disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory, Vol. 20: Family, Sex, Law

Two Photographs Andrea Angeli......... .. ...... ............... ...... ....... ........................... .............102-103 Two Poems Jessica Beaufils ..................................... ......................................... .....104-105 ~at's Love Got To Do With It?: Family, Sex, and Domestic Violence

Contemporary Irish Women's Fiction Mary Ryan .......................................................................................... 106-131 10

Two Paintings Tania Zivkovic ......................... .......................................................... ......... 132 Wigfall v. Mobley et al.: Heirs' Property Rights in Family and in Law Brian Grabbatin and Jennie L. Stephens ................... .. ..................... 133-150 On Borders and Biopolitics: An Interview with Eithne Luibheid Conducted by Samantha Herr and Tim Vatovec ............ ............ ... .... 151-159 The Limits of Empathy: An Interview with Marianne Noble Conducted by Rebecca Lane and Jeffrey Zamostny ...................... .. .160-164 Errata for disClosure 19: Consuming CUltures .............. .. ................. .165-169

Contributors Andrea Angeli holds a

B.A. in International Relations from the

University of Toledo and an M.A. in Geography and Planning from the same institution. Her contributions to disClosure bring together her experience as an artist portrait model and as a critical photographer whose work is informed by cultural geography.

Jessica Beaufils earned her B.A. in English from Northern Illinois University and is now studying medical anthropology at Ball State University. She is a poet at heart, and has been writing verse for as long as she can remember. Her one-year-old son inspires poetry on a daily basis.

Andrew Clark is currently working on his M.A. at the University of Louisville in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies with plans to pursue a Ph.D. His current research interests include feminist and queer histories, queer intersections with the State and public policy, and queer subjectivities.

Betsy Dahms is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Hispanic Studies with a certificate in Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Kentucky. Her publications include a queer reading of Gertrudis GOmez de Avellaneda's 1841 Cuban novel Sab and articles on Latino masculinities, as well as the benefits and challenges of implementing service learning at a small liberal arts college. She is currently working on her dissertation, an intellectual biography of Chicana author Gloria E. Anzaldua.

Osvaldo Di Paolo is Assistant Professor of Spanish at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee. He recently obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky's Department of Hispanic Studies with a dissertation on contemporary hardboiled detective fiction from Argentina based on real life murders. His thesis will be published in book form in the fall of 2011.

Brian Grabbatin is a doctoral student in the Department of Geography at the University of Kentucky, and co-founder of the Political Ecology Working Group. He is interested in environmental history, land tenure, cultural landscapes, and the American South. In addition to Brian's dissertation research on heirs' property, he has co-authored articles on the non-timber forest product and practice of sweetgrass basketry, and is currently writing about the role of non-equilibrium ecology in bridging the divide between human and physical geographers.

He welcomes comments and critiques of his work. Email: bcgr222@ uky.edu

Ellen Lewin is Professor of Gender, Women's & Sexuality Studies and Anthropology at the University of Iowa. Her work has focused on reproductive and family issues among gay men and lesbians in the US feminist anthropology, and lesbian/gay anthropology. She is the author of three ethnographies, Lesbian Mothers: Accounts of Gender in American Cultur: (1993); Recognizing Ourselves: Lesbian and Gay Ceremonies of C?':lmz~en.t (1998~; and Gay Fatherhood: Narratives of Family and Citlzenshzp zn AmerIca (2009), and the co-editor, with William L. Leap, of three collections of essays on lesbian/gay anthropology.

Daniele Pantano is a Swiss poet, translator, critic, and editor born of Sicilian and German parentage in Langenthal (Canton of Berne). His most re~ent . work:': include The Possible Is Monstrous: Selected Poems by FrIedrIch Durrenmatt and The Oldest Hands in the World (both from Black La~en~e Press/Dzanc Books, 2010). His forthcoming books include OppressIVe Lzght: Selected Poems by Robert Walser and The Collected ~~rks of.Ge~rg Trakl, both from Black Lawrence Press/Dzanc Books. He diVIdes ~s ~e between S~tzerland, the United States, and England, ~here he. IS DIrector ?~ Creative Writing at Edge Hill University. For more mformation, please VISIt www.danielepantano.ch.

Mary ~yan is.a Ph.D. candidate at Mary Immaculate College, Ireland.

He~ theSIS exammes the cultural, generic, and gender contexts of the ~ction an~ non-fiction of Irish author Marian Keyes. Mary's research I~terests mclu.d: popular culture, literature (particularly women's hte~ature), fenumsm and gender studies. Her research has appeared in a vanety ~f conferences and publications, including a chapter in the forthconung collection Investigating Shrek (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). In September 2009, she won a prize for her paper at the Postgraduate Con~e~porary Women's Writing Network's "Reading Bodies/Writing Bodies conference at Oxford University.

Jennie. L. Stephens is director of the Center for Heirs' Property

Preservation. Sh: served pr~viously as senior program director at the Coastal .CommunIty Foundation of South Carolina, a public grant-making foundation. Stephens has extensive experience in nonprofit management an? program planning and development. Email: jstephens@ hezrsproperty.org

~hannon Sigler is an artist and arts administrator living and working m Boston. She. currently serves as the Program Administrator for the C~:::er for Pract;ical The?logy at Boston University while also volunteering WI CIVA, an mternational faith-based arts organization. She and her husband Matthew ar~ expecting their first child in April, 2011. Shannon's art uses fou~d matenals such as old sewing patterns, food wrappers and modern art Imagery to engage societal symbols and norms. She attempts

to reveal and break through boundaries surrounding marriage and family roles through unlikely juxtapositions in her collages.

Rachel Tudor holds a B.A. in Multi-Cultural Studies and an MA in Humanities from the University of Houston, as well as a Ph.D. in English from the University of Oklahoma. She specializes in the areas of Modernity and Theory, and American and Native American literatu~es.

Her current research interests include postcolonial and gender studies, and she highly recommends the works of Martha C. Nussbaum.

Tania Zivkovic holds a B.A. in Fine Arts and is currently working on an MA in Art Education at the University of Kentucky. Based in part on personal experience, her artwork has dealt with illness, divorce, and loss.

Editors' Preface Jeffrey Zamostny and Rebecca Lane In response to the wish of a well-meaning graduate student that a department in the humanities at the University of Kentucky be run like a tight-knit family, a horrified professor exclaimed: "No, no! Anything but a family! Families have secrets: incest, adultery, clandestine rivalries ...

Spouses get divorced, children fight over wills, siblings refuse to speak to each other... I will not have it!"

Needless to say, the flustered graduate student did not push the matter further.

Told in jest, the anecdote also lays bare real longings and anxieties that accrue upon the notion of family in its relation to sex and the law, understood as both a set of written statutes and an assemblage of broader cultural norms. Setting aside for a moment the historical and cultural contingencies that make family a multiform social construction, it seems safe to say that for most people family simultaneously invokes a positive model of social communion and a site of discord. Tensions are the result not only of interpersonal dynamics between family members, but also of wider systemic forces that determine which relationships qualify for legal and social recognition as family units, that legitimate some sexual and familial bonds by stigmatizing others, and that provide regulatory scripts for how families should behave, if only they could attain the ideal.

In keeping with disClosure's mission to elicit interdiSciplinary and generically hybrid reflections on matters of far-reaching interest to the field of Social Theory, the journal's twentieth anniversary issue Family, Sex, Law brings together scholarly essays, poetry, visual art, and interviews organized around the promises and risks of family.

Contributors working in the United States, Ireland, and elsewhere in Europe on topics relevant to those and other sites of an increasingly transnational social terrain examine manifold intersections of family, sex, and law from a variety of perspectives.

With respect to its scholarly articles, the volume begins with meditations by Ellen Lewin, Andrew Clark, and Osvaldo Di Paolo on the strat:gies used by traditionally marginalized groups to gain access to mamage as a means of legally recognizing families. Lewin and Clark examine debates surrounding marriage for gays and lesbians in the contemporary United States. Both writers long for a loosening of the h~t:ronorm~tiye claim to exclusively heterosexual marriage, but they voice distinct a.runetie~ about the best ways to achieve more equitable marriage laws. While Lewm contends that gay and lesbian activists need not turn to m~~tal health arguments in their struggle for same-sex marriage, Clark cntiques the 2003 court decision Lawrence v. Texas for its potential to both queer and straighten the national body. Clark's considerations on race, class, and nationality-factors previously sidelined in discussions of Lawrence-enrich his evaluation of that case's legacy. Finally, the fictional film analyzed by Di Paolo shows how a woman's desire to have six I

concurrent husbands simultaneously reinforces and subverts traditional gender roles and power hierarchies in Mexico.. .

Di Paolo's contribution heads off a senes of essays concerned .WIth cultural texts produced outside the United States or in the n:ansnatio~al flux of diaspora. A discussion by Betsy Dahms of pl~ywnght Sabma B rman's "The Mustache" foregrounds a second MeXIcan work that c~ntests historically dominant gender norms in that cou~try. AltJ.t0~gh tJ.te characters He and She strive to eschew heteronormative restrictions In their gender performances and se~al relationships, ~:y must also confront insecurities generated by theIr queer refusals. Similarly, women in the Irish chick lit examined by Mary Ryan find themselves .~~~ht between well-worn patriarchal gender definitions ~d ~ew p~sslbiliti.es opened by feminism. Ryan argues that I?sh chick lIt resIsts. f~cile categorization as anti-feminist, for it dram~ti~!' exposes contradicti~ns faced by contemporary women in Ireland vis-a-viS ~o~erhood, sexuality, and domestic violence. Motherhood and the phY~lcallty o.f sex. rec~r m Rachel Tudor's examination of the construction of Identity ill a postcolonial context in Sara Suleri's memoir-elegies Meatless pay~ and Boys Will Be Boys. The texts blur generic boundaries to explore Identity as a process of becoming located at the intersection of the self and others, gender, ethnicity, history, and law. .

The final article returns disClosure to its home base ill the southeastern United States by situating a family conflict. in the Southern Gullah culture at the crux of petty struggles between family ~embers an.d the more expansive social impulses that le~d them to. dispute their ownership over heirs' property. Brian Grabbatin and Jenrne L. Stephens read the 2001 court case Wigfall v. Mobley et al. a~ a battle be~een legal and cultural epistemologies that place contrastin~ emphaSIS on the exchange value of land in a capitalist economy or It~ use value for the . . material and emotional survival of a deeply-rooted famIly. Interspersed throughout Family, Sex, Law are poems, mtervIews, and works of visual art that establish dialogues between themselves and with salient themes in the lengthier articles. With their carefully calculated poses and attire, the mannequins captured in photographs by Andrea Angeli emphasize the performativity of gender also ma~e ~lear by metatheatrical devices in the play analyzed by Dahms. LikeWIse, two poems by Jessica Beaufils complement the emp~asis o? mo~erhoo.d ~d interpersonal connection addressed elsewhere In the Issue, Inclu~illg m Tania Zivkovic's painting "My Protector." ~oving fro~ a d:slre for wholeness to a state of fulfillment, Beaufils s poetry ll~tertwin:s the frustrations and joys of renewing human .life throu~h chtldb~rth. Wh~e ~er poetic voice addresses an interlocutor m the behef that mtersubJective communication is possible, the speaker of Daniele Pant~o's three poems seems utterly alone. The poetic voice ~en~o?s a WIfe, a br00er, a grandfather, and children without ever .msc~lbmg ~n ,~ddressee .m the poems. Traumatized by a violent "patnmomal reCIpe from which he ii

cannot escape, the speaker seals himself off from empathetic relations in hermetic poetic diction.

Dialogue and human contact also figure prominently in both the form and. content of this. issue's two interviews with speakers from the 20~0 SI?nng Lecture Senes . of the Committee on Social Theory at the Umversity of Kentucky. Mananne Noble talks with the editors about her work on empathy and genuine human contact in a theoretical climate that treats anything authentic with suspicion. Similarly Eithne Luibheid expl~ns how biopolitics foster. some contacts at the 'expense of others, espeCIally when people of varymg gender, sexual orientation race and class move across and within porous (trans)national borders.' , .

The mixed me~a fo~at of Shannon Sigler's collage "Sugarmama" n~cely encapsulates the mtentIons of the 2011 edition of disClosure. Just as Slgl~r dr~ws on <?verse materials such as sewing patterns from the 1950S to Visualize th~ CIrcumstances faced by women who work to support their partners! FamIly, Sex, La~ unites ~ontributions marked by varied political perspe~tives, methodolOgical practices, and generic conventions to reflect on family.as it is conceived as both a paradigm for social harmony and a locu~ of mt~nse debate. We invite you to join us in exploring these tenslOns as dzsClosure celebrates its twentieth anniversary.

Aclmowledgements . This issue of disClosure would not have been possible without the assistan~e of Derek Ruez and David Hoopes, editors of last year's volume Cons;ummg ~ltures. We are also indebted to Dr. John Erickson for his continued gul~ance as faculty advisor to the journal. Drs. Anna Secor and SU~~lllI~e PUCCI h~ve headed the Committee on Social Theory during this edition s production. The team-taught, interdisciplinary course "Family, Sex, Law' offered under the auspices of the Committee by Drs. Srimati Basu (Gender and Women's Studies), Andrea Dennis (Law) Patricia ~hr~p (Geo~aI?hy), and Marion Rust (English) provided the mSpIr?tion for ~IS .Issue. Many thanks to Naomi Norasak for her careful attenti?n to lOgistical matters and for all her crucial work for the Comml~ee, as wel~ ?S to Sarah Schuetze and Donna and Ben Lane for their ~~lp With copyed~ting and ~ranscriptions. Finally, we thank this year's zsClo~re collecti~e, and Wish Eir-Anne Edgar and Tim Vatovec best of uck With the 2012 Issue Self/Story.

I

Collective Members Eir-Anne Edgar is a Ph.D. candidate in English at the University of Kentucky. Her research focuses on feminist, queer, and Mrican American texts of ~he Cold .War era and issues of American citizenship. She will serve as co-edItor of dIsClosure 21: Self/Story (2012).

III

Samantha Herr is an M.A. student in the Department of Geography at the University of Kentucky. Her research interests in critical human geography center on geographies of power, urban political geography, mobilities, and feminist methodologies. She is interested in examining subjectivity and the body through everyday urban practices and events.

Rebecca Lane is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Geography at the University of Kentucky. She is interested in issues of gender, health, biopolitics, and the state. Having recently finished her M.A. thesis on public breastfeeding, she is now researching medical landscapes of the non-citizen for her dissertation. Rebecca is co-editor of Family, Sex, Law. Derek Ruez is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Geography at the University of Kentucky. He is broadly interested in cultural and political geography, urban studies, and social and political theory. He is currently revising his M.A. thesis analyzing September 11th and Hurricane Katrina as cultural traumas, while also beginning work on a dissertation examining secular and sexual nationalisms in liberal democracies.

Sarah Schuetze is a Ph.D. candidate in the English Department at the University of Kentucky. She studies representations of illness in early American literature.

Justin Spinks is a doctoral student and instructor in philosophy at the University of Kentucky. His area of specialization is the history of philosophy, especially the 19 th century, with a research focus on the epistemology of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Other areas of interest include 19 th and 20 th century continental philosophy, social and political philosophy, existentialism, and the works of Plato.

Tim Vatovec is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Geography at the University of Kentucky and is a recipient of the institution's certificate in Social Theory. His research interests are broad and include rural homeland security issues, cultural landscapes, and queer theory. He will serve as co-editor of disClosure 21: Self/Story (2012).

Jeffrey Zamostny is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Hispanic Studies at the University of Kentucky. His dissertation research focuses on modernity and sexuality in commercial literature from Spain between 1900 and 1936. Jeff's publications appear in MELUS and Decimononica.

After completing his tenure as co-editor of disClosure, he will serve as Editor-in-Chief of the bilingual journal Nomenclatura: aproximaciones a los estudios hispanicos.

IV

1

Ellen Lewin

Commodifying SameSex Marriage in the United States: Medicalization, Morality, and Mental Health

In the spring of 2005, the membership of the American Psychological Association approved a resolution backing same-sex marriage "in the interest of maintaining and promoting mental health." Both this organization and its sister professional group, the American Psychiatric Association, have long attended to the mental health ramifications of homosexuality, and famously, back in the early 1970S, the psychiatrists voted to remove homosexuality from the list of mental disorders enumerated in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).l That decision, along with the earlier work of the Kinsey researchers and the revolutionary psychological studies conducted by Evelyn Hooker, has long been heralded as having paved the way for gay and lesbian people to dispute characterizations of their sexuality as clinically abnormal.2 With this assurance that homosexuality did not stem from an inherently disordered psyche, lesbians and gay men and other members of sexual/gender minorities have

2

Commodifying Same-Sex Marriage been able not only to seek relief from persecution, but to launch an ambitious movement for civil rights.

Judgments about the mental health of non-heterosexuals have clearly played a part in the gains made over the last few decades and it would be foolish to minimize the power of such professional asse;sments to influence public opinion-or the degree to which such views are ~emselves shaped by changing public opinion. But of late, a somewhat different ~gument about lesbian/gay rights and mental health, specifically surrounding demands for same-sex marriage, has surfaced in the United States, and I would like to raise some concerns about how these issues are coming to be deployed. An article by psychiatrist Robert Kertzner and anthropologist Gilbert Herdt, for example, argues forcefully that same-sex couples should have access to legal marriage because of the mental health benefits they would thereby realize. Although this position resonates with many mental health professionals, I believe it demands careful and critical examination.3 I will contend that while estimations of the mental health adv~tages of ~arriage may have some strategic utility in approaching particular audiences, e.g., psychologists and psychiatrists, a political strate!?' that puts. mental health at its center is ill-considered and potentially productive of questionable alliances. I base my position on conce~s about what scholars, clinicians, and activists mean by "mental health, as .well as on my alarm over a growing convergence between arguments lo favor of marriage equality for same-sex couples and the larger .marriage promotion movement that has surfaced in the United Sta~e~ lo re~nt years in close association with efforts to "reform" welfare POlICIes. I WIll argue, as well, that these associations reflect a growing comm?dification o~ marriage and mental health as both come increasingly to be linked to relative affluence.

Beyond ~oncerns about these findings themselves, I am uncomfortable WIth .any approach to lesbian and gay rights that uses a mental health paradIgm to frame notions of entitlement and citizenship even as I am. personally sympathetic to the struggle by gay and lesbia~ people to gam access to legal marriage.4 As a cultural anthropolOgist whose work has long addressed that complex of ideas behaviors and symbols tha~ compri~e what we usually gloss as "family"' and "kinship," I take a keen lOterest lo the ways these categories are defined in different cul~ral contexts. My approach stands in contrast to trends in queer stu~es that have tended to neglect this area of behavior and identity Particularly at the.. level real life, reflecting an assumption that transgresSIve sexualIties, however they are defined, are always already separat~~ or should. be separable from the mundane social domain of domestiCI~ and famI!Y.s !he ~~phasis in this body of work typically lies on sexualIty and desIre, ImplICItly separating these domains from other elements of daily life and identity. .Some scholars have gone further and have sharply criticized efforts of lesbIans and gay men to achieve any of the insignia of family legitimacy6 3

Lewin or have sought, with little regard for empirical evidence, to cas~ queer families as axiomatically subversive. 7 Commentators on both SIdes of debates about queerness and assimilation voice surprisingly similar arguments, drawn in my view on deeply essentialized assumptio~s about the nature of homosexuality as a fixed and predictable set of behavIOrs and desires. 8 In both cases, departure from heterosexual convention is understood as rooted in specific non-normative sexual proclivities, urges that may be seen as disordered and evil by opponents of gay rights or that may be valorized by their proponents, but which in ei~er case are th?ught to be displayed in a range of sexual and cultural behaVIors at odds WIth all sorts of conventionality. Such positions amount to what I have labeled "queer fundamentalism" when espoused by theorists who position themselves as non-heterosexual.9 The resultant myopia concerning lesbian/gay life and families has meant, on one level, that lesbian and gay social worlds have long been construed as almost completely lacking in family or kinship connections, except insofar as the language of relatedness is used metaphori~lly or applied through "choice" to friends. to Prev~ent imag~ of lesb~an/gay cultures and communities are of bounded, mwardly-onented umverses, the frontiers around them understood as a sort of no-man's land in which nearly aU fear to tread. Marriage and family simply don't have a place in this terrain.

But questioning the use of mental health paradigms as a way to argue for equal access to marriage need not be inspired by ho~tility toward same-sex marriage or repudiation of the desires of some lesbIans and gay men to claim the rewards of domesticity. Nor need it ignore the fact that mental health arguments may have particular resonance with some audiences we may wish to reach and thus have a particular, though opportunistic, effectiveness. Nonetheless, the prospect of using same-~ex marriage as part of a larger effort to enhance the mental health of l~sbJa.n and gay people is a disturbing one, as well as an approach that I belIeve IS doomed to backfire.

What are the arguments about same-sex marriage and mental health? Celia Kitzinger and Sue Wilkinson" have provided us with an excellent review of one strand of the mental health argument, one that emphasizes what might be called the oppression position, i.e., that lack of access to legal marriage is a form of oppression that has a range of deleterious effects on mental health, a claim that recalls positions taken in opposition to racial segregation, notably influenci~g the 1?54 Supreme Court decision in Bl"Own u. Board of Educahon, whIch outlawed segregation in public schools." The majority opini~n in that ~se h~ld that segregation was wrong because it made black children feel lOfenor and hence caused them psychological and intellectual harm, a judgment heavily influenced by Kenneth and Mamie Clark's famous doll pr~ference studies.'3 Whether such research is directly applicable to the expenence of lesbians and gay men certainly merits further investigation, though some parallels between various forms of discrimination obviously exist.

4

Commodifying Same-Sex Marriage

I /11

. Th~se arguments-tha.t discrimin~tion generates pathology-clearly c?nfhct WIth efforts, foundational to clrums to gay and lesbian civil rights smce the 1950S, to understand homosexual people Oike other members of sti~atized minor!ties) as fundamentally psychologically healthy.14 The notio~ that exclusIOn from key social institutions is primarily a form of emotio~al abuse to which stigmatized persons fall victim cannot be the foundation of a strategy to gain equal rights, Kitzinger and Wilkinson argue.

But other approaches to same-sex marriage and mental health have been ~spired not by arguments about the harmful consequences of op?reSSlOn, but by a comparison with heterosexual marriage and a :elIance on stances t~en in support of marriage that have been deployed m a. r.ange of c?ntexts m the US-what we might call the happy marriage poslhon: Despite contr~~ctory data a~out the mental health implications of marna?e, these positions accept WIth little qualification the assertion that mamage has affirmatively positive emotional effects on both men and women, and that same-sex couples ought to be able to share these benefits.'5 Attempts to ground the quest for equality in the mental health benefi~ of marriage inevitably draw on data that only indirectly speak to the cucu~st~ces of lesbian and gay couples. The marriage and partne:shlp nghts offered to same-sex couples in the several European coun!Iies ?enerally do not offer complete equality with heterosexual mamage, msofar, as ~any of these countries place some restrictions on same-sex .couples abtlIty to adopt children or avail themselves of some other en~itlements associated with marriage. 16 Denmark was the first country (m 1989) ~o es~ablish some sort of same-sex registration option, but ~ther. countries. m Europe quickly followed suit, first across ScandmaVl~ and then m the Netherlands and Belgium (where both samesex ~nd dlffere.nt-sex couples now have the option to choose either m~.age or regIStered partnership). A range of other arrangements now eXist .m France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Fully equal access to mru:na?e was extend~d to gay and lesbian couples in Canada in 2003 in Spam 1D 2005, and m. South Africa in 2006. Some European countries ~ffer .a r:m ge of regIStration provisions, none of which are called I mama~e and some of which also offer a legal connection perceived as ~s weighty than marriage to heterosexual couples, though there is eVlde~ce that ~ome couples actively view these unions as "marriage" sometimes adding ~r.emonial elements to the registration process to ma;k that status.'7 In addition, a number of jurisdictions around the world will ackn owledge ~r accord some level of recognition to same-sex marriages an d partnerships enacted elsewhere.'8 In 0~ United States, beginning with Berkeley California in 1984 !on:ze mumclpal ~d state jurisdictions have approved measures that offe; anous sorts of ngh~ that approximate some features of marriage to sam~-s~x (and som~times opposite-sex) unmarried couples variously conslSting of domestic partner registration, extension of som~ employee 5

Lewin benefits (most notably health insurance) to same-sex partners, and the ability to claim legal standing that would permit particular kinds of litigation.'9 At the same time, in the US, a substantial number of public and private employers have begun to offer benefits to the same-sex partners of employees, though such efforts have been hampered in locations where anti-gay marriage measures have been passed by voters and have, in some instances, occasioned consumer boycotts by right-wing constituencies.

As of this writing, three states in the US-Massachusetts, California, and Connecticut-have made marriage legal for same-sex couples, though the entitlements such couples can claim stop at the state borders. 20 With the impending threat of a constitutional amendment ~Massachu.se~) and a ballot initiative (California) that defines marnage as hIDIted to heterosexual unions, couples can hardly settle into their marriages confidently. A constantly changing roster of states offers some variant of "marriage lite," including Vermont's civil union mechanism. The legal standing of all of these measures, at least in the US, remains quite fluid at the same time that more countries are establishing some sort of recognition for same-sex marriages, whether they move to institute such processes themselves or merely to recogn~e unions solemniz~d. elsew~ere.

Brazil, for example, instituted a policy m 2003 of recogntzmg uruons performed elsewhere for purposes ofimmigration. 2 1 All of this flux- the situation changes almost day to day-and the shallow time frame within which legally recognized same-sex marriage or partnership has existed, mean that arguments that marriage has any particular mental health effects on same-sex co~ples can. only be made indirectly and with heavy reliance on rhetOriC. That IS, we cannot empirically assess how marriage affects the mental ~ealth status of married same-sex couples over time when there are Virtually no such people available to investigate. Further, since what is considered marriage or what particular couples interpret as marriage vary across a wide range of legal and ceremonial arrangements, there is n~ way to legitimat~ly compare the experience of same-sex couples WIth that of mamed heterosexuals.

In the absence of direct evidence, some proponents of same-sex marriage have based their positions on analogies drawn from studies of heterosexual couples, most notably the work of Linda .Waite and her associates 22 which claim that both mental and phYSical health are enhanced by legal marriage. In other instances, argumen~ i.n favor of the right to marry have been based on the pre~umed pO~ltive. effects of achieving public recognition for such committed relationships. !hese approaches depend on previous findings, l~rgely based "on n.arrativ; or anecdotal evidence that speak to the benefiCial effects of commg out on feelings of well-b~ing and self-esteem (to mention just some of the variables that might be mentioned) a~d. others .that su~est .that community support helps to sustain and solIdify commltted relationships.

6

Commodifying Same-Sex Marriage THE CASE FOR MARRIAGE . . !here is an enormous corpus of research from a range of discIplines-psychology, economics, sociology, history, and others-that addresses the advantages (heterosexual) marriage may provide couples and spokes~ersons for this set of comparisons draw on a range of finding~ to m~e theIr case. Some of these data appear to present solid evidence for the VIew that particular indi.cators of mental health (as well as physical heal~) can be correlated WIth marital status in particular populations studied under specific circumstances. For example, a number of reseru:chers have conducted longitudinal studies that follow the expenences of those wh? marry a~d those who do not, as indicated by self;ep?rt. 23 In these studIes, baselIne data on a variety of mental health mdicators are compared with outcomes after various marital pathways.

These researche;s generally c?ncl.ude ~at stabl~ marriage (at least during a five-~ear penod. of examInation) IS assocIated with freedom from depress~on, expressIOns ?f happiness with life in general, self-esteem, and other di~ers.e measures Including personal mastery, autonomy, having a purpose In life, and personal growth. In contrast, those who did not marry dunng the research period or who married and then separated or divorced showed corresponding deficits in these same areas."'!

The direction of these findings is not uniform, nor do assertions ~bout why such advantages occur necessarily argue for the same causal hnks. ~e explanations Waite and Gallagher offer for marriage being benefiCIal to mental health (among other areas) variously focus on the salutary effects of intim~cy and emotional support, the security gained from ~e greater coI?mItr~'lent presumed to accompany legal marriage (even m the fac~ of high divorce rates), the protection spouses offer each ot:h er from phYSIcal hazards (though this argument usually identifies the WIfe ~s the p~otector of both spouses), and often, the economic advantages assocIated WIth marriage .. Whether any of these attributes, but especially those. connected to finanCIal wherewithal, are causes or effects of marriage remams a matter of controversy.'s Obviously, many questions can be raised about the credibility of such data, based as they are on aggregate epidemiological data or self reports and responses to questionnaires administered in artificial settings not least about their appli~tion to the immense complexity of real life: ~o~ably the most compellIng set of criticisms of these conclusions raise e Issue of how to evaluate "good: ver~us "bad" marriages, particularly as we have become aware of pe~asIve VIolence in the latter- however they e defined. Num~rous studIes of domestic violence reveal that class ~~ors, and especIally extreme poverty, are linked to high rates of ence. The P?or a:e also. the group least likely to marry, thus suggesting at couples WI~ hIgher Incomes may have greater chances of marital success, along WIth lesser vulnerability to domestic violence .â&#x20AC;˘6 In other words, those who are destined to be able to manage the most successful marriages are, in fact, the very same population most

r

;0

7

Lewin

likely to marry. Those with fewer economic resources, already at risk for domestic violence and other hazards that might have negative emotional impacts, generally do not find their way into the statistics on marital mental health. Similarly, it might be argued that those with better overall mental stability and other emotional qualities that might contribute to a harmonious marital life are already more likely to marry and to have successful marriages than those individuals with mental health deficits.

Selection factors, in other words, may account for the correlations between mental health indicators and marriage, despite researchers' claims that their longitudinal designs eliminate such biases.

In an effort to directly address the experience of same-sex couples, psychologist Lawrence Kurdek has compared gay and lesbian cohabiting couples with heterosexual married couples along such dimensions of "relationship quality" as intimacy, autonomy, equality, constructive problem solving, and barriers to leaving the marriage. He then assesses the relationship between these variables and two "relationship outcomes" during a five-year longitudinal study. While the overall results indicate that relationship quality and relationship outcome, i.e., continuation or dissolution, are linked similarly for heterosexual and homosexual couples, numerous methodological problems can be raised in trying to extrapolate from heterosexual married couples to gay men and lesbians. Like other studies of its kind, Kurdek's involved a rather homogeneous, non-random sample of well-educated subjects and depended on self reporting for its findings. More critical, of course, is the absence of any direct way to compare the possible effects of marital status on two populations whose legal relationship to marriage is totally different. Nor does this approach allow for an examination of how gender itself may shape perceptions of relationship quality.'7 THE CASE FOR COMING OUT Claims about the benefits of coming out are largely based on studies conducted by clinicians.' s Related research shows a range of deleterious effects of concealing one's sexual identity, including an elevated risk for suicide, HIV infection, and exposure to sexual violence.'9 They draw on knowledge about how people experience all forms of stigma, including the notion, famously put forward by Erving Goffman,30 that stigmatized individuals must devote considerable energy to "managing" fueir identities and to assessing the risk in particular situations of allowing fueir identities to become known. Stigmatized identities, this literature indicates, "spoil" or supersede other aspects of identity, and eifuer preventing discovery or manipulating it in some way becomes an overriding preoccupat~on for such individuals. But even as fears about negative responses to commg out are warranted in many circumstances,3 1 individuals often report disclosure to be a liberating experience fuat enables fuem to validate their sense of self.3' .

8

Commodifying Same-Sex Marriage Beyond the clinical data, the celebration of coming out as a necessary feature of forming a stable homosexual identity and the testimonials that are typical features of personal accounts seem to be ~e~e~ by .the ~alue NOrth. American culture places on honesty and mdiVIdual mtegnty. Along WIth these values, the individualistic ethos that is particularly central to the culture of the US prizes the authenticity of personal narratives as unassailable evidence of experience and hence "~th".33 By the same token, concealing one's "true" identity is widely believed to be both personally unhealthy and potentially harmful to others, as accounts of members of stigmatized populations who "pass" as members of more esteemed groups amply demonstrate.

While such experiences may .not always be analogous, the images of the black person who passes as white, of the Jew who allows him/herself to be taken for pentile, an~ the homosexual who pretends to be straight nearly ~ways ~nvoke no.tions that passing betrays one's family and community, typically leading to tragic results. Such outcomes may occur on a personal lev~l and be ~emonstrated by displays of pathological, and even self-d~truc!l~e, behaVIor. They also may be understood to be more communal In their Impact, as the person who passes risks alienation from the. community o~ ~ose with ,,:,hom the stigmatized identity is shared, whl.le never establishing secure hnks with the community to which he/she asplres. 34 .Such jud~ents are supported by the evidence of personal narratives of vanou.s so~-confessions of those who have passed and come ~o regret .thelr actions as cowardly, and testimonials about the exultation expenenced by those who own up to their "true" identities. In fact, the coming-out story has been one of the central cultural devices that has fr~ed the gay and lesbian rights movement in the West¡ it takes a narrative form that is distinctive in some features, but that alsd resembles the larger genre of the bildungsroman. 35 The ~ncritical val.orization of "coming out" assumes that identities are fixed, smgu1~, .and Inherent to individuals who must be conscious of th~m. Secrecy, hiding-even behaviors that might constitute a wish for pnvacy-are e.xcoriated in this discourse as concealment and evidence of shame, sometimes .constructed. as "i~tern~ized homophobia." Rarely do we rea~ ~path~tic a~ounts In which discretion about one's sexual (or other) I.dentity might elt~er hav~ a positive outcome, e.g., by allowing for the mamtenanc:e of.parti~ular kinds of relationships, enhancing earning power, or of situations In which "openness" results from pressure to conform tha.t compe~s collusion with identity definitions imposed by oth~rs. In. ~IS analYSIs of gay adolescents' uses of silence in their life stones, ':Vil!lam Leap has observed that condemnation of the "closet" may ob~cun~ Its ~mportance not only as a site of denial, but also as a location in which a stmpler and less threatening form of gay experience" can be f!act:d. "If the closet is part. ~f gay c~lture, then the closet, too, has a gu ~e-a language that pnVIleges szlence over speech, restraint over expreSSion, concealment over cooperation, safety over risk. "36 9

Lewin Mental health-based arguments in favor of same-sex marriage rights raise concerns, then, in terms of how such positions are derived and argued. They are based not on solid evidence, but on a set of analogies and generalizations themselves drawn from questionable sources. They rest on assumptions that same-sex partnerships are readily comparable in key dimensions to heterosexual marriages, and on extrapolations from the subjective body of knowledge provided by clinical accounts of coming out and bolstered by popular coming-out and other personal narratives. And they assume a particular sort of relationship between marriage and mental health that, as we shall see, is far from transparent.

WHAT'S THE OPPOSITE OF MENTAL HEALTH? Besides the problem of drawing analogies between the as yet virtually non-existent phenomenon of same-sex marriage and either heterosexual marriage or the coming out experience, the mental health paradigm generates some more specific concerns as well. The most obvious and disturbing image is of gay and lesbian people, who in the vast majority of locations are now, and have always been, ineligible for legal marriage, being therefore less well-endowed with "mental health" than married people. Are they more prone to psychological disturbances merely because of their unmarried status?

If we take the idea of a link between marriage and mental health to its logical conclusion, it seems to me that we find ourselves moving toward undoing the positive impact of the decision by the American Psychiatric Association to de-pathologize homosexuality. Under these conditions, it would not be the direction of sexual desire or the disruptions of conventional gender norms that would label homosexuals "sick," but their lack of participation in the institution of marriage. As circular as such reasoning may seem, there is sufficient hostility to gay and lesbian people today to make access to such an easy form of stigma an attractive alternative to seemingly more toxic forms of bias.

Attempts to ascertain levels of "mental health" and to connect them with "marriage" are problematic as well when we consider how imprecise those terms are. Whose marriages are we talking about, and how do we account for the mental health benefits they allegedly confer? That is, assuming that a generic condition known as "marriage" has some positive effects on mental health, what is the mechanism by which this is thought to occur? Which aspects of mental health are affected? I can imagine a number of benefits conferred by marriage that would be difficult to extrapolate to non-heterosexuals: the communal recognition ~at accompanies the change from single to married, or the fact that marned couples conventionally include wage-earning men and thus are better off than individuals on their own or two women living together. Can we assume that marriage bestows the same benefits across divisions of so~ial class, race, and ethnicity-or across the many other cultural boundaries that crisscross US society?

10

Commodifying Same-Sex Marriage Even the most earnest advocates of the benefits of marriage are hard-pressed to unravel the distinction between the institution's economic advantages and the salutary effects they claim it has on mental and physical health. These economic benefits can easily be traced to the effects of having an employed male contributing to the household; given the lower rates of marriage among the poor, this male is likely to be at least middleclass. But do they result from or cause the positive mental health outcomes these researchers claim to have found? How much emotional distress, one cannot help but wonder, is the product of insecure financial circ~stances-downward mobility, deindustrialization, the growing prormnence of employment in the service sector. None of these conditions pro~otes mental health, and none of them are positively associated with marn~ge rates. Some of the .s~holars in ~is field give passing attention to these I~sues,.but none are Wlllmg to conSider how thoroughly their images of mantal bliss are grounded in economic security.37 The enthusiasm with which some of the pro-marriage scholars invoke the economic benefits of mar.riage comes perilously close to sounding like a get-rich-quick scheme for I?stantly.solving the financial predicaments of many currently living outside marriage.

Then. there ar~ ~actors associated with heterosexual marriage that may have either pOSitive or negative effects; here I am thinking of the consequence~ ?f the institution's intersection with conventional gender roles. Does hvmg under the sway of these norms contribute to "mental health" equally for men and women, and how would this translate in a same:sex partnership? Those who celebrate the mental health benefits of marnage have been eager to sweep aside the visionary work of Jessie Bernard, who more than 30 years ago argued that marriages needed to be understood as ~iffe~ent institutions for men and women.38 In her reading, men ~enefited m direct ways from the services of women while women were. likely to suffer in various ways from their subordinated roles in these r.elationships. W?ile lines of authority in marriage are by no means as linear as convention framed them before the influences of feminism began to be felt and women's employment became a virtual necessity for all but the most affluent families, the continuing prevalence of domestic violence d an. unequ~ division of household labor both speak to the ongoing mequality that IS a feature of at least some heterosexual marriages. 39 Of course, those couples who do have significant economic resources are precisely those who can buy themselves out of some of the more oppressive manifestations of gender inequality. If service employees can ~e engage~ to undertake the more onerous aspects of domesticitycleanmg, cooking, laundry, and child care-then it is likely that stresses caused by female subordin~tion will fade into the background, even as women, by and. large, ~ontinue to have major responsibility for making sure all the .servlce pr?VJders complete their work. But perhaps that is not the mechamsm by whICh marriage confers its apparent benefits. We do not really know.

:m

11

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And that is just looking at the United States. Is "mental health" everywhere measured by the same criteria? Do all cultures assess it according to individual attributes, or are there locations where we must look for a more communal reading of "mental health"? Medical anthropologists can attest to the fact that the assessment of mental health and illness is accomplished very differently in different cultures, with stark disparities cross-culturally in the numbers of persons diagnosed with particular conditions. 4o Do the mental health advantages presumed to be associated with marriage also accrue where other systems of marriage, such as polygamy, are normative? Do they apply in cultures where marriage operates as a mechanism for ordering social, economic, and political alliances rather than a site for intimacy and emotional support?

MEDICALIZING RELATIONSHIPS

Framing equality in terms of "mental health" depends on a paradigm of medicalization, a form of social control that historically has rarely been employed in the service of disempowered or marginalized populations. 41 Feminist scholars have long documented, for example, the ways in which the medicalization of women's ordinary reproductive experience can have a variety of pernicious effects on their social status, and arguably on their mental health as well. These processes of medicalization undermine women's ability to trust their own embodied experience, leading to soaring rates of interventions, at least some of which are not medically necessary. They also institutionalize medical surveillance over the most personal domains of life, obstructing women's ability to make decisions on their own behalf.42 Perhaps it is not surprising that a medical model of the right to marry would emerge in the present historical moment when such technologies as Viagra, assisted reproduction, prenatal diagnostic techniques, cosmetic and gender reassignment surgeries, and other interventions British sociologist Ken Plummer has dubbed "the medicalizing of intimacy"43 are proliferating and arguably having their own effects on sexuality and marriage. Increasingly, variations that were simply part of the routine fabric of life have moved into a domain that makes them "treatable." As some advocates for the disabled have argued, the availability of prenatal diagnostic methods for conditions that may not be life-threatening may lead to a devaluation of all human variability, and even of cultures shared by persons with specific conditions (e.g., deafness).44 Comparable arguments have surrounded the ubiquitous use of prenatal diagnosis to determine the sex of the fetus, whiclJ in a number of countries (e.g., India and China) have led to selective abortion of (usually) female offspring.45 Are "imperfections" of any sort to be tolerated, or should they all be obliterated by the power of medical treatment? Will women who re.fuse to undergo diagnostic procedures or undertake therapies indicated by the results of diagnoses be held responsible for 12

Commodifying Same-Sex Marriage producing disabled offspring?46 And does the availability of such technologies, at least to those who can afford to employ them, pose the prospect of embodying class distinctions in previously unimaginable ways?47 .

Me~calization ,Presents particularly problematic issues for gay ng~ts as It expan~ mto the area of sexual functioning.48 Use of the vanous pharmaceutical products that have taken aim at so-called erectile dysfunctio~ ~ presumably fr~el.y chosen, but as these technologies become mo;e sophisticated and specialized, will that always be the case? How will theIr. expanded us~ affect popular understandings of "normal" sexual functi?nmg? How big ~ s~ep might it be from "treating" sexual dysfunction to seemg all sexual vanation, as well as the emotional fabric of sexuality in medicalized tenns?49 ' Medicaliz.ation al~o r:uses ye~ other worrisome questions that hinge on the temporality of SCientific findings. What if later research contradicts the data that support the salutary effects of marriage? Do claims to the ~ental health benefits of marriage then evaporate, going the same way as diets ~as~d on heavy consumption of red meat? In other words, can we only JUstify demands for same-sex marriage rights as long as we can demonstrate a correlation between such rights and good mental health? . Even if we forego a broad cross-cultural survey and look only at the Umted States, we can se~ that notion~ of who is mentally ill vary enonnously, even over relatively short pen ods of time. A recent survey, for example,. suggested that more than half of Americans will develop a me~tal disorder ove~ their lifetimes.50 And the DSM, which as I mentioned earlie~ de-pathololP~ed homosexuality in its 1973 edition (thereby declanng several mIlhon people instantly "cured"), has, for the most part, adde~ r~the: than subtracted mental disorders to its inventory of psychiatric diagnoses. The total number of disorders listed amounted to some 60 categories in 1952, but now boasts about 300 conditions and syndromes. ~an w~ expect that homosexuality or failure to marry might not turn up mto th~s powerful compendium as time goes on? Both mental health and mental illness are moving targets, shifting, some would argue, to meet ~e pressures of the pharmaceutical industry or to coincide with the reqUlrements of health insurance.51 WHAT ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS?

. . Another concern speaks to longer range strategies. As Kitzinger and Wilkinson argue, the use of a mental health paradigm draws our attention away fro~ mo~els that would be more appropriate to the matter of samesex m~age rIghts. The language of the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of .Human Rights might help us think about the issue of equal access to mamage as a matter of equality before the law and the right of each person to legal recognition, both listed as inalienable human rights in the do~ument. The ~eclar~tion also includes the following: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary Interference with his privacy, family, home or 13

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correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."52 Historian Nancy Cott has shown that marriage has long functioned as a marker of citizenship in the US; this clause in the Declaration speaks directly to the central problem that exclusion from marriage poses for lesbians and gay men, as it once did for enslaved people and Asian immigrants. 53 Does a mental health focus really enhance our ability to deploy a human rights paradigm?

While I have some discomfort with the universalizing language of human rights discourse, my mention of the paradigm is not just hypothetical. Such language, rather than prognostications about mental health, in fact penneates legal decisions that have been made in support of same-sex marriage or other rights of lesbian and gay people. In the 2004 decision in the Massachusetts case, Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, for example, the justices explained their ruling in support of samesex marriage as follows: Barred access to the protections, benefits, and obligations of civil marriage, a person who enters into an intimate, exclusive Ullion with another of the same sex is arbitrarily deprived of membership in one of our community's most rewarding and cherished institutions. That exclusion is incompatible with the constitutional principles of respect for individual autonomy and equality under law. 54 Similarly, the Ontario court that ruled in Halpern v. Canada in 2003, establishing the foundation for equal access to marriage in Canada, stated in part, Exclusion from marriage - a fundamental societal institution - perpetuates the view that same-sex relationships are less worthy of recognition than opposite-sex relationships. In doing so, it offends the dignity of persons in same-sex relationships.55 In other words, the human rights-inflected language of fundamental human dignity can be used to craft arguments that are convincing in judicial contexts. Like Gayatri Spivak's notion of "strategic essentialism," such appeals may be intellectually suspect but nevertheless are evocative and effective. 56 The deployment of mental health is not the only argument that can be used opportunistically to capture the sympathy of an important audience.

THE PERILS OF PRIVACY 14

Commodifying Same-Sex Marriage

.

The language of mental health tends to invoke images of domestic pnvacy that I would argue obscure the workings of the "matrix of power rela~ons" in ~hich marri.age is actually embedded. 57 Yes, family and mantal dynamIcs unfold In spaces that are private, but they also are shaped by laws and politics, as well as by the inequalities that exist between parents and children, between men and women, and between groups that are positioned differently according to race economic status ~d o~er distinctions. The language of mental health' instead implies ~ distanc10g between the public domain and the world of emotions, as ~ough ~e latter unfol~s only in the realm of the private and domestic. It IS essential. to recognIze that the struggle for same-sex marriage has blossomed 10 a complex environment in which ideas about identities and the claims to citizenship they make possible intersect with notions of rights ~d responsib~ities. These dynamics cannot be captured by models that ?Ifurcate th~ pnvate and public; rather they are sites where these seemIngl~ OPPOSIn~ d~m~s .are .most .intimately connected. Marriage, after all, IS the SOCIal Institution In whIch a private sexual relationship receives public recognition.

I am similarly suspicious of arguments for same-sex marriage that frame the entire debate as a quest for concrete benefits such as health coverage, pensions, and child custody, arguments that bear a marked resemblance to the mental health rationale. Clearly, those (and more than 1,000 other) spe~ific entitlemen~s a:e, in the US, tied directly to marriage.

But would marnage cease to eXIst If these benefits were distributed in a more equitable fas?ion? ~ll?1 of us ~till dream that the US will one day enter the commumty of cIVIlIzed nations that offers its citizens national health care, but would provision of universal health coverage really mean that there. would b.e no reason to get married? Has anything like that happened In countries that do offer such services?

Ethnographic research on same-sex commitment ceremonies that were undertaken in. the complete a?sence of any sort of legal recognition sh?wed that matenal benefits, while not to be disparaged, are not the pnI?ary reason that people ~hoose t~ marry. Instead, couples' accounts 1Odi~ted that the~ were making a va~lety of sometimes overlapping, even se~mIngly co!ltradIct~ry, statements In framing their desire to make their umons ~ubhc and. In formulating the specific ritual content of the ceremon~e~. The ntu~s allowed them to articulate membership in com~umties .of all Strip~s, connections to spiritual forces and religious tradition.s, clrums to ethmc and family ties- all intentions that transcended boundanes between sexually-defined populations. These couples wanted to make particul~ kinds of statements about themselves to the wider world, an~ matenal benefits served more to ratify their stances than to de~ne therr goals. For example, gifts might have monetary value, but they mrunly w~rk to demons~ate that the couple is really what they say they are-marned. Couples mlg~t perceive their mental health-experienced as a general sense of wellbeIng-to have been positively affected by their 15

Lewin

weddings, but their objectives in staging these events go beyond these fleeting rewards.sB MENTAL HEALTH AS DURABLE GOOD

Those who have created the current uproar about the status and future of marriage in the US have pointed to divorce rates, out-of-wedlock births, cohabitation, and other social behavior as indicators of the collapse of marriage as a central social institution and have suggested a host of other misfortunes that will accompany that collapse.59 However, the most sensible voices to enter the debate have demonstrated that marriage has not lost its importance, but rather has changed its meaning in the past few decades. In a recent article that addresses prognostications about the "future of marriage," sociologist Andrew Cberlin draws on evidence from a wide range of investigations to show that marriage has become not the entry point to adult life, but a valued marker of success and achievement.

Cherlin argues that marriage has in fact grown in prestige, as evidenced by the visibility of elaborate weddings couples pay for themselves. Couples thereby demonstrate that they have reached the point in life where they are successful and stable enough to celebrate a marriage. 60 These findings are echoed in the work of Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas, whose 2005 study of low-income mothers (white, black and Latino) reveals that marriage is highly valued, indeed to such a degree that poor women fear taking such a momentous commitment lightly by marrying "only" because of getting pregnant. Even when they establish a household with their child's father and say they intend to marry him, they choose not to do so until both have reached a level of financial stability and have enough money to "do it right." Marriage, then, is not just regarded as a legal status that bestows particular entitlements on couples, but as a unique medium through which cultural and economic status may be marked. 61 It is not coincidental that the standard for doing a marriage "right" emerging in both of these analyses is economic. Indeed, Frank Furstenberg has suggested that marriage in fact perpetuates "a growing division in American society between the haves and the have-nots.

Marriage, quite simply, is a form of having." Not only is it a form of "having," Furstenberg claims, but it has, in effect, become "a luxury consumer item, available only to those with the means to bring it off."62 Considering the many documented benefits associated with marriage, Furstenberg continues, it emerges as "a cause and a consequence of economic, cultural, and psychological stratification in American society.

The recent apparent increase in income inequality in the U.S. means that the population may continue to sort itself between those who are eligible for marriage and a growing number who are deemed ineligible to marry."63 The deployment of "mental health" in the debate over same-sex marriage has much in common with the discussion of the immersion of

16

Commodifying Same-Sex Marriage marriage in the calculus of inequality. Mental health, as used in much of the work discussed here and elsewhere, turns out to be another kind of durable good, something one wants to maximize because it is understood to be a good-and perhaps prestigious-thing to have. In a society as consumption-driven as the United States, value is often reduced to a range of amorphous and also highly individualistic mental health variables-selfesteem, relationship satisfaction, and others. Under these conditions, "mental health" begins to look less like an exogenous factor that can be measured or enhanced than an element of a larger cultural preoccupation with consumption as a marker of success.

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the current infatuation with mental health as a charter for marriage rights is the company it condemns gayflesbian rights advocates to keep. The marriage promotion movement, represented by groups such as the Council on Families in America and the Institute fo~ American V~ue:" has advanced a number of arguments in support of I~ ~ropo~ents . VIew that legal marriage should be the only framework Wlthm which children are born. Primary among these has been a co~plex web of claims, outlined above, about the beneficial effects of ~arnage on everyone involved- positive physical health outcomes are Cited,. as ~e men~ health correlations, personal safety allegedly associated WIth marnage, and healthy results for child development.64 Those who have argued that the government should take a more active role in promoting and supporting legal marriage have also urged that a variety of pressures be brought to bear on those who do not fall into line-including tax consequences, eligibility criteria for various sorts of pub~~ support, and a revival of the stigmatization of divorce and Jl~egJtimacy. These efforts have been realized, to some extent, in the discourse ~urr?unding ~e "welfare reform" movement of the 1990S, which had a major VlCt?ry WIth t~e. p~sage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportumty Reconclhation Act of 1996: Aid to Families with Dependent . ~hildren was transformed into Temporary Assistance for Needy Famlhes, a measure that includes lifetime limits on eligibility for benefits .. p~rt of the reasoning that inspired these changes is the notion that recelVlng welfare encourages women to have children out of wedlock and that su.ch .wom~n do not deserve public support. 65 . . . A. slmJlar hne of reasoning has been used in a number of J~sdictions to deprive gay/lesbian individuals and couples from fostering (m Texas, for example) or from adopting (in Florida) children no matter how long these ~hil.dre~ have drifted in the foster-care ;ystem and regardless of their hkelihood to secure a placement with the sort of heterosexual family vaunted as "normal." Although there is no direct overlap at ~resent be~een opposition to same-sex marriage and hostility to gay/lesbian parenting, proponents of both positions tend to draw on

17

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similar reasoning about what sorts of families are normal and worthy of respect.

So the question of what sorts of alliances a mental health strategy will lead the same-sex marriage movement to adopt is perhaps the most compelling reason to exercise caution in deploying a mental health argument. The Bush administration's avowed commitment to promoting marriage has emerged simultaneously with its hostility to sharing the rewards of marriage and family with gay and lesbian citizens. It has been tied, as well, to efforts to link eligibility for various sorts of legal and economic benefits to heterosexual marriage, with threats to reinstitute the status of illegitimacy for children born out of wedlock and to deny assistance to impoverished families who fail to meet this standard. Gay and lesbian people who support the right to marry would do well to note these parallels and speak to them publicly.66 In the context of the highly politicized discourse over marriage now occurring in the US, only part of which confronts demands of same-sex couples to equal access to its benefits, "mental health" emerges as neither specifiable nor as something that is necessarily desirable. There is no evidence that marriage rights would enhance mental health for gay and lesbian people and even less that attaining such rights would necessarily be accompanied by increased tolerance and inclusiveness in the wider society. Its deployment as a personal and societal "good" seems to me to be solidly embedded in a particular stratum of North American (and perhaps Western European) cultures-that which reflects the worldviews of educated, middle- and upper-class, predominantly white people. For those of us who do not have to struggle on a daily basis for raw survival, mental health has become a handy gloss for a range of "goods" that we try to maximize, goods that set the advantaged apart from a class of have-nots who have less access to such rewards.

How we measure mental health or decide when we have it (or want it) depends a great deal on where we are personally situated-a sense of happiness, sexual satisfaction, adherence to standards of physical attractiveness, an absence of known symptoms of depression or other mental diseases- any of these may signal mental health. The more advantaged among us are uniquely positioned at this moment in history to use various sorts of instrumental means to achieve mental health, particularly through access not only to drugs and therapy modalities, but also to a host of consumer goods, the possession of which readily translates as happiness and satisfaction in a culture focused on continual material acquisition. Marriage, in fact, appears to be among the consumer goods that Americans seek, at least in the context of the mental health argument. In a culture in which "family privacy" can be used to conceal a host of miseries, including various forms of domestic violence, are we really willing to stake our rights on the assertion that marriage typically enhances "mental health"?

Equal marriage rights, or any kind of equal rights for that matter, are something else entirely-a question of civil entitlement and cultural

18

Commodifying Same-Sex Marriage citizenship-in fact, a matter of human rights. The debate over gaining these rights should be no different from struggles of years past for freedom from slavery, the right to vote, or legal abortion, or current battles to retain entitlements that are in jeopardy, such as free expression and other First Amendment rights. There are still other rights that we do not have and which lesbian and gay citizens may seek on the same basis ~ our <:<>J?patriots, ~?ng them national health care, an adequate standard of hvmg f~r all ~ltizenS, and environmental policies that will prevent the destruction of Irreplaceable. res0l?"ces. I situate marriage rights alongside ~ese other struggles-m~age nghts for same-sex couples will provide us With access to a host of entitlements that are particularly vital for the lowincome and otherwise diseI?~owered among us, but also important to tho~e of us W~lO are more pnvileged. They offer lesbian and gay citizens a baSIS for making cultural claims that are meaningful to some, but not all of us-~ ~ay to locate ourselves within families, communities, and in relation to spmtual values, a way to order daily experience, and to achieve a basic s~dard of personal dignity. Whether they give us more of that oh-sodesirable durable good, mental health, seems to me to be beside the point.

Notes • See Ronald B~yer, Homosexuality and American Psychiatry : The Politics of Diagnosis (New York: BasIC Books, 1981).

2 See, for example, Evelyn Hooker, "The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual " ~o~rnal of Projective Techniques 21 (1957): 18-31. .

Gilbert Herdt and Robert Ke~~er, "' ~o, but' Can't: The Impact of Marriage Denial on the Me~tal Health and Sexual CItizenshIp of Lesbians and Gay Men in the United States " ~exuailty !?-ese.ar7h and Social Policy 3(1) (2006):33-49. ' S~: Ceh? !Gtzl~ger and Sue Wilkinson, "Social Advocacy for Equal Marriage: The Poh~cs of .Rights and the Psychology of 'Mental Health '," Analyses of Social Issues and Pu . bllc Policy 4 (2004):173-194, for a similar position, argued along somewhat different lmeso 5 Not .only on. intellectual grounds, but as a lesbian who has a suitable-for-framing Canadi~ mamage certificate, , feel that I have a good personal understanding of what is at stake m the debate over marriage equality. Also, in terms of my own personal practices , am not 0fPpose? to "mental health" per se; i.e., I am a long term and enthusiasti~ consumer 0 a vanety of psychotherapeutic modalities.

• See for exa~ple, Judi~h Butler, "Is Kinship Always Already Heterosexual," Differences 15(1? (2002). 14-~4; MIchael Warner, The Trouble With Normal : Sex, Politics, and the ;:thlcs ofqu~er Life (New York, Free Pres:>,1999).

Wirut;~ AgJ!9 an , Baby Steps: How LesblOn Alternative Insemination is Changing the ar '. (Mlddlet~wn, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2004); Valerie Lehr, Queer Famil ~alues. Debunkl~g the Myt~ of the Nuclear Family (Philadelphia: Temple universi~ r~s, 199?)i JudIth Stacey, Gay Parenthood and the Decline of Paternity as We Knew It, Sexualltles 9(1) (2006):27-55.

• See, on the anti-gay side, Jean Bethke Elshtain, "Against Gay Marriage " Commonweal October 22, 1991; and James Q. Wilson, "Against Homosexual Marriag~ " Commentar ' ~~ch, .199~. On the pro-gay si?e, see Paula Ettelbrick, "Since When Is M~rriage a Path r~ ar ration? OUT/LOOK: N.ahonal Gay and Lesbian Quarterly, no. 6, Fall 1989. Both b ~~ents as~ume that lesbl8n/gay/homosexual identities draw on culturally distinctive . e a,:,,?rs an values, I.argely roote~ in sexual desires specific to persons with such ldentities, and that mamage and famIly are antithetical to these proclivities.

19

Lewin Ellen Lewin, Gay Fatherhood: Narratives of Family and Citizenship in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009)· .0 In her important work on lesbian and gay kinship, Kath Weston has gone mucb further with this analysis. See her Families We Choase: Lesbians, Gays, Kinship (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991). .. Kitzinger and Wilkinson, "Social Advocacy for Equal Marriage." .2 Michael J. Klarman, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Strugglefor Racial Equality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

'3 Kenneth B. and Mamie P. Clark, "Segregation as a Factor in the Racial Identification of Negro Pre-school Children," Journal of Experimental Education 8 (1939):161- 163; see also Kenneth B. Clark, Prejudice and Your Child (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955) and Kenneth B. Clark, Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power (New York: Harper & Row, 1965).

•• Henry L. Minton, Departing From Deviance: A History of Homosexual Rights and Emancipatory Science in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).

'5 Douglas Carl, "Counseling Same-Sex Couples," in Robert M. Baird and Stuart E. Rosenbaum, eds., Same-Sex Marriage: The Moral and Legal Debate (New York: Prometheus Books, 1997), 44-54; Ricbard D. Mohr, "The Case for Gay Marriage," in Robert M. Baird and Stuart E. Rosenbaum, eds., Same-Sex Marriage, 84-104· •• William N. Eskridge, Jr., Equality Practice: Civil Unions and the Future of Gay Rights (New York: Routledge, 2002); Yuval Merin, Equality for Same-Sex Couples: The Legal Recognition afGay Partnerships in Europe and the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).

'7 See Eric Fassin, "Same Sex, Different Politics: 'Gay Marriage' Debates in France and the United States," Public Culture, 13(2001): 215-232; Jeffrey Weeks, "Le parteneriat civil, un compromise tres british," in Mariages et Homosexualites Dan Ie Monde: L'arrangement des Normes Familiales (Paris: Editions Autrement, 2008, pp. 45-61).

•• Summarizing these laws is a precarious undertaking, however, as they are marked by constant change and reevaluation. ' 9 See, for example, Patricia Cain, Rainbow Rights: The Role of Lawyers and Courts in the Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights Movement (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2000).

20 The passage of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in 1996 means that marriage rights in any particular state have only state-wide applicability. Same-sex couples cannot access the advantages associated with joint federal tax filing or Social Security spousal benefits, among others. Health benefits accorded to same-sex spouses by employers are treated as "after-tax" by the' RS, that is, essentially add to taxable income instead of being deducted pre-tax, as is the case with heterosexual married couples. DOMA would also make illegal the extension of equal benefits to same-sex spouses of military personnel, even after the 2010 termination of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

2 . Gay and Lesbian Times. 2003. "Brazil OKs partner immigration," December 25, 2003, accessed at http://www.gaylesbiantimes.comj.

22 Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher, The Cose far Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially (New York: Broadway Books, 2001).

23 Allan V. Horwitz, Helene Raskin White, and Sandra Howell-White, "Becoming Married and Mental Health: A Longitudinal Study of a Cohort of Young Adults," Journal of Marriage and the Family 58 (1996): 895-907; Nadine F. Marks and James David Lambe.rt, "Marital Status Continuity and Change Among Young and Midlife Adults: Longitudinal Effects of Psychological Well-being," Journal of Family Issues 19 (199 8 ): 652-686. .. For example, see Marks and Lambert, "Marital Status Continuity and Change" and Waite and Gallagher, The CasefoJ' Marriage.

2S See especially Andrew J . Cherlin, "The Deinstitutionalization of American Marriage," Journal of Marriage and Family 66 (2004): 848-861; Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas, PJ'Omises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage (Berkeley: University of California Press 2005); and Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr., "The Future of Marriage," American Demographics 18 (1996): 34-4 0 .

9

20

Commodifying Same-Sex Marriage .6 Beth Skilken ~t1ett and Julie E. Artis, "Critiquing the Case for Marriage Promotion : How the Promarnage Movement Misrepresents Domestic Violence Research" Violence 1-gainst Women 10 (2004): 1226-1244; Sharon Hays, Flat Broke With Childr:n : Women m the Age of Welfare Rejorm (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); Murray A. Straus and Richard J . Gelles, Physical Violence in American Families: Risk Factors and Adaptations to Violence in 8,145 Families (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books 1990). ' ..., .Lawrence A. Kurdek, "Relationship Outcomes and Their Predictors: Longitudinal EVIdence from Heterosexual Married, Gay Cohabiting, and Lesbian Cohabiting Couples " ' Journal ojMarriage and the Family 60 (1998): 553-568. .8 V. Cass'. "Homosexual Identity Formation: A Theoretical Model," Journal oj Homosexuality 4 (1979): 21 9-235; E. Coleman, "Developmental Stages of the Coming Out Process,". Journal oj Homosexuality 7 (1981/82):31-43; John C. Gonsoriek, "An ln~od~ction to Mental Health Issues and Homosexuality," American Behavioral Scle.ntist 2~~1982):367-384 ; A.M . Mattison and D.P. McWhirter, "Lesbians, Gay Men, and Their Fanuhes: So~e Therapeutic Issues," The Psychiatric Clinics oj North America 18 (1995): 123-1~7; Ritch S~vin-Williams, "Coming Out to Parents and Self-Esteem Among Gay.and lesbian Youths, Journal oj Homosexuality 18 (1989): 1-35.

'9 Gilbert .Herdt and Andrew Boxer, Children oj Horizons: How Gay and Lesbian Teens Are u;admg a New Way Out oj the Closet (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996); J.P. Paul, J. Catania, L. Pollack, J . Moskowitz, J . Canchola, T. Mills, D. Binson, and R. Stall, ' Suicide Attem.pts Among Gay and Bisexual Men: Lifetime Prevalence and Antecedents," Amen.can Journal oj~blic Health 92 (2002):1338- 1345.

3~ Emng, Goffman, Shgma: Notes on the Management oj Spoiled Identity (New York: SImon and Schuster, 1963).

31 Warren J . Blumenfeld, ed., Homophobia: flow We All Pay the Price (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992).

3' Gilbert Herdt, "~ming c;>ut' as a Rite of Passage: A Chicago Study," in Gilbert Herdt, ed.: Gay Cultu~e m America (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992) 29-67" Herdt and Boxer Children oj HorIZOns. " 33 Kathleen B. Jones, Compassionate Authority: Democracy and the Rep/'esentation oj W~,?en (Ne~ York: Routledge, 1992); Joan W. Scott, "The Evidence of Experience " Cnhca! InqUiry 17 (.1991): 773-797; see also Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, Willia~ M. Sull.lvan, ~n SWldle.r, and Steven M. Tipton, flabits ojthe fleart: Individualism and ~o,?~ltm~nt .m Amencan Life (Berkeley: University of California Press 1985) on ' mdiVldualism m the US. 34 Laura B.rowde.r, Slippery Characters: Ethnic Impersonators and American Identities (Chapel Hd!: ~mverslty of l':lorth Carolina Press, 2000); Elaine K. Ginsberg, ed., Passing and the Fich~ms oj Idenhty (Durham, NC: Duke University Press 1996)- Brooke Kroeger, Passmg: When Pe?ple Can't?e Who They Are (New York: Public Affai';', 2003); G~yle Freda Wald, Crossmg the Lme: Racial Passing in Twentieth-Century U.s. ;'Iterature and 0'.lture (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000).

Wb~on, Families W~ Ch~os~; Bonnie Zimmerman, " l11e Politics of Transliteration: Les I.a~ Personal Narratives, Signs 9 (1984): 663-682.

36 Wilham Leap,. "Language, Socialization and Silence in Gay Adolescence," in Mary Buc~oltz,. A. C. LIang, and Laurel A. Sutton, eds., Reinventing Identities: The Gendered Self m Discourse (N:,:" York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 259-272; see also Elizabeth ~povs~ ~ennedy, But We Would Never Talk About It': 1be Structures of Lesbian ~ISAcreti~n m South Dakota, 1928-1933," in EUen Lewin, ed., Inventing Lesbian Cultures m ~enca (Boston: Beacon Press,1996) 15-39.

3~Wal~e and Gallagher, The Casejor Marriage.

3 J~sle Bernard, The Future ojMarriage (New York: World Publishers 1972) :; ~~ane ~~rensaft, Parenting Together: Men and Wom en Sharing tile Ca;e oj Their ew Y0.r~: Free Press, 1987); Barbara J. Risman, Gender Vertigo: American f1 I .r~n . Tr aml 40 les m . anslhon (~ew Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).

Arthur Klemman, Pahents and flealers in the Context oj Culture: An Exploration of the Borderland Between Anthropology, Medicine, and Psychiatry (Berkeley: University 21

Lewin of California Press, 1980); Arthur Kleinman and Byron Good, eds., Culture and Depression : Studies in the Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Psychiatry oj Affect and Disorder (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).

41 Brigitte Jordan, "Authoritative Knowledge and Its Construction," in Robbie DavisFloyd and Carolyn F. Sargent, eds.,. Chi!dbirth a".d A~thoritative Knowledge: Cro~­ Cultural Perspectives (Berkeley: Umverslty of Cahfornla Press, 1997), 55-79; Eugenlll Kaw "Medicalization of Racial Features: Asian American Women and Cosmetic Surgery," Medical Anthropology Quarterly 7(1993):74-89; Shirley Lee and Avia Mysyk, "The Medicalization of Compulsive Buying," Social Science and Medicine 58(2004):1709- 1718.

•• Monica J. Casper, The Making of the Unborn Patient: A Social Anatomy of Fetal Surgery (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998); Adele E. Clarke, Disciplining Reproduction : Modernity, American Life Sciences, and th~ ~oblems of Sex (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); Margaret Lock and PatricIa Kaufert, eds., Pragmatic Women and Body Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

43 Ken Plummer, Intimate Citizenship: Private Decisions and Public Dialogues (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003).

44 Erik Parens and Adrienne Asch, eds., Prenatal Testing and Disability Rights (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press); David Wasserman, Jerome Bickenbach, and Robert Wachbroit, Quality of Life and Human Difference: Genetic Testing, Health Care and Disability (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005) .

•5 ~artya Sen, "More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing," New York Review oj Books 37(1990). .6 Carole H. Browner and Nancy Ann Press, "The Normalization of Prenatal Diagnostic Screening,· in Faye D. Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp, eds., C:Onet;iving the. Ne~ World Order: TIle Global Politics of Reproduction (Berkeley: Umverslty of California Press, 1995) 307-322; Barbara Katz Rothman, The Tentative Pregnancy: ~natal Diagnosis and the Future of Motherhood (New York: Viking, 1986); Joan Rothschild, The Dream oj the Perfect Child (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005). <7 See for example, Sarah Franklin and Celia Roberts, Born and Made: An Ethnography of Pr~implantation Genetic Diagnosis (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006). .8 Janice M. Irvine, Disorders of Desire: Sex and Gender in Modern American Sexology (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990).

49 Jennifer Fishman, "Manufacturing Desire: The Commodification of Female Sexual Dysfunction," Social Studies of Science 34(2004):187-218. . . .

50 Benedict Carey, "Ideas and Trends; Who's Mentally Ill? DeCldmg Is Often All m the Mind" New York Times Week in Review, June 12, 2005, Section 4, Page 16.

5lJoh~ Abramson, Overdosed America: The Broken Promise ofAmerican Medicine (New York: HarperCollins, 2004); Marcia Angell, The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It (New York: Random House, 2004); Jerome P. Kassirer, On the Take: How Medicine's Complicity With Big Business Can Endanger Your Health (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004)· 5' United Nations. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), accessed at http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.htm!. . ' 53 Nancy Cott, Public Vows: A flistory of Marriage and the Nahon (Cambndge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002).

54 Goodridge et a!. v. Department of Public Health et a1" 440 Mass. 309 (2004)· Accessed at http://www.masslaw.com/signup/opinion.cfrn?page=ma/opin/sup/I017603.htm.

55 Halpern v. Canada. 2003 CanUI 26403 (ON C.A.) accessed at http://www.canlii.org/on/cas/onca/2003/20030ncaI0314.html.

56 Gayatri Spivak, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" in Cary Nelson and Larry Grossberg, eds., Marxism and /lIe Interpretation of Culture (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988) 271-313· 57 Plummer Intimate Citizenship, 70. See also Elizabeth M. Schneider, "The Violence of Privacy," Connecticut Law Review 23 (1991): 973-999· . ' .

58 For a fuller account of such ceremonial strategies, see Ellen leWIn, Recognlzmg Ourselves: Ceremonies of Lesbian and Gay Commitment (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).

22

Commodifying Same-Sex Marriage Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms With America's Changing Families (New York: Basic Books, 1997).

59

6oCherlin, "The Deinstitutionalization of American Marriage."

6. Edin and Kefalas, Promises I Can Keep.

6. Furstenberg, "The Future of Marriage," 39.

63 Furstenberg "The Future of Marriage," 40.

64 Coontz, The Way We Really Are; Waite and Gallagher, The Casefor Marriage.

65 Coontz, The Way We Really Are. See also recent analyses of the effects of so-called welfare refonn on low income families, e.g., Sharon Hays, Flat Broke With Children: Women in the Age of Welfare Reform (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003) and Gwendolyn Mink, Welfare's End (Ithaca, NY: Carnell University Press, 1999).

66 Lisa Duggan and Richard Kim, "Beyond Gay Marriage," The Nation, July 18, 2005, 2427¡

23

SUGARMAMA Mixed Media Shannon Sigler

24

Andrew Clark

F aIling through the Cracks: Queer Theory, Same-Sex Marriage, Lawrence v Texas, and Liminal Bodies On November 4, 2008, voters in California voted on Proposition 8 and successfully overturned state-recognized same-sex marriage. Before the vote on November 4, both sid es of the argument were concerned with how marriage might be redefined, and what the continuation or the end of samesex marriage would mean for California, married couples (both gay and straight), and the institution of marriage itself.

The vote on Proposition 8 is just one in a long line of legal battles that define and refine same-sex relationships. Since the Baehr v. Lewin decision in Hawaii in 1993 and the passage of DOMA in 1996, gay relationships, and more specifically gay marriage, have been at the fore of political social thought. Looking at the literature available on same-sex relationships vis-a-vis politics and the law, Lawrence v.

Texas is a major defining legal decision and is often the focus of law scholars, academic writers, and queer theorists. Queer theorists and the contemporary gay rights movement both use Lawrence to support their claims about the institution of marriage and its value to the queer community. Queer readings of

25

Clark marriage question the regulatory and demarcating effects of state sanctioned relationships, citing Lawrence as evidence of the state further defining acceptable queer relationships.l As Nan Hunter explains, the government will ironically be more (not less) involved in the examination and propagation of properly queer relationships. 2 National gay rights organizations cite Lawrence as a step in the direction of full equality.

Lawrence v. Texas decriminalized sodomy, thereby protecting same-sex sex acts in the private sphere. For many national gay organizations, with the achievement of privacy protection in hand, the next step is public recognition of gay relationships and their value to society.

Both sides of the gay marriage debate miss two key elements in their arguments. First, both frame same-sex marriage in an either/or dichotomy. Either there is gay marriage, or there is traditional marriage.

While both sides are willing to examine the effects of marriage for either gay or straight couples, neither side really looks at those liminal relationships and bodies that occupy the liminal space produced by staterecognized marriage, regardless of configuration. Carroll Smith-Rosenberg defines liminal bodies as those that occupy "the state of being between categories and the power inherent in that process."3 Liminal bodies do not neatly fall into a single category, but rather have the ability to slip in and out of categorical spaces. This slippage allows liminal bodies to use the current system to their advantage while simultaneously exposing the cracks in that system through their occupation of liminal political and cultural space.

Secondly, neither side examines how the institution of marriage is both positively and negatively productive of bodies. Jasbir Puar argues that Lawrence reflects the nationalist, regulatory, and racialized rhetoric of Post-9/n politics,4 while Amy Brandzel highlights the function of racialized citizenship in same-sex marriage. 5 Lawrence and the current debate on same-sex marriage function within cultural and political rhetoric that serves to delimit further who can access state-recognized marriage and the benefits that come with it, read by Brandzel as full citizenship.6 The refinement of what marriage means broadens the gap of accessing marriage for bodies that do not fit within current nationalist politics and who are not properly raced or middle or upper class. The effects of marriage as an institution coupled with post-9/n politics further produces liminal and racialized bodies that are increasingly 'other' in that they are non-white, of the poor and working classes, and definitely not part of the national fabric of the US. While both queer theory and the current gay rights movement examine what same-sex marriage means/will mean for the LGBT community, it is important to examine what liminal bodies can tell us about marriage and the current political landscape of surveillance and racialization. Looking at the current literature, I examine how both queer theorists and the contemporary gay rights movement have situated the current debate surrounding gay relationships and same-sex marriage. This examination highlights a gap in the research that can be filled by looking

26

Falling through the Cracks at how liminal bodies function within the marriage debates in a post-9/ll political setting. This kind of examination frees the debate of the either/or dich~tomy while providing a more nuanced reading of the current marnage debate. And while the social positioning of liminal bodies is marginalized, ~e embrace of that position and the ways in which people ch~ose to naVIgate ~e regulatory system through differing modes of resIstance could proVIde those bodies/relationships, which seemingly have no future, with a liberatory destiny that bridges the gap of queer theory and the mainstream gay and lesbian culture.

In what follows, I trace the historical past of the gay liberation movement up to the 2003 Lawrence decision and the critiques of the case.

While the decriminalization of sodomy laws should be celebrated, we should pay attention to the decision's phraseology and the function of the d~c~sion as a regulation and surveillance tool of the state. I expand this cnt.tque of Lawre!1ce by placing it in the context of a post-9/ll regulatory regime that functions not only to marginalize bodies on the basis of race class, and nationality, but that is also productive of both deviant and l~~nal bo~es ~nd relationships. In the final section, I use the concept of hmmal bodIes In the hopes of blending both the queer critique and the push for same-sex marriage. This particular queer reading of politics ackn?w.le.dges the. queer past and looks to the future, embracing a multiphcIty of family structures that includes marriage, while questioning the role of the state in regulating bodies via sexuality.

RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN: QUEERING (OR STRAIGHTENING) THE NATIONAL BODY

.The events of September 11, 2001 set in motion nationalistic rhetonc that was not only overtly racist, but which also had sexual u~d~rtones (and perhaps overtones), within which Lawrence plays a dIstinct chord. Puar believes that, Considering the contemporaneous consolidation of ~ew . ra~ial populations, a racialization of religion, Imphcating Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians and ~hose mistaken for them ("terrorist look-alikes"), the Impact of Lawrence-Garner must be examined in this inten~~ly charged racial atmosphere, which repetitively defines the slippery contours of racial markings not only in relation to a dominant white American formation, but also among people of color themselves. 7 Wor~ng from he~ theory ofyS sexual exceptionalism- one that sets up ~encans as haVIng a supenor (read restrained) sexuality in comparison With the undoubtedly Muslim terrorist 'other'-she argues that Lawrence allows the US to accept a domesticated type of homosexuality that paints 27

Clark the US as sexually diverse, while simultaneously creating space for the homophobic rhetorical description of terrorist sexuality as unrestrained and always already verging on the psychotic. According to Puar, the decision presented in Lawrence and the current push for same-sex marriage work in collusion with nationalist anti-Muslim rhetoric that maintains the sexual superiority of the US while appearing legalistically free of race.

Puar not only mentions those bodies/relationships/races/religions that are scrutinized and ostracized by national sexual exceptionalism presented in Lawrence, but actually analyzes the effects of the decision in concert with the current political, national and global landscape, noting that it is both regulatory and productive of bodies. 8 Moreover, she critiques the ascendency of whiteness that other critics of Lawrence leave unexamined. Puar looks at bodies that occupy a space of crossing, whether it be of race, gender, sex, sexuality, nationality, religion or geography. Her examination of bodies of crossing produces a more nuanced reading of the racial and class effects of Lawrence and the desire for same-sex marriage, while not forgetting the other already domestic bodies of crossing.

Applying a lens that considers both race/ethnicity and class to Lawrence and the current debate surrounding same-sex marriage removes the argument from an either/or framework without committing the modernist move of returning to an idealized and romanticized notion of queer politics.

In No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive, Lee Edelman examines queerness and its rejection in terms of a nationalistic claim on the future. Edelman argues that, because homosexuals and queers have been painted as a disease unto death that has no (re)productive future, queers should embrace the identity they have been given in an effort to end the ceaseless and repetitious claims on futurity by the heterosexist nation-state. For Edelman, it is the notion of the future that is a regulatory practice, one that calls bodies to heterosexuality and monogamy while serving to render queer bodies as anti-nationalist. Edelman believes that we are compelled to heterosexuality because we as a nation place so much emphasis on the future and the reproduction of our people and culture.

While Edelman's work seems unrelated to the issue at hand, one could say that the nation-state's wish to claim reproductive futurity ended with the Lawrence decision. Albeit limited, Lawrence indicates that the state is willing to recognize same-sex relations, although the extent to which those relationships are recognized and the effects of that recognition are subject to debate. On the other hand, one could read Lawrence and the push for same-sex marriage as a way in which to incorporate gays and lesbians into the regulatory and endlessly repetitious notion of the future.

Marriage is bound up with institutions that prefigure a future: property rights, rights of inheritance, children and their rights. Allowing same-sex couples to marry would grant them access to a state-propagated future. It is this latter reading of Edelman that, in conjunction with Puar, highlights how Lawrence functions within a regulatory nation-state whose politics

28

Falling through the Cracks create properly nationalist and deviant bodies. Further, the political lan~scape in which Lawrence and same-sex marriage function produces bodies that are not clearly defined, that can slip in and out of categories.

QUEER VESTIGES: LOOKING BACK IN TIME Gay politics today is one of domestication. Everywhere one looks, gays and lesbians are seemingly visible in the media and on the street.

Depending on location, it is not uncommon to see two men holding hands or kissing, or to hear of a union ceremony between two people of the same sex. Gay characters are present on nearly every primetime television network: Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, Will & Grace, Family Guy, South Park, and Grey's Anatomy. The list goes on and on. Showtime Networks has even more gay and lesbian exposure with the recently ended Queer as Folk and The L Word, and has continued with Nurse Jackie.

Although 0e presentation of gay and lesbian (and sometimes bi or trans) characters IS a welcome addition to television dramas, gay and lesbian characters are invariably relegated to either a stereotypical performance of gayness, or are nicely domesticated and rarely deviate from the norms and lives of their straight counterparts.

The domestication we see of gay narratives reflected in the media is part and parcel of a much larger project of domestication and nationalism.

In order for a group to be domesticated, the state must define it as a cate~ory through state institutions of power. Institutions serve to regulate bodies and groups through the production and maintenance hierarchical social positioning. Numerous historians have examined how the "homosexual" as an identity category came into being,9 most starting with Foucault, who stated, As defined by the ancient civil or canonical codes

sodomy was a category of forbidden acts; thei; perpetrator was nothing more than the juridical subject of them. The nineteenth-century homosexual became a personage, a past, a case history and a childhood, in addition to being a type of lif~, a life form, and a morphology... Nothing that went into his total composition was unaffected by his sexualit;Y...The sodomite had been a temporary aberratIOn; the homosexual was now a species. 10 ~ou~a~t highl~ghts ~ocial, medical, religious, and psychological ms~tuti~ns a~d IdeolOgIes that, by ~orking together, produce categories of bodI~s-m thIS exa~ple the deVIant body- while also simultaneously defin~ng normal bodIes. The production of categories allows institutions to exerCIse P?wer. 0.ver bodies by making bodies easily manageable and cul~ally mtelhgIble, as well as by compelling subjects to bend their bodIes and bodily experience into a defined category.

29

Clark

Lawrence v. Texas exemplifies both the function of power to render bodies and subjects as intelligible and how bodies and subjects are compelled to fit within existing categories. First and foremost, the notion that same-sex acts- defined as sodomy in Lawrence-should be legal does not necessarily constitute a category of (gay) people called into legal being.

But it does show the desire to have certain sexual acts between two consenting adults recognized as legal under the Constitution. Further, the language of the decision provides room for same-sex sex acts in private and is further supported, as we will see in Katherine Franke's reading of the decision, by a language that alludes to same-sex sex acts occurring in the form of a couple.II The desire for legality of same-sex sex acts and the language of the decision alludes to gays and lesbians being compelled by the state to seek a state-authorized relationship, just like that of straight people.

Secondly, Lawrence and the current push for same-sex marriage show just how the state functions to further define and refine social categories of bodies. The queer and legal literature presented here expresses anxiety about Lawrence because of its defining characteristics, which arguably and ironically give the state more control over same-sex relationships. What started with Lawrence and continues with gay marriage is the state creating, defining, and controlling same-sex relationships. The definition of same-sex relations, closely demarcated by the state, serves to regulate what bodies qualify for marriage, and thereby some bodies and relationships have either very limited access or no access to the state-propagated relationship.

While parts of the gay and lesbian movement celebrated Lawrence as a landmark case for civil rights, the queer faction decried the decision and was left wondering how marriage-an institution heavily critiqued during gay liberation-suddenly became the focus of most of the national gay and lesbian organizations. Many queer activists and academics believed that the sudden push for same-sex marriage was indicative of a sort of cultural amnesia that left the projects of gay liberation behind.12 Further, many queer activists and academics view the Lawrence decision and the push for same-sex marriage as further state intrusion into personal relationships and increased regulation of sex and sexuality.

HISTORY OF QUEER MOVEMENT The 1950S and 1960s homophile movement experienced many of the same issues that the current gay and lesbian civil rights movement is experiencing. The question of how gay people fit into the fabric of the American public plagued the homophile movement, causing serious f(r)actioning among the movement's leaders and of the gay and lesbian community. Some- like the Daughters of Bilitis and the later incarnation of the Mattachine society led by Ken Burns-wished to operate on terms of "respectability" in an effort to show straights that gays were no different, except in their choice of partner. Others wished to take a separatist

30

Falling through the Cracks ap~roach, pOi?ting out that gays and lesbians were not at all like straight society and did. not wish to be assimilated into an already white, middle class, heteroseXlst and heteronormative culture. ~eeing a g:owing movement on the rise in 1969, Carl Wittman wro~e his gay manl~esto. ~e examines and disavows many of the tenants of straight s?~lety while call1~g. out those who wish to seek a politics of gay re~pectabih~ .through ImJ~ucry of straight society. Quite specifically, WIttman cnticIzes gay marnage:

:rra?iti~nal

marriage is a rotten, oppressive mstitution. Those of us who have been in heterosexual marriages too often have blamed our gayness on the bre~up o~ the marriage. No. They broke up because mamage IS a contract which smothers people ... Gay people must stop gauging their self respect by how well they mimic straight marriages. Gay marriage will have the same problems as straight ones except in bu~lesque. For. the usual legitimacy and pressure whic~ keep straIght marriages together are absent, e.g. kids, what parents think, what neighbors say.13 Wi~an ~ls on gays and lesbians to stop comparing their lifestyle and relationships to those of heterosexual people. Rather, Wittman would prefer to see the gay and lesbian community form its own set of ideas ' produced from .the questioning and critique of straight society.

E,:en With .such a radical approach to politics, identity, and commuIl:Ity form~tion.a~ ~ut fo.rth by Wittman in 1969, larger and deeper ass~mptions ar~ Imph~It m WIttman's critique of straight society. While calhng .out straIg?t SOCIety for the propagation of heteronormativity and what IS es~entially a broken system, neither Wittman nor his ~ontemp"ora~es w~re ready to challenge the meaning of the categories of woman or man, nor ~ere they yet willing to look at sex/gender/desire as connected, s~lf-producmg, and endlessly repetitious. Further, Wittman does not questio~ race, c~as~, or nationalist issues within his piece. He chalks up the Il:oti~n of mImICry to the desire to emulate straight society, ra~er t?ll:n VIeWing heternormativity as working in collusion with nati?nalIStic and regulatory ideology of the state. In an Althusarian way stra~ghts are called to function as straights just as much as gays and les~)}~ns are compelled to mimic them. In the late 1980s and early 1990S aCtiVI~ts and a~demics bega~ to develop Queer Theory that sought t~ questio~ l~rge: SItes of regula~on and oppression by opening up discourse to . m';lltiphc~tive, and sometimes contradictory or contentious, ways of thmking, bemg, and presenting. .. With th: advent of Queer Theory came the unraveling of identity p~htics. Theonsts like Jud~th Butler,14 Eve Sedgwick,15 Lee Edelman, and MIc~ael War~er ha.ve questi.oned the emphasis on identity politics and the mynad ways m whIch Identity as a mode of rights-seeking is problematic.

31

Clark Specifically, identity politics works within the very institutional and normative regulating structures which function to parse out bodies through the use of identity markers, such as man/woman, gay/straight or Black/white. Those who do not neatly fit into existing identity categories are pushed to the margins of society. Moreover, queer theorists look at how institutions and social structures tend to endlessly reproduce bodies, narratives and inequality while continuing to reify their own authority. For Queer Theory, state recognition of relationship status and marriage are both suspect because of the rights and privileges conferred on individuals by the state. With the rise in advocacy following the Baehr v. Lewin decision in Hawaii and Lawrence, queer activists and theorists have been calling for the deconstruction of same-sex relationship recognition given by the Lawrence decision. Because Lawrence recognizes intimate samesex acts that "[do] not exceed the honor of the domesticated private,"16 same-sex marriage activists argue that the next logical step in gay and lesbian civil rights is same-sex marriage, while queer theorists believe state-sanctioned and regulated same-sex marriage would place gays and lesbians and under further scrutiny and surveillance.

"OUR BROWN": LAWRENCE v TEXAS, HISTORY, CONTEXT, AND CRITIQUE ..â&#x20AC;˘ BUT NOT OF RACE

The Lawrence v. Texas decision was handed down in June of 2003, and overturned Bowers v. Hardwick from 1986. This decision, making criminalization of sodomy unconstitutional, was championed by national gay and lesbian organizations as a landmark decision, one group going so far as to call Lawrence "our Brown."17 Yet obviously not everyone, and certainly not all gays and lesbians, were pleased with the decision, its arguments, and its possible implications as a method of regulation of queer bodies and relationships. Within a year, more than a handful of law scholars, activists, and academics challenged the good intentions of Lawrence and interrogated what it may mean for the future of gay rightsand they were not alone in their uneasy and mixed feelings about the Lawrence decision. The same year Lawrence was handed down was also the year that several states had ballot initiatives to amend their respective constitutions to define marriage as between one man and one woman. It was also the same year that Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage, using Lawrence as a small part of the majority's reasoning (although the Massachusetts court has a history of making decisions in favor of gay and lesbian families). The court decisions and numerous ballot initiatives, happening just months apart, indicate an anxiety about gays and lesbians, and how recognition of their relationships fit into the national fabric.

National gay and lesbian organizations hoped that Lawrence would be the gateway decision to same-sex marriage, while lawmakers and the public at large were thrown into a pro/con debate on marriage. While some lawmakers may have been supportive of gay rights, many did not want their constituents to believe they were attacking traditional marriage.

32

Falling through the Cracks . By looking at the writings of law scholars and queer theorists, I examme the debate about Lawrence and the implications the decision has for 0e current campaign for same-sex marriage. While both queer theonsts and law scholars believe that Lawrence reifies a limited type of gay relationship, they worry about how the decision and same-sex marriage could further allow the state to regulate sexual relations and relationships, placing the homosexual body and other "deviant" bodies under further scrutiny. In this sense, Lawrence and gay marriage have been read as part of a "domesticating" project, which seeks to push the homosexual body into a "proper" form of existence (read monogamous, safe, long-term, stable) that closely resembles the straight body. IS Both the Lawrence decision and the push for same-sex marriage fit within a post9/11 politics of surveillance, regulation, and interrogation of improperly raced, classed, sexed, and sexualized bodies and relationships' this serves to discipline deviant bodies, while also unintentionally produ~ing liminal bodies that occupy the line between the mainstream and the deviant as the private and public spheres further converge.

QUEER LEGAL DISSENTS: THE POLITICS PRIVATE AND SURVEILLANCE

OF PUBLICI

Writing in The Michiga"n Law Review, Nan Hunter states, "In Lawrence .v. T~as, 0e Supreme Court performed a double move, creating a dramatic discurSIve moment: it both decriminalized consensual homosexual relations between adults, and, simultaneously authorized a new regime of heightened regulation of homosexuality."19 For some the Lawrence decision meant the decriminalization of homosexual acts,' and therefore t~e state would b.e less involved in the prosecution of private sexual relations. Hunter belIeves that the Lawrence decision framed in a mix~d language of privatized. liberty, gives the state the right to continuously hear homosexualIty spoken and examined, placing the homosexual body and same-sex sex acts under further and more injurious examination and regulation.

H~ter finds . that, because of Lawrence, "the state .. . will be more, not less, m~olved WIth the regulation of homosexuality."20 The paradox of Lawrence IS that the decision clearly indicates that the state should have nothing to d.o with what consenting adults do behind closed doors, yet the actual fun.ction of Lawrence ends up placing gays and lesbians in closer contact WIth the st~te and functions as a regulatory apparatus. Hunter equates the regulation of homosexuals with containment: how can the state a~ow hom?sexuality to exist while keeping it apart from, and thereby ~ro~~cting, straIght culture? Through the regulation of relationships, the lImIting of culture, .and the instillation of a hierarchy within the homos~xual commumty, gays and lesbians will be compelled into a do.~esticated ~nd regulated for~ ~f sexuality with affixed state rights and pnvIleges, ~~Ile furth~r . ostracIzmg non-monogamous and differently formed famIlIes. The lImIted display and space of gay culture and the 33

Clark hierarchy within the gay community gives gays and lesbians the incentive to buy into the state propagated form of same-sex marriage. Lawrence functions with other state institutions to domesticate queer bodies and relationships.

Ironically, while Hunter argues that Lawrence puts gays and lesbians in closer contact with the government, she does not acknowledge those racialized and classed queer bodies that are already under the close surveillance of the state, and therefore have varying degrees of access to privacy.21 For raced and classed queer bodies, the divide of public and private spheres, which Hunter assumes to be separate, becomes a slippery boundary that is not only examined and further refined by state institutions, but also by the bodies occupying that space. Depending on social positioning, raced and classed queer bodies slip in and out of both spheres, creating a liminal raced and classed queer body. Hunter's containment theory sounds strikingly like Jim Crow laws of the early twentieth century, which were often undermined by bodies of passing. I do not mean to say that gays and lesbians are blatantly (and legally) separated from the dominant heterocentric culture, but I do mean to point out that her theory has a specifically racialized past. Containment, or the sectioning off of privileges and rights of a minority group under the guise of equality, is at work both in segregation laws of the past and post-9/11 politics of surveillance. Hunter is right to point out that Lawrence and same-sex marriage would put queer bodies in closer contact with regulatory government institutions, yet she does not account for the racialized implications of her theory, which not only serve to define and promote a domesticated and white queerness, but also to further regulate queers of color.

Looking at how Lawrence functions within both the public and private sphere will help illustrate the racialized implications of Hunter's containment theory, and how liminal bodies are produced. Katherine Franke, writing in the Columbia Law Review, believes that "the liberty principle upon which the [Lawrence] opinion rests is less expansive, rather geographized, and, in the end, domesticated. It is not the synonym of a robust liberal concept of freedom."22 Because the Lawrence decision states that the government should have nothing to do with what two consenting adults do behind closed doors, Lawrence puts forth a notion of liberty that is bound up in the domesticated private sphere. Noting that Lawrence articulates privacy as framed in terms of liberty, Franke looks to other nations and their rulings on sodomy laws to show the limited and privatized liberty exhibited in Lawrence. She notes that South Africans' arguments against sodomy laws are grounded in a politics of equal rights that is overtly centered in the public sphere. South African Justice Ackermann, Franke notes, posits a hypothetical in which several couples, both gay and straight, are kissing passionately in public. Ackermann notes that, while a straight and lesbian couple could kiss as such in public, the male same-sex couple would be guilty of a criminal offense. "What is remarkable," Franke argues, "is the degree to which [the hypothetical's] 34

Falling through the Cracks absurdity does not depend on a conception of privacy...It is the disparate legal treatment of similarly situated kissers that strikes Justice Ackermann as absurd and unfair, not the location in which the same-sex kissing takes place."23 Because the Lawrence decision is rendered in terms of a privatized liberty, Franke believes that "[Justice] Kennedy's privatized liberty leaves a wide range of homosexual and heterosexual behaviors and 'lifestyles' subject to criminalization."24 Franke worries that both the possibilities opened up and foreclosed by the Lawrence decision create a "domestinormative" notion of subjectivity that is relegated by the state to the private. Lawrence does little to find new ways of expressing sexuality both publicly and privately, that are counter to the heteronorm. Frank~ wi~hes to remind us that rights gained does not necessarily mean liberty gamed: "!Vhy sh~uld we take it as a priori true that the expansion of rights necessarily promises greater freedom? What do we risk when our political agenda sets a horizon that has no greater depth of field than securing legal rights and recognition by the state?"25 While Franke interrogates the domesticating effects of Lawrence and questions . the notion that "more rights equal more freedom"' she does n?t q~estion to whom the.se rights and freedoms are supposedly given.

Situating her argument m a Post-9/n politics elucidates just how Lawrence functions to regulate sex and sexuality in specifically raced and classed terms. Because Lawrence functions within a Post-9/n politics of surveill?Dc~ and regulation and is framed as a privatized liberty with domesticati~g effects, Lawrence renders raced and classed bodies, already under surveillance through interactions with state institutions such as state medical clinics and state housing, subject to further scrutiny, and ther:fore forc~s them to occupy a liminal space that is neither entirely pubhc nor pnvate. Franke, like Hunter, points out the domesticating effects of Lawrence, but does not call attention to the bodies relationships, and sexualities-as they intersect with race and class- that ~re .further ~arginli1:ized through the state recognition of rights within the hmlted pUrvIew of hberty. First, Franke does not examine the issue from the standpoint of those bodies/relationships, but merely calls attention to the effects of the law to support her claim of the "domestinormative" functi~ns of Lawre.nce. and. its. further extension into marriage. Further, she ~lsses the. racial Imph~~tlOns of a domesticated liberty that, while seemmgly apphcable to all citizens as worded in Lawrence is difficult for ~aced and classed queer bodies to achieve because of their liminal position m between the public/private divide. Secondly, Franke returns the debate to the either/or frame",:o.rk of "are you for or against same-sex marriage?" becaus: of her he~vy cntique ~f Lawr.ence and same-sex marriage. Simply, she ~ehev~s that If q~eer subJ:cts WIsh to avoid state regulation of their rela~o~shlp. and family formations, they should question the methods of obtal~mg nghts and p.ri~~ges e~emplified in Lawrence. Apparently m~m.age and personal/mdlVldual hberty cannot coexist. And lastly, in pomting out how the Lawrence decision mixes liberty and privacy, Franke

35

Clark covers over the potential radical nature of the court purposefully showing a connection between the public and private spheres (as it is for raced and classed queer bodies), rather than the spheres existing as clearly demarcated and discrete.

Both Hunter and Franke focus on Justice Kennedy's majority opinion while passingly mentioning the dissent of Justice Scalia. Bernard Harcourt takes up this issue and tries to fabulously reconstruct Scalia's dissent as "post-queer." Justice Scalia, the conservative anchor of the court, calls attention to several issues while writing for the minority: the ongoing "culture wars," the court's decision to take a side in those wars, the law profession that tends to function in a liberal-leaning ideology, and the supposed "homosexual agenda" at work in our nation. What Harcourt finds interesting is that, if framed differently, Justice Scalia's arguments against Lawrence could be read as radical, perhaps more so than Justice Kennedy's majority opinion.

Scalia calls out the non-neutral position of the majority in Lawrence, stating that the court has taken a side in the culture wars.

Further, Scalia is amazed that the court would not heed standare dicisis by overturning Bowers so quickly and with such radical language.

Harcourt rightly argues that no decision by the Court, no matter how well argued, is ever clearly free of bias, and that it continues to operate within dominant cultural and social ideologies. Scalia is right when he says that the court has taken a side in the culture wars; there was simply no way around it. Moreover, he is right in pointing out that the seemingly liberal law profession functions within ideologies that led to the Lawrence decision, but Harcourt further points out that Scalia himself is a product of a larger set of interlocking institutions and cannot help but be influenced by ideology. Lastly, Harcourt believes that it is critical to dispense with the notion of a 'homosexual agenda' and to explore, instead, the proliferation of sexual projects in contemporary society, to examine the surprising alliances that form on sex matters, and to reconsider all the different interests at stake. This may lead us, in the process, to revisit exactly who won and who lost in Lawrence. 26 By reworking Scalia's dissent in this fashion, Harcourt argues, we can see the post-queer critiques of the powers of the state and the legitimizing institutions behind the judicial system, as well as the social regulations imposed on queer bodies.

What is left out here- as in all of the above critiques of Lawrenceare the issues of race, class, and nationality. For these authors, it is assumed that, given the wording of Lawrence, all bodies that are citizens and are properly raced and classed have access to the liberties granted by the decision. To put it simply: every subject is the same before the law. Yet as the reading of Hunter and Franke above demonstrates, raced and

Falling through the Cracks classed bodies occupy a liminal space, and therefore have limited access to the liberties that the Lawrence decision grants. Surprisingly, Harcourt doe~ not call attention to the post-9/ll ideologies of surveillance, of which ScalIa and the rest of the court are also part. By leaving issue of race and class untouched, Harcourt misses an opportunity to examine the true implications of a refashioned-and what he terms "post-queer"-reading of Scalia's dissent. Rather, Harcourt's wheels are spinning in the quagmire of queerness that is based out of a limited, one strike view of oppression and marginality, namely that of sexual identity. Being post-queer, through the deconstruction of Scalia's identity, without an in-depth analysis of race and class (not to mention sex and gender) is simply insufficient at rendering an accurate picture of the regulatory regimes at work in the production and decision of Lawrence v. Texas.

WRAPPED INTO MARRIAGE AND BORDERS: FURTHER EXTENSIONS OF LAWRENCE V. TEXAS

From the standpoint of the national gay and lesbian organizations, once Lawrence became the law of the land and gay relationships protected un~er the Con~titution, the next logical step was a state-by-state or national campaIgn for same-sex marriage: "But the political agenda l:,:eraged by that recognition [of gays and lesbians as rights-bearing ~Itizens] ~oes not exceed honor of the domesticated private. The most likely project .to b,~ launched from this conception of subjectivity is, of course, marnage. 27 Franke argues that the language of Lawrence relegates homosexual relations to the private sphere. Once the right-topriva~ ~ubjectivity is achiev~d, the next step would be to fight for public recognItion of same-sex relationships-gay marriage. . Whil~ same-sex marriage seems to be a ubiquitous issue todayespeCIally WIth the Proposition 8 trials in California- the public at large rarely gets.to hear queer voices that are against same-sex marriage. Queers who question the value of same-sex, government-recognized marriage are often drowned out by the national campaigns and the media hype surrounding the issue. Further, because of the benefits afforded to married couples and the "obvious .ubiq~ity" of the issue for the gay community, it seems cr~ that ~nr self-Identified gay or lesbian would speak out against gay mamage. It IS Important to examine the arguments of anti-marriage queers for a few reasons: 1) their arguments provide a voice that is not usually hear~ o? a. na?onal s~ale, 2) their arguments further implicate sta~e and.soclal m~titutlOns as SItes of oppression, and 3) they also provide a discurSIve look mto how race and class can sometimes be forgotten in what has become a more "mainstream" queer movement. . Michael Wa~er exemplifies a queer perspective on same-sex marnage. 28 He exammes the problems with gay marriage on two fronts: first, how La.wrence gets .wrapped up in the debate and, secondly, how the gay a?d lesbIan. commumty has been wrapped into the desire for same-sex marnage, despIte the costs to both gay and lesbian history and to other

37

Clark queer bodies and relationships. Given the history of the gay and lesbian movement,29 he argues, it is striking that the contemporary movement is so willing to forget their past and ask to be regulated by an institution that was so heavily questioned in the 1960s, '70S, and '80S: Others argue, either ingenuously or disingenuously, that marriage has nothing to do with these historical commitments, that it is not a question of social change or cultural politics at all but a neutral matter on which each individual must decide. This is the official or semiofficial position of the major national gay and lesbian organizations: the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Human Rights Campaign, and Lambda Legal Defense. Either way, the crucial founding insights behind several decades' worth of gay and lesbian politics are now being forgotten. If the campaign for marriage requires such a massive repudiation of queer culture's best insights on intimate relations, sex, and the politics of stigma, then the campaign is doing more harm than marriage could ever be worth.30 For Warner, the issue of marriage is not an individual question that is outside queer history. Rather, Warner works at length to call attention to queer history and its critique, focused on marriage as part of a larger system of regulation. The queer past's repudiation of marriage was only one part of a much larger critique of social systems. For queers of the past, questioning and challenging marriage was a way in which queers could fight for social change on a much larger scale. Yet the current configuration of marriage politics for the larger social/activist organizations requires, according to Warner, an erasure of the past, a forgetting of "queer culture's best insights on intimate relations, sex, and the politics of stigma."3 1 Erasure of the past allows for marriage advocates to point to ways in which marriage will "benefit" the queer community.

Warner takes up several of the various arguments for same-sex marriagethe domestication of "obviously promiscuous" men, recognition of love, the social and economic incentives of the government, and social stigma and shame- and deconstructs them to highlight how each still plays into a hierarchy of valued relationships, placing married couples higher up on the chain, while devaluing single people, alternate families, and long-term unmarried partners. illtimately, Warner argues that privileges that are conferred on married couples should be given to all citizens, regardless of marital status. At the same time, he questions the social value we place on coupling and state recognition of relationships, the shame and social stigma placed on gay relationships, and how culture compels gays and lesbians to desire marriage. Calling attention to the arbitrary link between

Falling through the Cracks marriage and benefits, Warner writes, "Most of the benefits could be extended to other kinds of households and intimate relations. Very few have a necessary relation to a couple or intimate pair- perhaps, logically en?ug~, only those ~avin~ to do with divorce. All others could be thought of m ?ifferent ways. 32 This approach to marriage, or rather the removal of mar!,age ~om other economic and social benefits, fits in with the queer past s desIre to challenge larger social norms in order to fight for social change.

While this approach would remove the economic pressures from couples t? marry, it does not account for the symbolic nature of marriage, nor ~oes It acco~mt ~or those who are aware of the marginalizing effects of mamage. but still WIsh to have their relationship recognized by both the co.~mumty and ~e state. How do these queers fit in? How, given Warner's cntique of marnage, could queer subjects reconcile an attachment to the queer movements of the past while still fulfilling their desire to marry?

Further, what about ethnic or racial minorities? It seems that Warner envisions the queer community as unilaterally similar in both race and class, and as if neither social category were worrisome. Warner leaves questions like 0ese une.xamined because they do not fit within the strong and unapologe~c commItme~t to larger social change of queer ideology. . Eve.n w~ile W~rner trie~ to accommodate more queer bodies and relati.onshI~s mto hIS re?gunng of the debate surrounding same-sex marnage, his argument still comes up short, because he does not examine the contemporary so~ial an~ po!itical contexts within which the marriage debate operates. Agam, he hIghlIghts those queer bodies and relationships that .are ~ushed to ~he outer. margins of society by state recognition of relationshIps-especIally marrIage-but does not examine the debate from the ~tandpoint of those liminal bodies/relationships that are not sufficIently qu~~r, nor does he acknowledge the workings of Post-9/n regul~tory pohtics on raced and classed bodies. Warner's critique of marn~ge serves to produce yet another type of docile body, one that is sufficIently (;Il~eer to not desire marriage, or is not duped by the desire of state recognItion of any form of relationship which can be read as another type of, queer liminal body-the docile and insufficiently queer body. ~a~er s call to the queer .past ends up refiguring an already wide divide WIthm the q';leer .co~mumty. Qu.eers who desire marriage, despite being aware ~f the I!ll~hcations o~ marnage, are rendered as insufficiently queer, occupymg a hmmal sp.ace m the queer community, and therefore subject to shame. ~~ments h~e Warner's call queer bodies to self-regulate into a st~te th~t IS COIT~ctly' queer, a subject that heeds the queer past and alIgns his/her deSIres to. the g.oals of that past. Warner's argument does anot~er double turn: whIle trying to lessen (if not end) hierarchical social r~l~~ons, he ends up rearticulating a rhetoric that has implications of diVISIon and.shame, still leaving some queers to fall through the cracks of personal deSIre, duty to the (queer) community, and state regulation.

39

Clark LIMINAL BODIES: A PRODUCfIVE USE OF MODERNTIY AND THE FUTURISTIC POLITICS OF THE HERE-AND-NOW?

Indeed, any viable rendering of contemporary biopolitics must address more specifically how biopower attempts not just to produce and control life in general ... but also to privilege some lives over others.33 Looking at the queer responses to Lawrence and the push for samesex marriage, we can see that queer theorists and activists also frame the debate in either/or tenns, exchanging one fonn of scrutiny for another.

The implication is that if subjects are not sufficiently queer, they too are rendered suspect, and are therefore in need of interrogation, examination, and-in an extreme sense-radical violence to (re)produce those subjects as queer.

How can we piece together both the queer arguments while allowing space for those that embrace Lawrence and the national campaign for same-sex marriage? What other ways of examining the debate allow us to find new paths to bridging this gap? It is ironic that both sides acknowledge the limiting of bodies and relationships produced through Lawrence and same-sex marriage, yet neither examines the debate from a standpoint of raced and classed queer liminality. The modernist time claims of queer theorists are not useful because, given the current progression of the political landscape, it is not possible to reclaim that kind of activism without accounting for the mainstreaming of gay and lesbian culture. Further, the mainstream can no longer ignore queer critiques of governmental regulation and the interrogation of bodies and relations. Because both sides point to the production of bodies that exist outside of the either/or framing of the debates, should we not start our examination of the issue from these bodies/relations that toe the line between queer and mainstream?

Liminal bodies are those bodies that slip in and out of spaces, but are not fully acknowledged in either space. Further, because liminal bodies actualize slippage between categories, they highlight the ability to get beyond the either/or framing of the debate, while showing cracks in institutional frameworks-cracks that are potential sites of resistance.

Examining bodies that occupy the raced and class liminal space between the queer and the mainstream will further open up the debate, allowing scholars and activists to account for those who are forced to the margins by both sides in the dichotomous debate.

For example, consider a man or woman who is married and has a child, but openly admits his/her attraction to the same sex and openly discusses his/her feelings with his/her partner. Or consider the black lesbian couple who is unmarried and has a child, the father of whom provides support and care. Or the widower who has a child, and now finds himself attracted to men. Or the transgendered FI'M who wants to marry

40

Falling through the Cracks his partner, but cannot because doing so would disqualify him from receiving federal benefits such as food stamps. Or consider the lesbian couple and the gay couple who live together and have a child between the four of them. How do these relationships and their 'non-normative' family structures fit within both the queer and mainstream recognition and marriage debate?

Currently, they do not.34 Both queer and mainstream arguments call attention to these liminal bodies and relationships without examining them. The first couple would appear 'normal' in some circles, while being read as queer in others-but it would really never fit neatly into either. The black lesbian couple could get married in some states, but how does that recognize the father of their child, who is deeply connected to them? The widower would pass in one society, and be looked at with suspicion in the other, while once again not really feeling at home in either. The FfM and his partner are left with an economic choice: food and affordable bills with assistance, or relationship recognition. The gay and lesbian couples could marry their partners, but that would not in any way acknowledge their status as a family.

And these are but a few of the issues with the liminal bodies produced by Lawrence and same-sex marriage. An interrogation of the domestic implications of the regulatory, domesticating, and productive functions of Lawrence and the mainstream push for same-sex marriage needs to be conducted through the lens of raced and classed liminal bodies, bodies that are not unaffected by the regulatory regime of the nation-state, that are variously rendered unintelligible or intelligible depending on context, and that move in and out of spaces of normality and queerness. This analysis will further complicate the debate surrounding Lawrence and same-sex marriage, but will also provide more paths to questioning the effects of the state and its regulatory practices, showing that such practices are simultaneously oppressive and sites of resistance, while also removing the current debate from the either/or framing that serves to foreclose alternate options.

Notes â&#x20AC;˘ For the purpose of this paper, I use "queer" to mean a paradigm that seeks to destabilize categories and relationships that are seemingly binary in nature. "Queer" seeks out and valorizes that which is odd or counter-normal, and reads between the lines to find the queerness in the everyday, the regulatory, and the normative.

2 Nan H~nter, "Sexual Orientation and the Paradox of Heightened Scrutiny," Michigan Law RevIew 102 (2004): 1528-1554.

3 Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, Disorderly Conduct: Visions oj Gender in Victorian Ame/¡ica (New York: Knopf, 1985), 93.

4 Jasbir Puar, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Quee/¡ Tim es (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2008). ' 5 Amy L. Brandzel, "Queering Citizenship? Same-Sex Marriage and the State," GLQ 11:2 (2005): 171-204.

6 Ibid, 172.

7 Puar, Terrorist Assemblages, 119.

41

Clark 8 Ibid, 114.

9 See Graham

Robb, Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2004); Matt Cook, ed., A Gay History oj Britain: Love and Sex Between Men Since the Middle Ages (Oxford: Greenwood World Publishing, 2007); George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making oj the Gay Male World 1890-1940 (New York: Basic Books, 1994); Lillian Fadennan, Odd Girls and 1Wilight Lovers: A History oj Lesbian Life in 1Wentieth-Century America (New York: Penguin Books, 1991).

'0 Michel Foucault, The History oj Sexuality, Vol. 1 (New York: Random House, 1978),43.

II Katherine Franke, "The Domesticated Liberty of Lawrence v. Texas," Columbia Law Review 104 (2004): 1408. .2 The current rhetoric deployed by queer activists and theorists is ironic. Queer activism, and especia!Jy queer theory, are bound up in post-structuralism and postmodern critiques of institutions, systems, the production of bodies and hierarchies. Further, the activism and rhetoric surrounding queer theory is usua!Jy characterized not only by interrogation of systems, but also by the express support and claiming of contention and contestation, a purposely dis-unified approach to talking about systems of oppression and bodies. The latter of these characterizations places both the gay liberation movement and the current queer movement squarely in the postmodern framework that embraces alternate epistemologies, anarchy, and-some would say-complete chaos. The irony is that calling attention to the ways in which the contemporary gay and lesbian civil right movement has forgotten its queer past could be read as a nostalgic call for a reliving of the past. Queers are now put into a position of claiming a past that is no longer present, and therefore risk romanticizing the past. With this modernist move, questions are raised about the intent of claiming a time past and harkening back to an epistemological stance that seems to be aU but forgotten to the gay and lesbian movement at large: What do queer activists and theorists hope to gain by looking back in time? How does this modernist move function within the postmodern paradigm of the contemporary queer movement? How would this time claim, if actualized, function within the current political landscape?

13 Carl Wittman, "A Gay Manifesto," in We Are Everywhere: A Historical Sourcebook oj Gay and Lesbian Politics, eds. Mark Blasius and Shane Phelan (New York: Routledge, 1997),383· ' 4 See Judith Butler, Gender n·ouble (London: Routledge, 1990).

'5 See Eve Sedwick, Epistemology oj the Closet (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990). .6 Katherine Franke, "The Domesticated Liberty of Lawrence v. Texas," 1413· '7 Ibid, 1399. See endnote 2. .8 See Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (New York: Vintage Press, 1995)· '9 Nan Hunter, "Sexual Orientation and the Paradox of Heightened Scrutiny," Michigan Low Review 102 (2004): 1528.

20 Ibid, 1534.

2 . I used the terms "raced" and "classed" throughout the paper to caJJ attention to how whiteness enjoys the ability to appear as a nonrace.

22 Katherine Franke, "The Domesticated Liberty of Lawrence v. Texas," 1401.

23 Ibid, 1406.

24 Ibid, 1407.

25 Ibid, 1419.

26 Bernard E. Harcourt, "Foreword: 'You are Entering a Gay and Lesbian Free Zone': On the Radical Dissents of Justice Scalia and Other (Post-) Queers." The Journal oj Criminal Law & Q·iminology, 94:3(2004): 548.

27 Franke, "The Domesticate Liberty of Lawrence v. Texas," 1413.

2B Michael Warner, The Trouble With Normal: Sex, Politics and the Ethics oj Queer Life (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1999).

29 Warner's outrage at the cultural amnesia of the contemporary gay and lesbian movement is exemplary of the modernist move of claiming and longing for a time past.

42

Falling through the Cracks See Eric Savoy, "You Can't Go Homo Again: Queer Theory and the Foreclosure of Gay Studies," English Studies in Canada 20:2(1994).

3olbid,91.

3'lbid,91.

32lbid, 119.

33 Henry A. Giroux, "Reading Hurricane Katrina: Race, Class, and the Biopolitics of Disposability." College Literature 33:3 (2006): 181.

34 A complete reading of the ways in which queer notions of family or kinship function would consider the queer reading of state legitimated marriage and the delegitimation of kinship in Judith Butler, "Is Kinship Always Already Heterosexual?" Differences 13:1 (2002):

In the case of gay marriage or of affiliative legal alliances, we see how various sexual practices and relationships that fal] outside the purview of the sanctifying law become illegible or, worse, untenable, and how new hierarchies emerge within public discourse. These hierarchies not only enforce the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate queer lives, but they produce tacit distinctions among forms of illegitimacy. The stable pair who would marry if only they could are cast as currently illegitimate, but eligible for a future legitimacy, whereas the sexual agents who function outside the purview of the marriage bond and its recognized, if illegitimate, alternative form now constitute sexual possibilities that will never be eligible for a translation into legitimacy. These are possibilities that become increasingly disregarded within the sphere of politics as a consequence of the priority that the marriage debate has assumed. This is an i1Jegtimacy whose temporal condition is to be foreclosed from any possible future transformation. It is not only not yet legitimate, but it is, we might say, the irrecoverable and irreversible past of legitimacy: the never will be, the never was. (18)

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Three Poems by Daniele Pantano

EASTERNVILLAGE~THFACTORY

Dogs bark in untended fields. Outside, artificial light Pools the road nobody's died on with men sauntering The graveyard shift, unafraid to sing alone. I stretch out And find I married a woman who doesn't care that they Have picked up the ambrosial bouquet of sex--neatly Wrapped in tissue paper--at the foot of our bed. She Welcomes the rabid charge. Anything that reminds her She belongs to the faint hinterland. She keeps the doors Unlocked. I say nothing. Men or dogs. There will be no Other end.

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PATRIMONIAL RECIPE

I swore never to wear my father's mask.

Yet I meticulously peel and cut tomatoes.

Crush garlic. Pluck basil bent Low in observance. One By one. Push them off the plank.

Into the fervid blonde of olive oil.

Salt. Pepper. Dash of sugar.

Then I sit down at the table.

Yell at my children for being children.

Ignore my wife-- her voice: The steam of boiling water.

And wait for the perfect consistency.

Ai dente. The callous core that weeps When overcooked.

45

GUINEA PIGS

Having accused--executed--bled--skinned--scattered them For the beasts of Schoren Forest--we shot down the hillside On a black sled. Scared shitless--my brother--clutching My boyish waist--knees bent--nose against ribs--not Because of what we'd done--speed-- or father's finger-splitting Belt--but because he'd forgotten his smile as the creatures' bodies Went as cold and flat as Grandpa's blades used to slaughter Schweine.

December never ended without it--them--hung like pink whales In a heavy sky--blood-soaked hay-- fires readied--ground littered With hooves. And whenever mother lugged another fatback inside-Groflvater--gutting--would say: Remember--don't be taking unless you're giving-Smile when you kill--He'll remember when it's your turn. Later--Ied By mother's suicide note--I hit upon those meats--tucked away-An overcured history of infidelities--marriages--abortions--a box Of Walker's Pure Butter Shortbread Petticoat Tails filled with Wehrpafl-Battle Map--Iron Cross--Photos: Grandpa smiling--(striking, in uniform)-(Strained, in Leningrad)--(deadly, between my freshly slit fingers).

Osvaldo Di Paolo

Marriage, Power, and the Law in J airne Humberto Hermosillo's Esmeralda Comes by Night "Although the universal juridicism of modern society seems to fix limits on the exercise of power, its universally widespread panopticism enables it to operate on the underside of the law, a machinery that is both immense and minute, which supports, reinforces, multiplies the asymmetry of power and undermines the limits that are traced around the law." ("Panopticism" 212) -Michel Foucault

Given the strong influence of the Catholic Church and capitalism in Mexico, a legal marital union is primarily recognized between a man and a woman.' The Church and the State regulate who can get married and what criteria are necessary for marriage: blood tests, four witnesses, divorce decree, and the death certificate of a previous spouse, among many others. The power of the State operates through a web of institutions and tactics in order to control and monitor the lives of its citizens. The population is always threatened by the manipulation of institutions and the ideologies put in place.

According to Michel Foucault, people even monitor themselves to conform to the expected behavior established by the State; institutions of the nevertheless, power coexists with the resistance of other discourses and practices that have the 47

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purpose of questioning and deconstructing the standard legal and social norms ("Panopticism" 215).

This concomitance of power and resistance is present in Esmeralda Comes by Night (Esmeralda de noche vienes), a film directed by Jaime Humberto Hermosillo (1942- )2 in 1997 and based on a fictional story written by Elena Poniatowska (1933- ) .3 The story is about Esmeralda, a Mexican woman who has married five husbands. On the day of her sixth wedding, one of her spouses presses charges against her for breaking the law. After being arrested and taken to a police station, Esmeralda is interviewed by Judge Sonorio. During the interview, she reveals that she loves all of her husbands and that she wedded them because she believes that in order to have sex she needs to be married. She explains the reasons why she wed several men and how they feel about her. Esmeralda is perfectly happy with the way she lives with her five husbands. By the end of the movie, all of her spouses recognize that they are content with her and are comfortable sharing their love.

In this article, I argue that Esmeralda represents the resistance of subjugated discourses and practices that subvert the hegemonic ones put in place by the Mexican State and the Catholic Church. In order to prove my thesis, I will draw upon the theories of Michel Foucault about power, dominance, and control, and upon a study by Wendy Brown about the State and male domination. I will explore power and resistance from the point of view of Esmeralda, her husbands, the Judge, the Law, and a sector of society that wants to embrace a wider recognition of marriage in Mexico. 4 ESMERALDA AND INSTITUTIONAL POWER

The film begins with Esmeralda Loyden Monroy in bed with her husband Pedro. Next to their bed, the camera takes a close-up of a picture from their wedding day. In these first minutes, the audience learns that Esmeralda is a nurse who works at night, and who is going to cover the night shift of a friend who is getting married. In the next scene, after saying goodbye to Pedro, Esmeralda waits for a taxi. In the meantime, she takes out a small box that is full of wedding bands, removes her ring from her finger, and places it in the box with the others. At this point, spectators realize that she may be married to multiple husbands. Esmeralda's actions make sense in light of Foucault's observations on the panoptical workings of power. He says that there is no need for arms, physical violence, material constraints. Just a gaze. An inspecting gaze, a gaze which each individual under its weight will end up interiorizing to the point that he is his own overseer, each individual thus exercising surveillance over, and against himself. ("Power and Strategies" 155)

Marriage, Power, and the Law Esmeralda does not hesitate to remove her wedding band and to place a new one on her finger. The camera takes a close-up of her hands and remains still until she returns the box to her purse. Nobody is around her, and nobody is watching her; nevertheless, in an apparently automatized operation, she oversees her own behavior by expunging any evidence of her heterodox marital life. She knows that she must hide from the outside world the fact that she has multiple husbands.

Another instance in which Esmeralda monitors herself is when her father enters her bedroom and sees that she is dressed in a wedding gown.

He says: "Once again dressed as a bride? What obsession!" His daughter knows that she needs to keep tabs on her behavior, and instead of telling him that she is going to get married once again, she replies: "It is for an experimental movie that some friends are making." She cannot openly tell him of her doings because she knows that her actions are defying hegemonic marital standards. In sum, Esmeralda has internalized the demand of the Mexican State and Church that women marry a single husband. While she appears to have wedding bands from all of her marriages, she cannot wear them comfortably, and must conceal from others the fact that she has "tied the knot" with several men.

As revealed later in the movie, Esmeralda has married five men because she believes that she has to go through the Church in order to have sex. This is confirmed by her second husband, Virginio, who tells the judge that "[Esmeralda] won't have sex with someone unless she marries him." Hermosillo signals Esmeralda's infatuation with the institution of marriage by showing that her closet is full of wedding dresses, hand-held bouquets, veils, and pictures of all her weddings. Esmeralda's comportment shows how people may be impregnated with dominant discourses and ideas, and how they try to conform to the dictates of Church and State.

When the judge asks her if she is a Catholic, she responds that she goes to church every Sunday. Moreover, when her father visits her in jail, he mentions that he taught her since she was a little girl that to marry a man was the most wonderful thing she could experience. By confessing this to Esmeralda, he admits to having initiated her into Mexico's dominant discourse of marriage. He may insist on the institution of marriage because Esmeralda's mother never wanted to legally marry her fathe~. Her mother used to say that "the only valid knot, when speaking of mamage, was the love that united them." The mother's ideas about a marriage contract based on affective bonds diverge from the expectations of legal and religious institutions, and upset the father to the extent that he does not want Esmeralda to hold similar views.

Going into more depth about the power of religious institutions, let's consider Foucault's conclusions on the subject. In "The Subject and P0w.er,': e th~orist explains that pastoral power began as a way to save the l~dl~dual m another world. It is not just a way of imposing an order, and It dIffers from the sovereign power of the pre-modern State because it requires the sacrifice of the subjects to redeem themselves (783). The

0

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modern State wields a new form of pastoral power. According to Foucault, the State wants to control the health, the well-being, and the security of its citizens. In the eighteenth century, the police force was invented to maintain law and order, as well as to secure hygiene, health, and the necessary conditions for the development of commerce (784).5 In Esmeralda Comes by Night, one of Esmeralda's spouses, Pedro, follows her to the church where she is going to wed her sixth husband.

Pedro sits in the last pew with a policeman who stops the ceremony following the revelation that Esmeralda already has five husbands. Pedro tells the officer: "Arrest her!" The law officer announces that Esmeralda has contracted marriage with Pedro Lugo Alegria, Virginio Lara Cepeda, Jaime Martinez Cruz, Jorge Luis VaUarta, and Antonio Rosellini.

Subsequently, Esmeralda is handcuffed and arrested for breaking the law.

The policeman and Esmeralda's husband Pedro are examples of the different strategies utilized by Mexico's modern State to exert and practice its power. As defined by Foucault, the word strategy is used first to designate the means employed to attain a certain end; it is a question of rationality functioning to arrive at an objective. Second, to designate the manner in which a partner in a certain game acts with regard to what he thinks should be the action of the others and what he considers the others to be his own; it is the way in which one seeks to have the advantage over others. Third, to designate the procedures used in a situation of confrontation to deprive the opponent of his means of combat, and to reduce him to giving up the struggle: it is a question, therefore, of the means to obtain victory. ("The Subject" 793) Pedro is in fact monitoring Esmeralda's behavior. He is an extension of the eyes of the State, and he verifies that his wife pays the price for breaking the Law. Moreover, the policeman is an additional agent of vigilance. The Law is another mechanism of the State to supervise and coerce its citizens to monitor themselves and others. It is an expansion of the power of the State that infiltrates every institution and people's daily interactions. It only becomes visibly manifest when serious issues are at stake, as in those involving sex.

The "technology of sex," as Foucault denominates it, is a series of strategies to discipline the body and regulate populations. Following her arrest, Esmeralda must confront the restrictions attendant upon the State's attempt to control the sex and relationships of its citizens ("Right of Death" 269). This idea is corroborated in the film by Garda, the judge's assitant, who tells the secretary Lucita that there are legal aspects that must be clarified. ¡And if she gets pregnant? Who would be the father? That 50

Marriage, Power, and the Law form of sexuality puts at risk the whole capitalist system based on paternalism. The fidelity of the woman ...to ensure that the money accumulated by the father ...will not end in the hands of another man's sons.

The State controls the sexuality of women to preserve the patriarchal structure and the economic system it supports. The "modus operandum" of the State, going from death as a method of control and power to the domination of power to foster life, is centered on the body as a machine for economic purposes and as a form to control the population. Esmeralda jeopardizes the interest of Mexico's capitalist regime by having multiple husbands. If she were to become pregnant, the Law would have a difficult time determining the paternity of her offspring.

ESMERALDA AND RESISTANCE Since the Law tries to regulate the life of all citizens at any given time, Esmeralda must resist it. In "The Subject and Power," Foucault writes about resistance, explaining that power coexists with resistance and the latter is a form of subverting hegemonic discourses (794). Esmeralda resists the standards of the Church and the State from the moment when she first ignores the law and decides to marry several husbands at the same time, falsifying information and hiding her previous unions from the authorities and the grooms. She is arrested, but while she is in jail, she stands up to the judge's pressure during an interview: JUDGE SONORIO: But don't you suffer?

ESMERALDA: Just a little when my shoes are too tight.

JUDGE SONORIO: I am referring to your situation, ma'am. And the consequences it may have. Doesn't that worry you?

ESMERALDA: No. JUDGE SONORIO: Didn't you have to work hard to get where you are now? I forgot that your idea of work is a little bit strange. And your father, does he know the kind of daughter that he has?

ESMERALDA: I am a lot like him.

In ~is dialogue, Judge Sonorio tries to make Esmeralda feel guilty for haVlng transgressed the law, committing polyandry.6 Nevertheless, E~~e~alda always r~sponds i~ a humorous way. She disregards and dImInIshes the seventy of the SItuation and answers that she is not at all worried about her circumstances. Even the audience forgets that she has been arrested and gives in to laughter.

51

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An important visual element of resistance in this scene is the portrait of Sister Juana Ines de la Cruz (1651-1696) shown in close-up at the beginning of the interrogation. This famous Mexican nun defied the power of the Spanish crown and the Catholic Church. In the seventeenth century, social norms placed writing and theological debate firmly in a male sphere open only at great risk to most women. Nuns had to submit to the religious elucidations of men. Sister Juana challenged the institutions and was imprisoned and forced by the Church to burn her extensive collection of intellectual materials.7 Esmeralda, like Sister Juana, resists Mexico's hegemonic discourse on marriage and also suffers the punishment of the Law. In spite of the fact that Esmeralda must spend time in jail to pay for her transgressions, during her interrogation she continues to justify her actions as a form of confronting the Law. She begins to tell why she married her husbands, how much they required her attention, and how much she loved them. Esmeralda tells the judge: "The five of them needed me. They had a great need for love. They are my children. I love them, and take care of all their needs. I would not have time for others." This justification simultaneously subverts heteronormative expectations that a woman should have only one husband and reinscribes conservative gender norms for women. Esmeralda insinuates that she has no problem with being with five spouses, and that she is content and capable of satisfying her husbands' needs. In other words, she is happy to play an apparently subservient female role. Yet the Law recognizes only the transgressive facet of Esmeralda's polyandry. Indeed, it is this aspect of her relationships that predominates at the end of the film, since Esmeralda and her spouses accept each other as equals in a way that clearly undermines traditional patriarchal norms.

Esmeralda's resistance towards two-person marriage also promotes the refusal of a sector of Mexican society to conform to officially sanctioned marital practices. After the interrogation and before Esmeralda is put in jail, Lucita has a conversation with Esmeralda: LUCITA: Don't worry honey.

ESMERALDA: No. LUCITA: I'm on your side .. .I'll help you with the preliminary investigation. And not only me. There is Carmelita and Carbajal. And Mantecoso, and Don Miguelito, of course ... For us, you are more important than Frida Khalo.

Lucita sees Esmeralda as a way of taking revenge on men's infidelities. She says that her husband cheated on her from the moment they got married.

Esmeralda has become a more prominent symbol than the painter Frida Khalo (1907-1954), who suffered from the unfaithfulness of her husband, the muralist Diego Rivera (1886-1957). Rivera even committed adultery

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Marriage, Power, and the Law with Khalo's sister. After years of marriage, Kahlo divorced him, a real accomplishment in the Mexican society of the 1930s. 8 Esmeralda is not only a role model for women who have suffered from the infidelity of their husbands, but she is also seen as an example of defying the hegemonic definition of marriage. On the day of her trial when she is found guilty, and while she is being transported to th~ penitentiary where she is going to fulfill her sentence, people have banners and signs in support of other forms of marriage. Signs reading "Esmeralda, the future of polygamy" or "Esmeralda your fight is our fight, we love you" show the support of those who are being marginalized by the exclusions of the State and the Church. As Foucault states, there would be no p~~er relationships without situations of insubordination "which, by defimtion, are means of escape" ("The Subject" 794). Disobedience and non-compliance are means of evading the dictates of the Mexican State and, at the same time, they put into motion the strategies of the Government to exert the power needed to obtain its goals.

The media also take part in this struggle of power. On the one hand, some newspapers support the hegemonic discourse and have headlines like "Once More is Put to the Test and Confronted our Primitive Nature."

On the other hand, another newspaper writes: "Multistratification of ~ome~, O~ectification, Un~aid Domestic Work and Other Dangerous D.IS!Ortions. In these he~dlmes, the media exemplify how society is diVided over the regulation of marriage. Some Mexicans condemn Esmeralda's behavior, while others use it to draw attention to the subj.ugation of women in other social and domestic situations. Moreover, LUCIta says that Esmeralda's case is all over the internet as a form of voicing ~e ne~d to reconsider .the definition of marriage i:Uposed by the State. Fmally, In an auto-refleXive move by Hermosillo a famous Mexican film director wants to. make a movie about Esmeralda's story, another channel for documenting other forms of sexuality that resist dominant norms.

THE POWER OF THE LAW: THE JUDGE AS REPRESENTATIVE OF THE LAW ~or

Foucault, there must be a hierarchical system where there are clear dIfferences between those who exercise power and those who are domi~ated ("~e Subject" 792).9 As a representative of the Law, Judge Sonono exerCIses the power to detain and cross-examine Esmeralda. He wields privileges granted by the Law to coerce Esmeralda and to punish her for her transgressions. He also perpetuates sexual double-standards for men and women, since when detective Garda says that it is extremely common for a man t? take multiple lovers, the judge does not acknowledge the. comment as. bemg true or of any importance. This is evidence that while some MeXican women are prevented from expressing their sexual need~, men's sexual behaviors, including those that are illegal, are consIdered more acceptable.

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Another instance of male dominance, also evidence of the design of the Mexican State and its institutions as a male structure, can be seen in the way the judge treats his employees. While Sonorio is a heterosexual man, his secretary is a woman and the officer who works for him is a gay man. Both are constantly reprimanded and mistreated by Sonorio. When Lucita gives him a report, he yells at her and says: "you forgot the effective suffrage not re-election ... don't let it happen again." The same occurs with Garcia. On one occasion, the judge prohibits him from displaying toy dinosaurs on his desk because it is childish, especially when one is representing the Law. In the same manner, the judge humiliates Esmeralda and classifies her as immoral for having multiple partners. In "Panopticism," Foucault states that there is a perpetual assessment and categorization of individuals and that power "objectifies" those on whom it is applied (209)¡ This can be illustrated by the judge's monologue aimed at diminishing and labeling Esmeralda: Your little charade is over .. .Don't you realize that you live in the most absolute promiscuity? You cheated.

You cheat. And what you do isn't only immoral, but amoral, too. You have no principles. You are pornographic. Your actions indicate a mental disorder. Your infidelity is a sign of stupidity. People like you undermine the foundation of society. You destroy our family unit. You are a menace to society!

Don't you realize you have done a lot of harm with your irresponsible conduct?

Esmeralda answers: "who have I harmed? The days we share are happy days full of harmony, and they harm nobody." She does not acknowledge any of what the judge tells her. The Law has classified her as immoral, amoral, pornographic, mentally ill, unfaithful, and a threat to society, without taking into account that she is perfectly happy leading the life she chooses, and that her spouses feel the same way. Procedural justice overrides emotion. The Law takes into account neither the specific situation of Esmeralda and her husbands, nor their desires and needs. The only important issue at stake is to preserve the principles of the Mexican Revolution, along with their concomitant hegemonic characterization of family and society.lO Sonorio uses his authority in order to shape Esmeralda's conduct, aspirations, and desires. As the judge attacks Esmeralda's behavior, she starts to get worried. He tells her that she is crazy and that her mental ability "is something the psychiatrist will determine." Sonorio also calls her a prostitute and a tramp. He is perpetuating the patriarchal stereotype that only women of that sort would consider having multiple relationships. Esmeralda becomes concerned as the judge instills fear in her so as to preserve the male structure of the Law and the State.

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Marriage, Power, and the Law In her article "Finding the Man in the State," feminist Wendy Brown delineates the relation between State and masculine power stating that if men do not maintain some control over relations of reproduction .. .if they do not monopolize the norms and discourse of political life, they exercise much less effective sexual and economic control over women ... Women's subordination is the wide effect of all these modes of control, which is why no single feminist reform ... even theoretically topples the whole arrangement. The same is true of the state-its multiple dimensions make state power difficult to circumscribe and nearly impossible to injure. (10) The judge tries to alarm Esmeralda, compelling her to accept her "error."

At the same time, he seeks to control her sexual and reproductive life through the Law. He tells her that by the time one of her husbands comes to see her, she "will be behind bars for bigamy, foolishness, and for being detrimental to herself." In addition, she is accused of criminal association, incitation of rebellious conduct, and destruction of private property- for meeting Carlos in a park. Suddenly, Esmeralda says: "and what is it going to happen to me? I never had any reason to worry." Esmeralda finally realizes that the power of the Law is a stronger opponent than she had thought. This kind of intimidation experienced by women in a maledominant society forces them to abide by the State's rules, rather than suffer discrimination, violence, and lack of freedom.

Finally, Esmeralda is sent to jail, despite the fact that the husband who had accused her of bigamy withdraws the charges against her. Pedro does so after Esmeralda has been convicted, but once the sentence is given, it cannot be reversed. Nevertheless, Esmeralda resists the power of the Church and the State. At the end of the film, she says that she learned that she did not have to be legally married to have sex. She may have been convicted, but her rebellious spirit remains intact.

RESISTANCE: THE JUDGE AS CITIZEN OF THE STATE

In the previous section, I established Judge Sonorio's role as a representa~ve of the Mexican State's interest in monitoring the behavior and sexuahty of Esmeralda. In accord with Foucault's ideas, Sonorio cannot escape the power of the State within which he acts. In "The Eye of Power," Foucault says: one does not have a power which is wholly in the hands of one person who can exercise it alone and totally over the others. It's a machine in which everyone is caught, those who exercise power just as 55

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much as those over whom it is exercised. Power is no longer substantially identified with an individual who possesses or exercises it by right of birth; it becomes machinery that no one owns. (156) Judge Sonorio and the police force should not only be seen as dominators who exert power over the dominated-Le., Esmeralda. Rather, Hermosillo's film presents a multiform construction of relationships of domination. At the beginning of the interrogation scene, the judge coerces Esmeralda and accuses her of quintuple bigamy. Nevertheless, the film shows a transformation of Sonorio's behavior and principles. While he cross-examines Esmeralda, he doubts his accusation and thinks to himself: "Why? She even looks like a saint." And when Esmeralda says that being with her five husbands does not hurt anyone, Sonorio contemplates her and reflects: "Unbelievable. The girl looks good. What is her scent? She looks like she just got a shower. Fresh out of the shower. Why would that hussy laugh?" The judge's interactions with Esmeralda challenge his sexist belief that only ''loose women" would engage in relations with multiple men. While the judge does not completely abandon his sexist prejudices as a result of this confrontation (he continues to treat Esmeralda as a beautiful object to be possessed), he is compelled to recognize some of the injustices inherent in patriarchal double standards against female sexuality. He begins to realize that he has spent his life imparting the Law and has been caught in a system that takes into account neither women's sexual desires nor his own needs.

A crucial moment that shows Sonorio's longing to modify his relation to the precepts and the impositions of the Law occurs when he talks to Cepo, the hairdresser: JUDGE: I need your wise advice.

CEPO: Judge, I am glad you asked me, because I was going to give it to you anyway. You need to change your face. If you are going to change your life, you also need to change your look.

This conversation between Cepo and Sonorio clearly marks the judge's transformation. Cepo tells Sonorio that he had a dream in which the judge was dressed as a concubine. The hairdresser suggests that the dream alluded to Sonorio's feelings of shame, since the judge was covering his face with a veil. Through this interpretation, Cepo indicates that the Judge has never been able to see outside the Law's ruling and has never contemplated any counternormative life options; rather, he has lived in shame and has not been able to lead a satisfying life full of alternative possibilities. Following his contact with Esmeralda, Sonorio finally begins to question and resist the power of the State.

As Foucault points out, "resistance to power does not have to come from elsewhere to be real...It exists all the more by being in the same place

Marriage, Power, and the Law as power; hence, like power, resistance is multiple and can be integrated in global strategies" ("Power and Strategies" 143). Sonorio represents the convergence of power and resistance. On the one hand, he exercises power, but on the other hand, he learns to question and defy it. The confrontation happens in the very person who exercises the power. It stems from within power and it is authentic and effective. As a form of resistance, the judge organizes a birthday party for Esmeralda in the jail premises. When Esmeralda is about to blowout the candles on her cake, she says that she is going to ask for five wishes, one for each husband.

Immediately, the judge asks her to make six wishes. He now considers himself a part of Esmeralda's life and wants to become her sixth husband.

Once the party is over, Sonorio tells her that she has changed him: "I am a new man. I think and act differently." Esmeralda also acknowledges that she has changed. She says that she does not need to dress in a wedding gown or marry a man to make love to him. The power of the Law is still in place. Esmeralda is convicted, put in jail to do her sentence; however, resistance is also present. The judge and Esmeralda are willing to have a marriage designed on their own terms, and Sonorio accepts Esmeralda's other five husbands.

A PERSPECfIVE ON MARRIAGE ESMERALDA'S HUSBANDS

AND

LAW

FROM

Before Judge Sonorio becomes Esmeralda's sixth husband she is married to five other people. Consequently, the protagonist's full legal name is Esmeralda Alegria-Lara-Martinez-Vallarta-Rosellini. Her first spouse is Pedro Alegria. Pedro meets his wife at the hospital after suffering a car accident. He is her most traditional husband, a stereotypical Mexican cowboy and male chauvinist. Pedro is the husband who follows Esmeralda to the church where she is going to marry Carlos and makes a police officer interrupt the wedding ceremony and arrest her for bigamy. Even though he is responsible for pressing charges against her, the film shows a transformation in Pedro. In one scene he goes to the police station where his wife is detain.ed and serenades her. He even says that he is going to drop the accusation; however, when he does so Esmeralda has already been convicted of quintuple bigamy and goes to prison. At the end of the movie, when all of Esmeralda's spouses celebrate her birthday in jail, Pedro toasts with his wife's Italian husband, dances with Esmeralda, and shares the dance with the other five companions. It is clear that his evolution undermines hegemonic Mexican machismo.

Another stereotypically characterized husband is Antonio Rosellini an Italian romantic who shows immensurable passion and love fo; ~smeralda. I:Ie neve: takes .the charges against his wife seriously, stomps mto th~ pohce statio~ to msult the officers, and claims that the legal system IS corrupt. IrOnIcally, Rosellini contributes to this corruption when he attempts to bribe the police in order to spend the night with Esmeralda

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Di Paolo in jail. He sings to her with a tenor's voice and makes love to her in the cell.

Virginio, Esmeralda's third husband, is an older writer. While dying in the hospital, his last wish is to marry the nurse. Esmeralda accepts his proposal, and her love and care allow him to recover from his illness.

When Judge Sonorio interrogates him, Virginio says that he suspected that she had other men, but he did not care about it. One of Virginio's comments helps to define Esmeralda. He explains that she is incapable of sleeping with anyone unless she has previously gotten married. This observation confirms the pressure of normative marital standards in Esmeralda's life and influences the audience to take Esmeralda's side and participate in her resistance.

One more husband worth mentioning is Jorge Luis Vallarta, a bisexual engineer who lives with Antonio, the gardener. Esmeralda knows about the men's relationship and helps Jorge Luis to conceal his homosexual needs from his mother. This relationship introduces an interesting perspective on sexuality into the film, since Esmeralda and her husband are not constrained to accept only heterosexual relationships.

Jorge Luis knows that Esmeralda has other husbands, while she is aware of his male lover. Esmeralda, Jorge Luis, and their other partners have a marriage that escapes the normative structure of the legal institution. The film stresses that the Law and the State are the ones who have a problem with their relationship, but not themselves. They ignore the hegemonic discourse and become a point of resistance. Jorge Luis is able to defy heterosexist prejudices that had previously compelled him to hide his homosexual desire when he dances with Antonio in front of all the guests at the party that concludes the film .

CONCLUSION Foucault's studies of power, knowledge, and the body in modern society are a helpful theoretical framework for feminism. They identify mechanisms that perpetuate male dominance in heterosexist societies, and they provide feminists with tools to resist those mechanisms. Power does not "belong" to any single individual or group. Judge Sonorio is also a victim of the power he exercises. Esmeralda resists the coercion of the Law and its attempt to regulate her sexuality and relationships. In the process, she must confront the diluted web of institutions and tactics, and spend time in prison for her transgression. Not even the judge, her new husband, can grant her freedom. The "modus operandum" of the State, its deployment of power to foster life, is centered on the body as a machine for economic purposes, as seen when detective Garcia tells Lucita that the State needs to make sure that the capitalistic system distributes wealth to legally-recognized offspring. Esmeralda challenges this endeavor. She has multiple husbands and the paternity of her children could become problematic. Esmeralda is constantly watched, by her husbands, herself, her father, and the Mexican State in which she lives. Bio-power, the 58

Marriage, Power, and the Law control of the body through surveillance; pastoral power's guidance and care; and liberalism, where "freedom" is a tactic designed to ensure the power of government, are fundamental forces confronted by Esmeralda.

She and her husbands do not accept that the laws are just because they are laws. They subvert hegemonic marital practices and make a place for resistance in the complicated and tangled net in which power is exercised.

Notes 1 Same-sex marriages have been legal in Mexico City and Cahuila since 2009. However, as of 2011, there are 28 other states that have not recognized the validity of same-sex marriages or civil unions, and the Supreme Court has not yet forced these jurisdictions to legalize them (Aviles Allende 1).

2 Hermosillo is a prolific Mexican filmmaker. He has directed twenty-one films since 1971, the latest of which is Amor, released in 2006 (Martinez Torres 679).

3 Poniatowska is a famous Mexican writer and journalist who was raised in France.

Outside of Mexico, she is mostly known for The Night oj Tlatelolco (1971), a book in which she narrates the government massacre of students and civilian protesters in 1968 and presents the disparity of information provided by the press (Schuessler 167).

4 Hermosillo's film has also been studied by David William Foster in Mexico City in Contemporary Mexican Cinema. Foster contrasts Esmeralda Comes by Night with Dona Herlinda y su hijo (1984), another of Hermosillo's films. Francisco Manzo Robledo presents a detailed summary of the film's plot in a review in the journal Chasqui.

5 Foucault's ideas apply well to Mexico. In Cartographic Mexico: A History oj State Fixations and Fugitive Landscapes, Raymond Craib explains how the "abstract" Mexican State had intermediaries such as the police force that served the State in order to centralize control over resources and citizens before and after the Mexican Revolution (10).

6 Polyandry refers to a form of marriage in which a woman has two or more husbands at the same time. See Polyandry: Who, What, Whel'e by Jessica Haver.

7 See Sor Juana, or, The Traps oj Faith by Octavio Paz. S In Mexican society, "male adultery remained legal and women's adultery remained criminal, well into the twentieth century" (Molyneux 23). Frida's husband was unfaithful to her but she did not tolerate it. Being an influential painter of Mexican society, she was able to disseminate her views about gender roles in Mexico. In Frida Kahlo: Pain and Passion, Andrea Kettenman mentions Kahlo's portrait "The Two Fridas" (1939) and states that "shortly after her divorce from Diego Rivera, Frida completed a self-portrait composed of two different personalities. In [the] picture she processes the emotions surrounding her separation and marital crisis. The part of her person which was respected and loved by Diego Rivera is the Mexican Frida in Tehuana costume [who] holds in her hand an amulet bearing a portrait of her husband as a child, while the other, the new Frida, wears a rather more European dress"(S2). It seems that after her divorce, Kahlo leaves behind certain Mexican traditions of how a wife must behave and embraces a less conservative image.

9 According to Foucault, there is a "system of differentiations which permits one to act upon the actions of others: differentiations determined by the law or by traditions of status and privilege; economic differences in the appropriation of riches and goods, shifts in the processes of production, linguistic or cultural differences, differences in know-how and competence, and so forth. Every relationship of power puts into operation differentiations which are at the same time its conditions and its results" ("The Subject" 792).

10 In Gender and the Mexican Revolution: Yucatan Women and the Reality oj Patriarchy, Stephanie Smith states that during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), the military government under Salvador Alvarado (1880-1924) "adhered to the notion that a woman's primary place should be within the home and with her family [because] after all,

59

Di Paolo a group of homes form a town, and a group of towns form a nation-and it was the woman who was at the center of every home" (127). Smith also explains that the "ultimate goal of the revolutionary offic.ials was to protect the sanctity of fanilly life-especially women's roles as wife and mother within the home" (126).

Works Cited Aviles Allende, Carlos. "Ratifica corte: bodas gay vruidas en el pais." El Universal 16 Aug. 2010 <http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/ notas/700789.html> Web. 2 Jan. 2011.

Brown, Wendy. "Finding the Man in the State." Feminist Studies 18.1 (1992): 7-34. Print.

Craib, Raymond. Cartographic Mexico: A History of State Fixations and Fugitive Landscapes. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 2004. Print.

Esmeralda Comes by Night. Dir. Jaime Humberto Hermosillo. Prod.

Fernando Camara and Salvador de la Fuente. Mexico, 1997. DVD. Foster, David William. "De noche vienes Esmeralda (Esmeralda, You Come by Night)." Mexico City in Contemporary Mexican Cinema.

Austin: U of Texas P, 2002. 111-20. Print.

Foucault, Michel. "Panopticism." Discipline and Punish. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage, 1995. 195-230. Print.

---. "Power and Strategies." Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977. Ed. Colin Gordon. New York: Pantheon, 1980. 134-44. Print.

---. "Right of Death and Power over Life." The Foucault Reader. Ed. Paul Rabinow. New York: Pantheon, 1980. 258-72. Print.

---. "The Eye of Power." Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Othe1' Writings 1972-1977. Ed. Colin Gordon. New York: Pantheon, 1980. 146-65. Print.

---. "The Subject and Power." Critical Inquiry 8-4 (1982): 777-95¡ Print.

Haver, Jessica. Polyandry: Who, What, Where. Rio Grande, OH: Rio Grande UP, 2002. Print.

Kettenmann, Andrea. Frida Kahlo: Pain and Passion. Mexico City: Taschen, 2003. Print.

Manzo Robledo, Francisco. "Esmeralda de noche vienes." Chasqui 28.2 (1999): 149-53. Print.

60

Marriage, Power, and the Law

Martinez Torres, Augusto. 720 directores de cine. Barcelona: Ariel, 2008.

679-80. Print.

Molyneux, Maxine. Hidden Histories of Gender and the State in Latin America. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2000. Print.

Paz, Octavio. Sor Juana, or, The Traps ofFaith. Trans. Margaret Sayers Peden. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1988. Print.

Schuessler, Michael. Elena Poniatowska: An Intimate Biography.

Tucson: U of Arizona P, 2007. Print.

Smith, Stephanie. Gender and the Mexican Revolution: Yucatan Women and the Reality of Patriarchy. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2009. Print.

61

Betsy Dahms Staging Gender Trouble: Sabina Berman's "The Mustache" Theater is often a site of social critique. The stage creates a representational distance from reality and at the same time offers a fertile and relatively safe territory for analyzing and deconstructing societal ills.

Mexico has seen a resurgence in popularity and support of socially minded theater in the last thirty years. Despite its long history of Catholicism and patriarchy, many of Mexico's most successful recent playwrights have been women. Critics such as Linda Hutcheon have noted that it should not be surprising that Mexican women playwrights have enjoyed such success on stage, and that it is precisely because women have inhabited a marginal position in Mexico, especially in national politics, that they are able to be so daring in their critique (cited in Bixler "Power Plays" 83). In effect, it can be argued that women in their current situation in Mexico have little to lose in speaking up and criticizing national government and other official discourses.

According to critic Jacqueline Bixler, these dramatists ''have provided a steady stream of postmodern plays that parody, ridicule and otherwise attack Mexico's most sacred heroes, icons, and institutions" ("Power Plays" 83).

Within her

62

Staging Gender Trouble

)

generation, which includes such names as Carmen Boullosa (1954-), Jesusa Rodriguez (1955-), and Astrid Hadad (1957-), Sabina Berman (1954-) has been among the most daring and successful playwrights.

Berman has been described by Bixler as "an iconoclast who takes pleasure in destroying the decrepit, but still sacred icons of Mexican culture" ("Power Plays" 97). Throughout her three-decade career, Berman has tackled many forms of "official" Mexican discourse while receiving prestigious awards including Mexico's Premio Nacional de Teatro for Rompecabezas in 1981 and for Herejfa in 1983, and the National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA) National Theatre Prize in 1979, 1981, 1982, and 1983.

Her most famous work, later adapted for film, is entitled Between Villa and a Naked Woman (Entre Villa y una mujer desnuda, 1993). It confronts lingering manifestations of heteronormative masculinity from Mexico's Revolutionary War as personified by General Pancho Villa in a contemporary relationship. Berman critiques this residual machismo as antiquated and proposes that her protagonists be able to sit and have tea instead of having sexual relations upon meeting.

Although Berman is internationally renowned for Between Villa and a Naked Woman, she has worked on gender and power dynamics within relationships since the beginning of her career in 1978. I will focus in this essay on a short play in Berman's debut work, a trilogy entitled El suplicio del placer (1978), translated as The Agony of Ecstasy by Adam Versenyi.1 Berman, who has a history of reworking her texts and titles, initially named this piece El jardfn de las delicias (The Garden of Delights). The work consists of three one-act plays sharing the single theme of relationship dynamics between a male and a female with an absent third person referenced in dialogue. My analysis centers on the first of these plays, which was originally translated into English as "The Mustache" by Versenyi in 1992. I will consider the specifically Mexican context of Berman's 1978 playas a reaction to Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz's 1959 publication of "Sons of Malinche" and as a precursor of Judith Butler's theory of gender performativity (1990) and Judith Halberstam's (1998) notion of female masculinity. My goal is to show that Berman was visionary in her use of the mustache as a prop to signal the theatricality of gender performance and the absurdity of rigid binaries in Mexican society.

The eleven-page play consists entirely of dialogue between the couple, He and She, and their respective uses of a shared portable mustache. Much of the discussion focuses on the exploits of the previous night, when He borrowed the mustache to seduce a woman at the next tab~e in an unspecified. loca~on. The couple discusses the open nature of theIr postmodern ~elationship. While both agree to non-monogamy, only He acts upon thIS agreement. This inequality causes tension in the relationship that shows the insecurities of both characters and the contradictory nature of their "independence."

"The Mustache" echoes Octavio Paz's assessment of Mexican character or mexicanidad, since the accessory shared by He and She is a

Dahms classic symbol of the machismo at the heart of that construct. Through the play, Berman uses theater to adopt a critical vantage point from which to critique Paz's description of Mexican gender relations in "Sons of Malinche." It should be noted that the play debuted at the Universidad Aut6noma Metropolitana in Mexico City, where an educated audience would have been well aware of Paz's essay. Subsequent productions in 1985, 1990, and 1992 in the Teatro Rodolfo Usigli (in Coyoaci.n, Mexico City) and in 1994 in the Foro Ghandi (also in the capital) attest to the play's positive reception in Mexico.

PAZ'S LASTING INFLUENCE

Theater is perhaps the perfect medium to react to such mainstream discourses as that of Octavio Paz's essay. "Sons of Malinche," though essentialist and problematic, occupies a significant space in the Mexican imaginary and an even more important place amongst the educated elite of Mexico, of which Sabina Berman is a member.2 Octavio Paz (1914-1998) was considered a leading intellectual in Mexican culture and literature and his work informs daily life in Mexico today. Theatrical performances allow for visual representations of Paz's notion that Mexican identity exists in tension between the binaries of closed/open and chingon/chingada (fucker/fucked). The essay to which these dichotomies belong is part of the larger work The Labyrinth of Solitude (1959), a key text in the construction of "the Mexican condition" as one of insecurity. In rather essentialist terms, Paz traces Mexican identity to the Spanish conquest and subsequent colonization of indigenous peoples in what is known today as Mexico. He bases his analysis on the much-contested myth of dona Marina, La Malinche, and her role in Hernan Cortes's successful victory over the indigenous. With the rape of dona Marina, Cortes begot the first Mexican, the first mestizo of both indigenous and Spanish blood.

Subsequent Mexicans, then, must cope with their bastard position of being children of rape and combat feelings of insecurity about their hybrid condition.

In order to survive, according to Paz, the Mexican male must remain closed and be in the aggressive, violent position of the chingon (he who fucks). A male who lets down his guard risks being torn open by a ching on who will humiliate him, penetrate him, and leave him ching ado (fucked). Paz considers that for Mexicans, life presents the option to be either the chingon or the chingado. Mexican identity, much like Mexican ancestry, revolves around the word chingar (to fuck) : The verb denotes violence, an emergence from oneself to penetrate another by force ... Chingar, then, is to do violence to another. The verb is masculine, active, cruel; it stings, it wounds, gashes, stains ...The person who suffers this action is passive, inert and open, in contrast to the active, aggressive and closed person

Staging Gender Trouble who inflicts it. The ching6n is the macho, the male; he rips open the ching ada, the female, who is pure passivity, defenseless against the exterior world. (7677)

Paz describes dona Marina or La Malinche as the representative figure of fa chingada. She, and by extension all Mexican women, "embody the open, the chingada" (86).

Berman addresses the ching6n/chingada binary with her mobile prop in the "The Mustache." The play establishes the two sides of the binary in the characters He and She, yet Berman's treatment of these two supposed opposites shows the problematic nature of absolutes and undermines Paz's firm distinction.

The two characters are referred to only as He and She, or El and Ella in Spanish. By naming the characters using gendered subject pronouns, Berman emphasizes the fact that they represent, at least initially, the opposite poles of Paz's binary. The playwright draws attention to the way linguistic categories available in both Spanish and English establish a dichotomy. Outside the binary, the neuter term it is not generally used for humans.

Yet the neutrality of it seems relevant to the characters from the outset of Berman's play. According to the stage notes, He and She '100k astonishingly alike" -both have short hair dyed a red mahogany color, and both are "svelte, beautiful, and elegant- and they know it" (1). A blurring of the traditionally rigid gender binary is immediately apparent in this androgynous representation. Berman establishes a gendered distinction between He and She only to immediately destroy it through the physical similarities of the characters. The author further blurs Paz's binary by describing He as an effeminate man and She as a masculine woman.

Ironically, it is She who owns the mustache, an icon of Mexican virility and manliness.

In reaction to Paz's characterization of Mexican gender rigidity, Berman creates a conceptual space to imagine an alternative mexicanidad.

Confronting the supposed insecurity of mestizo males, the author proposes a Mexican masculinity not rooted in traditional machismo. And in extending the mustache as a cover of insecurity, she also proposes a Mexican fe~ininity not rooted in the virgin/whore dichotomy. For Berman, MeXlcan women should be able to exercise sexual agency without fear of repercussions.

Berman's exploration of gender fluidity in "The Mustache" appeared over a decade before Judith Butler published her work on the performativity of gender. It builds on Mexican feminist Rosario Castellanos's earlier play El eterno jemenino (The Eternal Feminine, 1975) to ~how the const:ucte~ nature of gender. It is interesting to note that whIle Castellanos Investigated the social construction of femininity as a gender, Berman's play highlights the contingent nature of masculinity.

Butler also approaches gender as a social construction that has no original.

Dahms Whether compared to the earlier work of Castellanos or to Butler's later philosophy, Berman's treatment of the fluidity of gender is visionary for her historical time and context. Questioning gender roles and performing gender in theater through the exchange of a detachable mustache shows the inherently theatrical quality of all gender distinctions.

Theater critic Roselyn Costantino has argued that the farcical and artificial quality of the mustache negates the symbolic qualities of virility and male sexual power that a "natural" mustache invokes (246). In contrast to this interpretation, I believe that the mobility of the mustache is exactly what constitutes it as a sign of virility. The fact that it is mobile illustrates the constructed nature of male masculinity. Masculinity is a performance that is enacted alternatively by He and She depending on who dons the mustache.

TROUBLING GENDER ON STAGE

According to Butler's seminal text Gender Trouble (1990), "gender is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being" (33). Gender is a copy of actions that have no original and that are socially reinforced to perpetuate stable gender identities from generation to generation. 3 In "The Mustache," spectators witness the performativity of both gender and other aspects of the identities of He and She. Reading Butler into the theater of Berman, it can be suggested that there is also a performativity of insecurity between the two characters in their self-proclaimed open relationship. In two rather lengthy stretches of dialogue, He asks forgiveness of She for seducing another woman, and She states her complex independence. Explaining why she is not taking advantage of their "agreement" to be with others sexually, She states that she is '1iberated enough not to want anyone else" as justification for her lack of affairs (7).

Paz considers the root of Mexican insecurity to be the less than ideal beginnings of the mestizo race. He introduces an "original" cause of this insecurity, but he does so by employing a myth. Berman exposes insecurity to be as malleable as the foundational myth and questions the very existence of a root or an original. If there is no original to which to attribute this insecurity, the condition of being insecure is a performance, as in the theatrical exchanges between He and She. For the public witnessing "The Mustache," the performative nature of the protagonists' perilous relationship implies that insecurity can be altered. Berman thus uses the theater to liberate Mexicans from the spell cast upon them by Paz's attempt to isolate insecurity as a fundamental characteristic of the so-called Mexican condition.

Berman also complicates the prescribed power division between male and female. In her play, it is She who seems to control the relationship. He is in the position of asking forgiveness, He must serve 66

Staging Gender Trouble himself tea, and He must go to the pharmacy if he wants an aspirin. The critic Kirsten F. Nigro aptly observes that He performs traditionally feminine roles and that She seems to follow a stereotypically masculine script (147). The scene in which He asks forgiveness from She is an exaggerated parody of a conflict between a heteronormative couple.

Curiously, it is also She who narrates He's exploits of the preceding night. She tells He how he asked to borrow the mustache and how he seduced a brunette at the next table. Since He was inebriated, he does not recall the episode. Butler states that her "performative theory of gender acts ... disrupts the categories of the body, sex, gender, and sexuality and occasions their subversive resignification and proliferation beyond the binary frame" (x). Berman also represents the complexity of identity while critiquing rigid gender roles in "The Mustache." In the retelling of the previous night's events, Berman's protagonists switch roles. The character She dramatically restages He's every move to seduce the brunette while wearing the mustache She lent him. The audience witnesses a metatheatrical play within a play that detaches "masculine" traits from He and momentarily links them to She, thereby performatively questioning the naturalized links between males/masculinity and females/femininity.

The stage notes are explicit; "SHE acts out what she has to say as if she were him and HE were the brunette" (5). In the reenactment, She is the seducer, the ching6n, and He is the seduced. As She recounts He's approach to the woman-"you stroked her hands, you smiled at her, and you leaned against her naked shoulder"-She performs the actions on him (5)¡ The brunette being seduced appears to conform to stereotypical gender roles made fun of by She. She repeatedly mentions the "black silk lightening bolt" of the brunette's hair, an observation reminiscent of Renaissance love poetry exalting traditional notions of female beauty. This brunette represents the traditional Mexican woman who embodies the ching ada side of the binary. There is no character development of the brunette apart from her physical description in the seduction reenactment.

This woman is an entity to be fucked, nothing more.

Not knowing what He whispered into the brunette's ear She interrupts her restaging. She becomes angry and falls out of her ad~pted character. He, eager to hear more about his success, urges She on. She again takes up her rendition of He's performance. As they dance, She leads. An erotic description of the brunette victim follows: "Sweet little girl...she was like a feather in your hands" (4). Upon describing the brunette, She caresses He's back, shoulders, waist, buttocks, and groin. As soon as He speaks, She stops her performance of his actions and sits down to light a cigarette, aroused by her own description of the brunette. She has finished her performance of He as a secure man with sexual agency and has returned to her performance as the ostensibly female member of the relationship.

Dahms

SPACE FOR ALTERNATIVE SEXUALITIES? The failure of He and She to abide by rigid gender roles and by compulsory heterosexuality opens a space in "The Mustache" for alternative sexualities. I agree with Costantino that "the lack of clearly defined characters in regard to their roles allows a space for playful inversion, subversion and creation on stage" (my translation, 246). The character She enjoys her partner's sexual exploits as a voyeur; She imagines herself in He's position, confidently approaching women for sex.

He insinuates that She is attracted to women, as demonstrated by her performance of his exploits and the erotic description of the brunette.

She's performance of He and subsequent sexual arousal points to the instability of terms such as man/woman, masculinity/femininity and homo/hetero/bi-sexuality. Berman highlights the socially constituted power of virility by diverting a traditional artifact of masculinity, facial hair, onto a non-male. This is the same technique employed by Judith Halberstam in her 1998 book, Female Masculinity. According to Halberstam, "female masculinity actually affords us a glimpse of how masculinity is constructed as masculinity" (1). Witnessing She's performance of female masculinity heightens spectators' sensitivity to He's performance of male masculinity. While Halberstam refuses to define what female masculinity actually is because of its multiple manifestations, she does attempt to divorce masculinity from "maleness and [from] power and domination," asserting that "masculinity is multiple and that far from just being about men, the idea of masculinity engages, inflects and shapes everyone" (2, 14).

The presence and application of the mustache does affect everyone.

The presence of only one mustache means that He and She must share it between them. Both of them feel more secure when wearing the mustache, and both enjoy the attention that they receive from women who see them with the facial hair.4 The security accompanied by the mustache suggests a possible homosexual or bisexual dimension to the female character's identity. She uses the mustache "when her confidence and strength leave her and she needs to ward off unwanted suitors" (Versenyi xiii). The fact that She uses the mustache to both close herself off from unwanted suitors and to attract women suggests her transgressive appropriation of the closed male side of Paz's binary and her possible homosexual tendencies.

She's refusal to say that she likes He because he is a man also supports this reading. This, coupled with the fact that She becomes sexually aroused when reenacting He's sexual exploits, indicates that rather than being attracted to He as a male person, She is more interested in performing the masculinity that is afforded to him in Mexican society. This Mexican masculinity denotes "social privilege" (Halberstam 2) and sexual agency.

As Butler describes, "the libido-as-masculine is the source from which all possible sexuality is presumed to corne" (53). Rather than reinforce masculine privilege, Berman opens the possibility of shared privilege, and shared sexual libido.

68

Staging Gender Trouble By performing He's gender role, She is appropriating some of his culturally assigned power. Halberstam notes that female masculinity is most dangerous when it is coupled with lesbian desire (28). Perhaps the character She recognizes this threat and because of this denies her attraction to women. In terms of Paz's binary, She is careful only to p~rform He's role ~s a ~an to a certain extent. A female Mexican voyeur is still a f~~ale, s~e IS still. open. A Mexican woman who performs a female m~c?limty or IS. a lesbI~, however, more squarely occupies the closed posItion of the bmary. ThIS role reversal threatens to displace the male into the open, ching ado category. . Halberstam cautions that "female masculinity is not simply the OpposIte of female femininity, nor is it a female version of male masculinitY: (2~). This is ,;here Nigro's otherwise thought-provoking essay over-~ImplI~es Befl!la~ s ~ext. In the retelling of He's exploits, Nigro states that [t]he masculIne still seduces here, the 'feminine' is seduced.

Women ~She as ~he) still suffer penis envy, and are metaphorically castrated (147). NIgro forgets that She owns the mustache and fails to see that She performs her masculinity differently than He does when wearing the mustache. In fact, Berman portrays a difference in how each character views his or her respective masculinity. He views his ability to seduce women as the "freedom to be able to take her or leave her" (9). He's use of the ~ustache and of his masculinity is to consume women. There is no mention of how He would use his masculinity to approach a man. She, on the other hand, states that when "the day comes that [she] want[s] a man to appro~ch [herl and seduce [her], that [she] will approach him and seduce hIm first (7). She clearly prefers the active closed role not afforded to Mexican females. On the subject of wome~ she states that "just because [she] is a woman ... doesn't mean that [~he] can't enjoy another woman's beauty" (3). She continues to differentiate herself from He and his treatment of women: "And I don't have to take them home to enjoy them. I contemplate beauty from afar ..'! let it be ...You, on the other hand, ... see something admirable and want to possess it, consume it use it up" (3~ .. Her female masculinity is not an appropriation of hi;. It is recogmtion of agency and power and clearly distinguishes itself from He's performance of male masculinity.

CONCLUSION

. ~y the end of "The Mustache," He and She become so confounded m theIr performances that they share lines. The characters actually excha~ge rol~s. t~1rough the formal technique of mixing the lines of verse.

1'?e bmary dIVISIon that Paz championed has been so undermined that the "lInes, of .ge.~.der ar~ indistinguishable," as well as several other binaries (Ver~enYl ~lll). For mstance, the love in the protagonists' relationship also mamfests Itself as hate: "I hate you like I've never hated anyone like only I can hate you" (9). "I love you" and "you are my shame" (10) ar~ both said between the two characters. It is true that there is great confusion here,

Dahms

but I would disagree with Versenyi when he states that "He and She have become one" (xiii). They have not become one, but have so completely destroyed traditional gender dichotomies that each is his/her own complex person.

The goal of this essay has been to show the visionary theoretical underpinnings of Berman's 1978 one-act play. "The Mustache," like much of Berman's work, exemplifies crucial aspects of her production: "a fine flair for dialogue, a predilection for black humor and irony, a distrust of all official discourse, an interest in personal and national identity, a need to transgress sexual and theatrical boundaries, and a profound awareness of the inherently theatrical nature of Mexican history and politics" (Bixler Sediciosas seducciones xxi). In presenting the theatricality of gender roles through the displacement of the mustache as a traditionally Mexican masculine icon, Berman succeeds in writing against Octavio Paz's wellestablished interpretation of Mexican gender binaries, while simultaneously preceding the deconstructionist gender work of Judith Butler and Judith Halberstam. This play questions the gendered social structure of Mexican society and undermines the essentialist discourse that reified the system. The play urges Mexican audiences to further question binary divisions in society as constructions that can be rebuilt along more egalitarian lines.

Notes I All citations from the play come from Versenyi's edition. .

• Additional evidence of Berman's engagement with the works of OctavlO paz can be adduced from the fact that her 1985 play Aguila 0 sol (Heads or Tails) recycles a title also used by Paz. 3 Butler makes a similar argument for biological sex. Candace West and Don. H. Zimmerman also agree that what we consider biological sex is actually a SOCIally determined set of criteria for demarking sides of the sexual spectrum.

4 While the mustache does represent power in the relationship, Nigro errs when she states that the mustache "stands for the almighty penis" (147). The mustache as power may stand in for the phallus, not the penis, as the penis is vulnerable and temperamental while the phallus is omnipotent.

Works Cited

Bixler, Jacqueline E. "Power Plays and the Mexican Crisis: The Recent Theater of Sabina Berman." Performance, pathos, politica de los sexos: Teatro postcolonial de autoras latinoamericanas. Eds. Heidrum Adler and Kati Rottger. Madrid: Vervuert, 1999· 83-99· ---, ed. Sediciosas seducciones: Sexo, pode,. y palabras en el teatro de Sabina Berman. Mexico City: Escenologia, 2004· Butler, Judith. Gender Tr-ouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity .

New York: Routledge, 1990.

70

Staging Gender Trouble Castellanos, ,Ro.sario. EI eterno femenino. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura EconOJlllca, 1975.

Costantin~, Roselyn. "~l discurso d~l poder en EI suplicio del placer de SabI,n~ Berman. De la coloma a la postmodernidad: teo ria teatral y crznca sobre teatro latinoamericano. Buenos Aires: Galerna 1992. 245-52. '

Halberstam, Judith. Female Masculinity. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1998.

Nigro, Kirsten .F.. "Inventions and Transgressions: A Fractured Narrative on FemInIst Th~ater in Mexico." Negotiating Performance: G~nder, Sexualzty, and Theatricality in Latin/o America. Eds. ~~~na Taylor and Juan Villegas. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1994. 137Paz, Octavio. "Sons ofMalinche." The Labyrinth of Solitude. Trans.

Lysander ~emp, Yara Milos, and Rachel Phillips Belash. New York: Grove Weldenfeld, 1962. 65-88.

Versenyi, Adam. The Theatre of Sabina Berman: The Agony of Ecstasy and Other Plays. Carbondale, IL: Southern TIlinois UP, 2003.

West, Can~ace, and Don H. Zimmerman. "Doing Gender." Gender and Soczety 1 (1987): 125-51.

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Seven Photographs by Andrea Angeli My interest in art and photography blossomed in college. I took many art classes such as ceramics, art history, sculpture, architecture, photography, and drawing, among others, while earning an MA in Geography at the University of Toledo. Perhaps I'm blessed with a photographer's eye, but these classes in the context of my graduate school training as a cultural geographer shaped me as a critical photographer. I see and photograph every landscape, vast and small, urban and rural, as profound and full of social meaning, begging to be interpreted.

Mannequins and dolls are one of my favorite subjects. One of my part-time jobs was as an artist portrait model. By willing myself to become a mannequin, I momentarily joined their silent circle of immobility and meditation.

My sincerest gratitude to Dr. Nemeth from the University of Toledo for instilling in me his passion for Cultural Geography, and to disClosure for publishing my photos. aangeli_ut@yahoo.com www.ANGELsTIME.etsy.com

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Rachel Tudor Sara Suleri: A Study in the Idioms of Dubiety And Migrancy in

Boys Will Be Boys and Meatless Days This is a study of Sara Suleri's Meatless Days (1987) and Boys Will Be Boys: A Daughter's Elegy (2003) using principally Suleri's own critical analysis of literature about India written in English, The Rhetoric of English India (1992), as well as her critical essays on contemporary postcolonial and feminist discourse. Suleri is an eminently qualified expert on the subjects because she is an immigrant from Pakistan, her father Z.A. Suleri was a leading Pakistani intellectual, her mother a Welsh teacher of English (as well as a lover of Jane Austin novels), and she is herself a professor of English at Yale University.

Particular emphasis will be placed on the topics of family, gender, history, law, and selfawareness as they are represented in the idioms of dubiety and migrancy.

An idiom is conventionally defined as the "use of words peculiar to a given language; an expression that cannot be translated literally" (Harmon and Holman "Idiom"). However, Suleri expands this narrow definition of the metaphoric nature of words to include genre and our unconscious assumptions about language. Suleri presciently 79

Tudor defines the idioms of dubiety and migrancy that she adopts, perhaps subconsciously, in her own writing when analyzing the texts created in English India by Europeans and Indians in her critically commended study The Rhetoric of English India. She defines the idiom of dubiety as "a mode of cultural tale-telling that is neurotically conscious of its own selfcensoring apparatus" (3). This type of narration is preternaturally dependent on the instability of its own facts. For colonial facts are vertiginous: they lack a recognizable cultural plot; they frequently fail to cohere around the master-myth that proclaims static lines of demarcation between imperial power and disempowered culture, between colonizer and colonized. Instead, they move with a ghostly mobility to suggest how highly unsettling an economy of complicity and guilt is in operation between each actor on the colonial stage. (3) Finally, the idiom of dubiety recognizes that "[t]he necessary intimacies that obtain between ruler and ruled create a counterculture not always explicable in terms of an allegory of otherness" (3).

Suleri defines the idiom of migrancy as one in which the "migrant moment of dislocation is far more formative, far more emplotting, than the subsequent acquisition of either postcolonial nation or colonial territory" (5). For example, the effect of Suleri's sister Ifat's death on Suleri's life was that it "cut away her intimacy with Pakistan, where history is synonymous with grief' (Meatless 19).

Dubiety as a hesitant uncertainty that tends to cause vacillations in reference to genre is demonstrated by Suleri initially proclaiming Meatless Days a memoir. Indeed, her publisher, the University of Chicago Press, continues to promote the text as a "finely wrought memoir of life in postcolonial Pakistan" (cover). However, at least one reviewer, Rukhsana Ahmad, recognizes it as "a sad, poignant and graceful elegy" to her sister, Ifat, and her mother, Mair (744). In Suleri's subsequent autobiographical text, Boys Will Be Boys: A Daughter's Elegy [to her father], she confesses that Meatless Days "is largely an elegy for her" mother (16). As a matter of fact, near the end of Meatless Days, Suleri reminisces about saying to her mother, "you must be just who you are, and we must discover why" (166). In Meatless Days, Suleri not only laments the loss of her mother, but grieves over the possibility of ever understanding who her mother was; however, in Boys Will Be Boys, ostensibly an elegy, Suleri repeatedly engages her deceased father in dialogue as if he were present. Tellingly, the title of her elegy to her father, Boys Will Be Boys, is the title of the book her father planned to write before he died. She writes poignantly of it in Meatless Days: "So many books will remain unread. The one I most regret is Boys Will Be Boys, my

80

Sara Suleri father's life and times, since I doubt he will ever write it now" (183). She of course, wrote it for him after he passed away. ' These are significant facts when we recall that a memoir is an autobiographical text in "which the emphasis is not on the author's developing self but on the people and events that the author has known or witn~ssed" (Abrams "Memoir") and that an elegy is a "formal and sustame? l~~nt...for the death of a particular person, usually ending in a consolation (Elegy"). A close reading of Meatless Days and Boys Will Be Boys reveals not only that Suleri vacillates between the two similar although not identical genres, but also that her ostensible memoir mor~ closely resembles an elegy and her apparent elegy more closely resembles a memoir. Suleri's mother Mair is an absent presence in Meatless Days and Suleri's father Pip's absence is a tangible presence in Boys Will Be Boys. Some ~eaders may mistakenly interpret Suleri's texts, Meatless Days and Boys Wzll Be Boys, as catachrestic rearticulations of Western textscatachrestic inasmuch as they are elegies in the form of memoirs: Or are they memoirs in the form of elegies? However, Suleri's dubie~ in reference to genre is deliberately subversive of any master-myths that proclaim static lines of demarcation between genres. .

The reward of understanding one's self through one's interaction With ?ther ~elves is ar~ably one of the objectives of writing memOIrs/elegIes. Yet, Sulen's purpose is far more ambitious and her rhetoric more complex than in a conventional memoir/elegy. A traditional example of the genre may be thought of as a narrative, a chronicle, a catalogue of events, or a even a type of bildungsroman wherein the author explor~s the . possible. meanings, contradictions, rememberings and ~orge~ngs whIch constitute the texture of a life. Under such a paradigm, it IS a gIVen that the process of weaving the story of one's life necessarily changes the ~exture of that life in a fundamental way. The author's enta~gle~ent 10 the text causes the author to lose something even as she is learmng It. In other w.ords, one's sense of self is not a product but a ~rocess .. Salmon Rushdie reflects gracefully on the re-membering process 10 Imagznary Homelands (1981): It may be that when the Indian writer who writes from

outside !ndia tries to reflect that world, he is obliged to deal 10 ~roke~ mirrors, some of whose fragments have been lrretnevably lost. But there is a paradox here. The broken mirror may actually be as valuable as the one which is supposedly unflawed .. .it was precisely the partial nature of these memories their fragmentation, that made them so evocative f~r me.

The shards of memory acquired greater status, greater resonanc~,.becau.se they were remains; fragmentation made tnVlal ~h1OgS seem like symbols, and the mundane acqUIred numinous qualities. (11-12) 81

Tudor The process of identity formation may also be understood through Michel Foucault's paradigm of thinking about the self occupying three subject positions simultaneously-past, present, and future-and about the movement of the self within these three positions. However, multiple subject positions in time are not the end of the story. Sara Suleri's memoirs/elegies clearly demonstrate her thesis, defined in her essay "Woman Skin Deep: Feminism and the Postcolonial Condition," that one's lived experience as a woman and one's historical experience as a member of a people are also crucial issues that must be considered as essential components in the process. The formation of one's self and the attempt to define and share that self are perhaps the most challenging textual exercises any author confronts. Suleri's Meatless Days and Boys Will Be Boys are courageous and candid explorations of Suleri's sense of self as well as the multifarious selves and histories that shared in that creation.

Before we examine Suleri's creation of her sense of self, let's discuss some of the histories. Why is Suleri writing in English? She recognizes that it is not a neutral language when she foregrounds it by her consciously awkward translations of Urdu in Boys Will Be Boys. She writes of "making the mistake of telling him [her father Pip] about my attempted translation of Ghalib" while he was descanting about translation (4). Pip advised her that "translation is not in the word; it is in the essence!" (5)¡ Later, Suleri recounts her struggles to read newspapers written in Urdu to her father: "I hate to admit it, but reading in English was easier for me, and when you [Pip] asked for an article in Urdu, I felt incompetent beyond belief' (5- 6).

It is very important to note her comments on Punjabi, too: "it always struck us as a singularly male language: we even cringed slightly when Ifat taught herself to speak that red-blooded tongue with such gusto. The rest of us women remained monogamous" (69).

If we agree with Mikhail Bakhtin's observation that any "utterance is to a greater or lesser degree the echo of another voice" (cited in Lyons 185), Suleri's expert proficiency in English as well as her lack of proficiency, yet paradoxical "intimacy," with the languages of Pakistan and India, strongly suggest that her texts "echo" not an indigenous voice, but all the attenuated "isms"-colonialism, imperialism, classism, etc.-of her adopted language. This observation gives a new valence to the question, "Who is speaking?" Does Suleri's extensive education and expertise in Western literature and language make her more or less susceptible to "echoing" Western rhetoric? In other words, is she a cultural mediator or an apologist of Western culture? Mara Scanlon points out that Suleri "claims from the first words of her book [Meatless Days] a disassociation from the language of her youth because it cannot contain her identity, or that of her mother and sisters, as women." Because there is "no vocabulary to discuss fully the idea of 'women'," there are no women in the third world (416-17). On the other hand, Elazar Barkan cites Suleri's interpretation of Hariet Tytler's memoir in The Rhetoric of English India to ask: "Tytler, although an Anglo, wrote in India; Suleri, although from Pakistan, writes at Yale. Are these new perspectives, or are they merely a 82

Sara Suleri new twist of occidental appropriation? Can the subaltern speak only in the suburbs?" (189-90). Rushdie, however, suggests a persuasive counterargument to Barkan's insinuations when he writes: Those of us who use English do so in spite of our ambiguity towards it, or perhaps because of that, perhaps because we can find in that linguistic struggle a reflection of other struggles taking place in the real world, struggles between the cultures within ourselves and the influences at work upon our societies. To conquer English may be to complete the process of making ourselves free. (17) On another note, Barkan claims that a new rhetoric has recently emerged from the antagonistic colonial/anti-colonial paradigm: the "postanti-colonial" (181). Suleri, who wrote wistfully, "Had I any veto power over prefixes, post-, would be the first to go," would be amused at Barkan's neologism, but back to the issue at hand ("Woman" 761). The post-anticolonial approach "takes into account the anticolonial/poststucturalist sensibilities but examines them in light of more traditional methodological and epistemological approaches" (Barkan 181). One of the reasons for the emergence of this new rhetoric is the fact that "subalterns are being pulled to the center like moths, scorching their alterity in the process" (183).

While honoring Gayatri Spivak's observation about the obstacles to subalterns speaking, Barkan asserts that a new genus of subaltern has emerged: the suburban subaltern (183). She defines this class as an "Indian elite educated largely in leading First World schools" (183). This new genus avoids nativist romanticization and Orientalist distancing (185)¡ Suleri speaks to this notion before Barkan when she describes the language of alterity as simply a postmodern variant of the obsolescent idiom of romance in The Rhetoric of English India (11). Suleri observes that 0e "~nsistence on the centrality of difference [a language of alterity and bmansm] as an unreadable entity can serve to obfuscate and indeed to sensationalize that which still remains to be read" (11). She explains: "Much like the category of the exotic in the colonial narratives of the prior century, contemporary critical theory names the Other in order that it need not be further known" (13). Indeed, the idiom of romance presumes that the Other cannot, and even should not, be known. Suleri's term for this error is "alteritist fallacy" (16).

However, Suleri may not be the proverbial Other for another reason .. Perhaps she is not the voice of "native agency," but the resonance emanati?g from a nativist position of privilege unintentionally created by the project of colonialism. Suleri is a professor who constructs and deconstructs the Other in an institution of higher education located in the metr~p~le of the .Unit~~ States, where, even as she criticizes the project of colomahs~, sh~ IS a hvmg testament to its success as a "civilizing" agent whose umntentIOnal consequence, a native who can speak, mitigates, if not

Tudor masks, the legacy of oppression and exploitation which are the necessary attendants of colonialism. It is clear from her oeuvre that her values, modes of entertainment, goals, and consciousness are indistinguishable from those of mainstream U.S. culture. In fact, Meatless Days and Boys Will Be Boys are not so much postcolonial texts as they are contemporary late imperial, or what Kwame Anthony Appiah terms "post-nationalistic narratives" (Appiah cited in Parry 18) which are produced by the "comprador intelligentsia," a "relatively small Western-style, Westerntrained group of writers and thinkers who mediate the trade in cultural commodities of Western capitalism at the periphery" (Parry 20).

Mary Louise Pratt notes the "obsessive need [of the West] to present and represent its peripheries and its Others to itself" (cited in Parry 15). This may explain why texts such as Suleri's are not only valued, but needed by the West. The fact that they are written by a presumable Other lends a patina of legitimacy and authority to them without the necessity of asking tasking epistemological and ontological questions of the author (producer) or reader (consumer). This may be considered a form of postcolonial intellectual colonialism. In this instance, the "native" is producing a necessary and palliative product to be consumed by the dominant culture. However, there is a specific rhetoric required of the producers: their writing (a) must legitimize the colonial project while demonizing those who conducted it; (b) demonstrate the ultimate superiority of the West; (c) contribute to the assimilation of a token number of Others to strengthen the West's own cultural DNA and resistance to domination itself; and (d) reify traditional Western values as normative.

Pratt's argument, like Barkan's, is premised on a traditional.binary paradigm, whereas Spivak, like Suleri, is "critical of the binary opposition colonizer/colonized, her concern being to examine the heterogeneity of 'colonial power'" (Parry 13). In fact, the arguments proffered by Pratt and Barkan are not applicable to Suleri because Suleri's heterogeneity of colonialism, especially postcolonial ism, does not involve the binary opposition between colonizer and colonized, but a hybrid crossing of those terms. Her own heterogeneity is not only ideological, but physical-she is the daughter of a white, European woman and a Pakistani man. Her body is heterogeneous, and her texts illustrate that she is the ideologically hybrid progeny of her father and mother as well as her other family members, friends, and lovers.

Through biographically sketching her family and friends, Suleri is engaging in the process of self-discovery. However, even the most perceptive, empathic, and intuitive biographer cannot accurately expose the inner life of another. Consider, for example, the renowned biographer Irving Stone. When he writes about the motives and nature of his subject, he is, in reality, speculating on his subject's life and not revealing identifiable facts. If one examines his oeuvre closely, one finds recurring revelations about the inner life of his subjects that occasionally disclose more about Stone's inner life than that of his subjects. Likewise, as we read

Sara Suleri Meatless Days and Boys Will Be Boys, we see that Sara Suleri's understanding of the significant people in her life is repeatedly abruptly altered by their behaving in ways contrary to her illusory image of them or by their saying something incongruent with her expectations. In recognizing the disparity between her image of them and their ideas about themselves, Suleri's own heterogeneous sense of self is revealed to her. For example, Suleri is shocked when she witnesses her father kissing the telegram announcing the return of her mother (Meatless 12). The event causes her to become cognizant of an amorous aspect of her parents' relationship previously unrecognized. In another instance, when her brother Irfan is badly scalded and Suleri sees his injured male genitalia exposed, she has a new consciousness of him as male and of herself as female (12).

Thus, the important people in Suleri's life, revealed in intimate biographical sketches, often tell us more about Suleri's own self than about the people she describes. Consider, for a moment, how dramatically different a biography of Suleri written by her brother Shahid would be from her own memoir. Suleri, for example, is surprised to learn that Shahid has a vivid memory of her throwing a brick at him, while she has no recollection of the event at all. If he were to write a memoir and include a biographical sketch of her, she would be stunned to discover who he thinks she is. We may justifiably wonder, therefore, how accurate Suleri's assertion is that Shahid wakes up "indignant for all the affronts he is soon to suffer" (Meatless 176). Another interesting illustration of this phenomenon is that Suleri's memory of her sister Ifat falling and injuring herself is centered around intimations of mortality, whereas Ifat's own recollection centers on the fluid properties of her body-the evaporating moistness on her forehead. This observation is not intended to diminish Suleri's biographical sketches of the people in her life, but to change the focus from her subjects to what her representation of them reveals about her own inner self. Her ideas of them, as opposed to their ideas about themselves, are essential constituent elements of her identity and sense of self. Suleri shrewdly comments about her parents: "What would possess me to believe that they could be, to me, of such unfailing interest .. .if they were not my parents?" (176). Similarly, she writes of her sister Ifat, "so much of her was inside of me ... a twin ...the sleepy side ofIfat" (131).

The disparity between who she thinks other people are and who they consider themselves to be demonstrates to Suleri the multivalent nature of her self. It is a startling revelation to discover that one's self is a process a?d not a product. This revelation is foreshadowed when Halima, the cleamng woman, who "gives birth to one child while another is dying" asks: "Do I grieve or celebrate?" (10). Who is she? A grieving mother or a new mother? In fact, one of the themes of the first chapter of Meatless Days is slippage. Suleri's fascination with Dadi, her father's mother, may consist in Dadi's ability to defy definitions, a fixed identity, or any ascribed category; it is part ofthe fluid property of her body. Dadi appears to be the cliched reticent Muslim woman, yet Suleri recalls that she cursed men and 85

Tudor thought of women as superior. For instance, she would often proclaim: "there is more goodness in a woman's little finger than in the benighted mind of man" (7). On another occasion, she asserted: "Heaven is the thing Muhammad says lays beneath the feet of women" (7). Even when Dadi appeared to be at her most pious-fasting, for example-she was actually celebrating a gluttonous meal, sehri, which occurs before the fast (30). In addition, Dadi composed her own reading of the external world. Although the fast of sehri was supposed to begin at daybreak, she would ignore all evidence that day had broken, such as the daylight, the sirens, the sound of morning birds chirping, and the milkmen going about their business. It was not dawn until Dadi stopped masticating (30). Dadi even defied the doctors who pronounced her dead inasmuch as they said she would certainly die and yet she managed to recover. One of the meanings of the parable of "meatless days" is that life is the "little swerve from severity to celebration," from stability to flux (31).

Self as process means that one may never know definitively who one is or who anyone else is, either. The lack of concreteness is simultaneously unsettling and liberating. The danger of a self obsessively seeking a fixed identity is discussed in Eric Hoffer's sagacious populist text The True Believer. The danger consists primarily in the delusion that by allowing one's self to be defined by others, or by playing a role defined by others, one is not really one's self but, like the so-called third-world woman, an object that cannot know but only be known. Nevertheless, there is a "sweet peace of saying someone else's lines" and a "serenity that accompanies a body engaged in work, in habit" (Meatless 178-79).

One of the temptations of life is to fall into habit. A "habit" is Suleri's term for self as product. She is always struggling against habit, against "waking to become this thing, a name ... an over alliterated name ...this thing I have to be" (152). Suleri believes her mother succumbed to the temptation and allowed herself to "reach a point where [she] no longer bothered to differentiate between what the world imagined her to be and what [she] was" (169). She writes that it is not easy becoming habitual, for much must be lost and suffered (158). Maintaining a role, a habit, is difficult because significance "must be bailed out all the time; it must be peeled away with onion tears in order that habit can come bobbing up like mushrooms on the surface of a soup" (177)¡ Living with other people, she says, causes a part of her to "wail with maniacal devotion, night and day; another of me with great forbearance weeps" (178). Her mother, Suleri thinks, went one step further and mastered the "art of distraction." In other words, "[s]he learned to live apart, thenapart even from herself-growing into that curiously powerful disinterest in owning, in belonging, which years later would make her so clearly tell her children, 'Child, I will not grip'" (164). This is one of the reasons why Suleri remembers her mother as distant from her, and why she seems to grieve more for her than she does for her father. It is also, perhaps, why she is able to imaginatively converse with her father so effortlessly in Boys Will Be Boys-they know one another so well. On the other hand, her 86

Sara Suleri mother remains a mystery, evocatively symbolized as an ever receding sea (Meatless 159). Scanlon hypothesizes that the title Meatless Days may serve as an oblique metaphor for Suleri's unrequited pleas for nourishment from her mother (418). Suleri's confession three years later in Boys Will Be Boys that Meatless Days is an elegy for her mother lends credibility to this proposition.

Suleri equates a reified definition of self with entombment. Her anecdote about the woman who was "bricked up alive into her grave," for example, is a powerful image that helps her to avoid becoming an object, a name. "To be engulfed in grammar," an analogy that follows on the heels of the anecdote about a woman being bricked up alive, "is a tricky prospect... a voice needs to declare its own control any way it can" (Meatless 155). One of the most memorable examples of Suleri exercising her voice to identify herself and the mutable nature of that identity is her visit to the Jamia Masjid mosque in Dehli. The man at the gate will not let her enter because Muslim women are not allowed in between the hours of maghrib and isha. She tells him, "I'm not a Muslim," to which he replies that he will never let her in. Suleri, undeterred, shouts: "Then of course I'm a Muslim! My grandfather was a Hajji and my father is Hajji- he's probably in there now!" (81). Later in the text, she explains further about names: "Mamma, marmalade, squirrel- names cannot define a person because they are not a fixed thing, but a discourse" (169). Discourses flow and have many fluid properties.

Suleri's own definition of who she is is constantly being revised. The sweetbread parable is an example of the fluid and mutable nature of self.

Suleri explains that she always thought of herself as a native of Pakistan.

Kapura (sweetbread), like native, was "something that had sat quite ~imply inside its own definition but was now claiming independence from Its name and nature, claiming a perplexity I did not like" (Meatless 22).

The dubious definition of kapura threatened Suleri's definition of native which was one of the terms she used to define who she was. Critic Anit~ Mannur avows that for immigrants "food becomes both [an] intellectual and [an] emotional anchor" (11). When asked if she knew what kapura was, Suleri wanted to be able to say "yes, of course, who do you think I am" (Meatless 27). Suleri was shocked to discover that kapura also referred to ge?italia. The new knowledge had the impact of weaning her from her chIldho~d sense of self. While weaning is shocking, it indicates growth and . maturation. The parable of kapura also teaches us that definitions are a matter of convenience and that they often mask reality. The scholar ~a:a~a Roy asserts that t~e kapura parable foregrounds the "oblique and hbIdlI~ally sa~rated .c?uphng of the literal and the metaphoric upon which autobIOgraphICal wrIting and culinary syntax are both predicated" (473).

The kapura episode "speaks to willed self-delusion and the semantic instabilities of self-knowledge" (474). Thus, "Suleri's desire to know exactly what kapura is can be read as a symptom of her own location among a US-based community of Pakistani expatriates" (Mannur 19).

Tudor Suleri's utilization of various temporal perspectives is also a type of knowledge that allows her further insight into the process of the formation of one's self. Suleri recalls, for instance, that when Mustakor, her childhood friend, looks to the future, leaving Kinnard Boarding School behind, she throws away her Coca-Cola bottle nipple as a sign of growing up; this is similar to when Suleri stops looking at Pakistan as a surrogate mother (Meatless 58). Suleri's lover Richard X, on the other hand, looks to the future and sees the end of things instead of the beginnings. His fault, Suleri writes, "is that he anticipated the past tense in every story...he already thought of me as completely lost to him" (67). He said, for example, "you'll say about me, 'He used to cook for me'" (66). Suleri wanted to shout some "idiotic truth such as, 'I'm nice. I'm real'" but never did (67). In reference to the past, Suleri says, it is naIve to think that returning is "somehow sweeter, less dangerous, than seeking out some novel history" (49). In Boys Will Be Boys, Suleri relates an anecdote of being stopped by a student in the corridors of Yale. She writes: "My heart stopped with the burdens of memory. 'You are Amir Ali's daughter?' I asked. 'His granddaughter,' she replied" (12). In Meatless Days, Suleri notes that in time "faces slip, become third persons" (176). Analogously, Rushdie muses, "The past is a country from which we have all emigrated .. .its loss is part of our common humanity" (12). Suleri affirms that of all temporal spaces-past, present, and future-now is the hardest place to occupy because of "all the detail that has to be forgotten to pay vociferous attention to it" (Meatless 111). For instance, after her mother's death, Suleri says that she is "uncertain that the present was a place [her father] could again inhabit" (124). Suleri herself sometimes longs for the theater where "plots are uncomplicated by the threat of future resumptions" that teaching poses (179)¡ One of the constituents of fixed identity that Suleri fiercely challenges is gender. It is interesting to note that before one reads the first words of Suleri's book The Rhetoric of English India, Suleri has already delivered a potent message about gender to her audience by ingeniously placing the image of a transgender nineteenth-century Indian on the cover. As the photographer's remarks illustrate, the transgender native mystified the Englishman who took the photo: "it is the strange peculiarity of this person that he [she] dresses himself [herself] on all occasions in female apparel" (110). Suleri explains the power of the image, and, if I might add, the person represented in the image, to disrupt colonial discourse: The photograph itself smiles back a cultural mocking at the colonizing camera eye: dragging in his [her] unreadability to upset an imperial reliance on the gendering and costuming of its empire, the image confirms what the text [The People of India] has already guiltily acknowledged-to dress the colonial picturesque in either feminine or masculine garb is 88

Sara Suleri tragically to defer that cultural realization which knows that its official representations remain psychically skin-deep. (110) The first chapter of Meatless Days also begins with a gender challenging statement: '1eaving Pakistan was ...tantamount to giving up the company of women" (1). It concludes with the provocative and carefully worded assertion that "there are no women in the third world" (20). These lines, strategically j.uxtaposed as the first and last lines of the first chapter, appear to contradict one another. Yet Suleri is too gifted a writer to mistakenly contradict herself. Therefore, there must be an explanation.

One possibility is that Suleri is deliberately using contradiction as a pedagogical technique (she is, after all, a professor): the reader has to resol~e the dilemma for her or himself. Her rhetorical device may also function as a subtle form of persuasion because it eliminates the psy~hol?gical b~rrier raised against inculcation of ideas and opinions ongmating outsIde of the self by challenging one's ideas of what she means by use of the term "woman." Is woman a colonial, postcolonial, Muslim, or Western construct? Are these constructs mutually exclusive?

One of the faults of Western feminism, according to Suleri, is its entrapment within a discourse of binary oppositions: men verses women, for ex~ple. The essentialist position asserts that genders are biologically detenm~ed. It is articulated in publications as divergent in authorship an.d audience as Ashl.e~ Monta?li's The Natural Superiority of Woman , Ehz~beth Go~d Da,:s The First Sex, as well as in radical separatist lesbIan rhetonc, and 10 the long tradition of misogynistic Western maleauthored texts such as those by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Essentialist thinkin? pos~ting that one's abilities and ways of thinking are biologically determmed IS analogous to the equally empirically suspect claim that "each member of a race is supposed to share [certain abilities or lack thereof] with every other member" (Appiah 276). The danger of essenti~ist thin~n~ is made manifest if one considers early polemics defendmg colomzation and slavery such as Juan Gines de Sepulveda's assertion that, "if you know the customs and nature of the two peoples [European and native). ..with perfect right the Spaniards rule over these barbarians ...who in wisdom, intelligence, virtue and humanitas are as inferior to the Spaniards ...as women to men" (my ~mphasis Sepulveda). .Suleri ~it;s in "Woman Skin Deep" that she shuns the "banality of easy dIchotomIes and does not advocate any type of "simple binarism" or the rhetoric of "us and them" which, she believes, "beleaguers issues of id~ntity formation" (756) and is evidence of a "conceptually parochial" mmd .(765). In The Rhetoric of English India, Suleri quotes Spivak's a~sertion that knowledge is made possible and sustained by irreducible dIfferences, identities (12). Suleri " in fact shares the social . .not fixed . constructiomst View of the definition of women. The constructionist position is perhaps best articulated in Simone de Beauvoir's bold assertion that "one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman" in The Second Sex

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Tudor (267). Judith Butler's persuasive text Bodies That Matter provides voluminous evidence supporting Suleri's perspicuous observation that gender is not a fixed identity, but a culturally constructed artifact and a constantly shifting paradigm.

Suleri asserts that it is not the postcolonial woman's voice that is heard by feminists but the white feminist's own. In her critical essay, "Woman Skin Deep," she criticizes the adumbration of two distinct categories, postcolonial and woman, into one, as well as Western feminists' use of "postcolonial woman" to assert their own rights instead of the rights of third-world women ("Woman" 759). Suleri contends that third-world women never rise above "object status" in Western feminist rhetoric (760). The problem with being an object is that "the person who is known, somehow seems not to have a problematic self... only the person who knows has all the problems of selfhood" (Spivak cited in Suleri "Woman" 756). Until the third-world or postcolonial woman is a subject instead of an object, her lived experience, her autobiographical text, can only "serve as fodder for the continuation of another's epistemology" (766).

Consequently, within the context of one strain of feminist discourse, there are no third-world women as subjects, only as objects. Yet the "company of women" that Suleri left in Pakistan was not composed of objects, but of loved ones and friends. Thus, we may see another way both of Suleri's statements-'1eaving Pakistan was ...tantamount to giving up the company of women" and "there are no women in the third world"-are true in reference to leaving Pakistan. Suleri saw "imperial Ifat," "Mamma in the garden," "Halima the cleaning woman," and "Dadi with her goat," all very personal images and people whom Suleri cannot depersonalize or objectify to serve the cause of Western feminism any more than she could ignore the human toll of Pakistan's civil war (Meatless 122) .

It is vital to keep in mind the genre of the Feminine Picturesque as delineated in Suleri's The Rhetoric of English India as a genre in which the woman writer's role is to "aestheticize rather than analyze" (75). Indeed, Meatless Days may be a reversal of the Feminine Picturesque-in the way it accentuates analysis over aesthetics-as well as a play on the Feminine Picturesque's most evocative symbol, the zenana, inasmuch as it begins with equating Pakistan itself as a type of zenana. Suleri asserts that "leaving Pakistan was ...tantamount to giving up the company of women" (1). Zenana, an area of a house reserved exclusively for women, is the source of endless speculation and curiosity in colonial literature about India. It is perhaps the most imagined aspect of British India because, ironically, it was a boundary where imperial patriarchal authority ended and indigenous matriarchal authority reigned. Zenana, as depicted in the colonial imagination, may be yet another the answer to the puzzle of what Suleri means when she writes that there are no women in the third worldbecause the "third world is locatable only as a discourse of convenience" (Meatless 20). As a matter of fact, Suleri describes Kinnaird College for Women in Lahore, which she ironically notes was located on Jail Road, as 90

Sara Suleri a type of zenana khana, a "magical arena containing only women" (Meatless 47).

Additionally, in "Woman Skin Deep," Suleri identifies three key components that contribute to the formation of one's self: lived experience, historical contexts, and theoretical contexts. Lived experience is defined as the "anecdotal literalism of what it means to articulate an 'identity' for a woman writer of color" (762). In addition to anecdotal narrative, lived experience is articulated through "that other third person narrative known as law" (766). Historical context identifies where the literal body resides in time and place. Confinement within postcolonial discourse is a prime example of theoretical context. Suleri specifically defines postcolonial discourse as the "free-floating metaphor for cultural embattlement" and a "signifier for the historicity of race" (759-60).

Postcolonial discourse, for instance, has the power to "raise identity to the power of theory" (762). Suleri asserts that lived experience, historical contexts, and theoretical contexts interact in a dynamic way to create a sense of self. For example, while lived experience is a distinct category, it is influenced by historical and theoretical factors. Law is simply the manifestation of particular historical forces, but its impact on one's lived experience is enormous. The title Meatless Days refers to Pakistan's program of Islamization and the way individual lives are manipulated by forces, third-person narratives, outside of their control. Meatless Days illustrates how the people who ostensibly control the third-person narrative are themselves manipulated by other forces of which they may not be fully conscious or able to control. The title Boys Will Be Boys also has an historical antecedent; the title refers to the cadre of Pakistani nationalists around Suleri's father, and it may also be considered an oblique reference to the infantilizing nature of nationalistic narratives. As Suleri writes in Boys Will Be Boys, "Patriotic and Preposterous equals Pip" (11).

Lived experience may be direct or vicarious. An example of direct lived experience in the idiom of migrancy is Suleri's testimony that the effect of Ifat's death on her life was that it "cut away her intimacy with Pakistan, where history is synonymous with grief' (Meatless 19).

Anecdotes concerning Mair, Ifat, and Dadi become vicarious lived experiences in her life. It is important to note that when Suleri writes of Ifat and Dadi becoming anecdotes, she does not mean that they are becoming objects, but instead refers to a most intimate transmogrification.

She describes them as food, a part of her. Suleri relates a dream that she had after her mother died in which she put a piece of her mother beneath her tongue, in her mouth. She explains the would-be cannibalistic act as an "extremity of tenderness" (44).

Another component of Suleri's lived experience is, of course, her experience of her own body, the physicality of self. Suleri seems to have a fundamental mistrust of her own body. She was surprised, for instance, when her body refused to retch or faint at appropriate moments (Meatless 26). When her sister Ifat explains the sexual and physiological 91

Tudor implications of nursery rhymes and the names of food, she is livid at her for "destroying her innocence" (137). Her sister's fall is shocking because of the exposure of blood. The only niece she mentions by name is Heba, and the anecdote is included because she is the one who informs Suleri that boys have a penis and girls are "composed of blood" (42). Heba gazes at Suleri's brother Irfan's injured male body, while Suleri is frightened at the sight. It may be that Suleri is not so scared by the sight of the naked, injured male body as she is by the physicality of existence and the sudden knowledge that she too is somehow anchored to a body, a body which she seems to deeply distrust.

Maturity does not mitigate, but exasperates the problem Suleri has of acknowledging the physical component in the montage of her identity.

Suleri reports that the "tragedy of adolescence" is, in fact, becoming a woman (Meatless 139). Ifat, Suleri writes, hated her body becoming womanly, and it is womanhood which "precipitates [Ifat's] separation between body and self' (139). The separation between body and self seems endemic to the family, perhaps inculcated by her mother who "seemed to live outside her body" (156). Sara, as a child, observes that her mother is "not where she is; she has gone somewhere different" (179). Meatless Days ends with a juxtaposed image of the body as at once a fixed identity and a fluid substance. The flesh can only be known in obliteration, she writes: "Only in obliteration," her body tells her, "will you see the shapes of what I really can be" (186).

Although Boys Will Be Boys is ostensibly an elegy to her father and Meatless Days an elegy to her mother, it is in Boys Will Be Boys that Suleri writes most intimately about the physiological difficulties of being a woman in Pakistan. For instance, she writes: '''0 nature,' we girls exclaimed in Pakistan, when once again the city of Lahore had run out of Tampax. Taxed as a luxury item throughout the world-which strikes me as abominably unfair-we were always in wait for Tampax" (13). She notes that the Pakistani version, Yumpax, is a poor substitute. But that is a small misery compared to the terror she felt one summer of having conceived in Pakistan because "to abort in Pakistan ... would have been quite messy, coat hangers and all" (114).

One of the effects of Suleri's cognition of the bodily aspect of self upon her identity formation is her frequent juxtaposition of literary and literal procreation. For example, Suleri juxtaposes her father's lament that "I have written nothing, done nothing with my life" while "two rooms are full of stacks of newsprint of his prose" with a reference to herself as her mother's book (Meatless 184). It is interesting to note in Meatless Days that Suleri portrays her mother much more sympathetically than she does her father, although she does use affectionate appellations for him such as Pip, and she does talk about his jail as a "father-sized playpen" (93)¡ Despite her palpable partiality towards her mother, Suleri's life imitates that of her father. Suleri devotes herself to writing, to reproducing literarily while her sisters reproduce literally. She exclaims at one point in the text, "while I write, Tillat germinates another child" (176). She

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Sara Suleri describes writing Ifat's biography as "keen, painful labor," referencing, of course, the labor of childbirth (108). In addition, she uses deliberately evocative language when she talks about herself, saying that "express letters rather than breasts were my normal ken, and it hurt to watch [Ifat] ... relieve her body of the extraneous fluid" (35). It is significant to note that Suleri uses the phrase "extraneous fluid" and not milk, which again demonstrates her vexatious relationship with all things fleshy.

Meatless Days also dramatically shows how historical context affects our identity formation as much as "all things fleshy. " Pip, Suleri speculates, felt at the hub of history and that is why he married a Welsh woman and divorced his wife Baji by mail (112). He wanted a new life in a new nation. Suleri's mother, too, imagines she is going with Pip to a new nation, but it was an "ancient landscape" with "centuries of mistrust" (163). Suleri asks, "What choice did that world have but to be resistant?"

(163). The historical context forced Suleri's mother to '1ive apart ...apart even from herself' in a "world that was still learning to feel unenslaved" (163). The danger of being enamored with history is that one does not see the human toll, the hurting that the partition of India and Pakistan caused the people (116). "Partition" may also serve as a metaphor for Pip's divorce from Baji and the hurting that caused.

Ashis Nandy's "History's Forgotten Doubles" provides insight on the idea of history in Suleri's texts. Nandy addresses the problem of the "millions of people [who] still live outside history" (44) and asserts that many of these people desperately seek to be historical. Pip is certainly an example par excellence of those who seek to discover a "repressed historical self" (45). Nandy contends that the elite of defeated societies are especially eager to become historical rather than ahistorical. Although historical consciousness is a relatively recent phenomenon, and one which has had to coexist and contend with other "modes of experiencing and constructing the past" (46), it is a dominant theme in Suleri's texts. One of the "major differences between those living in history and those living outside it.. .is the principle of principled forgetfulness" (47). Principled forgetfulness is an embracing of the idea that it is sometimes important to not remember something about the past. This forgetfulness is not haphazard, but the result of an "elaborate internal screening devices, the defenses of the ego or the principles of ideology that shape ...forgetfulness along particular lines" (47). Nandy elaborates on relevant questions posed

by Gyanendra Panday: Speaking of the partition of British India and the birth of India and Pakistan, Gyanendra Panday asks: Why have historians of India (and Pakistan and Bangladesh) failed to produce richly layered, challenging histories of partition of a kind that would compare with their sophisticated histories of peasant insurrection; working class consciousness; the onset of capitalist relations in agriculture; the construction

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Tudor of new notions of caste, community, and religion, ... and, indeed, the writing of women's autobiographies ...? Or, to ask the questions in another way, why is there such a chasm between the historian's history of partition and the popular reconstruction of the event, which is to such a large extent built around the fact of violence? (48) Panday's questions highlight the distinction between historical and ahistorical modes of consciousness. Under the auspices of a historical consciousness, "this massive uprooting [partition] has produced a cultural psychology of exile that in turn has led to an unending search for roots, on the one hand, and angry, sometimes self-destructive, assertion of nationality and ethnicity on the other" (Nandy 55). Suleri's texts demonstrate the phenomenon concretely in the instances of Pip's sometimes self-destructive assertion of nationality, and Ifat's immergence in an ethnic identity. Vinay Lal suggests that history itself may be defined as a type of "social consciousness" (cited in Nandy 53). Nandy notes that Suleri perceptively terms history whose purpose is to reactivate cultural memories "contraband history" (53).

Heartbreakingly, history has fatal implications for Ifat. The record of the history of misogyny in the family of Ifat's husband, which includes a brother in jail for rape and a great-grandfather who murdered his infant child for being born female, makes Ifat's murder seem almost historically preordained. Therefore, it is not surprising that Suleri calls history "that great machine at the heart of things" (Meatless 118). History's hegemony is not absolute, however; Suleri and her sister Tillat, for example, did not wait for history to change them-they changed themselves (113). Suleri came to America and Tillat moved to Kuwait.

Suleri's father, unfortunately, never escapes the grasp of history.

For Pip, the distinction between being a minority in India or a citizen of Pakistan is an irrefragable part of his sense of self. Pip's sense of self is intertwined with his sense of being Pakistani. Suleri, on the other hand, never addresses herself as Pakistani, but Indian. In one of her confrontations with her father, she says he looked as if "I was telling him I was not a nation anymore, I was a minority" (Meatless 123). In fact, she was telling him exactly that in many subtle ways. Ifat's sense of self, like Pip's, is also dependent on being Pakistani. She identifies with the nation her father helped create. Her marriage to Javid represents, for Suleri, Ifat's total immersion into Pakistan (140). Her metaphorical death and loss of an independent sense of self thus foreshadow her literal death at the hands of her husband or her husband's family.

Postcolonialism is another aspect of historical consciousness that figures prominently in Suleri's sense of self. Postcolonial identity has national as well as racial components. Nationally speaking, one was Pakistani because the scissors of a certain Englishman-Lord Mountbatten-clipped the map of India in 1947 (Meatless 74). To Suleri, 94

Sara Suleri independence was actually a slivering up of space, the beginning of a '1ong unmaking" (74). "History," she writes, '1ike a pestilence, forbids any definition outside relations to its fevered sleep" (8). Suleri mocks the Pakistanilization of names and cities by putting "pur" on the ends of them, as in the case of Cambellpur. Even the word Pakistan, she explains, emerged from Cambridge (110). She mocks the line in the Pakistani national anthem which asserts that it is the "purest land." Suleri writes: "Pakistan: land of the pure ...it is a great misnomer. .. Pakistan has little to do with purity, as we all know" (Boys 103). At one point she hypothesizes that her mother's motivation for marrying Pip was to "assume the burden of empire, ...to let my father colonize her body...to perform some slight reparation for the race from which she came" (Meatless 163). Her father too was motivated by postcolonialism: ''his desire for her [Mair] was quickened with empire's ghosts ...his need to possess was a clear index of how he was still possessed" (163). In Boys Will Be Boys, Suleri notes that a number of men in her father's family married European spouses: Swiss Bertie and Dutch Tine, for example (63) . Dadi, for her part, always resented "the white-legged woman" and did not show her the proper respect of mourning. In fact, Dadi's failure to show the proper respect prompted bitterness in Suleri that was never reconciled before Dadi's own death.

Suleri realized the implications of race as a child. For instance, when her father asked her about her lack of friends, she replied that Ifat had many friends because she was white, and that she herself did not because she was brown (Meatless 160). Of course, this news outraged her father the politician and maker of history. But Suleri simply accepted it as a fact, "a fact that shaped any day as much as weather did, the wet chill of an English Spring" (160). Suleri's use of weather as a metaphor for race invokes a well-worn cliche: you can't change it by complaining about it.

However, by specifying "wet chill," she is ingeniously and poignantly communicating its effect on people and on herself as a child. Her mother, she says somewhat ironically, "loved to look at us in race" (160). She adds that her mother seemed "subdued with the awe of the comingling of color... she had colluded to produce .. .'what will happen to these pieces of yourself?' It was a question that made her retreat" (161). Suleri, obviously, feels that race creates distance between people; mournfully, she explains how race alienates mothers and daughters- an idea elaborated on at length in Mara Scanlon's "Mother Land, Mother Tongue: Reconfiguring Relationship in Suleri's Meatless Days."

The law, which Suleri characterizes as a third person narrative in the lives of people, is another external force that exerts a profound influence on one's sense of self. The institution of meatless days in Pakistan was intended to promote an atmosphere of abstentation, but instead "came to signify the imperative behind all things fleshy" (Meatless 3 2 ). Another example of the law having the opposite of its intended effect were the Hudood Ordinances. Though designed to usurp Anglo-Saxon legal hegemony, a colonial legacy, and replace it with an Islamic based 95

Tudor jurisprudence, the impact of the program fell heavily on women because it criminalized sexual intercourse between unmarried personscriminalizing even the victims of rape and incest-while mandating extreme penalties, such as stoning to death or one hundred lashes for offenders. The Hudood Ordinances created a new reality, an alternative reality to Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, and an alternative construction of identity in which a wcman's testimony is half that of a man's. The lived experience is that of a fifteen-year-old child (Jehan Mina), who after being raped, is convicted of fornication and sentenced to one hundred public lashes. Suleri places the responsibility for the horrific ordinances, not on Pakistani politicians and lawmakers, but on the United States' intervention in the political affairs of the hemisphere ("Woman" 768). The fifteen-year-old child's sense of self is formed, or more accurately misshapen, by the interaction of her lived experience of being raped and publically whipped, and the historical contexts which made that reality possible.

The final and most significant component of Suleri's identity is the product of her resistance to the prevailing legal and cultural hegemonies of her environment. Suleri refuses to engage in marriage negotiations with Dr. Sadik, her father's life-long friend (Meatless 59). Later, after her mother dies, she refuses to be a dutiful daughter and to return to Pakistan with her father (129). Finally, she and Pakistan came to a parting for "I felt supped full of history" (123). Suleri's life demonstrates her repudiation of ascribed norms for a dutiful daughter, a conventional Pakistani woman, and a postcolonial woman. In fact, Suleri repeatedly evades hegemonic discourses of ascribed identity. By way of contrast, Suleri's sister Ifat embraces the prevailing hegemonic discourses of gender, nationalism, and religion, and consequently loses her identity and, tragically, her life. Sara instead migrates to America and raises an oppositional and life-affirming voice. She refuses to be subsumed into the macro-political discourses of Pakistan, colonialism, postcolonialism, race, and gender as her mother, father, and sister were, while simultaneously declining to become an object of Western white feminism.

Although Suleri is keenly aware of many of the factors that influence her sense of self, some critics claim that she remains inexplicably silent on the topic of class in her life as well as her scholarship. Mannur maintains that Suleri is ''blind to the incommensurability of her class position and those of the very people she claims are written out of the patriarchal nationalistic narrative" (21). This critic asserts that "Suleri imagines herself linked to the cooks who labor in the household. But with the exception of Qayuum ...the voices of the cooks do not emerge" (21).

Mannur seems particularly incensed that Suleri nostalgically recalls the elaborate meat dishes, but does not acknowledge those who prepared and served the meats, even asserting that to Suleri "servants" were not "women" and "cooks" were not "we" (21). She imagines Meatless Days as "ambivalently situated between Suleri's desire to reject the official

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Sara Suleri rendering of history, and her refusal to acknowledge the class-based implications of her own nostalgically rendered histories" (27).

Teresa Hubel's critique of Suleri's texts mirrors that of Mannur.

Hubel specifically critiques Suleri's explication of Kipling's Kim in The Rhetoric of English India for neglecting the role of class in its analysis. For Hubel, this oversight is simply inexcusable. She notes that the "novel itself is absolutely upfront about this detail [class]" (228). Kim is a "working class protagonist created by a middle-class author writing out of and back to the highly stratified and hypermasculinized colonial cultures of India and England" (228-29). Class may be understood through the "mediums of language, sexuality, experience, gender, choices or lack of them, expectations and conditions of life, race, value systems, etc." and is a "personal and political identity and a social structure that stretches across nations ... and between them" (229). Thus, the fact that Suleri is a "suburban subaltern" occupying a position of privilege, for Hubel, compromises Suleri's ability to recognize and critique the issue of class in Kim (this begs the question of Hubers class status). Hubel notes that Kim's foster mother, like so many of Suleri's caregivers, is expendable, not because she is Indian or Pakistani, but because of her class status (237).

Hubel also asserts that just as Kim's emotional and cultural distance from some characters in Kipling's novel is based on class, Suleri's distance from certain caregivers in her life is premised on that category. In addition, Hubel observes that "Kipling has taken his protagonist away from what the ruling class whites believed were degrading influences: working class parents, working class communities, and working class places of residence" (240). Similarly, Suleri's parents remove her from the "degrading influences" of working class peers by enrolling her in a series of exclusive, private schools.

Admittedly, it is significant to note that although Suleri devotes an entire chapter of The Rhetoric of English India to Kipling's Kim, "The Adolescence of Kim," she does not address the issue of class. For some, Suleri misattributes Kim's susceptibility to coercion to cultural, rather than to class, alienation. Hubel writes: "the question that Suleri does not answer, however, is why Kim? What makes him susceptible to this coercion? There are two things: first, his status as a white working-class individual, and second, his isolation from that class and the history of that class in India" (249). Later, she asserts, "the 'terrifying absence of choice' that Suleri quite astutely discerns in Kim's collaboration with the Raj is the result of a working-classness detached from a solidarity that functioned historically as the means through which the white working classes forged a place for themselves in colonial India" (250). At the beginning of Hubers essay, she insists that "in the India of the British Empire race cannot be understood outside of the constructive might of class" (233).

While Hubel asks some pertinent questions, one wonders why she assumes that Kim's actions are based exclusively on one (Hubers) or the other (Suleri's) proffered explanations. Richly drawn characters usually are motivated by a number of overlapping, sometimes even contradictory 97

Tudor motives. Hubers analysis of Kim raises some important points in reference to the study of Kipling's texts. It is unfortunate that her valuable contribution is framed as a refutation, even a declamation, of Suleri's work instead of as a complimentary inquiry.

Likewise, Mannur's critique of Suleri omits the occasions when Suleri does address the issue of class by specifically giving voice to cooks and other "servants." For instance, Suleri does give voice to Halima, the cleaning woman, when she simultaneously delivers and loses a child, and asks if she should be celebrating or mourning (Meatless 11). In addition, Suleri specifically acknowledges her own class myopia when she recounts how her guest Hafiz Jallundari (the author of Pakistan's national anthem) recognized her family cook, Khansama, as the renowned poet Ilum Din. Suleri writes that when Ilum Din was asked where he had been, she "felt ashamed. Because he has been too busy cooking our rotis" (Boys 105).

While Mannur is writing specifically about Meatless Days, Suleri's Boys Will Be Boys was published four years prior to Mannur's essay. It would have been prudent of Mannur to read Suleri's subsequent work before publishing judgments that extend beyond the text of Meatless Days to Suleri herself.

Another critic, Lisa Lau, raises an additional possible searing criticism of Suleri in her essay, "Re-Orientalism: The Perpetuation and Development of Orientalism by Orientals." Lau suggests that "diasporic South Asian women writers" are "re-orientalizing South Asian literature" (571). Although Lau's essay does not focus on Suleri, she is mentioned by name in the article. Lau is right to raise the issue of how diasporic writers, sometimes removed from the everyday life of South Asia by decades of living in the West, are writing the preponderance of texts about South Asia. Her concern, which she supports by citing figures for the number of publications by diasporic and non-diasporic women writers, is that diasporic writers are usurping the literature of South Asians living in South Asia. Lau does not contend that there is any "insidious intent," ~espite the provocative title of her essay, or even suggest that the diasporic hterature is necessarily "inaccurate" or "distorted" (574). However, she does cite some specific and egregious examples of diasporic authors using hackneyed stereotypes of South Asians in their novels; hence, "ReOrientalizing." Suleri, of course, is not in that category. Nevertheless, the fact is that most of the literature published and read in the West about South Asia is by diasporic writers. Therefore, it is important that readers, particularly those who select readings for students, consciously choose w?rks written by South Asians living in South Asia as well as abroad. It is WIse to remember, as Lyons explains in "Ambiguous Narratives," that the d~asporic author is often "highly 'unrepresentative' of his or her society, hIghly educated, with a particular point of view and particular aims ... He or she 'comes to us,' and the process by which certain works, but not others, get published and come to our attention must be part of our understanding" (183).

Sara Suleri Rushdie, in contrast, prophetically celebrated diasporic authors when, in 1981, he wrote: "in the future [Indo-Indian fiction] is going to come as much from addresses in London, Birmingham and Yorkshire as from Delhi or Bombay" (17). Perhaps it is best to let Suleri speak for herself in reference to her own writing. In Boys Will Be Boys, she declares, "I can only smile wryly when people tell me that I have no right to talk with any authority about Pakistan, since I have been gone for so many decades. 'I do not wish to be an author,' I reply" (110). This may be interpreted as a clever play on the word authority/author, but she may also be smiling at the presumptuousness of someone casting doubt on the authenticity of her experience. In either case, it is vital to be mindful of the fact that Suleri's experience is as authentic and legitimate as anyone else's-she is exactly who she purports to be in her texts: a woman in the process of becoming. The irony of all autobiographical writing is that identity is not fixed, but fluid; or, in Mikhail Bakhtin's words, "the essential human quality is 'unfinalizability,' through which each life is an ongoing process of becoming" (cited in Scanlon 422).

Meatless Days and Boys Will Be Boys are memoirs/elegies about the people who contributed to Suleri's sense of self. They are also cogent analyses of ideas about family, gender, history, and law. Suleri studies the process of identity formation through remembrance, and through the analysis of historical and theoretical contexts from a variety of perspectives. Along the way, she wrestles with shadows and ghosts. As Suleri writes in the concluding chapter of Meatless Days, "I worked at making Ifat my geography, my terrain of significance, on which I thought, and slept, and breathed. Now context becomes a more abstracting thought, admitting finally; you never lived in Ifat anyway; you live in New Haven" (182). Taking into account Suleri's idioms of dubiety and migrancy, it may be concluded that it is not the destination, but the journey that is most meaningful and enlightening to readers of her texts. Suleri's works leave us with a question the author posed herself in The Rhetoric of English India: How does women's autobiography dilute or reify male historiography as it inscribes women's bodies and identities onto a masculine landscape?

Works Cited Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 6 th ed. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1993.

Ahmad, Rukhsana. Review of Meatless Days. Third World Quarterly 13-4 (1992): 744-45.

Appiah, Kwame Anthony. "Race." Critical Termsfor Literary Study. Eds. Frank Lentricchia and Thomas Mclaughlin. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1990. 274-87.

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Tudor Barkan, Elazar. "Post-Anti-Colonial Histories: Representing the Other in Imperial Britain." Journal of British Studies 33 (1994): 180-203¡ Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. Trans. H.M. Parshley. New York: Knopf, 1964.

Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter. New York: Routledge, 1993.

Harmon, William, and Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. 9th ed.

Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2002.

Hoffer, Eric. The True Believer. New York: Harper and Row, 1951.

Hubel, Teresa. "In Search of the British Indian in British India: White Orphans, Kipling's Kim, and Class in Colonial India." Modern Asia Studies 38.1 (2004): 227-51.

Lau, Lisa. "Re-Orientalism: The Perpetuation and Development of Orientalism by Orientals." Modern Asia Studies 43¡2 (2009): 57190.

Lyons, Thomas. "Ambiguous Narratives." Cultural Anthropology 16.2 (2001): 183-201.

Mannur, Anita. "Culinary Nostalgia: Authenticity, Nationalism, and Diaspora." MELUS 32-4 (2007): 11-31.

Nandy, Ashis. "History's Forgotten Doubles." History and Theory 34. 2 (1995): 44-66.

Parry, Benita. "The Postcolonial: Conceptual Category or Chimera?" The Yearbook of English Studies 27 (1997): 3-21.

Roy, Parama. "Reading Communities and Culinary Communities: The Gastropoetics of the South Asian Diaspora." Positions 10.2 (2002): 471-502.

Rushdie, Salmon. Imaginary Homelands. London: Granta Books, 1981.

Scanlon, Mara. "Mother Land, Mother Tongue: Reconfiguring Relationship in Suleri's Meatless Days." LIT 12 (2001): 413-25.

SepUlveda, Juan Gines de. "On the Reasons for the Just War among the Indians (1547)." Montclair State University. 14 Feb. 2011 <www.chss.montclair.edu/-Iandwebj/105/ 1sepulv.htm> .

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Sara Suleri Suleri, Sara. Boys Will Be Boys: A Daughter's Elegy. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2003.

---. Meatless Days. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1987.

---. The Rhetoric of English India. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 199 2 .

---. "Woman Skin Deep: Feminism and the Postcolonial Condition."

Critical Inquiry 18 (1992): 756-69·

101

Two Photographs by Andrea Angeli

102

103

Two Poems by Jessica Beaufils Make me whole. Crushed ants, ripe moon Pendulum caught in mid-swing.

Our love is empty, trapped in the bare mouth Of once gravid dreams.

Our rire does not separate us from What crawls any more than our Bras could take flight.

Why am I moving? Salt-still eyes Mined for generations. Our harvest Should have come. Chaff separatedI plucked the tender germ of our union Far too early-and somewhere you know The lie grows as a weed in August Lush, greedy, with roots spreading Far and deep, choking the "que-si?"

In quiet moments, I perceive the backward Track of laughter, melding with This nothingness I feel.

How could I? I prick my finger And draw perfect rows down your back.

Rows to sow what I shall reap The disaster of my avarice-glinting Argent in the now still night.

The locus of my antiquity, a small Dot on our kitchen floor Is quickly swept up by your deft Attempt to put everything Under the rug.

104

Only in the opening have I been made whole Happy to be cleaved in twain Like a sapling in spring My own mortality written in the language Of pure love I had no hope but you-though I thought it I had no joy, no peace, no rest You were the answer to my question "Why?" The universe vibrated with Your first breath Pure and new Alpha and omega The falling snow getting deeper They took you from me To keep me from growing too strong They pierced my arms, spine They could not keep me from you Perfect angel Light of life.

105

Mary Ryan What's Love Got To Do With It?: Family, Sex, and Domestic Violence in Contemporary Irish Women's Fiction People have argued over the role and necessity of romance and relationships in contemporary women's fiction.

Speaking in terms of typical chick lit, for instance, romance is one aspect of the genre that is almost always commented upon. Despite detractors of women's fiction arguing that an emphasis on romance and relationships suggests that all women want is to find a man, it presents an interesting way of examining how these novels discuss and depict family issues such as marriage, sex, motherhood, and domestic violence.

The family was long viewed as being at the heart of Irish life, and Irish women in particular were expected to have no ambitions other than to be a wife and mother. This attitude was taught to children from a young age; young Irish girls were taught 'to be chaste, obedient, respectable and docile' (Hayes 2001, 117)-in other words, they were taught to be the subservient ideal for wives and mothers. Though these attitudes were largely enforced by the Church, whose teachings were adopted by the entire nation, the law in Ireland also reflected these same attitudes. Women's lives were strictly confined to the private domain, and women's issues were largely silenced and 106

What's Love Got To Do With It? hidden from public knowledge. Additionally, both Church and state maintained that women should hold a certain morality, particularly relating to areas of sexuality and reproduction.

As feminists began to visibly change the lives of women around the world, Irish feminists also aimed to improve the situation of women in their country. For the first time, Irish women's issues, which had historically been hidden, were now open to public scrutiny. As chick lit has become known for being a genre which represents contemporary women's lives, this paper will discuss how issues of family, sex and the law have typically affected women in Ireland, and how these same issues are also represented in contemporary Irish women's fiction. An analysis of such serious issues proves interesting when we take into account the controversy and mixed opinions that chick lit has generated: 'on one hand chick lit attracts the unquestioning adoration of fans; on the other it attracts the unmitigated disdain of critics' (Ferriss 2006, 1). Additionally, chick lit has rarely been the subject of serious academic study, while any critical interest in it has tended to be from an entirely negative perspective. It has similarly been noted how much of the 'discourse surrounding the genre has been polarized between its outright dismissal as trivial fiction and unexamined embrace by fans who claim that it reflects the realities of life for contemporary single women' (Ferriss 2006, 2). Of course, it would be naive to argue that every chick lit novel should be considered a literary masterpiece; as with any genre of fiction, there are novels which are more formulaic, trivial, and unoriginal, while others may be recognised as, relatively speaking, "better" than others. In this sense, I am not attempting to disprove all criticisms which have been written about chick lit, but, instead, aiming to examine how Irish chick lit is an example of how the framework of the genre may be used to circulate and address serious issues.

CHICK LIT It has rightly been suggested that attempts to classify chick lit become decidedly more difficult as we 'face the daunting prospect of determining what recent fiction by women featuring a female protagonist or a cast of women characters is not chick lit' (Harzewski 2006, 31). For this reason, and for readers who are unfamiliar with the genre, I feel it would be beneficial to firstly outline the typical characteristics and conventions ofthe genre.

While the definition of chick lit is continually evolving, there are recognisable tropes and features that are commonly linked to the genre.

Cbicklitbooks.com, a website dedicated to the genre, describes chick lit as:

[... J a genre comprised of books that are mainly written by women for women [... J There is usually a personal, light, and humorous tone to the books [... J The plots usually consist of women experiencing usual life issues, such as love, marriage, dating, relationships, friendships,

Ryan roommates, corporate environments, weight issues, addiction, and much more. ("What is Chick Lit?", par. 3) As chick lit has become such a diverse genre, it seems fair to say that it

becomes increasingly difficult to identify the core ~ormula. Th~t said, although there is no official consensus on what specifically constitutes. a chick lit novel there are, as mentioned in the above quote, certaIn characteristics that are typically located among books in this genre, and although many recent authors have tried to adapt the "tradition~" formula by interpreting it in a different way, many of these bas1C elements are still evident in some shape or form.

Chick lit is also recognised for the sense of humour evident. in the novels¡ although various novels may use humour to varymg degrees, chlck lit always has a funny tone and t.J:e charact~rs don't take themselves too seriously, no matter how dire the c1rcumstanc7s.

Unfortunately, the humour of chick lit is also one reason for 1tS criticism; in much popular culture, the use of humour can often 'obscure the more bleak messages within' (Whelehan 2005, 109)¡ The use of humour to discuss even the direst circumstances is a noticeable factor in the work of authors such as Marian Keyes; accompanied by her recognisable brand of humour, a more serious underlying the~7 is where Keyes' fiction really comes into its own, ll;s her tre~d ~f IlliXlDg humour and sadness/seriousness has appeared m the m~Jonty of her novels. The issues she and others like her have tackled mclude ~g addiction, death and grief, rape and domestic violence, alcoholism, single motherhood, and Hodgkin's Disease. Such authors' use of humour does not mean that they are dismissing the importance and gravity of such subjects, but rather it is a way of dealing with these topics.

Chick lit is also often recognised for its use of first person narration, a device which helps to 'craft the impression that ~e protagonist is speaking directly to readers' (Ferriss 2006, 4)¡ While such techniques have been used because it was once thought that t.J:ey appealed to female readers, it is important to note tha~ they also chick lit significantly with a large body of women's ?ction. fr?m ~~ler generations' (Ferriss 2006, 4), while, at the same time, distingmshmg the genre more specifically from the traditional r?mances t.J:at preceded chick lit. Chick lit's use of first person narration often mcorporates confessional-style devices such as diary entries, letters, and, mo~e recently, emails and text messages to enhance the .genre s conversational style, although it may be noted th~t thes~ de~ces are now becoming somewhat cliched. While some Insh ch1ck lit novels adhere to the singular first person narration s~le, ~ore rec~nt novels have embraced the use of multiple narrators, wh1ch 1S often VIewed as a somewhat more sophisticated literary device that helps to lessen ~e more limited perspective of using a single first-p~rs?n narrator. ~omg so allows authors to maintain the subjective and mtimate, confesslOnal style of story-telling, but, in using multiple narrators, r~ther than readers only reading the often 'delusional, biased narration of the

'li:ll<

108

What's Love Got To Do With It? ~ubjective P7rceptio.ns of an individual' (Perez-Serrano 2009, 137), they

mstead receive all sides of the story. This has the page-turning effect of keep~ng readers on their toes,. so to speak, as, for example, suddenly heanng from another perspective often changes preconceived notions thus maintaining readers' interest. ' Of course, characteristics are continuously evolving within the e genr: . as many chi7k lit. writers are finding ways of tackling the traditiona.I fo~mula m uruque, deeper, and more serious ways. As a r;sult, c~lck ~t n~ve!s are no longer 'excessively light, airy and frilly' ( What IS Chick Lit? , par. 7), and the typically fluorescent pink book cov~rs are often, in fact, 'truly masking meaningful, touching, hilarious at times and wonderful chick lit stories' ("What is Chick Lit?", par. 9).

Neverth 71ess, much of the criticism surrounding chick lit has been centred m some. way on the apparently formulaic structure, storylines and themes,. which has render~d the genre open to criticism regarding how a selection of tropes and cliches have become overused to the point where they are. no longer 'unori~nal-they're unreadable' (Mlynowski 200~, 73): This pap;r, then, will take a common chick lit troperelati0n.shlp~-a~d will show how the selection of authors is utilising the bas~c chICk l~t framework to push the boundaries of the genre, by e~andi~g a typical theme to address a variety of (potentially more senous) Issues.

MARRIAGE AND MOTHERHOOD

One of the most common ways of distinguishing between the modern genre .of chick lit and the more traditional romances (such as those .of the Mills and .Boon variety, ~or in~tance) is the varying degrees to which they emphasize the herome s deSire to be married. In the case of traditional romances, the heroine's ultimate goal is more often than not, to be married; indeed, a wedding or enga~ement is often considered to be the satisfactory conclusion to such novels. In a study ?f romance readers, and what they consider to be the characteristics of Ide~ romances,. J~ce Radway says that 'the "good" romance con!lnues to ~aI.ntam ~at a woman acknowledge and realize her feelings only Wlthm traditional, monogamous marriage' (Radway 19 84, 59 6) .. Romance n~vels have been criticised for this emphasis on marnage as the ~ltimate goal for a woman, and it has been suggested that ~ey sh01:lld .mstead portray women as having career, rather than marnage, aspI~ations, ~d ~ wanting to maintain their independence.

No;els .m ~e chlc~ lit, genre, then, have typically moved away fr?m the en?ing~m-marnage trope. Most chick lit novels do not end With a weddmg; much more common are mutual declarations of love after a long and tumultuous period of misunderstandings with future m~ria?e like~y but not guaranteed' (Wells 2006, 50). In fact, a lot of chick lit heromes do not express much of a desire to find a husband in the ~ear future. For many of the young women in these novels marnage is not a main priority at this particular point in their lives and m~y even be aJ?n to the 'kind of dream where you jerk awake i~ the ~Iddle of the ~Ight, drenched in sweat, your heart pounding. A dream m the worst rughtmare kind of way' (Keyes 2006, 186). This is not to 109

Ryan say that chick lit heroines do not want to get married in the future.

Rather, while it is argued that 'marriage is not the ultimate goal, and very often is not the ultimate result in much of chick lit [... ] it does occupy an idealized place in the minds of many chick protagonists' (Guerrero 2006, 88); after all, for many women, 'the supreme adventure is still falling in love' (Greer 2006, 211). In this way, chick lit may be viewed as an updated version of the romance novel in that it is a love story for the twenty-first century in which the heroines have different views and aspirations for their lives. As chick lit novels 'do not necessarily culminate in marriage, the books present a more realistic portrait of contemporary single life and dating, exploring, in varying degrees, the dissolution of romantic ideals or exposing those ideals as unmet, sometimes unrealistic, expectations' (Harzewski 2006, 39)¡ Just as we can pinpoint the differences between traditional romance novels and chick lit in terms of their emphasis-or lack of one- on marriage, we can also differentiate between typical chick lit and specifically Irish chick lit. In contrast to typical definitions of standard chick lit, which often rejects, ignores, or relegates marriage to a matter to be dealt with in the future, Irish chick lit does feature marriage, through the inclusion of characters who are either already married at the beginning of the novels, or who are engaged or married by the time the novel reaches its conclusion.

This difference could simply be due to the influence of the Irish society in which these writers grew up, and in which many of their novels are set. The notion of marriage and motherhood as the only option for women was rigidly believed in Ireland-and perhaps, to a point, still is even today. In the 1940S and 1950S in Ireland, 'a series of laws were passed which contributed to the isolation of women in the home' (Barros del Rio 2000, par. 1). In a nation which was heavily governed by the Catholic Church, 'a devoted and pure Virgin Mary was praised as the ideal model for females' (Barros del Rio 2000, par. 1), while the mother figure was 'depicted as the prototype of Irish woman' (Barros del Rio 2000, par. 3). The only way for an Irish woman to achieve any status was to become a wife and mother; there simply were no other options available. Irish chick lit heroines recognise the lack of choices their mothers and grandmothers had available to them. In Marian Keyes' The Other Side of the Story (2004), one of the protagonists, Gemma, considers the options her mother had as a young woman: Hard to believe that Mam had once had a jobshe'd worked in a typing pool, which is where she'd met Dad. But she gave up work when she got pregnant with me; after the previous miscarriage she wasn't taking any chances. Maybe she would have given up her job anyway, after I'd been born, because that was what Irish women did in those days. (Keyes 2004, 61)

110

What's Love Got To Do With It? Thls extract demonstrates de Beauvoir's claim that 'it is often astounding to see how readily a woman can give up music, study, her profession, once she has found a husband' (de Beauvoir 1997, 391).

Feminism did a lot to expand the options available to women. It allowed them to no longer be limited solely to the roles of wife and mother, and many people began to move away from traditional practices for the first time, although this was admittedly easier in Irish towns and cities, as many rural areas clung to the traditional beliefs and practices longer. As the end of the twentieth century neared, it bas been noted that, in Ireland and other Western European countries, 'there has been a dramatic decline in the rate of marriage and an increasing awareness of the extent to which the concept of "family" has been and can be used to exploit and/or nullify the needs of women and children' (O'Connor 1998, 4). Our chick lit heroines are all too aware of this change in expectations for women. In Keyes' Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married (1996), the title character explains it clearly when she says that the 'days of the little woman staying at home and doing the housework in a little cottage with roses round the door, while the man went out and toiled from dawn to dusk, were long gone' (Keyes 2003a, 302). Another of Keyes' heroines refresrungly shows that she feels no pressure to get married, stating that it was not the end of the world if she did not get married; it was not her main goal in life: Yes, once upon a time she'd wanted the ring and the dress and the babies- so shoot her. There were lots of things she had wanted once upon a time: to be a size 8; to be fluent in Italian; to hear that Brad had got back with Jennifer. None of those things had come to pass but she'd survived. (Keyes 2009, 96) At one stage, those women who did reveal a desire to get married were often looked down upon. Thls was found out by Mamie, one of Keyes' characters, who, at sixteen, told her mother that her goal was to be a "trophy wife". Her scandalized mother's response was, '''Marnie Gildee, I brought you up to trunk differently''' (Keyes 2008, 213). Yet another character recalls how her sister was thought to have "'rebelled" by living a quiet, well-ordered life with a quiet, well-ordered man' (Keyes 2006, 14). Extracts such as these represent how attitudes towards marriage in Ireland are gradually changing, and the emphasis on marriage is becoming less prominent.

Naturally, there was conflict between the theory (usually feminism) and the practice (mostly Catholic, Irish society). Some women feel confused regarding relationships; that is, they are often torn between feminism's assertions that they do not need a man in their lives to be happy, while still hankering after 'the De Luxe Love Affair' (O'Brien 1988, 501). As well as society's expectations for couples to be married, Lisa A. Guerrero describes these conflicting ideas in chick lit terms: '

111

Ryan Part of the chick's appeal, both comically and tragically, is her paradoxical existence of being successful and independent in society whlle simultaneously being rendered 1ess than' by that same society through media images and popular ideologies because she doesn't weigh 105 pounds, isn't married, can't cook, isn't married, doesn't have kids, isn't married, can't afford to dress in rugh fasruon and still eat, and isn't married.

(Guerrero 2006, 89) For Irish women, this confusion is often even more pronounced, as they are torn between their own desires, feminism's teacrungs, and the inherent beliefs and expectations of the Irish society in which they were raised. Irish chick lit has picked up on this confusion and often deals with it in its novels. Irish women, like women all over the world, know that they do not have to get married, just as they know that they do ~ot have to have children. But often this is what they (secretly) most deSire, and marriage often remains the ultimate goal of many yo~g wom~n.

New mother Claire, in Keyes' Watermelon (1995), feels tills confuSlOn all too strongly. She reveals how being married and having a family is what she has always craved: I always wanted to be boring and settled down with a man, but because that was considered to be the most insulting thing you can say about someone that is that all she wants is to be settled down with a man, I'd done my level best to rude it.

Few people knew my shameful secret. (Keyes 2003b,29 8) Claire's "shameful secret" is sometrung which she decides she has to bury, and her attitude about wanting and needing a man i,n h~r life is something that she resolves to change. Part of this resolution mvolves her decision to ensure that her daughter is aware that she does not need a man in her life: I handed Kate over to Dad and he held her expertly. Immediately Kate stopped crying. She ~ay placidly in his arms, clenching and unclenchmg her little starfish hands.

Just like her mother, I thought sadly-putty in men's hands.

I really would have to nip this in the bud with Kate. Get some self-respect, girl! You don't need a man for your happiness! Every other mother would be reading their little girl stories about engines that could talk, and wolves ~at meet their comeuppance, I would read my child feminist diatribes instead, I decided.

112

What's Love Got To Do With It? Out with The Little Mermaid and in with The Female Eunuch. (Keyes 2003b, 61-62) And yet, despite Claire's best intentions and her guilt and shame at her underlying desire to be in a relationship, she cannot deny what she really wants. The following extract demonstrates how, even when a woman protests that she craves independence, 'she none the less makes a place in her life for man, for love. She is likely to fear that if she devotes herself completely to some undertaking, she will miss her womanly destiny [of being a wife and mother], (de Beauvoir 1997, 391): Loath as I am to admit it, I felt less of a human being without my husband and his fat salary.

I hated myself for being so insecure and so dependent. I should have been a strong, sassy, independent, nineties woman. The type of woman who has strong views and who goes to the pictures on her own and who cares about the environment and can change a fuse and goes for aromatherapy and has a herb garden and can speak fluent Italian and has a session in a flotation tank once a week and doesn't need a man to shore up her fragile sense of self-esteem.

But the fact is I wasn't. [... J I was perfectly happy to be a home-maker while husband went out to earn the loot. (Keyes 2003b,200) Similar confusion is felt regarding women's right to decide whether to have children, an issue which has been much-discussed in fe~inist theory. Contem~orary feminism has posited that having children should be a chOIce and not an expectation: feminists have noted th~t for 'some people children are our whole reason for being here, or If not the reason then certainly the answer to a fulfilling life.

FO.r oth~rs, children are something to be avoided, the easiest way to rum a nIce and ordered existence' (Levenson 2009, 169). Yet, although both of these views are supposed to be acceptable nowadays, and although women have repeatedly heard that they are free to choose whether to become a mother or not, in Ireland and other countries around the world 'the major and expected consequence of marriage was, of course, motherhood, and this status was endowed with saintlike qualities' (Hill 2003, 22). . Irish chick lit. sugges~s that motherhood is not something to whIch all ,,:omen aspIre, but mstead highlights individuality and choice by portraYIng characters who have different opinions on the subject.

Some novels portray women who love their role as mother such as ' Clodagh in Keyes' Sushi For Beginners (2000): It w~n't always. easy being a mother, Clodagh admItted dreamily. But at times like this she 113

Ryan wouldn't change her life for the anything. (Keyes 2007,81) At the same time, Irish chick lit also attempts to remove the stigma attached to single mothers, who have, for a long tinle, been ostracised and marginalised in society. Even in today's supposedly open-minded society, they are lumped into the 'deviant mothers' category, along with, for instance, teenage mothers and lesbian mothers (Joannou 2000, 52). They were considered as nothing more than a societal problem. Irish chick lit attempts to remove this negativity. It portrays women who become single mothers either by circumstance (in Watermelon, for instance, Claire Walsh's husband leaves her for another woman on the day she gives birth to their first child) or by choice. An example of the latter is evident in Keyes' Anybody Out There? (2006), when Anna's best friend, Jacqui, becomes pregnant as the result of a one night stand. Far from this being the tragedy it would have been up until relatively recently, Jacqui is admirably calm and rational about the situation: 'I know. I've been thinking.' Pause. 'Being pregnant isn't the horrible disaster it would have been five years ago, or even three years. Back then, I'd no security, I hadn't a bean and I'd definitely have had a termination. But now... I have an apartment, I have a well-paid job-it's not their fault that I can't live within my means-and I sort of like the idea of having a baby around the place.'

(Keyes 2006, 470-471) In the epilogue to Anybody Out There?, we learn that new:moth~r Jacqui is part of what the narrator calls a 'modern-day family unIt' (Keyes 2006, 587) in which the baby's parents both enjoy tinle with their child but the parents do not become a couple merely for the child's sake, as society would once expect. The novel therefore demonstrates how the 'marginal position of the unmarried mother provides a good perspective from which to consider ch~~g ~ender roles' (Joannou 2000, 42). Unmarried mothers were once Identified as a threat to the status quo and a cause for unofficial concern' .(Joannou 2000, 52). In a country like Ireland, 'which placed a high value ~n chastity and self-restraint, illegitimacy was socially unacceptable' (HIll 2003, 27). As a result, many unmarried couples, on learning that they were expecting a child, 'legitimated their expected child by marriage, either through preference or under pressure from family and C~urch, passing off the "early" birth as premature' (Hill 2003, 29)¡ WhIle we still tend to 'think of the family as a heterosexual unit, lone parenthood is an increasingly common family form' (O'Connor 1998 , 109)¡ Anybody Out There? presents a depiction of this form of "modern" family, where the parents are happily unmarried, and neither mo~er nor child are "punished" for this. By portraying lone parenthood m a positive sense, Irish chick lit is providing an implicit challenge to 'the 114

What's Love Got To Do With It? traditional "unthinkableness" of a family life which is not based on a residential conjugal unit' (O'Connor 1998, 122), thus helping to remove the stigma so commonly associated with unmarried mothers.

Irish chick lit also portrays women who feel shame at the thought of anyone knowing that they do not feel ready to become a mother-and perhaps never will. And so, despite what feminism has taught them, women know the reality is that society expects women to fall into the role of motherhood, and that a refusal of this role means a woman will not be "doing" her gender "properly": I didn't want children. And of all the shameful things a woman could admit to- breast enhancement, sex with her boyfriend's father- this was the most taboo. (Keyes 2008, 141-142) What is a woman to do? Feminism tells her that she has a choice (provided she makes the right one!), society implies that she does not have any real choice, and what she truly wants, in her heart, usually falls somewhere between the two. Perhaps the most important "rule" wom~n should follow is to simply do what makes them happiest. By shOWIng women as each having individual desires and goals, and not as all wanting the same things in life, chick lit is valuable to the complete gen:e of women's fiction. It depicts women's individuality, as well as theIr honest feelings on a variety of topics which women would often feel embru::assed to voice in public, including not craving motherhood, as shown m the above quote. In this way, chick lit is helping women understand that there is nothing wrong with them if they do not want the same things as other women, and that they are not alone in these feelings.

SEXUAL EXPERIENCE

A study of modern relationships would not be complete without sex entering the equation. Historically, women's sexual desire has been denied or ignored by a society 'that tells them they should leave the topic o~ sex for men to discuss' (Goodrich 2001, par. 3). For any woman to admit to sexual needs, or to 'suggest that sex is a desirable aspect of a woman's life, whether she is married or not, presents a significant challenge to traditional morality' (Joannou 2000, 58). Not only was the topic of sex left for men to discuss, but sex scenes in novels, even those by and about women, were described from a solely male viewpoint.

Mary Lavelle, by Irish author Kate O'Brien for instance received criticism for this very occurrence: ' ,

[...J the passage describing Mary and Juanito's lovemaking is not focalised through Mary, which is what a reading of the book as a rehearsal of feminine self-liberation might lead one to expect, but is narrated from Juanito's perspective; and the description dwells in an undeniably sadomasochistic way on images of Mary's specifically 115

Ryan feminine vulnerability and pain as themselves erotic and constitutive of Juanito's pleasure.

(Coughlan 1993, 69) Therefore, sexuality, as it tended to be constructed, was 'based on male experience, desires and definitions' (Corcoran 1989, 6). S~arl~, 'female sexuality has been masked and deformed [...J Her sexuality IS both denied and misrepresented by being identified as passivity' (Greer 2006, 17). This notion of 'passivity' has long been linked to the prototype of the ideal woman, and, from it, evolved the double standard which said that sex 'was edifying for a man, immoral for a woman' (Levy 2005, 59). Traditionally, women could only be categorized in two distinct ways-as angels or as monsters. The socalled "angelic" women were those who abided by this idea of passivity, and, without question, allowed themselves to be treated as objects by men. All others were "monsters" and, as such, had to be punished for refusing to conform to societal expectations. For Irish women, in particular, this confirmed 'the impossibility of escaping the Irish puritan morality that pervades everything' (Barros del Rio 2000, par.

19)¡

Irish society, its social standards and its legislations, ha~ 'never embodied principles and behaviours that respect the sexual nghts of women' (Corcoran 1989, 18). Irish writer Nuala O'Faolain has described Irish communities as being 'savagely punitive' and that, for many years, these communities were 'fully in the grip of an institutionalized fear of women; that is, of sexuality' (O'Faolain 2006, 294). How, then, would such a community react to the publication of material which contains content not deemed 'suitable'? Up until relatively recently, Ireland's answer was for the material to be banx;ted by the Irish Censorship Board. Edna O'Brien was one suc~. wnter whose 'early work was banned by the Irish government and vilified by her local community' (Moloney 2003, 197). In particular, all three books in her Country Girls trilogy were banned; the third book, Girls in their Married Bliss, was banned specifically because of an app~ently explicit sex scene, which today's readers would probably find deCidedly tame. Writers and feminist theorists at this time would undoubtedly have been 1argely pessimistic about the possibility of there being a sexual revolution that would benefit women equally' (Whelehan 1995, 158). Speaking specifically in Irish terms, women's sexuality is a subj~ct which is not easily or readily discussed; it has been no~ed tha~, while 'the feminist literature of other countries has endless dissertations on sexuality, discussion of the subject among Irish feminists was never able to surface into the public domain' (Viney 1989, 64)¡ As a result, until very recently, Irish women's sexuality was rarely, if ever, an area of historical enquiry: The dominant Catholic ideology of the newly established Irish Free State in the 1920S and 1930S in a sense de sexualised women to such an extent that even sex within marriage was considered too 116

What's Love Got To Do With It? ri.sque .for public and often even for private discussIOn. One consequence of this taboo was that little historical attention was directed towards unearthing the sexual activities of Irish women.

(Hayes 2001, 79) One woul~ wonder whether Ireland was ready for any amount of openness regarding seXUality. Irish chick lit, however, did not wait for Ireland to be read:y. Chick lit bu~st onto the scene with its 'girly gab ~bout s~lOes,. shaggmg, and shedding pounds' (Rogers, in Freitas 2005, 1) and, III dom~ so, worked wonders towards positively voicing issues of female s.exuality and. sexual desire. Instead of 'presenting their protagomsts as subordinate to male advances, chick-lit authors present wo~~n as sexual agents' (Ferriss 2006, 10). In this sense the traditional depicti0!1 of wom~n '''anticipating pleasure" has largely'been superseded by actively seeking and experiencing pleasure' (Kiernan 20~6, 20~). Additionally, while 'delayed sexual intimacy for women until m~age was thus to emerge as a most important social [norm] tha~ ~as VIgorously en~orced' (McLoughlin 1994, 85), another sign of positive development III terms of representations of female desire shows how 'cont~mp?rary [and, in this case, Irish] chick lit often prese~ts ~~ herome III sexual relationships with men other than the narrati~es ,Illtended hero, but without "punishing" her or questioning her actions (Mabry 2006, 201). . Irish chi~k l~t is also successful in portraying how society is radically changmg m terms of women's new-found sexual freedom Until very recently, 'the rule was that you had to hold off sleeping with a man for as long as pos.sible. ~ut now the rule seemed to be that if you wanted to hold on to ~I~ you ~ better deliver the goods asap' (Keyes 20?7, 228). Indeed, waiting until the wedding night has become such a ranty J;hat some women wonder if something is drastically wrong if a m~ tries to be a gentleman and does not expect them to sleep with him straight away. As Anna, in Anybody Out There?, recalls: ~t this stage I'd seen Aidan about seven or eight times and not once had he tried to jump me. Every date we'd gone on, we'd had just one kiss. It had improved from quick and firm, to slower and more tender, but one kiss was as good as it got.

Had I wanted more? Yes. Was I curious about his restraint? Yes. But I kept it all under control and something had held me back from getting Jacqui in a headlock every time I came home from an unjumped-on night out and tearfully agonizing: What's his problem? Doesn't he fancy me? Is he gay? Christian? One of those True Love Waits gobshites? (Keyes 2006, 108-109)

. Unusu~~y for popular fiction, Irish chick lit may be celebrated for ItS recogmtlOn of the risks, as well as the freedoms, brought about 117

Ryan by the sexual revolution, most notably the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It brings our awareness to such a topic without preaching or using scare tactics, but also reminds us that the risks are very real; contrary to the once widespread misconception that the disease was solely a result of homosexuality, passage from Irish chick lit novels remind us that anyone can be affected if precautions are not taken. Colette Caddle's Forever FM (2002) tackles the topic in the form of a guest speaker on the novel's radio talk show. The speaker, a young woman, describes how she contracted HIV as a child when she pierced her skin on a needle belonging to her drug-addict mother. She discusses the potential implications of this accident that she now faces every day, such as rejections by her friends, and the need to always ensure proper precautions are used when sleeping with her boyfriend (see Caddle 2002, 282-292). Keyes' Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married, alternatively, presents a kind of utopian vision for HIV-awareness, in the form of its being so embedded in people's minds that proper care is automatically exercised by sexually-active adults, without the need for discussion: We hadn't mentioned birth control, but when the time came we were both responsible adults living in the HIV positive nineties. (Keyes 2003a, 731) While women may indeed have more sexual freedom nowadays, it is still not without its problems, and these problems are also discussed in the novels of Irish chick lit writers. One such difficulty is that, now that women have been allowed more sexual freedom than ever before, it is now taken for granted that every woman wants wild and inventive sex, and that they are ready and willing to go to bed with whoever is convenient. Ariel Levy describes this situation best in saying: Because we have determined that all empowered women must be overtly and publicly sexual, and because the only sign of sexuality we seem to be able to recognize is a direct allusion to red-light entertainment, we have laced the sleazy energy and aesthetic of a topless club or a Penthouse shoot throughout our entire culture [... ] We skipped over the part where we just accept and respect that some women like to seem exhibitionist and lickerish, and decided instead that everyone who is sexually liberated ought to be imitating strippers and porn stars. (Levy 2005, 2627) As Levy states that sexuality is a complicated, fundamental part of what

it is to be human, she urges us to remember that 'different things are attractive to different people and sexual tastes run wide and wild' (Levy 2005, 44), rather than adhering to the myth that 'sexiness needs to be something divorced from the everyday experience of being ourselves' 118

What's Love Got To Do With It? (Levy 2005, 44). The problem, as Levy and other like-minded theorists see it, is that we seem to have forgotten 'that there is a category of people, most people in fact, who actually quite like sex, and that it is possible to do so without being a sex fiend' (Levenson 2009, 39). Far froJ? wanting.to p~e in sexual ~astics .eve~ night of the week, ~larre Walsh m Keyes Watermelon mstead highlIghts her own choice m ~:XUal preferences by stating that she prefers the missionary posItion: While we're on the subject of sexual shenanigans I've got a confession to make.

Wait for it.

Here it comes.

I enjoy the missionary position.

There! I've said it.

I'm made to feel so ashamed of myself for feeling that way.

As if I'm terribly boring and repressed.

But I'm not. Honestly.

I'm not saying that it's the only position that I like.

But, really, I have no objection to it whatsoever. (Keyes 2003b, 363) It is .interesti?g that Keyes chose the missionary position for Claire to a~mJt a particular fondness for, as it is the position often associated WIth women's passivi~ in sexual i?tercourse, the idea often being that th~ woman has no chOIce but to "lIe back and think of England" (or, in thIS. ~se, .Ireland). H~we~er, ~hen Claire reveals that she prefers this p~sl~on, I~ ~ultur~ slgmfication ~hanges as it is blatantly stated that this IS Clrure s chOIce; by expressmg what she chooses she therefore b:comes ~<:tiv~ in the ~ituation, again helping to equat~ Irish chick lit WIth feffilms~ s asse~ons for ",:o~en to. achieve progress by taking con?"ol of theIr own lIves and vOlcmg theIr concerns, aspirations, and desIres.

Equall!, "shocking" is that many women, given the option, would probably qUIte happily cherish an element of innocence in their relationships: .

We sat quietly and still, Chris's arm tight around me. I closed my eyes and, for a few moments let myself pretend it was a perfect world and he ~as my boyfriend.

It reminded me of an earlier, more innocent age, when the most a boyfriend did was put his arm around you and- if your luck was in- kissed you: The enforced decorum demanded by the ClOIsters was sweet and romantic. It touched, rather than frustrated me. (Keyes 1998, 358)

119

Ryan As many women have realised, the problem is no longer about winning the right to sexual freedom . As feminists spent so long fighting for women to have the same sexual rights as men, many women now feel a sense of hypocrisy when they would prefer to choose to say "no" to sexual advances, the freedom to choose being, ironically, what feminism was fighting for all along. The title character of Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married identifies with these feelings:

In theory, I knew that it was my right not to go to bed with anyone I didn't want to and to change my mind at any stage in the proceedings, but the reality was that I would be far too embarrassed to say no. (Keyes 2003a, 187) While the sexual revolution and the separation of intercourse from reproduction brought new freedom to women, it also, as extracts such as this show, 'brought benefits to men by releasing them from some responsibility for their sexual acts. Women soon realised that it was freedom only to say "yes", not to say "no"; they were "frigid" if they said no' (Viney 1989, 61). In The Female Eunuch (1970), Greer reminds us that feminism urged women to embrace the right to express their own sexuality; this, however, 'is not at all the same thing as the right to capitulate to male advances' (Greer 2006,10).

It has been said that a 'chick lit novel without a few satisfyingor, alternatively, ridiculous- sex scenes is hard to find' (Wells 2006, 50). One thing that chick lit does- and does well-is describe its sex scenes from the woman's perspective. In Kate Thompson's Sex, Lies and Fairy tales (2005), one of the characters is a chick lit writer who cheekily declares that her "'sex scenes should be prescribed reading for men'" (Thompson 2006, 402), alluding to the idea that sex has traditionally been on men's terms and to men's preferences, and so men now need to be "taught" how to please a woman. Feminists have noted 'in almost all literature that the sexual protagonist is the male' (Hayes 1990, 117-118), and that, in romance fiction, the woman is never seen to take the sexual initiative with a man. Chick lit has reversed these claims by depicting the female as the sexual protagonist, and as portraying women who are happy to take the initiative. It is a huge achievement that chick lit has developed as a genre of fiction that shows women as seeking and deserving pleasure as much as men, a perspective that would have been unheard of until very recently.

Sex scenes are not always easy to write, or to read, for that matter. I again turn to Claire Walsh in Watermelon to explain it clearly: It's very difficult to discuss having sex without being so crude that I sound like a pornographic book or without being so discreet that I sound like a repressed, uptight Victorian novelist who suffers regularly from Vaginismus and still calls her husband Mr Clements after twenty-seven years of marriage. (Keyes 2003b, 378) 120

What's Love Got To Do With It? Added to this, theorists such as Greer have criticised the 'implication that there is a statistically ideal fuck which will always result in satisfaction' (Greer 2006, 49), labelling such attitudes as "depressing" and "misleading". Traditional romance novels, in particular, are often noted for their unrealistic sex scenes, which often present readers with overly idealistic expectations. Irish chick lit strikes the ideal balance here. Its sex scenes-far from being overly extensive, graphic, crude, or erotic past the point of believable-are, one could argue, realistic, witty, matter-of-fact, and, above all, easy for many contemporary (heterosexual) women to identify with.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE As well as marriage and lasting relationships, Irish chick lit also

portrays relationship breakdowns, in terms of separation and divorce.

However, some relationships are even more damaging, both emotionally and physically. In Ireland, it has been recognised that one 'of the most common, yet least discussed, causes of marital unhappiness, and indeed of relationship problems in general, was abuse, mental or physical, usually inflicted by men on their female partners' (Hill 2003, 148). Although it is a topic rarely broached in typical chick lit, Irish chick lit tackles issues such as domestic violence and rape at full force. This is significant, not only in disputing claims that chick lit only deals with superficial and unimportant subjects, but also because it shows how chick lit is a format which can provide a voice for these often silenced subjects.

Traditionally, 'any nod to the popular in [a novel's] style or tone is to sacrifice the author's credibility [...] because marketability and political credibility are conventionally seen as incompatible' (Whelehan 2005, 68-69). When popular fiction and women's fiction, then, are combined, they are automatically 'scorned by the male intellectual elite because of their "low-brow" appeal' (Rakow 1998, 282). Critics' disdain of women's popular culture has 'prevented them from seeing how it speaks to the real problems and tensions in women's lives' (Rakow 1998,284)¡

This ignorance and silencing of women's concerns was not unusual or extraordinary. Particularly in terms of issues regarding w:ome~'s h.ealth, as well as women's safety and protection, 'quiet dissatIsfactIOn was more common than open dissent [...] intelligent women routinely internalised their misery' (Joannou 2000, 19). It is a sad fact that men's issues have typically been deemed more important and, consequently, have taken precedence over any matter which is specifically related to women. As Grace Gildee, a journalist in This Charming Man, discovered: I wanted to do this [report on breast cancer] well. I wanted to do all my stories well, but the slapdash, penny-pinching approach to women's health sometimes made me want to cry with frustration.

If such a high number of false negatives had 121

Ryan happened with testicular cancer-man cancerthere would be pandemonium. (Keyes 2008, 131) This ignorance of women's safety and well-being was particularly apparent in Ireland, and it was long the situation that 'laws base~ on the premise that women's rights were inferior to those of men surVIVed in, and indeed even appeared on, the statute books' (Scanne~ 19~8, 73)¡ Many of these laws were based around issues of domestic VIolence, which was prevalent in Irish society, and which was 'widely considered a private issue to be dealt with primarily within "the fanilly"' (Connolly 2005, 3). Such laws meant that the 'battered wife and mother could not exclude her violent husband from the home (which was almost invariably his) except by resort to the most cumbersome procedures' (Scannell 1988, 73). While progress has since been made to protect women and children in such situations, theorists have noted that even in the late twentieth century, women in Ireland 'remained vulnerable to violence within the home' (Hill 2003, 191).

Feminist activism attempted to tackle this neglect of women's issues with full force. It encouraged women not to remain silent, as was expected, but to speak out against the sources ~f th~ir oppression, ~u~ granting 'speech to those who have been demed mdepe~dent v~)lces (Hild 1997, 284). As a result, many issues that were preVI01~sly.hidden and stigmatised in Irish society, such as rape .an.d domestic ,;ole.nce, were brought into the open for the first time. Sunilarly, female wnters have become very powerful because their work allows w?men's problems and concerns to be voiced in a way that is difficult to Ignore' . .

(Goodrich 2001, par. 1).

If chick lit, and popular fiction in general, was once dis~ssed as silly and superficial, then Irish chick lit writers ar~ breaking that mould. Irish chick lit writers are by no means afraId to forcefully address issues affecting women. Keyes' This Charming M?n ~2008) is a frighteningly realistic and no-holds-barred tale of domestic VI~lence. I~ account of the cruelty to which many women are s~bJected In relationships is portrayed in alarming and utterly shocking extracts such as the following: 'You're a stupid, useless bitch and this is your own fucking fault.' He was panting from exertion as he stood over her, curled in a ball beneath him. 'Say it. You're a stupid, useless bitch and this is your own fucking fault.' .

He was pulling his leg back for another kick.

No. She didn't think she could take another one and still live. The toe of his boot slammed her stomach against her spine. She retched, retched, retched, retched, nothing but bile left.

'Say it!'

'I'm a stupid, useless bitch,' she whispered, tears streaming down her face. 'And this is my own fault.'

122

What's Love Got To Do With It? 'Own fucking fault. Can't you get anything right?' (Keyes 2008, 315) He carried her bag from the car and solicitously helped her inside. 'What would you like to do now?'

'I'd just like to go to bed.'

'Okay.' He grinned. 'Mind ifIjoin you?'

'Urn ...' Perhaps she had misunderstood. 'I'm going to go straight to sleep.'

'Come on, you can stay awake for twenty minutes.' He was steering her towards the bedroom. He was opening his jeans, his intention clear. 'Take your knickers off.'

'But- no! I've just had an abortion.'

'Excuses, excuses.' He pushed her onto the bed, his knee pinioning her in position while he wrenched off her tights and pants.

'Please stop, please. I could get an infection.

I can't have sex for three weeks.'

'Shut up.' He was on top of her, he was shoving up into her, into the blood and loss, rubbing her raw with his frenzy. Then he pushed himself up on his hands, as if he was doing a pressup, and slapped her, hard, across the face. 'For fuck's sake, try and look like you're enjoying yourself.' (Keyes 2008, 363) Rather than merely skirting around topics as serious as this as chick lit is often accused of doing, Keyes discusses domestic violenc~ as honestly as she can, giving equal attention to the brutality of the perpetrators, the pain of the victim, and the ignorance of the people around her as to what is going on. She shows how women often initially, make excuses for violence, claiming it is a sign of the love and passion in the relationship:

II" I I

Passionate disagreements were routine, practically mandatory. It was like a game, this ritual of dramatic accusations, followed by tearful reunions; their way of demonstrating how much they loved each other. [... ] From time to time the emotional gameplaying spilled over into the physical; a shove here, a slap there, on one overwrought night, a punch in her face. (Keyes 2008, 527) As the violence escalates, Keyes shows how women feel confused that

this could be happening in their relationship- surely domestic violence only h~ppens to ~ther people? People often ask how and why a woman stays m a volatIle relatIonship; in The Noughtie Girl's Guide to 123

Ryan

Feminism (2009), Ellie Levenson outlines the numerous excuses that women may make for their situation: What would you do if your partner hit you? It's easy to say, when not in this situation, that you would leave any such partner immediately. Or to say that once may be because you provoked him, or because he saw red, or because he didn't know what he was capable of doing and is truly shocked at himself, and that you'll forgive once but not twice so if it ever happens again then you'll definitely leave him. (Levenson 2009, 164) In this extract, Levenson is outlining how easy it is for people to believe that it will never happen to them but, as Keyes points out, 'when you're in the middle of it, there's a world of difference' (Keyes 2008, 547), until eventually even the once-strong woman has no fight left in her: My indignation had died and the time when I was strong enough to leave him had passed. (Keyes 2008,549)

Keyes is cleverly reminding us how abuse and violence can affect the victim over a period of time, until they feel that they can no longer seek help or advice. In doing so, Keyes is helping to show how such feelings can result in many domestic violence victims not seeking help until it may be too late: It may be easy to say that [a woman should leave a violent relationship], but we know for most women, leaving is not as easy as that. We know that women with abusive partners do not tend to leave them after being hit once or even after being hit twice. No, on average a victim is assaulted thirty-five times before contacting the police, and many more never report is at all-other research (by Victim Support) suggests that as little as two per cent of domestic violence is reported.

(Levenson 2009, 164) Writers such as Marisa MackIe and Kate Thompson also address similar issues in their novels, and show how women in these situations are often shamed in silence, feeling somehow at fault for the violence to which they are subjected. This may be largely related to the knowledge that it is often impossible to account for all cases of domestic violence as so many of these cases go unreported: A range offactors may prevent women from taking action-concern for the welfare and safety of their children, embarrassment, fear of reprisals, 124

What's Love Got To Do With It? insecurities about finance and housing, and for many, the feeling that they themselves are to blame for their situation. (Hill 2003, 192) In Thompson's Sex, Lies and Fairy tales, Hazel is almost raped by her lover's brother.. Wh.en she is advised to press charges against her attacker, Hazel IS qUIck to refuse, thereby demonstrating the fears often felt by many women in real-life: 'Hugh. I know this is cowardly of me, but I couldn't hack it. I couldn't hack the humiliation. I feel so dirty. I feel so- I feel that I was partly to blame .. .' [... J The prospect of having to stand in a dock and testify against the stranger who'd tried to rape her filled her with horror. And oh, God- it filled her with shame, too. (Thompson 2006, 489-491) O~

the other hand, what if Hazel, or any woman in her situation, ~ad testifie~? Unfortunately, in many cases, outsiders are slow to mtervene, dismissing such instances initially as "'only" a domestic' (Keyes 2008, 591). From a specifically feminist point of view this portrayal of 'male violence, rape, sexual harassment child s'exual abuse, marital violence or pornography as "not that s~rious" erodes wome~'s sense of th~ir o~ bodily integrity and ultimately their sense of theIr own value (0 Connor 1998, 14). However, it has been su~ested that, even when women 'are willing to take action against theIr partners, abused women often find it difficult to be taken s~riously and have little confidence in the police' (Hill 2003, 192). Such cIrcumstances are portrayed in Keyes' The Brightest Star in the Sky (~009) ~ newly-married Maeve is brutally raped by her ex-boyfriend.

LIke . ~lS Charming .Man, this novel also contains shocking descnptions of the act Itself; however, it also focuses largely on the concern that such rape and domestic violence tends not to be taken seriously. When Maeve finds the courage to report the crime she is devastated to realise that no one believes her. She is questioned about the clothes she was wearing at the time of the attack, to which her husband retorts ~at they are 'not very provocative, are they?' (Keyes 2009, 533), alluding to the misconception that if a woman dresses and acts "p~ovocative~y" then ~he is thought to be 'partially or totally r~sponslbl; for ~emg raped (Levenson 2009, 63). In this sense, rape is VIewed as a. pUDlshment for women who express their sexuality' (Viney 198 9, 54); m 00e~ words, the woman is seen to be "asking for it".

Rather than receIVIng reassurance from the police, Maeve is made to feel that the rape was her own fault, and is dissuaded from making a formal complaint: 'It's your word against his. Look,' Vincent leaned closer to her. 'Are you sure you didn't just, you know, get a bout of the guilts? One last go, for old 125

Ryan times' sake, then got afraid that hubby there might get wind.'

'I'm sure.'

'Are you sure you want to go ahead with this? Taking it further?'

'I'm sure.'

'Because it'll ruin his life, you know. Just so as you know.' (Keyes 2009, 336) Maeve is later informed that it has been decided that there is not enough evidence to result in a conviction, and so the police are not proceeding with the prosecution: 'Innocent until proven, and all that.'

'But how can it be proved if it doesn't go to court? Maeve and I, we work in the same place as him. You're saying he'll just carry on with his job and everything like nothing happened?'

'In the eyes of the law he's done nothing wrong.' The guard heaved himself up to leave.

'Why should the man lose his job?' (Keyes 2009, 537) Maeve even finds that her own friends do not believe her: She confided in Yvonne, her best friend from school. 'David raped me.'

'How could he rape you? He used to be your boyfriend. You already bad sex with him.'

She confided in Natalie. 'David raped me.'

'David doesn't need to rape anyone. He's a . , DIce guy.

She confided in Jasmine, her ex-flatmate.

'David raped me.'

'But that's a terrible thing to say. He could sue you for that.'

She stopped confiding in people. (Keyes 2009,538) Such were the choices many women had: suffer in silence, or speak up and risk being ignored. In Maeve's case, her feelings of isolation and helplessness resulted in both her and her husband becoming severely depressed and suicidal. Maeve's husband, ~att, reflected on the injustice that arises out of many rape allegati?~s, including the shockingly low conviction rates, which many femlDlst theorists have also discussed: Matt had discovered things he'd never before thought about: that only one in ten reporte~ r~pes make it to court; that out of them, only sIX m a 126

Wbat's Love Got To Do With It? hundred result in a conviction. And what about all the rapes that are never reported, because the girl is too scared. Of her rapist? Of the police? All those rapes unacknowledged, unavenged. It was enough to drive him mad. How was the world as normal as it was? How was all that rage and injustice and grief and fear contained? (Keyes 2009, 541-542) If more writers continue to address such serious issues, they will

be helping to 'highlight the serious nature and widespread prevalence of violence experienced by women' (Hill 2003, 148), hopefully resulting in it becoming an issue which is increasingly difficult to ignore. Th e Brightest Star in the Sky also has further feminist undertones: Maeve's elderly neighbour, Jemima, on realising that Maeve has been raped, stresses that: 'Your body belongs to you. Not to that man, whoever he was. Take it back from him' (Keyes 2009, 523). Jemima's words echo the assertions of feminists, such as Comus and de Beauvoir, who have urged women to re-claim control of their bodies, as their bodies belong to no one but them. Levenson explains that 'rape is usually about power, and when a woman is raped her power to say no is taken away from her' (Levenson 2009, 63-64). Levenson asserts, much like Jemima, that the women need to take back that power (Levenson 2009, 64). Clodagh Corcoran stresses that if society is to combat issues such as rape and domestic violence, along with other forms of oppression, 'we must treat it as a civil rights issue for women, demanding appropriate legislation' (Corcoran 1989, 20). Following this hope, the novel ends on an optimistic note: one of the final chapters is a flashforward to the future in which most of the main characters are attending a public rally on the streets of Dublin to 'protest against the low conviction rate for Irish rapists' (Keyes 2009, 594), depicting a utopian vision for the future in which rape and domestic violence are no longer hidden in Irish society, and where demands for change are voiced publicly.

The novels discussed in this paper are, of course, fictional stories about fictional heroines in fictional scenarios. However, at the same time, the novels are creating characters and situations to which readers can relate, meaning the messages such novels convey can have a positive effect. This examination of how Irish chick lit discusses issues of marriage, motherhood, sex, and domestic violence demonstrates how chick lit's focus on relationships may not be as trivial, meaningless, and even anti-feminist, as critics have suggested.

Moreover, it is important to again consider how Irish women were once silenced; how they were prevented from speaking up about the situations in which they were forced to live. In terms of the family, this paper reminds us how Ireland once censored female sexuality, to the extent that books about women's sexual pleasure were banned, and single mothers, seen as immoral, were ostracised in society. We are also reminded how Irish society and Irish law worked together to keep women isolated in the home, as wives and mothers, and to silence women who were suffering domestic violence and rape, rendering them 127

Ryan .

es to be dealt with "in private". Irish chick lit, then, is helping to ~:~vide a voice for women, by portraying a variety of characte~s w~o all have differing views on marriage and motherhood; by p~esenting smgle mothers as independent and valued members of sO~lety; by openly addressing female sexuality; and, perhaps. most Importantly, by breaking the taboo about discussing domestic ,?olence ~d rape, finally allowing this issue to be brought into the public dom~. Although: e novels are indeed fictional, the inclusion of such tOPI~ s~gge~ts th ~t the genre attempts to represent contemporary women s li,,:es m err entirety. If chick lit encourages women to sp:ak ou~ about Issues they read within the pages of these novels, t?ey will ~chieve a lot, and may help to eliminate the trend of wome~'~ ISSU~S bemg censored. As far as feminism goes, that can only be a posItive thing.

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Barros del Rio, Maria Amor. 20~0. "Edna O'~rien's G~ls: The Challenge of Growing up III De Valera s Irel~d . http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schoolsjhumanlties/research/ perspectives/il-2/EdnaO'Brien.html! (Accessed 13th March 2005) CaddIe, Colette. Forever FM. Dublin: Poolbeg Press. 2002.

Connolly, Linda, and Tina O'Toole. Documenting Irish Feminisms: The Second Wave. Dublin: The Woodfield Press. 2005· Corcoran, Clodagh. "Pornography: The New Terrorism." In A Dozen Lips, 1-21. Dublin: Attic Press, 1989· Writing CoughI an, Patn·· cIa. "Kate O'Brien: Feminine Beauty, . Feminist E on Kate and Sexual Role." In Ordinary People Dancmg: s~ays.

O'Brien, edited by Eibhear Walshe, 59-84. Cork Uruverslty Press, 1993.

De Beauvoir Simone. The Second Sex. Translated and e~ted by H.M. Parshiey. Originally published in 1949. London: Vmtage Books.

1997· Ferriss, Suzanne, and Mallory Young, eds. Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction. New York: Routledge. 2006.

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Guerrero, Lisa A. '"Sistabs Are Doin' It for Themselves': Chick Lit in Black and White." In Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction edited by Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young, 87-101. Ne"'; York: Routledge. 2006.

Harzewski, Stephanie. "Tradition and Displacement in the New Novel of Manners." In Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction edited by Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young, 29-46. New York: Routledge. 2006.

Hayes, Alan, and Diane Urquhart, eds. The Irish Women's History Reader. London: Routledge. 2001.

Hayes, Trudy. "The Politics of Seduction." In A Dozen Lips 117-139.

Dublin: Attic Press. 1990. ' Hild, Allison T. "Edna O'Brien." In Modern Irish Writers: A BioCritical Sourcebook, edited by Alexander G. Gonzalez, 283-288.

London: Aldwych Press. 1997.

Hill, Myrtle. Women in Ireland: A Century of Change. Belfast: Blackstaff Press. 2003.

Joannou, Maroula. Contemporary Women's Writing: Prom The Golden Notebook to The Color Purple. Manchester University Press. 2000.

Keyes, Marian. Rachel's Holiday. Dublin: Poolbeg. 1998.

---. Lucy Su~livan is Getting Married. Originally published in 1996.

Dublm: Poolbeg. 2003a.

---. Watermelon. Originally published in 1995. Dublin: Poolbeg. 2003b.

---. The Other Side of the Story. Dublin: Poolbeg. 2004.

---. Anybody Out There? Dublin: Poolbeg. 2006.

---. Sushi For Beginners. Originally published in 2000. London: Penguin Books. 2007.

---. This Charming Man. Michael Joseph/Penguin Books. 2008.

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---. The Brightest Star in the Sky. Michael Joseph/Penguin Books.

2009· Kiernan, Anna. "No Satisfaction: Sex and the City, Run Catch Kiss, and the Conflict of Desires in Chick Lit's New Heroines." In Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction, edited by Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young, 207-218. London: Routledge. 2006.

Levenson, Ellie. The Noughtie Girl's Guide to Feminism. Oxford: Oneworld. 2009.

Levy, Ariel. Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. New York: Free Press. 2005· Mabry, A. Rochelle. "About a Girl: Female Subjectivity and Sexuality in Contemporary 'Chick' Culture." In Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction, edited by Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young, 191-206.

New York: Routledge. 2006.

McLoughlin, Dympna. From "Women and Sexuality in NineteenthCentury Ireland." In The Irish Women's History Reader, edited

by Alan Hayes and Diane Urquhart, 81-86. London: Routledge.

1994· Mlynowski, Sarah, and Farrin Jacobs. See Jane Write: A Girl's Guide to Writing Chick Lit. Philadelphia: Quirk Books. 2006.

Moloney, Caitriona, and Helen Thompson. Irish Women Writers Speak Out: Voices Prom The Field. New York: Syracuse University Press. 2003.

O'Brien, Edna. The Country Girls Trilogy. London: Penguin Books.

1988.

O'Connor, Pat. Emerging Voices: Women in Contemporary Irish Society. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration. 1998.

O'Faolain, Nuala. The Story of Chicago May. London: Penguin Books.

2006.

Perez-Serrano, Elena. "Growing Old Before Old Age: Ageing in the Fiction of Marian Keyes." In Educational Gerontology 35 (2009), 135-145.

Radway, Janice. "The Readers and Their Romances." In Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and Criticism, edited by Robyn R. Warhol and Diane Price Herndl, 574-608. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. 1984.

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What's Love Got To Do With It? Rakow, Lana F. "Feminist Approaches to Popular Culture: Giving Patriarchy Its Due." In Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader, Second Edition, edited by John Storey, 275-291. Essex: Pearson/Prentice Hall. 1998.

Scannell, Yvonne. From "The Constitution and the Role of Women." In The Irish Women's History Reader, edited by Alan Hayes and Diane Urquhart, 71-78. London: Routledge. 1988.

Storey, John, ed. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader Second Edition. Essex: Pearson/Prentice Hall. 1998.

Thompson, Kate. Sex, Lies and Fairy tales. Originally published in 2005. London: Bantam Books. 2006.

Viney, Etlma. "Ancient Wars: Sex and Sexuality." In A Dozen Lips, 4571. Dublin: Attic Press. 1989.

Walshe, Eibhear, ed. Ordinary People Dancing: Essays on Kate O'Brien. Cork University Press. 1993.

Warhol, Robyn R., and Diane Price Herndl, eds. Feminisms: An Anthology oj Literary Theory and Criticism. Revised Edition.

New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. 1997.

Wells, Juliette. "Mothers of Chick Lit? Women Writers, Readers, and Literary History." In Chick Lit: The New Woman's Fiction, edited by Suzanne Ferriss and Mallory Young, 47-70. New York: Routledge. 2006.

"What is Chick Lit?" http://www.chicklitbooks.com/what-is-chick-lit/ (Accessed 22 nd May 2007) Whelehan, Imelda. Modern Feminist Thought: From the Second Wave to "Post-Feminism". Edinburgh University Press. 1995.

---. The Feminist Bestseller. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. 2005.

131

Two Paintings

by Tania Zivkovic

Untitled 22" X 28"

My Protector 30" X 40"

Brian Grabbatin Jennie 1. Stephens

Wigfall v. Mobleyet al.: Heirs' Property Rights in Family and in Law 1.

INTRODUCTION

On September 27, 2001, twenty-five people were evicted from their family land in Cainhoy, South Carolina. Most of them were born there and had never planned to leave, but a Berkeley County judge ordered a sale of the land and the removal of six homes. So, Gloria Asby watched as Berkeley County Deputies placed her mobile home on a trailer, removed the cinder blocks, and hauled it away. She was born on that property in 1943, and after her husband passed away in 1991, she returned home to live near her brother and his children and grandchildren.

Asby was clearly distressed about the eviction, telling reporters "What hurts the most is that family is making us move, and they're the ones who have a place to stay. I don't have any money. I might as well get a blanket and go under a tree" (Bartelme 2001C, 1B).

For her brother Johnny Rivers, the 17 acres of marshland and Spanish moss-draped oaks along the Wando River was home for over 69 years. Since he had lived on the property his entire life and paid taxes on it for over 30 years the court granted him a 3 0 -day grace period to vacate the premises. On the day of the 133

Grabbatin and Stephens eviction, however, he shared the pain of watching his family members lose their homes, knowing that his time on the land was also coming to a close.

When asked about the impending eviction he told reporters, "I feel the loss in my bones .. .! feel like part of my body is gone, but I'm still living" (Bartelme 2000, I-A).

The displacement described above exposes the powerlessness and vulnerability of African American heirs' property owners. This phrase is a legal designation given to land where the title is in the name of an individual who died without leaving a written will. Laws vary from state to state, but when someone dies without a will in South Carolina, intestacy law ascribes ownership to descendents as tenants in common. With this arrangement, descendents hold an undivided interest in the property and are expected to make collective decisions about how to use and manage it.

However, disagreements among family members can lead to the displacement of some residents against their will (Rivers 2007)¡ All residents of the property on Pinefield Drive were descendents of Hector Rivers, a former slave who acquired the land through a legal deed in 1883. Many of his descendents died without wills, making the land heirs' property. Although family members hold an undivided interest in heirs' land, a single heir who wishes to sell can request their interest be divided from the collective. If the family cannot agree on how to divide the land, then a judge can order a sale of the property, displacing residents who are often land rich, but cash poor (Rivers and Stephens 2009). In Cainhoy, a disagreement between family members led to a 6-year legal battle, which ended in a court-ordered sale and eviction described above.

Reports about the theft of African American land, through legal and extralegal means, are common throughout the South (Patterson 2007; Dewan 2010; Persky 2009), but the issue of heirs' property is particularly widespread in Gullah communities (Carawan and Carawan 1989 [19?7]; Jones-Jackson 1987; Rivers 2006). According to anthropologtsts, historians, and community leaders, Gullah is a cultural distinction attributed to unique craft, culinary, agricultural, and speech p~tterns unique to the Lowcountry of the southeastern United States (see Figure 1 at end).' The prevalence of heirs' property in the region is the result of the informal nature ofland transfers occurring after the Civil War, educational inequalities and the violence of Jim Crow, and a general mistrust of a legal system controlled by whites, which led many Gullah families to I?ass landownership to their descendents withou~ . legally r7cogmzed documentation (Rivers 2007; Demerson 1991; Twinmg and BaIrd 1991).

Legal scholars working across the South have raised concerns over the vulnerability of heirs' property ownership, calling for .more detailed .case studies to fully understand this issue (Deaton 2007; MItchell 2005; Rivers and Stephens 2009).

In this article I present the case of Wigfall v. Mo~ley et. al. to illustrate how law privileges the economic value of land over Its SOCIal and cultural value. I argue that while legal rulings are designed to put prop~rty to its 'best use,' court ordered partition sales like this one beg the question 134

Wigfall v. Mobley "b~st ~~

for wh?~?" I demons~ate how partition sales privilege the rights of m?iVlduals willmg to a.ctualIze the market value of their property over the nghts of those who WIsh to retain family land, emphasizing economic value and ignoring the cultural value of these properties.

My work is based on archival research, including a thorough examination of case documents on file at the Berkeley County Clerk of Court Office, and interviews with staff members at the Center for Heirs' Property Preservation (CHPP). Currently, there is not enough data on heirs' property to determine whether this case is typical, but partition sales do occur an~ have a long life in the memory of communities where they happen. ThIS case was well documented in the Post and Courier newspaper by staff writer Tony Bartelme and is widely known by those working with heirs' property issues.

2.

CASE BACKGROUND

The property involved in the case of Wigfall v. Mobley et al is l~cated on the Cainhoy peninsula in Berkeley County, South Carolina (see FI~re 2 a~ end~ .. ~ound ~740, Cainhoy became Charleston's primary bnck suppber, utilIzmg the nch clay deposits along the Wando River. After the Civil ~ar, the vibrant river economy was destroyed and Cainhoy become an Isolated rural area (Bartelme 2001a; Frazier 2011).

At the end of the Civil War, freedmen and women began to acquire property throughout the South, using a variety of cash and labor agreements with former plantation owners and the federal government. In these post-emancipation African American communities, land was often ~wned collectively. Families bought land together, worked together, and hved .together (Rose 1964; Penningroth 2003; Flynn 1983; Saville 1994; Pe~nm~oth 199?). These freedmen and women builtfamily compounds, reSIdential groupmgs that consisted of households assembled on the basis of kinship, typically with a common area in between individual homes (Twining an~ Baird 1991; Rivers 2007). During the difficult years between Reconstt;ICti?n and the Great D~pression, families held on to their land by tr~nsf~mng It through ge~erations both as inheritance and as dowry, usmg It to create ~n effective subsistence economy (Bethel 1981; JonesJackson 1987; Polhtzer 1999; National Park Service 2005).

While th~ first ~e~erati~n of free ~rican Americans was acquiring land, northern mdustnallsts WIth names hke Vanderbilt and Pulitzer also began ?uying p0r?0ns of th.e southeastern coastline for vacationing and recreatIOnal hunting (Hams 2001). In 1938, the Cainhoy peninsula became the playground of Harry Guggenheim, who purchased large tracts of marsh and forest to use as a hunting preserve (Bartelme 2001a). Rural African Americ.ans remained relatively unaffected by these developments.

The~ engage~ m the market economy by working seasonally on resorts, servmg ~s gu?des for sport hunters, tonging for oysters, packing shrimp, and cutting timber. However, these activities were engaged in tenuously, 135

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Grabbatin and Stephens as their purpose was to supplement the living they could earn from their own land (Harris 2001; National Park Service 2005)¡ Until the mid 20th century, land prices were low and African Americans were a majority in the Lowcountry, but in 1957 the construction of Sea Pines resort began on Hilton Head Island (Joyner 1999; Odinga 2006; Smith 1991). The economic and cultural transformation of the Lowcountry that followed is referred to as development, or from the perspective of Gullah leader Marquetta Goodwine, "destructionment" (Goodwine 1998). Exclusive resort style development has displaced the land-based livelihoods of African Americans in the Lowcountry, interrupting access to natural resources (Halfacre, Hurley, and Grabbatin 2010; Hurley and Halfacre 2009; Hurley et al. 2008). Meanwhile, road and utility construction has literally paved the way for residential and commercial development, raising property values and taxes, and precipitating a decline in African American landownership (Goodwine 1998; National Park Service 2005; Tibbetts 2001).

In the 1980s, the Cainhoy peninsula was largely made up of African American family compounds held as heirs' property and large agricultural and timber tracts owned by whites. In 1992, the multi-million dollar Mark Clark Expressway connected North Charleston and West Ashley to Mount Pleasant and the State Ports Authority. Road improvements and previously unavailable water-sewer services extended to Cainhoy, property taxes soared, and the city of Charleston annexed thousands of acres, zoning them for industrial and commercial uses (Sinkler 2005; Bartelme 2001a).

Many families in Cainhoy either chose to move or were forced to relocate, but the Rivers family was able to hold on to their land throughout all of this change. The 17 acres of waterfront property on Clouter Creek were always culturally and economically valuable to Johnny Rivers and his family. However, in the early 90S, with the completion of the Mark Clark Expressway, the market value of their land increased and family conflicts over this shared asset began to emerge.

3. CASE STUDY: WIGFALL V. MOBLEY ET AL. 3.1.

COMPLAINT AND ANSWER

In 1994, Blondell Rivers Wigfall filed a complaint in the Berkeley County Courthouse against 25 of her family members, as well as unknown heirs and distributees. 2 The complaint requests that the court equitably partition property that had been in her family for generations, distributing the land or proceeds according to each family members' share, and issuing separate titles for each tract.3 The land in question is 17 acres of waterfront property on Pinefield Drive deeded to Alex Rivers who died intestate in 1971.

In South Carolina, family members have 10 years to probate the will of a deceased person. This process resolves all claims and divides property

Wigfall v. Mobley

amongst heirs according to the wishes of the deceased. However when someone dies without a will and 10 years pass, then the only pers~n who can leg~y transfer 0~ property into someone else's name is a judge. This process IS called quzetmg tztle. In order to do so all of the heirs must be identified and the history of ownership document~d (Walden 2010¡ Center for Heirs' Property Preservation 2007). ' The ownership of the Pinefield tract was traced back to March 8, 1883, ~h~n Susan B. Hay deeded Hector Rivers, the great grandfather of the plamtiff, 54.54 acres of highland and 57 acres of marshland. This deed was re70rded in Charleston and Berkeley Counties in 1888 and 1889 ~espectively.. When Hector died, he left a will, legally transferring 5/ 6 mterest t~ hIS son Hector Rivers Jr. and 1/6 interest to his grandchild Samuel Rivers. By 1927, when Hector Sr.'s will was probated in a Berkeley Co~ty court, Hector Jr., had already died intestate, making his 5/6 portion of the land heirs' property, which then passed to his widow and his eight children. 4 As these details illustrate, the ownership of the Pinefield property ~as already complicated in 1927. Nine heirs shared ownership as tenants m c~mmon and one of these heirs, Samuel Rivers, also held a clear title to 1 6 mte.rest ~onveyed through Hector Sr.'s will. However, by the time these Z mne.heirs died, t~e 0W?ership claims became even more complex, because all mne of them d~~d WIthout wills.s At this time, wills were rarely made in Gullah commumties. Instead, they relied on an oral tradition of inheritance because educational inequalities and a history of legal theft had led them to distrust white dominated legal systems. However, over several. genera~ons, the transmission of property became complicated by expanSIve family trees, and some individuals ended up with claims to m~~ tracts of. land from many different ancestors (Demerson 1991; Twi~I~g an~ Baird 1991). For lawyers and judges today, determining who the livmg heIrs are and. what interest they have in a piece of property is the first and ?ften ~ost ~Ifficult. step in an heirs' property case. By bringing ~e question o~ mhentance mto the courtroom, heirs give the court the nght to determme who owns an interest and how much instead of relying on traditional family negotiations. ' . In the complaint, Plaintiff Blondell Wigfall's attorney documents t~e. mtestat~ ~assag.e of property ownership through several generations, hsting the hvmg heIrs, and calculating their percentage of interest in the pr~perty. 6 Det rmined by the complaint and accepted by the court, the 7 h~IrS of ~ex River~ ~wn 9.2592% of the original property deeded in 1883, WIth. the .mterest dlVlded equally among eight children: Blondell Wigfall, Glona Rivers Asby, and Johnny, Alex Jr., William, Jonathan Jr., and Jonathan Rivers.7 Of those heirs, defendant Johnny Rivers is the only one who filed an Ans~er and Counterclaim, agreeing with the Complaint's account of his fa.mily tree and the determination of heirs.a However, in his response, Rivers states that he disagrees with his sister's request to partition the property and her request to remove the homes of his children from the 137

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Grabbatin and Stephens property.9 Instead, Rivers states that an equitable partition would include "two acres surrounding his residence" and "other and further relief as this Court may deem just and equitable."10 To clarify, Johnny Rivers is requesting that his own interest in the property should be reconsidered and that the family members living on the property should be allowed to remam.

Just before he died in 1971, Johnny Rivers' father told him, "Always pay your taxes, and you'll keep your land," (Bartelme 2002, 5-B). For the next 23 years, Johnny took his father's advice. He took care of the property, built a house and a dock, and always paid the property taxes on time. He allowed his children to place mobile homes on the property and his sister Gloria to move home when her husband died in 1991. Together they built a seven house family compound, paid the taxes, and took care of the grounds without assistance or interference from the other heirs until the complaint was filed in 1994 (Bartelme 2001C). Ruth W. Cupp, Rivers' lawyer, claimed that Johnny's labor, funds, and commitment to the property should entitle him to "a greater interest in the land than the other heirs."1l While this claim may be in line with traditional forms of ownership practiced in Gullah communities, the legal interpretation of heirs' rights does not allow for any heir to receive special treatment merely because they live on the land or pay the taxes. Under South Carolina intestacy law, land is owned as tenants in common, each with an undivided interest in the property. Improvements to the property belong to all heirs and taxes paid give no one heir any greater interest than another (Center for Heirs' Property Preservation 2007; Rivers 2007)¡ 3.2.

NEGOTIATIONS

Despite attempts at family negotiation, both with and without lawyers present, the case was left open without trial for the next 3 years while the Plaintiffs lawyer, William W. Peagler III, contacted every?~e with an interest in the property (Bartelme 2001b, 9-A). In these cases It IS common to find heirs living in other parts of the country, since many African Americans left the South to avoid the worst of the Jim Crow laws and to seek employment in Northern cities (Falk 2004)¡ Th7se re~atives typically do not pay taxes on the land and may have no mtention of asserting their claims of use. However, a cash settlement is often ~oo tempting for relatives to pass over, especially when they have no phYSIcal or emotional ties to the land (Demers on 1991; Carawan and Carawan 1989 [1967]; Jones-Jackson 1987).

Peagler contacted relatives living in South Carolina, Georgia, Illinois and New York and in 1997 wrote a letter to Judge McKellar stating'that U[w]e are cu~rently trying to buyout the minor interests in the property in order to consent to partition the property in this matter .. J would like to request this matter be continued and it should be resolved by next month."12

Wigfall v. Mobley In the original complaint, Wigfall stated her desire to divide the land amongst the heirs, with individual deeds assigned to parcels sized according to their interest. By 1998, the Plaintiff and her lawyer had decided that there was insufficient acreage for a partition, and instead stated the desire of "various defendants" for a public sale of the land or payment by the heirs wishing to retain it. 13 Defense attorney Mark Lund said he was unable to negotiate with other family members. The change from equitable partition to public sale meant his clients were "being told they can't live on the property unless they buy it for a price they can't afford" (Bartelme 200lb, 9-A).

Johnny Mae Rambert, one of Rivers' daughters living on the property, was concerned about the cost of clearing land, setting up a trailer, installing septic tanks, and drilling a well on new property. "Those things are going to cost me thousands of dollars. That's money I don't have" (Bartelme 200lb, 9-A). Tensions flared within the family. Johnny told reporters that the other heirs, including two brothers, "jumped on the legal bandwagon ...they know what they're doing to me, but they don't care.

They figure they can get some money" (Bartelme 200lb, 9-A). At a November 1999 hearing, defense attorney Ruth Cupp testified that her client, Johnny Rivers, was unwilling to consent to a sale because he was not in a position to purchase the property himself and would not be able to find suitable housing if the property was sold to someone else. 14 Despite the protest from Cupp, the judge ordered the family to sell the property and divide the proceeds among the heirs according to their interest.

3.3.

ORDERS

The Consent Order documenting the November hearing states that the majority of parties agreed to sell the property. It also ordered the families to accept a $910,000 bid from developer Woody Smith.ls But Smith backed out of the deal because of "too much controversy," and the property was shown to other potential buyers (Bartelme 200lb, 9-A).

However, the family members living on the property decided to resist the order.

A letter from real estate agent Caroline Hall to Mike Szews of Agent Owned Premiere Real Estate described how gentlemen living on the land were "staring," "coming at us very quickly," and "yelling" when she took clients to see the land. Apparently this disruption did not deter her client.

Hall stated that her client was "very interested in the property and would like to make an offer." However, she did "not feel safe to walk the property... [And] would hate to have [her] client miss out on the possibility of presenting an offer."16 In order to avoid losing an offer to buy, Wigfall filed a restraining order on September 13, 2000 to keep "these certain defendants and/ or invitees from thwarting the Court's attempts to sell the property."17 After a second hearing on November 16, 2000, Master-in-Equity John B. Williams wrote an Order Granting Authority to Consummate Sale 139

Grabbatin and Stephens reinforcing the 1999 order. He found Smith's original offer of $910,000 "fair and reasonable" and ordered that the family members sign a contract to sen the property to him. IS However, Williams also added a concession for Johnny Rivers in this order, declaring that it was unfair to require he vacate and find new housing without receiving his proceeds of the sale.

This Order gave Johnny Rivers 30 days after closing to vacate the premises, with all other tenants ordered to vacate 60 days after the Order was issued. 19 More resistance, or perhaps just disregard, to the order came from the Berkeley County Sheriff, who was reluctant to execute the eviction until Peagler filed a motion to hold the Sheriff in contempt of court. A third order was issued, requiring Deputies to immediately eject all residents except Johnny from the property (Bartel me 2001b, 9-A).

3.4.

FINAL WORDS

Johnny Rivers tried one last time to save his property, filing a Motion for Rehearing that claimed he was misrepresented by his attorney in 1999 and restated the importance of his economic and emotional attachment to the land.20 Peagler responded on behalf of the Plaintiff, using legal precedent and quotations from previous orders to strike down Johnny's motion point by point. In the final paragraph of this response, he describes Johnny Rivers' arguments as "directly contrary to established legal principles" and "nothing more than a dilatory tactic designed to prevent the fair and just resolution of this case (which is already more than six years 0Id)."21 On November 8, 2001, a fourth and final Consent Order consummated the sale to Woodie Smith for $910,000, created a new deed to the land, and guaranteed that the attorney's fees would be deducted before proceeds were disbursed to the heirs.22 The Plaintiffs attorney received $13,115.70 and 10% of the gross sale price. The three Defense attorneys received 5% of the gross sale price. 23 By comparison, Johnny Rivers, an heir, who took care of the property and paid taxes on it for over 30 years, was reimbursed for property taxes paid after 1999, and received 3.126% of the sale price, after attorney's fees. 24 4. DISCUSSION: HEIRS' PROPERTY RIGHTS IN FAMILY ANI> IN LAW

This article presents a detailed case study from the South Carolina Lowcountry that illustrates two main concerns about heirs' property cases.

First, the outcome of this case highlights the economic injustice that can result from court-ordered partition sales. Second, this case illustrates the failure of the courts to weigh the cultural value ofland.

In some ways, economic injustice is difficult to measure. The goals of families and individual family members can vary widely. Oftentimes there is a tension between the strong desire to retain family land and the desire to sell. For example, Johnny Rivers was upset about losing his land 140

Wigfall v. Mobley reg~r<n~s~ of how much theI~ wllling~ess ~o . sell,

money he would receive. However, apart from heirs' owners have legitimate concerns abou getting a fair pnce for their property (Pridemore 2009; Rivers and Stephens 2009).

F~rst, it is shocking that Johnny Rivers receiving only 3.126% of the sal.e pnce .after attorney's fees, while the Plaintiffs attorney, himself not an herr~ receIved 10% of the gross sale price. 25 Further, the amount Johnny receIved from the sal~ w~ insuffic.ient to purchase housing in the Cainhoy area. Both he and his SIster Glona had to rely on neighbors and family members who took them in. Cainhoy community leader Fred Lincoln offered Gloria Rivers Asby and her family a place to stay. Johnny Rivers went to live with his son (Bartelme 2001b).

Aside from the unequal distribution of funds, there are also questions about the monetary value of the land itself. Cainhoy community leader Fred Lincoln said that the judge in the Wigfall case failed to look out for the ~est interest. of the heirs because he ordered the property be sold to a spec~fic person I~stead. of, sold on the market by the family. The judge conSIdered Woodle SmIth s $910,000 offer to be fair market value but eight months after the evictions from Pinefield Drive he divided the'land in~o. eight "Unbelievably Beautiful High Wooded 'Lots," asking three millIon dollars for all eight lots (Bartelme 2002). Agent Owned Realty who brokered the sale contends that the land was only appraised at $910,000 because at that time it was heirs' property, and there was too much risk involved in buying it (Bartelme 2002). However, after the title was cleared in court and a partition ordered, that risk was removed, increasing its value. In sh?rt, the court-ord~red sale removed the legal complications that posed nsk for buyers, whIle simultaneously locking in a risk-affected sale price for Smith.

Aside from the economic inequalities illustrated by this case, we can also se7how legal and economic interpretations of landownership ignore the so.clal and cultural.value of heirs' property (Persky 2009, 4). Although all heIrs shared the Pmefield Drive property as tenants in common the ~ghts of heirs willing to actualize its market value were privileged ove~ the ng~ts of those who wished to retain the land as a link to family and hentage. Developer Woodie Smith exemplified this emphasis on economic value when he told reporters, "I'm just like you, if there's an opportunity to make a dollar, I'.m gOing.to do it" (quoted in Bartelme 2002, 5-B).

For a penod of time, Smith withdrew his offer to purchase the property because of the controversy between family members. In the end however, he jus?fied hi.s d~cision to buy in purely economic terms. Clearly: when .Johnn~ Rivers saId~ I feel the loss in my bones .. .! feel like part of my body IS gone he was talking about something other than money (Bartelme 2000, I-A).

Emory Campbell, a Gullah leader from Hilton Head says that the conflicts over heirs' property are the result of a clash be~een the EuroAmerican i?eals of an individual owning a specific piece of property versus a West African concept of communal property ownership where "the land 141

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Grabbatin and Stephens belonged to everyone," (Bartelme 2000, 9-A). For landowners, particularly in Gullah communities, heirs' property is the anchor for the family community, where kin always have the right to live, especially when times get tough (Falk 2004; Persky 2009; Demerson 1991; Twining and Baird 1991). Many Gullah landowners attribute their homeplaces to "the old people ... the generation who came through slavery, acquired land, and set about the arduous task of clearing land on which they established their homes, their farms, and their communities" (Day 1982, 12). For some of these landowners the land is heritage and a legacy they will leave for the next generation; they are not looking for any opportunity to 'make a dollar.'

5. CONCLUSION: REVALUING THE LAND

The problems with heirs' property extend well beyond the community of Cainhoy or South Carolina. No one knows exactly how much heirs' property there is in the United States, but in Berkeley County alone more than 1,300 properties, around 17,000 acres, are listed in tax rolls as belonging to ''heirs of... " (Bartelme 2000, 9-A). A study conducted in the 1970S concluded that 1/3 of black-owned property in the Southern United States was held as heirs' property (Graber 1978) and research in Appalachia has uncovered its prevalence in white communities (Deaton 2007)¡ David Dietrich of the American Bar Association's Property Preservation Task Force has called it "the worst problem you never heard of," prompting a response from the legal community (Persky 2009, 1). In 2010, a group of lawyers and legal scholars drafted the Uniform Partition of Heirs' Property Act, which is an attempt to incorporate cultural value into court decisions on heirs' property (National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws 2010). Josh Walden, attorney for the Center for Heirs' Property Preservation, said that right now discretion can be given to landowners by sympathetic judges, but if the Act were to become law it would give judges a legislative precedent for such discretion (Walden 2010).

During the legal proceedings, Johnny Rivers hoped that being an heir to the property, living on the land for 69 years, and paying the taxes would matter to the court. However, the judge was not legally bound to treat him any differently than the other heirs, and in the end he was granted only a few small concessions: reimbursement for property taxes from 1999 to 2001 and an extra 30-day grace period to vacate the property. Despite these concessions, the residents at Pinefield Drive were forced to leave their family homes, and forced to sell the property that had been in their family for generations. For Johnny Rivers, this was a wound that would never heal. Six years after the evictions, and three years before his death, Johnny Rivers and his wife still felt like "Trees ripped from their roots .. .We have never really been completely happy since we left" (Bartelme 2007).

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6.ACKNO~DGEMENTS

I would like to thank the staff at the Center for Heirs' Property Preservation (CHPP). In particular, attorney Josh Walden's public education seminars and advice were essential to this research. I am also grateful to journalist Tony Bartelme and independent researcher Herb Frazier who provided clarification on the details of this case, and Jeffrey E. Levy who lent his cartographic expertise during the preparation of this manuscript. Thank you to fellow graduate students Emily Jones (College of Law, University of Kentucky), Ryan Anderson (Department o Anthropology, University of Kentucky), and the editors at disClosure who provided helpful feedback on early drafts. This research was funded by a 2010 Barnhart-Withington research grant awarded by the Department of Geography at the University of Kentucky.

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Figure 1: A regional map showing the Lowcoun~ region o~ the United States, where some coastal AfrIcan AmerIcan communities self-identify as Gullah.

Map made by Jeffrey E. Levy.

144

Wigfall v. Mobley

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Hector Lane study area

Figure 2: A map sh?wing the Cainhoy peninsula in Berkeley County Sou~ Carolin~. The property involved in Wigfall v.

Mobley et al. IS along Pinefield Drive and Hector Lane.

Map by J effrey E. Levy.

145

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Grabbatin and Stephens

Notes 1 These traditions are attributed to cultural exchange between diverse groups of Africans, Europeans, and Caribbean immigrants during the IBth and 19th centuries, as well as the social and physical isolation of these coastal communities. See the following references for more about Gullah culture and history (Campbell 2002; Goodwine 199B; Montgomery 200B [1994]; National Park Service 2005; Pollitzcr 1999).

2 Complaint at Page I, Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB-1497).

3 Complaint at 43, Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB-1497).

4 Complaint at 3-5, Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB-1497).

S Complaint at 6-20, Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB-1497).

6 Complaint at 25, Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB-1497).

7 Complaint at 14, Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB-1497).

8 Answer and ounterclaim at 2, Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB-1497).

9 Answer and ounterclaim at 5, Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB- 1497).

10 Answer and ounterclaim at II , Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB- 1497).

11 Answer and ounterclaim at 10, Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB- 1497).

12 Letter from William W. Peagler III to Judge McKellar dated 9 January 1997, Wigfall (No. 94CP-OB- 1497).

13 Pretrial Brief of De fendants and Plaintiff, Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB-1497).

14 Order Granting Authority To Consummate Sale at Findings and Considerations at 4, Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB-1497).

IS Order Granting Authority To Consummate Sale at Findings and Considerations 2-3, Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB-1497).

16 Letter from Carolina Hall to Mike Szews dated II September 2000, Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB1497).

17 Order Granting Authority To Consummate Sale at Findings and Considerations 5, Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB- 1497).

18 Order Granting Authority To onsummate Sale at 4, Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB-1497).

19 0rder Granting Authority To onsummate Sale at 6-7, Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB- 1497).

20 Plaintiff' s Return To Defendant Rivers' Motion For Rehearing And To Alter And Amend Order Granting Authority To Consummate Sale at Section I, Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB-1497).

21Plaintiff' s Return To Defendant Rivers' Motion For Rehearing And To Alter And Amend Order Granting Authority To Consummate Sale at Section VII , Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB-1497).

22 Consent Order at ' 1-2, Wigfall (No . 94-CP-OB- 1497).

23 Consent Order at 5-7, Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB- 1497).

24 Consent Order at 2-3, Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB-1497).

25 Consent Order at 2-7, Wigfall (No. 94-CP-OB- 1497).

Works Cited Bartelme, Tony. 2000. Heirs Property Tangle Leads to Loss of Land. Post and Courier, 24 December.

- - -. 2001a. Once-rural Community Finds Itself No Longer Insulated from Growth. Post and Courier, 8 J uly.

- - -. 2001b. Father Dreads Family's Eviction in Heirs' Property Dispute.

Post and Cow'iel', 27 September.

---. 2001C. Families Evicted from Heirs' Property. Post and Courier, 28 September.

Wigfall v. Mobley ---. 2002. Heirs Land at Risk. Post and Courier, 23 June.

---.2007¡ Land of My Father. Essence February:150.

Bethel, Elizabe0 Rauh: 1981. p'romiseland: A Century of Life in a Negro Communzty. PhiladelphIa: Temple University Press.

Campbell, E~ory S. 2002. Gullah .Cultural Legacies: A Synopsis of Gulla Tradltzons, Customary Belzefs, Artforms and Speech on Hilton Head Island and Vicinal Sea Islands in South Carolina and Georgia. Hilton Head, SC: Gullah Heritage Consulting Services.

Carawan, Guy, and Candie Carawan. 1989 [1967]. Ain't You Got a Right to the Tree of Life?: The People of Johns Island South Carolina-Their Faces, Their Words, and Their Songs. Rev. and expanded ed Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

Center for ~eirs' Property Preservation, CHPP. 2007. Heirs' Property 101 Semmar. Charleston, SC: Center for Heirs' Property Preservation.

Day, Virgini~ Kay Young. 1982. Kinship in a Changing Economy. In Holdmg on to the Land and the Lord: Kinship, Ritual, Land Tenure, and Social Policy in the Rural South, edited by R. L. Hall and C. B. Stack. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

Deaton, B. ~am~s. 2007. Intestate Succession and Heir Property: ImplIcations for ~uture Research on the Persistence of Poverty in Central AppalachIa. Journal of Economic Issues 41 (4):9 2 7-942.

Demerson, Bamidele Agbasegbe. 1991. Family Life on Wadamalaw Island.

In Sea Island Roots: African Presence in the Carolinas and Georgia, edited by M. A. Twining and K. E. Baird. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press.

Dewan, Shaila. 2010. Black Landowners Fight to Reclaim Georgia Home.

The New York Times, 30 June.

Falk, William W. 2004. Rooted in Place: Family and Belonging in a Southern Black Community. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press. '

Flynn, Charles L. 1983. White Land, Black Labor: Caste and Class in Late Nineteenth-Century Georgia. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

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ah

o

Grabbatin and Stephens Frazier, Herb. 2011. Behind God's Back: Gullah Memories of Cainhoy, Wando, Huger, Daniel Island, St. Thomas Island. Charleston, SC: Evening Post Publishing Co. Goodwine, Marquetta. 1998. Destructionment: Treddin' een We Ancestas' Teahs. In The Legacy ofIbo Landing: Gullah Roots ofAfrican American Culture, edited by M. Goodwine and C. P. G. Project.

Atlanta: Atlanta Clarity Press Inc. ---, ed. 1998. The Legacy of Ibo Landing: Gullah Roots ofAfrican American Culture. Atlanta: Atlanta Clarity Press Inc. Graber, Scott C. 1978. A Blight Hits Black Farmers. Civil Rights Digest 10 (3):20-29.

d.

1

.

e

Halfacre, Angela, Patrick T. Hurley, and Brian Grabbatin. 2010. Sewing Environmental Justice into African-American Sweetgrass BasketMaking in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Southeastern Geographer 50 (1):147-168.

Harris, J. William. 2001. Deep Souths: Delta, Piedmont, and Sea Island Society in the Age of Segregation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Hurley, Patrick, and Angela Halfacre. 2009. Dodging Alligators, Rattlesnakes, and Backyard Docks: A Political Ecology of .

Sweetgrass Basket-Making and Conservation in the South Carolma Lowcountry, USA. GeoJournal.

Hurley, Patrick T., Angela C. Halfacre, Norm S. Levine, and Marianne K. Burke. 2008. Finding a Disappearing Nontimber Forest Resource: Using Grounded Visualization to Explore Urbanization Impact~ on Sweetgrass Basketmaking in Greater Mt. Pleasant, South Carolma.

Professional Geographer 60 (4):556-578 .

Jones-Jackson, Patricia. 1987. When Roots Die: Endangered Traditions on the Sea Islands. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

Joyner, Charles W. 1999. Shared Traditions: Southern History and Folk Culture. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Mitchell Thomas W. 2005. Destabilizing the Normalization of Rural Black ~nd Loss: A Critical Role for Legal Empiricism. Wisconsin Law Review 557.

Wigfall v. Mobley

Montgomery, Michael. 2008 [1994]. The Crucible of Carolina: Essays in the Development of Gullah Language and Culture. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, NCCUSL 2010. Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act. Chicago: National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws.

National Park Service, NPS. 2005. Low Country Gullah Culture Special Resources Study and Final Environmental Impact Statement.

Atlanta: National Park Service Southeast Regional Office.

Odinga, Sobukwe. 2006. Another American Skin(s) Game. The Green:

Gold beyond the Links, 52-54.

Patterson, Randall. 2007. For Sale by Owners. Mother Jones 32 (2):28-31 Penningroth, Dylan C. 1997. Slavery, Freedom, and Social Claims to Property among African Americans in Liberty County, Georgia, 1850-1880. Journal ofAmerican History 84 (2):405-435.

---. 2003¡ The Claims of Kinfolk: African American Property and Community in the Nineteenth-Century South. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

Persky, Anna Stolley. 2009. In the Cross-Heirs. ABA Journal 95 (5):44-49

Pollitzer, William S. 1999. The Gullah People and Their African Heritage.

Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.

Pridemore, Megham E. B. 2009. Tides, Torrens, and Family Trees.

Probate and Property 23 (3):24-31.

Rivers, Faith R. 2006. The Public Trust Debate: Implications for Heirs' Property Along the Gullah Coast. Southeastern Environmental Law Journal 15 (1):147-170.

---.2007¡ Inequity in Equity: The Tragedy of Tenancy in Common for Heirs' .p~op~rty Owners Facing Partition in Equity. Temple Politica and CiVIl RIghts Law Review 17.

Rivers, Faith R., and Jenni~ Stephens. 2009. Preserving Heirs' Property in Coastal South Carohna (Charleston, South Carolina). In Breakthrough Communities: Sustainability and Justice in the Nex American Metropolis, edited by M. P. Pavel. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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n

Rose, Willie Lee Nichols. 1964. Rehearsalfor Reconstruction; the Port Royal Experiment. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.

L.

Saville, Julie. 1994. The Work of Reconstruction: From Slave to Wage Laborer in South Carolina, 1860-1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

1.

Sinkler, Michelle L. 2005. Heirs' Property: Community Comprehensive Plans Assessment. Charleston, SC: Center For Heirs' Property Preservation (CHPP).

Smith, John P. 1991. Cultural Preservation of the Sea Island Gullah: A Black Social Movement in the Post-Civil Rights Era. Rural Sociology 56 (2):284-298.

Tibbetts, John H. 2001. Coastal Growth Hits Home. Coastal Heritage 16 (2):3-13¡ Twining, Mary Arnold, and Keith E. Baird. 1991. Sea Island Culture: Matrix of the African American Family. In Sea Island Roots: African Presence in the Carolinas and Georgia, edited by M.A. Twining and K.E. Baird. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press.

Walden, Josh. 2010. Interview with Author. Charleston, SC, July 26.

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150

On Borders and Biopolitics: An Interview with Eithne Luibheid Conducted by Samantha Herr and Tim Vatovec

dC: How did you becom interested In your curre research topics of immigratio sexuality, and citizenship?

EL: I come up with a differe answer every time I think abo this question. I could answer terms of specific autobiographic experiences, or in terms identities that I inhabit . ' expenences in graduate school, scholars and activists who seek change the world and whom find inspirational.

None of those narratives wou be wrong. But they would not b entirely right, either, and wonder what anyone would lear from them. Mainly, your questio made me reflect about th moments when we're supposed t reference our own lives in orde to account for our academ interests. There are times whe doing so is important o strategically useful. But drawin equations between experience and interests makes me uneasy. reminds me of Joan Scott's essa about the evidence of experience Experience is not self-eviden even to oneself, and how experience shapes academi interests is not self-eviden Perhaps the mor either. interesting question IS wh

Eithne Luibheid is Associate Professor of Gender and Women'~ Studies and Director of the Instztutefor LGBT Studies at the University ofArizona. She is the author of Entry Denied: Controlling Sexuality at the Border (2002); co-editor of 9.u eer ~igration: Sexuality, u.s.

CItizenshIp, and Border Crossings . (2005); and editor of a special ISsue ofGLQ on Queer/Migration (2008). She was a presenter in the 2010 Spring Lecture Series of t~e Committee on Social Theory wIth the talk "Pregnant Migrants Aimfor Ireland."

151

Luibheid people often try to make these correlations, and what this tells us about contemporary society.

de: What is your understanding of law for the purpose of your own work as a scholar of immigration, sexuality, and citizenship? What does law do with regard to your interests? What are its limitations?

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EL: To invoke the language of biopolitics, the overarching issue that troubles me is the ways that some people's lives are fostered and supported, while other people's lives are made vulnerable and difficult or unfostered to the point of death.

So my interests in law are, what is the role of law in upholding this very unequal distribution of regimes of living and dying-and can law ever be used to challenge these inequalities? These are not simple questions, and there's not really a yes/no answer.

A starting place, though, is to refuse to buy into the common-sense view of law as a neutral arbitrator of existing social relations, and instead, to historicize the emergence and operations of legal regimes. When we do that, we realize that law emerges under specific conditions, which means it serves particular interests. Having said that, though, law's operations should not be understood in a functionalist or reductive way; they're far more complex, messy, and contingent than that.

In my work, it has been very useful to think about law as being productive.

In other words, law does not merely adjudicate; instead, it produces, or calls into being, particular identities, assemblages, and relations of rule.

For example, there's an important scholarship about how the law actively constructs racial distinctions in very particular ways, which change over time. These distinctions carry very significant consequences in people's lives.

Or in my book Entry Denied and in works by scholars like Matthew Coleman or Janet Halley, or in queer migration scholarship in general, you see the uneven, contradictory, incoherent way that law constructs lesbian and gay identities. This legal construction does not reflect nor exhaust the full spectrum of how lesbian and gay identities may be formed and lived.

So we should not treat law as totalizing the range of possibilities for lesbian or gay being. But we should be very concerned about the brutal consequences that remain attached to the legal construction of lesbian or gay identity, or indeed, many other kinds of identities, too.

In my recent work on the construction of the so-called illegal immigrant, I directly engage these sorts of concerns. Nicholas De Genova a~tly describes that the undocumented immigrant is not someone who exIStS 15 2

On Borders and Biopolitics

outside the law, which is a common conception; rather, the undocument immigrant is constructed through and because of law. But mainstrea media, politicians, and many scholars tend to ignore or naturalize t op~rations of law th~t. hav,e produced some migrants as "illegal." In domg, they're comphcIt With state power, and they miss an importa ch~ce to ask how and why c~rtain people come to be designated as illeg whil~ others do ~ot. Th~y ~ISS the chance to ask how the designation certam people as Illegal ImmIgrants stems from and reinforces a particul mode of national formation, and if this is really the sort of nation that w w?-Dt . They In:iss the chance to ask how illegalization of migrants connec With transnational and neo-colonial histories and ties. As you can see on you stop naturalizing the operations of law, all sorts of interesting an important questions arise.

'Yhen one naturalizes the operations of law that designate some people

"illegal,". howe~er, another thing that happens is that we cannot find wa to effectIvely dISCUSS the nature of the violence, exploitation, and sufferin that some undocumented people experience because of their juridic status, nor can we consider ways to address it. The discussion about th exploitation and abuse of undocumented migrants has become stuc between ~o poles, one insisting that migrants have human rights, and th other saymg that as people who broke the law, undocumented migran get what ~ey deserve, including in some cases, extreme suffering an death. ThIS problem of how to address abuses directed at th undocumented has many echoes with Judith Butler's recent works th explore how some lives stop being considered as human and therefor bef~ suffe.rin~ that cannot be acknowledged, addressed, grieved. Butl ce~~nly ~Ighhghts the role of law, among other factors, in bringing abou thIS SItuatIOn. And these are issues about which I am deeply concerned.

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concerned for In:any reasons, including that there's somethin mtolerable about the SIlencing, erasure, objectification, and brutalizatio of hu~ans. Also because we know that when law produces its outside, i othe.r, I~S humans about .whom :,e don't have to care, it is also producin the mSIde, the human, m particular ways. To return to the idea of th illeg~ immigrant, that person importantly helps to delineate an constitu~e who and what counts as the legal immigrant or the citizen. Th subtractt.on of value. from people designated as illegal contributes to th overvalUl~g of certam other people who are designated as citizens. An these are Issues that we need to carefully consider.

de: How does social theory factor into your work? Who are some of you favorite theorists, and why?

~L: . I'm most interested in works that think about problems of socia

Justice, and that address multiple kinds of inequalities and hierarchies 153

LuibMid

ted am he so ant gal of lar we cts nce nd

because they're interested in the problem of how we can refashion a different kind of world.

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de: How does your own work engage with the intersection offamily, sex, and law? What themes do youfind at thejuncture of those three terms?

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Your question could also be understood as involving whether there are some theorists and scholars I find myself returning to. I would say yes, though my interests also move on, so it's not all that stable.

Anchor scholars for me are Foucault and his interlocutors; Jacqui Alexander; Cathy Cohen in the last few years; and always people like Lisa Lowe, Yen Le Espiritu, Lauren Berlant, Aihwa Ong, Pat Zavella. Rec.ently the work on undocumented migration, as well as work on nationalISms, transnationalisms, and colonial legacies; queer of color work; I could go on and on.

EL: I engage this intersection mainly through the ~ens of .immigra??n, refugee, and asylum laws and policies. From my pomt ?f.Vlew, famil.les, attachments and intimacies are incredibly varied, and thIS IS a good thing.

I track ho~ immigration, refugee, and asylum laws and policies a,re informed by, uphold, and reinscribe particular, limited models of family that render other models invisible, unvalued, demonized, or, even worse, as a form of cultural pathology or a danger that has to be destroyed.

Anne McClintock offers a useful model for thinking about these problems.

She argues that the discourse of "family" naturalizes, and allow~ states to reinscribe, forms of hierarchy that are gendered and generational, and become translated into space and time hierarchies, too. I would argue that immigration and asylum law significantly works in that way! and ~'m interested in highlighting and challenging that. I'm interested m making sure that queer families are included in that analysis.

A related concern builds from the scholarship on intimacy and attachment as feeling very private, yet as being modes thro.ugh whi~h states and capital actively seek to incorporate migrants mto nation-state and workplace projects in particular ways. Put si~p~y, how do states and employers seek to produce particular forms of mtima~y an? attach~ent, and use them to organize relations of governance ~nd. blOp~htIcal pr?Jects, especially where migrants are concerned? Withm . thIS question, I particularly explore how immigration preferences, particularly. th.ose that describe which family ties may become a basis for legal admIssI~n, an~ asylum rules participate in these logics, and try to use mIgrants attachments ~s a means to make them governable in sexual, gendered, racial, and class ways.

154

On Borders and Biopolitics

I'd also argue that there's a shifting balance, in that having family ties use to offer a way for migrants to mediate or soften some of the harshe aspects of immigration law. For example, if you were found to b depon;able, but you had a citiz.en. spouse or children who depended on you you mIght be able to get perrmSSlOn to remain anyway. So in that instance recog~ized family ~es became a means to mediate or overturn deportation But SlDce the mId-1990s, these family ties provide fewer and fewe possibilities for vitiating harsh immigration laws and instead relatives an family members are finding themselves subjected to n~w forms o surveillance,.and families in general are finding themselves more likely t be unrecognIZed, or to have members frozen into different statuses wit diff~rent lif~ chances, or being actively destroyed when they do not serv particular kinds of governance objectives.

!h~s is ~lOt to suggest that st~tes or employers ever fully succeed in usin

~ntimacles ~d attachments m those ways, but it is to say that this is a Importan~ I~sue 0at we ~eed to track, and that brings migratio

scholarshIp mto dialogue WIth other bodies of work such as the critica feelings project or the work on affect, intimacy, ~d subjectivity mor generally.

Strugg~es ~ver recognizing same-sex couples for purposes of immigratio

have hIghlighted some of these questions, and the complexities involved For we are dealing with multiple forms of inequality, and even though some same-sex c~uples are now re~ognized for immigration purposes in handful of cou~tnes, the scholarsh~p suggests that they are mainly middl class, have socIal and cultural capItal, and fit the valorized model of th privatized, responsible citizen who focuses on domesticity and consumption .. That's not to suggest that even those same-sex couples don' face extrao~dmary forms of ~crutiny, difficulty, and struggle. But it is to draw atte~tion to the m~y kinds of same-sex relationships and intimacie that are still left out by this model, and to ask who gains and who loses.

I'm interested in how people engage, inhabit, work from within, and attempt to transform the models that are inscribed and lived through immigration/asylum law.

mtim~tel~, I b 7lieve that we need to recognize and support family forms in

all theIr dIverSIty and multiplicity-or indeed, the refusal of family forms We need to acknowledge that the ability to cross an international borde should not hinge on your family form . And that all humans need access to the means ~o have livable lives, with basics like food, housing, health care and education fo~ everyon~, rather than these being contingent on family status. And I thmk ensunng these basics is definitely possible in this world.

155

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de: How do you conceptualize the border? What are the impacts of the border on immigrants' lives beyond entry?

EL: There's an extraordinary and rich scholarship on borders, which goes in many directions. As scholars like Robert Alvarez describe, that scholarship ranges from treating the border as a literal place and space, to treating borders metaphorically. For me, all these strands are illuminating, and help me to think more deeply.

Border scholarship always presents conceptual, epistemological, and political issues, all of which have to be addressed. Modes for addressing these are never stable but change over time. They also depend on the specific problem you're working on. For instance, it's a truism, but one of the important effects of transnationalism scholarship has been to challenge the ways that categories like nation, culture, community, society, and race were conceived as bounded in ways that reified nation-state and nationalist logics. The study of borders and borderlands was one of the areas that drove a reconceptualization of these categories, and opened up new questions. So whenever you work with issues about borders, you have to be reflexive about your own conceptual and epistemological assumptions.

My own work is most interested in how migrants negotiate and experience nation-state borders, so I'm addressing a specific set of issues within the broader discussions on borders and borderlands. Migrants, however, are a very diverse group of people, so their relationships to nation-state borders are also quite varied. For instance, the recent collection by Denise Segura and Pat Zavella focuses primarily on non-elite Mexican women who negotiate the U.S./Mexico borderlands-which includes but also goes beyond the border strictly speaking, yet the border is always there in many ways. By contrast, Aihwa Ong has examined how diasporan Chinese entrepreneurial elites negotiate nation-state borders, using what she calls flexible citizenship practices, and this involves a quite different set ~f issues about borders. Yet, in either case, nation-state borders don t disappear; they're important, and structure possibilities and constraints, but just not in the same ways for every migrant.

I deal with the border primarily in reference to immigration control. Over

time, I've come to address not just those who are excluded, but also, the fact that those who are let in or come in remain shaped, governed, subjectified if you like, by the relations of power that ar~ perh~ps. most visible at the border but that also extend into and multiply WIthm the territory of the natio~-state itself, so that the border is nev:er absent. Of Course at the other end of the scale is the fact that the relatIons of power and pdlicing that are evident at the territorial border don't just extend into and multiply in uneven ways within national space, but also extend outward, such that many nation-states also rely on what some scholars call

On Borders and Biopolitics

"remote borde~ control." This means that policing may occur man th?usands of miles ~way from the actual territorial border, and long befo Inlgran~ ever arnve, for example, at consular offices, or throug expan~ng networks ~f electronic surveillance, or when European Unio countrIes offload theIr border control functions onto nation-states th ring the core countries, or when the US coastguard patrols waters preven~ bo~ts from. Haiti from ever arriving so people can seek asylum, o countrIes ht~rally mvade other countries to prevent possible migratio fl?ws .. These Issues show how borders and border control ramify in man directions.

I've been increasingly interested in how relations of power an su:veill~c~ that are evident at .th~ border not only thoroughly conditio mIgrants hves once they are WIthm the U.S., but also increasingly try exte~d to and conditio~ t~e lives of relatives and friends. They do this b working through assoclational ties, and trying to codify and criminaliz things like gi~ng a ride in your car, or offering food or water, or othe mundane but Important practices of sociality among humans. Related t th~s, there is also an important scholarship about how the policing o mI~a.nts, both at the border and after entry, authorizes and legitimize r~cIallZed, ge~de~ed, heterosexist and class-specific forms of policing an VIOlence that IS dIrected to subaltern citizens, which need to be of seriou concern.

In all of my work, I:ve tried to extend existing scholarship about thes matters to substantively address sexuality and gender as importan factors.

There's ~uch more to say about borders, but perhaps I'll end by sayin that pohtically, I focus on power and violence at borders and their allie sites. This is. not in~ended to deny the agency and creativity of migrant b~t because It remams urgent that we question the forms of extraordinar VIolence, abuse, and exploitation that continue through and because o border controls, and the ways these get naturalized. Within thi frame~ork~ conce~ns about borders are deeply allied with concerns abou the pnson mdustnal complex, labor struggles, and efforts to conceive an create a transformed world.

de:

Wh.at similarities and/or differences do you see betwee t:an~na~onal ~pace and queer (non-heteronormative) space? Wha zmplzeatlOns mzght these spaces havefor resistance?

Attention to the tr~ns~ation~ has certainly opened up important new forms of conceptuah~ation, epIstemologies, and politics. However, in m wor~, I do not conceIve of the transnational as a space of in-between, no particularly as a space of resistance- which is not to say that canno happen, but that you'd need to persuade me. For me, the transnationa 157

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Luibheid and the national co-produce one another in restless, changing ways, and in ways that reproduce inequalities. So I follow the scholarship that says transnationalism has not eroded or abolished the state or the nation; instead, it has reconfigured them. Indeed, Saskia Sassen argues that in the context of transnationalism, states often use immigration control to renationalize themselves and reconstruct their roles, which is an argument that greatly informs my work. I'm also in sympathy with scholarship like Aihwa Ong's; for instance, in Flexible Citizenship, she argues that transnational ism is not an unstructured flow, but instead involves tension between movement and social ordering that needs to be analyzed. I also find scholarship such as that of Denise Brennan helpful, because she explores how transnational flows are not equally "liberating" for everyone, but instead, offer some subjects opportunities to enhance their possibilities while contributing to the subordination of other, less privileged subjects. In that sense, she argues that transnationalism remakes inequalities, in ways that we need to explore. There's also work that shows how transnationalism offers opportunities for rebuilding hegemonies. In all of these works, nationalisms and nation states are among the forces shaping transnational circuits and possibilities, so I always think about nations and states as integrally connected with transnational ism. There are many other approaches to transnationalism, but these are the ones that I use for my work, which is focused on flows of migrants across borders.

In terms of the exciting scholarship on queer space, I am equally cautious about romantic or celebratory narratives of resistance or liberation.

dC: In your chapter, "Heteronormativity, Responsibility, and NeoLiberal Governance in U.S. Immigration Control," you discuss the neoliberal responsible subject. Has the responsible subject changed since then? Ifso, in what ways?

EL: That chapter was written in 2004 and published 0e follo~ng ye~, in the context of particular debates. As the chapter e~plams, 0e resp~nsible subject" is not one thing, but instead a construct Imbued With relatio~s of power that are constantly shifting. And this is a construct that traIls a pretty heavy history.

Talking about the responsible subject offered me a way to tak~ up a. poi~t that Lisa Duggan made so beautifully, which was that neohberalism IS often thought of primarily as economic, but in fact, it works also 0rough culture, and we need to explore how economic and. cultura.I domams. get linked. She identifies responsibility as one of the hmge pomts that lmks the economic and the cultural under neoliberalism. I wanted to extend that insight to discuss first, how a particular model of heterosexuality was becoming valorized as "responsibility," and second, how tha~ .~as reshaping immigration controls. The connections between responsIbIhty;

On Borders and Biopolitics

racialized, classed, and patriarchal versions of heterosexuality; an shifting strategies of immigration control under neoliberalism, had no been addressed in the scholarship, and I felt that they needed to be. believe that new logics of control were being formed, and new kinds o questions needed to be asked.

However, neoliberalism itself is not a singular project or program; rathe neoliberal projects and programs have been assembled in various ways i different places and moments, and are continually changing. So it important to not reify neoliberalism and its modes of subject productio and governance, which are certainly always changing. Instead, we need t historicize and problematize specific instances, which I did, in terms o immigration controls in the US at a specific moment.

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The Limits of Empathy: An Interview with Marianne Noble Conducted by Rebecca Lane and Jeffrey Zamostny

dC: How does social theory factor into your work? Can you tell us about your history with social theory?

MN: For my first book, I read a lot of poststructuralist theory, such as that of Lacan and Derrida. Lately, I have been reading other kinds of philosophy-Common Sense philosophy, phenomenology-as well as psychology. All of these should also be well-informed by social theory.

Actually, I think that a lot of psychoanalytic work would benefit from more so~ial the?~.

Many psychoanalyti~ cntlcs derive their theory entlrely from Freud and they don't look at cultur~ at all, only to the family situation a child lived through that is now causing him as an adult to behave in whatever way he's behaving. But when I was five years old, I asked my mother, "Mom what do you do for a living?" and she said, "I'm a doctor." I said, "You can't be a doctor: you're a woman; you must be a nurse." This sho.ws that if you just study the famIly, you cannot understand psychology. I was five; my mother was a doctor, and yet I believed that w?men could not be doctors. ObVIously that message did not come from

Marianne Noble is Associate Professor in the Departme~t of Literature at AmerIcan University . She won a Choice Outstanding Book Awardfor her study The Masochistic Pleasures of Sentimental Literature, published by the Princeton University Press in 2000. Her current project is entitled Sympathy and the Quest f?r Genuine Human Contact 10 American Romanticism. She spoke on "The Limits of Empathy and the Promise of Sex in Walt Whitman and Julia Ward Howe" for the 2010 Spring Lectu.re Series of the Committee on SOCIal Theory.

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The Limits of Empathy

my family. Where did that idea come from at that tender age? Well, in th storybooks that we were reading, like Richard Scarry, and on TV, all of th representations of doctors were male.

I use social theory to study the social origins of people's thinking. One o the great things about literature is that it treats the development o characters in a social context. Harriet Beecher Stowe is someone whom I've published on recently, and she says her job as a novelist is to explor the psychology of characters by fleshing out their circumstances fully, with the whole community, the whole religious, historical, and cultura situation. That's why I like literature. When I ask questions like- Why ar people masochists? What causes good people to do evil actions? Or wha causes an evil person to behave charitably?- literature gives answers'that find fuller than those that would be given in a legal or economic answer.

dC: About the relationship between theory and history ... How do you us theory in a way that doesn't obscure the very specific context of history?

MN: I'~ not sure I do. I've been called on the carpet for that. Some peopl have SaId, "How can you call this literature masochistic when the term hadn't been invented yet?" and "How can you apply twentieth-century analyses of masochism to nineteenth-century literature?" Honestly, I'm not sure I entirely understand the question. Just because Foucault says the homosexual wasn't invented until the 1870s, does that mean we can't cal Whitman a homosexual? And, can't we use queer theory to discuss his writing even ifhe explicitly disavowed being a homosexual?

I do realize .that theories can cause people to find what they are looking for. They did that for me. I was deeply steeped in Lacan and I saw glimmers of Lacan allover, and I spent a while trying to make them be what I.thought Lacan said they were. It's the Procrustean bed of theory. In an anCIent Greek myth, Procrustes was an evil person. He had an iron bed When people came to his house, he put them on the bed. If they were too sI?all, he would stretch them until they fit the bed. And if they were too bIg, he would chop off their limbs until they fit the bed. The Procrustean bed of theory is that you stretch what you find to fit your theory, or chop ?ff parts that ~on't. work. We do this all the time. Theory can be an mtellectual straIghtjacket, though a very empowering straightjacket. I helps us see things, but it can distort our interpretations. You need to ask yourself, "Am I. just distorting my evidence to fit my theory?" But on the other hand, WIthout the theory, you might have remained at a more superficial level of thinking. Theory can take you deeper, but you need to be aw~re and skeptical of your insights. I guess the best way to avoid obscunng the context of history is to historicize. Know your period. Try not to make broad statements based upon a single text. Read more and know more. Immerse yourself in your period in a holistic way.

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dC: When historicizing your work, what do you do with the notion of law? How do you understand law from a literary or cultural studies perspective?

of of m re h al re at I

MN: I understand law as the body of rules that govern civil society.

Cultural studies engages with how people actually live. These are not always the same thing. For example, the dominant legal text in antebellum America was Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, written around 1770. It's a compendium of common law in England that served as the cornerstone of American law. One of the laws I have studied in Blackstone is the law of coverture, according to which a woman is legally "covered" by her husband. She is invisible to the law. All kinds of rules come out of this idea, such as that a woman cannot make a will because that would imply she has investments apart from those of her husband.

But an important question is: how does this law make people think? Do women and men understand women as invisible? Does this affect, say, their sex life or their behavior in public? For this question, we can use literary or cultural studies.

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dC: Much of your current work focuses on empathy and what you call genuine human contact, and you will soon be teaching a course entitled "The Limits of Empathy and Contemporary American Fiction." What are, then, the limits of empathy?

MN: Empathy is feeling what another feels . It is a neural, immediate, and automatic response to another person. The limits are that you can think that you understand the other person when you don't. When I was a child, I remember standing on the playground and having other children tease me. They were chanting and making fun of me. It was a very searing experience. But suppose I now hear people subjected to racial or sexual taunting. And suppose I think that I know what they are going t?r?ugh because I was teased on the playground. That is an example of the hmIts of empathy. Suppose I were to say, "You can get over it, buck up. I know exactly what you're going through." In fact, I don't know what they're going through. Their situation is different from mine. And the whole history and culture that comes into calling someone a nigger or a queer are very different from my being teased. I think that empathy is wond~rful.

Empathy is one of the most beautiful things about human nature. But If we don't recognize other people's differences and their unique circumstan~es, we really don't understand them. And then we don't help them. If I beheve that my childhood taunting is the same as racial taunting, then I'm not going to try to pass laws against hate speech. I might just say, "Come ~n, toughen up. All children go through that." Empathy must be. coupled WIth a recognition of difference and a lot of listening to the other m order to be truly sympathetic.

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The Limits of Empathy

de: Since we're talking about your new work on empathy, how do yo see the relationship between this new work and what you have alread written?

MN: Masochism is a quest for contact. One masochist I read said, " you're being hit, you know that you are not alone." Masochists are seekin concrete and tangible signs of another person's presence. Emily Dickinso has a number of poems in which she cherishes scars. One poem say "Each scar I'll keep for him / Instead 111 say of gem." She is saying tha he-whoever he was-scarred her, but she is going to call her scars gem because they are signs that he was there, proof that this guy came. Th lover was there and then he left, and now she is suffering from emptines and sadness. But she appreciates the sign that he was there. It is presen and though he is absent, the pain is present. It is an abiding proof tha there was contact.

The new book is about other kinds of contact, ways that do not involv pain and suffering. I am exploring sympathy as an alternative and les violent, way of making contact. '

de: When you look at genuine human contact, is it between characters or between character and author, or between character and reader What kind of contacts are you looking at?

MN: I'm focusing on how contact is represented between two characters. am interested in the question of author and reader too, and it feels like shame to not write about that. I have a problem as a scholar, which is tha my thinking is too lateral. I need to resist the temptation to add mor examples and instead think more penetratingly.

de: Is that why you incorporated science into your studies abou emotion?

MN: That is a good example of my thought being lateral, actually. Bu havin? heard about the brain science of emotion, I didn't think I could meamngfully t~ about sympathy without thinking about it, because i seems to explam so much to me. I was supposed to be reading phenomenology, but I kept picking up these books on neuroscience. always want to understand why people do what they do, and that is wha neuroscientists are looking at. They tell us that the brain dictates more than we t~ink it does. I love? a book by Christopher Frith called Making Up the Mmd: How Our Bram Creates Our Mental World. And others by Marco lacoboni, and Antonio Damasio and some others. These book explore various ways that the self is not in control of our thoughts. They are shaped or even determined by chemicals and neural wiring. I'm pretty persuaded that a lot of our thinking is made up by our brains. A wonderfu book called The Echo Maker by Richard Powers explores that. Our brains

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Noble are neurologically wired to interpret information and make decisions about what we see, and our brains continually adjust the visual information that we receive to make sense. For example, if we see a big car and a small car, our brains tell us that one is farther away than the other, even if one is really just smaller than the other. It makes these adjustments, and it's very difficult, if not impossible, to overwrite some of that neural scripting.

My first book was about discourse and how desire becomes encoded on the body by discourse. I did not resolve this to my satisfaction in my book, but I'm not sure anybody can resolve it. Maybe discourse analysis can tell us how a woman might come to desire a strong, cruel man, but what creates the spasm in her genitals? How do we go from the discourse that constructs identity to a physical response?

de: Within the field of literature, is it common to refer to science and focus on the body?

MN: It is becoming more common. For example, the most recent edition of the Norton Anthology ofAmerican Literature includes Richard Powers, who writes about cognitive neuroscience. He explores human motivation and behavior from a neurophysiological perspective, as well as from the perspective of other sciences. So judging from the Norton, clearly a lot of people in the field think this is a good trend. I am teaching it and I'm raising these questions. I know we're not in a post-racial society, but I personally am interested in analyzing other aspects of identity in American literature. Identity politics, racial politics, have been extremely important, and I still study and teach them, but I think that the body and the embodied nature of emotion is a great new field.

Errata disClosure 19 (2010): Consuming Cultures

The editors of disClosure 19 would like to extend our sincere apologies t Gretchen Henderson and our readersfor our inadvertent omission of th Works Citedfor her "Consumed with (and by) Collecting: Museology a Narrative Strategy" in last year's issue. The omitted pages are printe below: Works Cited Adorno, Theodor. "Valery Proust Museum." Trans. Samuel and Shierry Weber. Prisms. Boston: MIT P, 1981. Print.

Alexie, Sherman. "On the Amtrak from Boston to New York City."

Poems, Poets, Poetry. Ed. Helen Vendler. Boston: Bedford, 2002.

251-52. Print.

Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. New York: Norton, 2006. Print.

Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Trans. Maria Jolas. Boston: Beacon, 1969. Print.

Bakhtin, Mikhail M. "From The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays."

Theory of the Novel: A Historical Approach. Ed. Michael McKeon Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2000. 321-53. Print.

---. Rabelais and His World. Trans. Helene Iswolsky. Cambridge: MIT P 1968. Print.

Bal, Mieke. "Telling, Showing, Showing off." Critical Inquiry 19 (1992): 556-94. Print.

Barnes, Djuna. Nightwood. New York: New Directions, 1961. Print.

Bataille, Georges. "Museum." Documents 2.5 (1930): 300. Rpt. October 36 (1986): 25. Trans. Annette Michelson. Print.

Bennett, Tony. The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics.

London: Routledge, 1995. Print.

Brown, Bill. A Sense of Things: The Object Matter ofAmerican Literature. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2003. Print.

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to he as ed

.

Busse, Mark. "Museums and the Things in Them Should Be Alive."

International Journal of Cultural Property 15 (2008): 189-200.

Print.

Carbonell, Bettina Messias, ed. Museum Studies: A.nAnthology of Contexts. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004. Pnnt.

Clifford, James. The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1988. Print.

Fischer, Barbara K., ed. Museum Mediations: Reframing Ekphrasis in Contemporary Poetry. New York: Routledge, 2006. Print.

Fisher, Burton D. Liner notes. Cosifan tutte. Miami: Opera Journeys, 2003. CD. Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things : An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Pantheon, 1970. Print.

Genette, Gerard. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Trans. Jane E. Lewin. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1980. Print.

Gentry, Marshall Bruce. "The Eye vs. The Body: Individual ~~ .

Communal Grotesquerie in 'Wise Blood.'" Modern FictIon StudIes 28.3 (1982): 487-93. Print.

n.

Gillespie, William, David Dao, and Jason Rodriguez. "Word Museum."

Iowa Review Web. September 2006. Web. 15 December 2009¡

P,

Hardy, Donald E. Narrating Knowledge in Flann~ry O'Connor's Fiction.

Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 2002. Prmt.

Hauenschild Andrea. Claims and reality of new museology: case studies in Ca~ada, the United States and Mexico. Washington: Center for Museum Studies, 1998. Print.

Hayes, Julie C. "Fictions of Enlightenment: Sontag, Sftski?d, Norfolk, Kurzweil." Bucknell Review 41.2 (1998): 21-36. Pnnt.

Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean. Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge.

London: Routledge, 1992. Print.

Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor Adorno. Dialectic of Enlightenment. New York: Continuum, 1972. Print.

166

HutcheoJ?' L~da. "Historiographic Metafiction." Theory of the Novel: A HzstorzcalApproach. Ed. Michael McKeon. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2000. 830-50. Print.

Karp, Ivan, and Steven D. Lavine. Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Po.litics ofMuseum Display. Washington: Smithsonian Inst., 1991.

Pnnt.

Kirshenblatt-Gi.mblett, Barbara. Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums and Herztage. Berkeley: U of California P, 1998. Print.

Lear, Jonathan. Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2006. Print.

Lidchi, Henrietta. "The Poetics and the Politics of Exhibiting Other Cultures." Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifyi",!g Practices. Ed. Stuart Hall. London: Sage, 1997. 151222. Prmt.

Littlefield, Daniel F., Jr. "Flannery O'Connor's 'Wise Blood': 'Unparalleled Prosperity' and Spiritual Chaos." Mississippi Quarterly 23.2 (1970): 121-33. Print.

Mason, Rhiannon. "Cultural Theory and Museum Studies." A Companion to Museum Studies. Ed. Sharon Macdonald. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. 17-32. Print.

Matz, Jesse. The Modern Novel. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004. Print.

Mirzoeff, Nichol~s, ed. The Visual Culture Reader. London: Routledge, 2002. Pnnt.

Mitchell, W.J.T. "Romanticism and the Life of Things: Fossils Totems and Images." Things. Ed. Bill Brown. Chicago: U of Ch'icago P, ' 2004¡ 227-44. Print.

"Museol?~. " The Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford English

DIctionary. 1989. Web. 15 December 2009.

"Museum." Def. lb. The Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford English Dictionary. 1989. Web. 15 December 2009.

"Museu~i~g." The Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford English

DIctionary. 1989. Web. 15 December 2009.

s,

Negrin, Llewellyn. "On the Museum's Ruins: A Critical Appraisa1."

Theory, Culture & Society 10 (1993): 97-125. Print.

Nicholas, Lynn H. The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War. New York: Knopf, 1994. Print.

---, Richard Berge, and Nicole Newnham. The Rape of Europa. [Venice, CA]: Menemsha Films, 2008. Film.

O'Brien, Tim. In the Lake of the Woods. New York: Penguin, 1995. Print.

O'Connor, Flannery. Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose. New York: Farrar, 1970. Print.

Three by Flannery O'Connor: Wise Blood; The Violent Bear It Away; Everything That Rises Must Converge. New York: Signet, 1983· Print.

d

Pearce, Susan M., Alexandra Bounia, and Paul Martin. The Collector's Voice: Critical Readings in the Practice of Collecting. Burlington: Ashgate, 2000. Print.

n

---. "The Strange Story of the Thing, or The Material World in the Contemporary Novel." Museological Review 12 (2007): 33-40.

Print.

"Possess." Def. la and 2a. The Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford English Dictionary. 1989. Web. 15 December 2009· Price, Sally. Paris Primitive: Jacque Chime's Museum on the Quai Branly.

Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2007. Print.

Schrift, Alan, ed. The Logic of the Gift: Toward an Ethic of Generosity.

New York: Routledge, 1997. Print.

Silverstone, Roger. "Heritage as Media: Some Implications!or Social Research." Heritage Interpretation. Vol. 2. Ed. DaVId L. Uzzell.

London: Belhaven, 1989. 138-48. Print.

Sontag, Susan. The Volcano Lover: A Romance. New York: Anchor, 199 2.

Print.

Spivak, Gayatri Chakrovorty. "A Critique of Postcolonial ~eason." ~e Nor·ton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vmcent B. LeItch.

New York: Norton, 2001. 2197-208. Print.

168

Stewart, Susan. "Notes on Distressed Genres." Crimes of Writing: Problems in the Containment of Representation. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1991. 66-101. Print.

On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir,

the Collection. Durham: Duke UP, 1993. Print.

Truettner, William H. "Museums and Historical Amnesia." Museums and Difference. Ed. Daniel J. Sherman. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2008. 354-74. Print.

Tyler-Bennett, Deborah. "'The Museum of their Encounter': The Collision of Past and Future in the Fiction of Djuna Barnes." Difference in View: Women and Modernism. Ed. Gabriele Griffin. Bristol, PA: Taylor, 1994. 48-55. Print.

Winterson, Jeanette. Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery .

London: Jonathan Cape, 1995. Print.

Witcomb, Andrea. Re-imagining the Museum : Beyond the Mausoleum.

London: Routledge, 2003. Print.

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Volume 2, Spring 2012

d

Callfor Papers:

APOCALYPSE AND THE END TIMES

n According to some readings of the Mayan calendar, the world as we know it will end in 2012. In light of the current climate of economic crisis, ecological disaster, and renewed social divisions, cultural critics such as Slavoj D[ÂŁlk have suggested that we are indeed "living in the end times." The second volume of Nomenclatura: aproximaciones a los estudios hispanicos, an annual online academic journal published by the graduate students of the Department of Hispanic Studies at the University of Kentucky, invites contributors to reflect on apocalypse and the end times as they are presented in literature, film, and a vast array of other cultural forms in the Hispanic world. The journal welcon;tes original submissions using interdisciplinary approaches from sc~olars w~rking on Spain, Latin America, and the Hispanic diaspora from the medieval penod to the present.

Topics may include but are not limited to: Economic and ecological crisis Pre-Columbian myth and belief systems Technology and the end ofliterature?

Post-Humanism and other Post-isms Violence and genocide

{Pseudo)science and science fiction Eschatology and religion Utopia and dystopia Decadence and theftn de siecle The occult and the supernatural

Nomenclatura seeks original manuscripts of 15-30 p~ges in Engli~h or Spanish.

Please submit an electronic copy of the manuscnpt as a MIcrosoft Word attachment to nomenclaturauk@gmail.com by October 15, 2011. The document should be in 12-point, Times New Roman font and double spaced. For other formatting questions, please see our webs~te: h~:j j~owl~dge.uky. edujnaeh. The manuscript should not include Identifying mformatio~. Please submit a separate cover sheet with the title of the article and the author s name, e-mail address, and institutional affiliation.

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