What do contemporary "human rights" campaigns and the moral reform of Valverde's book have in common? Have some Westerners replaced "morally depraved" with "unliberated"?
Valverde's book echoes many of the the books we've read about development, only her reformers aren't crossing oceans to find people to save. What do we make of the fact that these movements are also the roots of social work and aspects of social democracy in Canada? How do or don't we see the legacy of this period in twentieth (or twenty-first) century Canada? What might this mean for (a) the future of "development" and (b) social programs in the contemporary West?
Are claims like those Massad makes undermined by the fact that he (and we) probably does not know, and probably will never know, anything empirical about sexual practice in the West or in the Arab world? Does he know what the reality is, or what liberation might mean for the majority, any better than his Gay International does?
Does Massad's critique necessarily also imply a critique of Gay Liberation (or other liberations) within the West? "Human rights" campaigns are probably largely middle or upper-class projects here as well, and "homophobia" and "repression" are often ascribed onto marginalized communities here too (I'm thinking of Dan Savage's ridiculous claims during the Obama election//passing of Proposition 8 in California that black Obama voters are homophobic, or routine assumptions that it is "rednecks" who drive social conservatism)...
1. What do we make of Massad's claims that the gay international had ties with organizations with "imperial" goals? There are those who argue that the transnational feminist movement and the "liberation" of women in Afghanistan has been co-opted as a legitimizing force for the NATO occupation. Can we say something similar about the gay rights movement? Considering the US' less than enthusiastic reaction to gay rights initiatives on their own soil, how plausible is this argument? 2. I had pretty much the same question as Rachel concerning development and Valverde, but I'm going to put a bit of a twist on it. There's been lots of discussion lately about the extreme gender imbalance within the development industry - it's practically all women. If we do see similarities between moral reform movements in turn-of-the-century Canada, how does this help us explain the gendering of the development worker? Was there something about the projects discussed by Valverde that was inherently feminine, or that attracted a lot of women? Can we say the same about contemporary development workers?
1. I'm interested in the way Massad works with ahistoricism. What place does 'history' have in the rhetoric of social reform? Valverde's reformers use 'history' in a different way...what role can/did history play?
2. In the chapter on immigration, Valverde highlights the shift from independent or religious reform to state-run institutions, especially when "providing help to those in need" became synonymous with "controlling, regulating, and even deporting those deemed undesirable" because of sexual or racial "impurities." (128) What happens when these two jobs become the same? What implications does this have on the Massad reading?
1. Valverde demonstrates that the social purity movement was primarily a framework for imposing bourgeois middle-class values of morality and respectability upon those understood to be below the reforming elite. In which ways did reformers recognize the symptoms of real issues inherent to this period in Canada, but largely ignore the causes? ie: "incest" and "fallenness" were primarily seen as contained only to the poor, giving the image that respectable and moral Victorian Canada suffered from neither malady; almost to suggest that real and serious issues such as sexual or domestic abuse could vanish with money and morals.
2. How exactly did the reform-minded middle-class women of Valverde's work understand both themselves and their positions against their male counterparts? While the men and the women of such a movement were concerned with moral degeneracy, could the women not help notice that, for all of their hard work, they would not - and I emphasize, based upon late Victorian gender ideology - could not obtain the status, prestige or recognition of, say, Dr. Peter Bryce, Chief Medical Officer for the Dept. of the Canadian Immigration. Did they note the contradictions inherent within regulating the morality of their "degenerate" sisters, while they themselves were largely considered second class citizens?
3. To we buy Massad's argument that the attempt to strengthen or liberalize global homosexual discourses will always end up harming them? While he reminds us that many of the locales that he mentions have no official laws against homosexuality - effectively a neutral "third" against dichotomizing Western tendencies - could not such a position potentially shift in unexpected ways. To play devil's advocate, is there not a chance that even without Western encroachment, such nations may, for reasons entirely unrelated, decide to campaign against homosexuality, under the banner of nationalism, or some other ideology? How does this complicate our understanding of Massad's article?
1. What do we make of Valverde's fairly consistent reference to symbolic Canadian women (Nellie McClung and Emily Murphy) and their involvement in the moral reform movement? Is this an attempt to further debunk nationalist mythologies of Canadian 'racial blindness' and gender equality?
2.Valverde's discussion of the urban slum and assumptions about sexual misconduct behind closed doors raises some interesting questions about the voyeuristic tendencies behind moral reform movements and more broadly about the need/desire for control of the unknown or the private. How do her descriptions of reformist concerns about the slums help to elaborate our understandings of a colonialist control of the intimate? What has caused the distinction between the private space of the upper and middle classes and that of the poor? Is the ambiguity or lack of concern for the private sphere of the upper classes similar to the ambiguity surrounding the identification of ‘whiteness’ where ‘whiteness’ requires little definition or focus until it is thought to be in danger of degeneration?
1. Valverde argues that historians have tended to see moral reformers as puritanical or repressive whereas shes see them in a more positive light. She (I think) successfully shows that the reformers did indeed have prescriptive agendas, but to what extent does intention matter in this case? Was the effect of the social reform movement not still repressive? Is Valverde too sympathetic towards the reformers?
2. Is it not possible for a campaign against homosexuality without Western influence? Are there also not instances when campaigns to liberalize homosexual discourse have been productive? (for the sake of argument)
1. Valverde demonstrates the gendered structure of 'moral reform', which as Leslie pointed out, still remains in the present day. However, this gendered differentiation is not simply gendered female, there are more complexities. How can we understand social movements in general as having a gendered structure (I'm particularly thinking about the ideological separation between 'male work' and 'female work')? How does this gendered structure influence the movement itself?
2. Massad raises the notion of 'identification' early and throughout his article. That is, the label of 'gay' in most cases is not identified with in the Arab and Muslim world. Is a unified identification necessary for the success of a movement? That is, does non-identification with terms create insurmontable schisms within a movement? Expanding this further, what role do labels and similar identifications play in the formation of solidarity across peoples and borders?
3. Although discussions about men, and periodically women, are contained in his article, Massad does not explore the possible differences between genders. Given the influence of Western ideologies through Gay International, what are outside perceptions of lesbians vs gay men (not even considering identities falling in between)? How does the perception of their culturally based gendering (by the West) influence the role of men/women in the gay movement?
Why did theorists concerned with homosexuality fall into the same (if not more egregious) mistakes that some feminists scholars committed when they attempted to universalize womanhood? Does this remind us of the problematic conflation of gender/sex, this time seen with male-to-male sexual acts and sexual identity?
Do you find Valverde’s position as a scholar seemingly without an academic home advantageous? Valverde draws upon a variety of theoretical considerations, moving back and forth between present and historical concerns. This is much different the traditional approach of historians who leave concerns about the present to the introduction or the conclusion.
What do contemporary "human rights" campaigns and the moral reform of Valverde's book have in common? Have some Westerners replaced "morally depraved" with "unliberated"?
ReplyDeleteValverde's book echoes many of the the books we've read about development, only her reformers aren't crossing oceans to find people to save. What do we make of the fact that these movements are also the roots of social work and aspects of social democracy in Canada? How do or don't we see the legacy of this period in twentieth (or twenty-first) century Canada? What might this mean for (a) the future of "development" and (b) social programs in the contemporary West?
Are claims like those Massad makes undermined by the fact that he (and we) probably does not know, and probably will never know, anything empirical about sexual practice in the West or in the Arab world? Does he know what the reality is, or what liberation might mean for the majority, any better than his Gay International does?
Does Massad's critique necessarily also imply a critique of Gay Liberation (or other liberations) within the West? "Human rights" campaigns are probably largely middle or upper-class projects here as well, and "homophobia" and "repression" are often ascribed onto marginalized communities here too (I'm thinking of Dan Savage's ridiculous claims during the Obama election//passing of Proposition 8 in California that black Obama voters are homophobic, or routine assumptions that it is "rednecks" who drive social conservatism)...
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete1. What do we make of Massad's claims that the gay international had ties with organizations with "imperial" goals? There are those who argue that the transnational feminist movement and the "liberation" of women in Afghanistan has been co-opted as a legitimizing force for the NATO occupation. Can we say something similar about the gay rights movement? Considering the US' less than enthusiastic reaction to gay rights initiatives on their own soil, how plausible is this argument?
ReplyDelete2. I had pretty much the same question as Rachel concerning development and Valverde, but I'm going to put a bit of a twist on it. There's been lots of discussion lately about the extreme gender imbalance within the development industry - it's practically all women. If we do see similarities between moral reform movements in turn-of-the-century Canada, how does this help us explain the gendering of the development worker? Was there something about the projects discussed by Valverde that was inherently feminine, or that attracted a lot of women? Can we say the same about contemporary development workers?
1. I'm interested in the way Massad works with ahistoricism. What place does 'history' have in the rhetoric of social reform? Valverde's reformers use 'history' in a different way...what role can/did history play?
ReplyDelete2. In the chapter on immigration, Valverde highlights the shift from independent or religious reform to state-run institutions, especially when "providing help to those in need" became synonymous with "controlling, regulating, and even deporting those deemed undesirable" because of sexual or racial "impurities." (128) What happens when these two jobs become the same? What implications does this have on the Massad reading?
1. Valverde demonstrates that the social purity movement was primarily a framework for imposing bourgeois middle-class values of morality and respectability upon those understood to be below the reforming elite. In which ways did reformers recognize the symptoms of real issues inherent to this period in Canada, but largely ignore the causes? ie: "incest" and "fallenness" were primarily seen as contained only to the poor, giving the image that respectable and moral Victorian Canada suffered from neither malady; almost to suggest that real and serious issues such as sexual or domestic abuse could vanish with money and morals.
ReplyDelete2. How exactly did the reform-minded middle-class women of Valverde's work understand both themselves and their positions against their male counterparts? While the men and the women of such a movement were concerned with moral degeneracy, could the women not help notice that, for all of their hard work, they would not - and I emphasize, based upon late Victorian gender ideology - could not obtain the status, prestige or recognition of, say, Dr. Peter Bryce, Chief Medical Officer for the Dept. of the Canadian Immigration. Did they note the contradictions inherent within regulating the morality of their "degenerate" sisters, while they themselves were largely considered second class citizens?
3. To we buy Massad's argument that the attempt to strengthen or liberalize global homosexual discourses will always end up harming them? While he reminds us that many of the locales that he mentions have no official laws against homosexuality - effectively a neutral "third" against dichotomizing Western tendencies - could not such a position potentially shift in unexpected ways. To play devil's advocate, is there not a chance that even without Western encroachment, such nations may, for reasons entirely unrelated, decide to campaign against homosexuality, under the banner of nationalism, or some other ideology? How does this complicate our understanding of Massad's article?
1. What do we make of Valverde's fairly consistent reference to symbolic Canadian women (Nellie McClung and Emily Murphy) and their involvement in the moral reform movement? Is this an attempt to further debunk nationalist mythologies of Canadian 'racial blindness' and gender equality?
ReplyDelete2.Valverde's discussion of the urban slum and assumptions about sexual misconduct behind closed doors raises some interesting questions about the voyeuristic tendencies behind moral reform movements and more broadly about the need/desire for control of the unknown or the private. How do her descriptions of reformist concerns about the slums help to elaborate our understandings of a colonialist control of the intimate? What has caused the distinction between the private space of the upper and middle classes and that of the poor? Is the ambiguity or lack of concern for the private sphere of the upper classes similar to the ambiguity surrounding the identification of ‘whiteness’ where ‘whiteness’ requires little definition or focus until it is thought to be in danger of degeneration?
1. Valverde argues that historians have tended to see moral reformers as puritanical or repressive whereas shes see them in a more positive light. She (I think) successfully shows that the reformers did indeed have prescriptive agendas, but to what extent does intention matter in this case? Was the effect of the social reform movement not still repressive? Is Valverde too sympathetic towards the reformers?
ReplyDelete2. Is it not possible for a campaign against homosexuality without Western influence? Are there also not instances when campaigns to liberalize homosexual discourse have been productive? (for the sake of argument)
1. Valverde demonstrates the gendered structure of 'moral reform', which as Leslie pointed out, still remains in the present day. However, this gendered differentiation is not simply gendered female, there are more complexities. How can we understand social movements in general as having a gendered structure (I'm particularly thinking about the ideological separation between 'male work' and 'female work')? How does this gendered structure influence the movement itself?
ReplyDelete2. Massad raises the notion of 'identification' early and throughout his article. That is, the label of 'gay' in most cases is not identified with in the Arab and Muslim world. Is a unified identification necessary for the success of a movement? That is, does non-identification with terms create insurmontable schisms within a movement? Expanding this further, what role do labels and similar identifications play in the formation of solidarity across peoples and borders?
3. Although discussions about men, and periodically women, are contained in his article, Massad does not explore the possible differences between genders. Given the influence of Western ideologies through Gay International, what are outside perceptions of lesbians vs gay men (not even considering identities falling in between)? How does the perception of their culturally based gendering (by the West) influence the role of men/women in the gay movement?
Why did theorists concerned with homosexuality fall into the same (if not more egregious) mistakes that some feminists scholars committed when they attempted to universalize womanhood? Does this remind us of the problematic conflation of gender/sex, this time seen with male-to-male sexual acts and sexual identity?
ReplyDeleteDo you find Valverde’s position as a scholar seemingly without an academic home advantageous? Valverde draws upon a variety of theoretical considerations, moving back and forth between present and historical concerns. This is much different the traditional approach of historians who leave concerns about the present to the introduction or the conclusion.