- I was familiar with the binary system discussed in this article, Challenging Binary Systems and Structures of Difference through researching ecriture feminine. The binary traditionally operates with one side of the binary being secondary to the other, and this “lesser half” is often considered “female”, as in male/female. This quote further explains,”This, she believes, is why women have long been the oppressed sex; the nature of binary thought ensures that nothing can be privileged without something else being marginalized”(Palumbo 147). The binary enforces a limited perspective that serves to subordinate women and other marginalized identities. The binary extends to sexual attraction, as it reinforces a binary with straight/gay, where being gay is the negative or the feminine. The article brings up laws against gay men or lesbians due to homophobia, which is an outcrop of subterranean social beliefs that serve to perpetuate 2. heteronormativity(Kang).In the article, Karen Martin noticed that from a young age men and women are assumed to be straight(Kang), and there is a confirmation bias in the way parents assume the behavior of their children corresponds with heterosexuality(Kang). There we see how heteronormativity is inculcated from a young age. Also, we find everywhere this “ideal” of marriage between a man and a woman. It is evident in endless advertisements we see on tv and in magazines. 3. With the binary and heteronormativity, we find this obvious social construction of standards that are so ubiquitous that we might overlook them. In the instance of race, as this article discusses, there is a perception perpetuated due to skin color that creates numerous difficulties for minorities. A friend of mine who is black recently complained of struggling to find a new apartment, and how he often was asked to perform a credit check, whereas I, a white person, was not. The history of,”…undue impoverishment of Blacks and the undue enrichment of whites during slavery and decades of unequal laws and blocked access to employment opportunities (Feagin 2006)(Kang), is not considered. Instead people expect black people to be bad with finances, and so entirely responsible for their own poverty. Again, we find a binary of white/black, with black being secondary, like women are considered secondary to men. If you look at all these binaries I have presented: male/female, straight/gay, white/black you can connect the ideal of straight/male/white, and also female/gay/black. The experiences of marginalized individuals are interconnected, so we see an intersectionality, an overlap, but in order to connect we must think outside a binary. If we see identity:male, gay, black, as merely constituted by it’s opposite, we fail to notice how we experience multiple identities simultaneously,”as matrices of difference”(Kang). Limiting our identity limits our expression, it limits the ways in which we view the world. To be more inclusive, more understanding, we can’t simply see the world in terms of a black and white binary.
Works Cited
Palumbo, Allison. “Finding the Feminine: Rethinking Henry Miller’s Tropics Trilogy.(Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, and Black Spring)(Critical Essay).” Nexus: The International Henry Miller Journal, vol. 7, 2010, p. 145.
