This week’s readings were very helpful to have a broader understanding of the term “identity politics”. Garza’s quote “identity politics is the radical notion that your world view is shaped by your experiences and history and that those experiences will vary in relationship to the power a group or an individual has in the economy, society, or democracy.” gives a clear explanation on how identity politics it’s to base your politics on who you are as a person and the issues that affect you personally. Supporting causes that are relevant to you and fighting for your own liberation instead of somebody else’s. The United States politics are meant to benefit white, cis-hetero, males, everyone else who isn’t part of that privileged group has to adapt to this political system that isn’t meant for their success. Identity politics creates political space for the minorities to have conversations about their issues and create an agenda in order to fight those issues. As Garza said, now the majority of the United States population are not white heterosexual males, so we can hope that in the future every single person, no matter their race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc. can enjoy their rights. However, I’m scared because I don’t know how are we going to fight capitalism, without capitalism going down, it will be very complicated to empower minorities.
Some topics that I would enjoy learning about are the origin of gender roles, I am curious about how were they created and their evolution in our society. I am also curious about the witch trials, actually, I didn’t know about that at all until the last couple of years. I would like to learn about that and how are they related to sexism and gender violence.
You sparked my interest in the relation of the witch trials to sexism and gender violence as well. Which took me down another mental tangent. In my recollection, many of the women who were accused of being witches over the centuries were midwives. Women who amassed knowledge and frequently functioned outside of the church, filling a role necessitated by society. As history has shown us, there is nothing more dangerous than a woman possessing knowledge and functioning outside of the bounds of society. This also makes me think of the history of sex work. Sex workers, I believe, have always been marginalized, but history has proven the necessity of their role. In my oversimplified estimation, the idealized version of a female sex worker, one who has autonomy over her body and earnings, represents a threat to the patriarchy. She is an independent woman, and one who almost exclusively profits off of men. Surely as such it would be necessary to bar her from society, or strip away any form of autonomy. I will never get over how sexist the condemnation of female sex workers is, how their male patrons are exempt from judgment, and how sex workers are consistently over-prosecuted for sex work. John Oliver did a great piece on sex work if I’ve sparked your interest on the subject the way you sparked mine.
Hello Catherine,
I think the quote you provided from Garza’s reading is a great example of identity politics. Thanks for sharing your opinion on what you’re scared of when it comes to fighting against capitalism and not knowing the out come. I enjoyed reading your discussion board this week.