emo [21 Mar 2006|09:53pm] The other day I was told that my disbelief in the patriarchal construction of love was a result of the fact that my family was screwed up. The implication being, that had I not had such a history, I would believe in love. Presumably, I would believe in the boy meets girl, brotherly, sisterly, maternal, paternal beautiful Kodak-moment families kind of love. Yuck. Do I believe that this kind of love exists? Yes, of course I do. It exists as a destructive patriarchal construction designed to make families into nice neat economically functional units and women into slaves. Would I want this kind of love now, if I had been brought up within a family where the male authority and the female subordination was more convincingly disguised? Yes, almost certainly. If my mother had been a little more capable at fooling herself that she enjoyed my father’s use of her then I would probably be affianced right now. And joining in the enthusiastic discussions on weight loss round the staff room table, bemoaning the fact that I would soon be tragically unable to squeeze into my restrictive straight jacket, sorry wedding dress, if I ever did anything so despicable as EAT. I would love to think that I would still be able to analyse gender and sexuality if I had been brought up in a ‘functioning’ heteronormative family. But I know that I am way not intelligent enough to have figured it all out without a major cause. So, yes, my childhood definitely played a large role in shaping my political and social opinions on love. I admit that. BUT that does not make those opinions any less valid. If anything it strengthens them. I have done far more research into gender and sexuality than any of the people who tell me knowingly, ‘ah yes, but you think that because your family was screwed up’. I always have to bite my lip against the obvious response, ‘so is yours’. By boiling my opinions on love down to a merely psychological response, people are able to individuate my experience. They can ignore the sociological context of my belief systems, interpreting my opinions as emotional rather than cognitive. Which is bizarre really because most of the people I meet are quite proud of the fact that they do not think. I’m not saying that I am not an emotional person. I am not saying that my opinions are not partially based on personal experience. But so are everybody’s. I don’t know anyone who does not interpret their social world based on personal experience. So, this is ok as long as you are not challenging the systems that govern those experiences. As long as you are not questioning the patriarchal concept of love. As long as you are complicit in your oppression. If not, your opinions are not rational responses to the way in which you perceive your social reality, they are hysterical emotional responses stemming from the fact that you were abused as a child. I think that when I move to Sydney I am going to invent a white, middle-class, heteronormative, ‘functional’, nuclear family. I might even turn dis_senter into my (male) partner. Maybe then my opinions won’t be dismissed as feminist hysteria and people will actually be forced to argue with me. 7 comments|post comment

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