Queer Politics, Gender and Patriarchy Pt.2: Gender Roles and Playing in Patriarchy

This will be the second part of the previous post on queer politics, gender and patriarchy. As I said previously, Sheila Jeffreys has inspired a lot of constructive thought and ideas in my mind surrounding these topics. In this post I wanted to venture into gender in the queer community. Now, as I had mentioned, I was close friends with a few people who liked to hang out in the queer community, and some identified as feminists. I’ll admit, I had a blast with these ex-friends and will always have fond memories. Ironically enough my friend’s interest in hanging out with dudes who talk about fucking numerous women is what started to turn me away from our friendship. I couldn’t grasp why she felt this dude was pro-feminist when he clearly spoke of women like mere objects. But then I realized that she and a few of her queer friends started talking about women as objects, too. The conversations started sounding like grade 10 gym class – the boys would objectify women and make sexist jokes during breaks. The women I hung out with seemed to act the same way as chauvinist dudes. Why? I have no idea. But it was enough for me to back away from the friendship. What I am left wondering is how these people can possibly claim to be feminist when they objectify other women. Not to mention the embracing of male-influenced power struggles that you find in a heteronormative society. But they would tell me how they hate heteronormative, gendered stereotypes and sexism! So, what gives?

Well, I realized that there was a lot of gender being embraced with my group of friends, at first they told me they wanted to abolish gender, but yet they were filling in old gender roles. On a particular night, we all went to a gay club for a gender bender. I admit that I took on the masculine role in my attire for that evening, and I did have a lot of fun. What made me curious, however, was the amount of women with fake moustaches, fake penises and smacking other women’s butts. My mind always slips back to high school boys who harassed the girls at school, made phallocentric gestures and worshipped their penises. What I still don’t quite understand is taking gender from masculine and feminine traits all the way over to filling socialized gender bubbles. These women were acting like men, in every sense of the way – they acted like they aspired to be men more than women and treat other women like a man would. I’m not talking about a pro-feminist man; I’m talking about misogynistic, sleazy dudes. Now why, if you want to abolish gender, would you act in a way that resembles patriarchy? If anyone knows why, please tell me.

Sheila Jeffreys figures it has to do with the fact, again, that queer politics was established by men and ignored women. She argues that male-dominant and patriarchal behaviour became popularized in the 1990s lesbian community through the gay male community. I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with her, but I have no other theories. I understand gender play, but I don’t understand this idea of caring about women while treating them like pieces of meat. You can still be a chauvinist pig and be a female; Ariel Levy showed us that, so you can’t use your sex as an excuse. Just because women are an oppressed class in society does not mean we should make the situation worse for our sisters. I also want to clarify that I’m not fully capable of the same critique as Jeffreys since I am not a lesbian and I can’t understand all the elements of the lesbian community. However, I do not feel it is right to claim that one cannot critique a community to which they do not belong to. The private is the public and the political; nothing should be excluded from a radical feminist critique.

Another important thing to keep in mind is the amount of postmodernist thought that has came from queer theory (established by dudes) about freedom, or rather lack there of. There has been no ‘freedom’ for women since the writing up of queer theory. Until we stop hurting other women for sexual purposes or sadistic purposes than we aren’t going to have any! Jeffreys states that lesbian feminism has changed since the gay community has changed in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the introduction of ‘lesbian’ pornography, penis toys and S&M paraphernalia. I really can’t disagree with her, since I am not a lesbian feminist and haven’t been an activist since the 1960s. She brings a lot of important points as well as critiquing where others don’t dare critique. I’d like to know everyone’s thoughts on gender and gender play, what are the limits for you? How do you feel about women aspiring to be men? Why become patriarchy instead of destroying it?