“Heterogender”:

Thinking Gender, Thinking Intersectionality

Intersectionality frames our ability to understand the gender system. Really, this conversation is about centering the role that heteronormativity plays in constructing gender within a patriarchal system. This is the first intersection: gender and (hetero)sexuality. Of course, since intersectionality is about how we are positioned within a broad matrix of power and inequality, the conversation is also about how heterosexuality functions within a patriarchal gender system to enable (cisgender) men and to constrain (cisgender) women and the transgender community. The most notable example: the (hetero)sexual — gendered — double standard. Or, as Chrys Ingraham calls it: heterogender.

Note, here, that heterosexuality is about more than sexual behaviors: it’s about curfews, and cooking, and care taking, and so much more. Engaging in these heteronormative tasks is a central aspect of “doing gender” in the patriarchal system that organize U.S. society. This is the case across race and ethnicity: women’s (hetero)sexuality is constrained and functions in the service of and to the benefit of men, while men’s (hetero)sexuality is enabled and functions to benefit men.

Sociologically speaking, you cannot talk about gender — about what it means to be a “man” or a “woman” — without also talking about (hetero)sexuality.

Further, you can see, within a system of intersectionality, that not all women experience sexism and misogyny in the same way. Everyone who claims a “female” or “feminine” identity does experience sexism and misogyny, but we don’t all experience it in the same way. Thus, all of these women will see variations in their experiences with sexism:

• A cisgender woman who is heterosexual and a recent immigrant to the U.S.
• A cisgender woman who identifies as a lesbian and was born in the U.S.
• A transgender woman who identifies as heterosexual and was born in the U.S.

Notice that I didn’t declare the racial or ethnic status of the women above, rather, I simply stated whether they were born in the U.S. or elsewhere. Reflect on the assumptions you made while reading those bullet points. Did you assume that the recent immigrant was a woman of color? Did you assume that the women born in the U.S. were white? If you did, that doesn’t make you a bad person, it just makes you a person who was raised or has lived in a society that is organized around white supremacy. As I was typing the bullet points, I noticed that my initial assumptions were in fact grounded in white supremacy, and then my “sociological imagination” (Mills) kicked in to challenge that socialization, leading me to be able to push beyond my socialization into territory that reflects my personal values (the recent immigrant could be from Romania! The lesbian from the U.S. could be Puerto Rican! Puerto Rico IS the U.S.!).

Which leads us to Yen Li Espiritu’s insights: it is not a fact that white women “sleep around” more than women of color, whether immigrants or U.S. born. But it is a cultural ideology (one that is perpetuated by popular culture, which is rife with images of sexually free, predominantly white women) that functions within the Filipina community that Espiritu studied as a tool for navigating racism.

This last point is crucial: coping with racism is not the same thing as being racist, even as those coping mechanisms depend upon patriarchal, heteronormative stereotypes (of white women). The issue at hand is one of power. Even when problematic heteronormative stereotypes are directed at white women it is still the Filipina women who are experiencing the direct oppression (via the constraints on their lives from within their families). None of the people in the study even said anything negative about white women to actual white women; instead, it was a conversation that happened within their families. Thus, no direct consequences ever fell onto the shoulders of actual white women (as a result of the actions of the people in Espiritu’s study). The Filipina women in the study do not have the power to enact such consequences on white women, because of the ways in which both patriarchy (think Westbrook and Schilt) and white supremacy protect white women.

How does all of this function to help Filipina (and other families of color) families cope with racism? It’s all about battling with internalized and externalized oppression. Externalized oppression are all those forces outside of us (popular culture, public policies) that aim to dehumanize us, and internalized oppression are the ways in which we are socialized to dehumanize ourselves. Speaking personally, one way in which I’ve experienced internalized oppression was when I was coming out as a lesbian in my late teens and early twenties: I had internalized negative ideas about the LGBTQ community, and thus, felt those same negative thoughts about myself. I had to work many years to undo that harm, and to instead internalize unconditional self-worth.

P.S. YOU ALL HAVE UNCONDITIONAL SELF-WORTH!!!!!!!!!!!

So, white supremacy in the United States functions in such a way that people of color have been/will be socialized — along with white people — to believe in the superiority of white people and the inferiority of people of color. Ibram Kendi speaks to this in his crucial book, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America: no one evades this socialization Think, for example, of Native American children being forcibly removed from their families and sent to boarding schools that attempted to forcibly socialize them into white American cultural norms. These kinds of practices and socialization patterns open the door to internalized oppression.

This internalized oppression manifests in communities of color in complex and varying ways (one example is the privileging of lighter skin or the expectations of “respectability” within communities of color). What Espiritu is teaching us through her intersectional research is that heteronormative patriarchy, and in particular, the “elevation of Filipina chastity” (p. 416), is a tool for Filipino families to construct a sense of self-worth within the context of a white supremacist society that aims to deny them their worth. In other words, they are pushing back against both internalized and externalized racial oppression, and demanding their rightful value as humans. This is not something they are doing to anyone, but rather, they are doing it for themselves.

Here is how intersectionality is a tool to help us understand how power works. Patriarchy can function as a tool in constructing white supremacy; or, white supremacy can function as a tool to construct patriarchy (think of the idea that white women are innocent and vulnerable and in need of male protection). Thus, the strategies used by Filipino families to cope with racism had/have a very specific consequence for Filipina women. Also note: those who suffer the most from the patriarchal idea that white women are innocent and in need of protection, historically, has been Black men. Thus, while the idea of white women as “sluts” might fuel the dynamic Espiritu discusses in her research, it is really Filipina women who experience the consequences in their everyday lives.

Do all women (cisgendered and transgendered) experience oppression as a result of the heteronormative sexual standards that allow men to have sex freely while women become “sluts?” Yes. But, do all women experience this oppression in the same way, and with the same consequences? No. That is the power of intersectional analysis — it allows us to see, understand, and bring to light the variation amongst the group that we call “women,” or any other group to which we are directing our sociological analysis.

Thank you for your time. Keep up the good work! Keep on learning.

Dr. Monica