in order to properly draw all groups into the “fight”.  In the case of the AIDS ACT UP coalition, the universality of the issue and the unified resistance against the government’s and biomedical industries’ response to the epidemic was the motivator for all different groups of people to join in.  However without such a wide-scale crisis it is harder for marginalized people of all races, sexual orientations, and classes to step outside of their usual spaces and social spheres.

Citation: Cohen, Cathy J. “Punks, Bulldaggers and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?”, GLQ, vol. 3,  1997, pp. 437-465.

My definition personal definition of queer theory, as developed in last class, is that queer theory questions and challenges gender and sexuality in our society. It aims to push our thoughts of gender and sexuality to the edge. Coming from an environmental studies major, it may be less clear as to how one may apply perspectives of queer theory. I think that queer theory can help those of the same or similar major become more inquisitive about what is typically accepted as fact. It may help us push boundaries and strive for a deeper understanding in existing systems. Rather than just going along with what we’ve always been told, queer theory allows us to further question systems in place to get a better understanding of why they’re there, if they’re needed, and if they could be improved upon. Further, as one of the most progressive generations thus far, I believe it is important for us to decide what kind of future we would like to see for our generation and future generations.

Cathy Cohen points out the relationship between the institution of marriage and white supremacy. For example, Cohen points out that central to the American legal tradition was the preservation of the white race. Interracial marriage was made illegal to prevent the mixing of races and, although we think of this as a far off past, these laws were not repealed until 1967. This relates to Cohen’s pleas for “difficult work of coalition politics” (484). Only after we address these issues intersectionality in terms of race, class, and gender privilege will we be able to begin the work on this coalition of politics. The coalition of politics is so difficult because so many needs and injustices need to be addressed at once and it needs to be done intersectionality to prevent groups being left out. It’s hard to balance all of the needs of such a varying group of people.

Cathy J. Cohen, “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?” GLQ 3 (1997): 437-465.

I believe queer theory to be the analysis and juxtaposition of both gender and sexual identity against internal, external, and societal constructs and predispositions.

The discourse of Queer Theory is not incredibly present in my chosen field of study (music composition) due to its emphasis on conservative tradition. Ironically, though, this makes it brim with opportunity to unpack the various traditions within it, i.e. dissecting the notion behind gendered voices in a field where there are already non-gendered descriptors such as soprano, alto, tenor, bass, etc. As a contrast, there is plenty of queer and social activist-oriented discourse in underground, DIY types of music (and more avant-garde, experimental fields) in which I participate as a byproduct of my major, and I think that background can be helpful for discussing the discourse and implementation of queer theory.

In Cohen’s article she discusses the link between marriage and white supremacy—one of the examples she uses comes from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in which black women and men in the slave system were not able to get married. This is an important distinction due to it being a strong example of what Cohen describes as

“the state and its regulation of sexuality, in particular through the institution of heterosexual marriage, to designate which individuals were truly ‘fit’ for full rights and privileges of citizenship.” (Cohen 453)

This idea of the state controlling rights definitely correlates to white supremacy and in turn marriage. The seemingly unattainable image of a “nuclear family” has little context for all Americans and is greatly influenced by social mobility, race relations, and sexuality, and to strive for this same aesthetic but for queer people is counterintuitive to liberation. This relates to her view of coalition politics being difficult due to the amount of systemic ways of oppression that color how different people relate to not just queerness but how that queerness then relates to society. She speaks throughout the article regarding “strengthening many communities” (Cohen 453)—by this she means that in order to form successful coalitions it is necessary to acknowledge that not everybody interacts with societal constructs in the same manner and to deconstruct society as a whole it is necessary to deconstruct it from every aspect, making it accessible to everyone.

Citation: Cohen, Cathy J. “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?”, GLQ3, 437-482

I would define Queer Theory as a framework that examines the binary of our ideas of homosexuals and heterosexuals and gender and sexuality by identifying how and why power is wielded in and across these categories.

I think Queer Theory serves as a useful additional lense for understanding written narratives for comparative literature majors. In addition to Feminist Theory, Queer Theory supplies a reader with the vocabulary necessary to consider power dynamics, motivation, and other aspects of characterization. When specifically applied to comparing literatures transnationally, Queer Theory serves as a tool that could locate differences and similarities in literary representations of the society the writers of different works live in.

In her article “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics,” Cohen provides the example of the legal barriers against interracial marriage that existed until the late 1960s. Here, the relationship between marriage and white supremacy is queered as the institution of marriage is recognized as a cultural practice grounded in the “preservation of the white race.” To draw a divide between those who are heterosexual and those who are queer dismisses this and other consequences of behavior that is found to be unacceptable by the ruling tradition of white supremacy. With their similarities in mind, queer and heterosexual people alike could potentially come together to form a coalition against the forces that they oppose. One of the difficulties of coalition politics is effectively utilizing intersection ideas and addressing the variance of power held by different persons in these groups.

Citation: Cathy J. Cohen, “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?” GLQ 3 (1997): 437-465.