I. Making the Abstract Normative
We are consistently told that to see is to believe. It is hard to believe that our eyes would lie to us or not be objective. However, we have lived our entire lives behind rose-colored glasses, which make various matrices of domination invisible. We have come to see these matrices of domination as natural, which causes us to become comfortable with certain bodies in certain places. More importantly, this causes us to become uncomfortable with certain bodies in certain places. Thus, we see certain bodies as being inherently able to do and be certain things, while other bodies will always be relegated to lesser positions. If these other bodies ever try to occupy the space of those in power or be like those in power, then we become uncomfortable and try to push them back to where we think they belong.
Nothing inherently has a place, but we assign values to things which give them a place within a hierarchy. Barthes writes about semiology which “‘postulates a relation between two terms, a signifier and the signified’” (Merskin 2014: 433). Essentially, semiology gives us adjectives and feelings to attach to an image, creating a sign. Because these emotional signs are so prevalent in society today, these abstractions become normative. The abstract becomes a projection which makes us think that it is objective, causing us to think that what we see is natural. Thus, anything that falls out of that natural projection is deemed unnatural and not existing in the right place.
II. Seeing Color
A person’s color is one of the biggest identifiers that we use to determine who they are. It makes us think that we know their motives, but most importantly, it gives us an indication of whether they belong in a certain place. Everyone is theoretically aware that racism is illegal, but we are licitly ambivalent—and at times even proponents—of racism. Alsultany defines this as ambivalent racism, writing that “Racism came to be articulated as wrong and indefensible and can also be reasoned as necessary for a short period of time” when we feel we are in danger (Alsultany 2014: 445). This makes us justify many racist acts as being for the greater good. Alsultany writes about ambivalent racism affecting Arab Americans, but the argument is also applicable towards black Americans.
America has a long history of ambivalent racism towards black Americans. Because of our history of slavery and our subsequent labeling of black Americans as being criminals, our abstract view of black Americans has been that they are subservient to white Americans. It is therefore hard for us to imagine them with power or not suspect them of committing crime. It is for this reason that Obama was quoted as saying “we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap” (Obama Race Speech: 2017). Since people are so used to the faces of power being white males, they must reconcile Obama’s power as being reconciliation for past racism. This is ambivalently racist because it assumes that Obama does not have power based on his own merit; instead, it supposes that Obama gained power by accident or at the will of the white man. Regardless, it points to a level of discomfort with Obama for being in a position of power.
We are more comfortable attaching the signified concept of dangerous, foreign or criminal to a black man than we are with attaching the signified concept of powerful or innocent to him. In American discourse, the black man is never a victim and is never worthy enough to be judged based on his merit; he always viewed with rose-colored glasses that would make us question his motives and positioning in the world. This is particularly evident in the case of Rodney King. To many Americans, he could have never been innocent because “According to this racist episteme, he is hit in exchange for the blows he never delivered, but which he is, by virtue of his blackness, always about to deliver” (Butler 1993: 19). Butler writes that “To claim that King’s victimization is manifestly true is to assume that one is presenting the case to a set of subjects who know how to see” (Butler 1993: 17). Because it is so normative to see black as dangerous and only fitting in the context of about to hurt someone, we cannot see a situation for what it really is. Seeing color predisposes us to attaching potential actions to someone.
III. Seeing Gender
One of the other most normative institutions that we use sight for is gender. Like race, gender is imposed upon us from birth is signifies to other who we must be. It is considered fixed and unchanging, and thus should tell us the most relevant information about a person. Lorber explains that “Gender is so pervasive that in our society we assume it is bred into our genes” (Lorber 2014: 113). It is “such a familiar part of daily life that it usually takes a deliberate disruption of our expectations of how women and men are supposed to act to pay attention to how it is produced” (Lorber 2014: 113). Gender has become taken-for-granted. We expect everyone to fall into one of two categories, and we expect these categories to be so well-defined and executed by so many people that one must be considered very different from the norm for us to think about what gender is. Gender has such a wide-reaching net and so many possibilities for performance, but we always expect those performances to neatly fall into one of two categories.
This categorization starts well before birth but becomes most prevalent at birth. Once a baby is born and a doctor assigns a sex for that baby, we automatically assume that that baby will fall into the pre-determined default categories. Griffin articulates this process by saying that “At birth, individuals are typically categorized as male or female based on the appearance of their external genitalia. This binary categorization ignores the spectrum of biological sex characteristics that confound attempts to fit everyone neatly into either male or female categories” (Griffin 2014: 129). We are comfortable with this gender binary and use it to categorize people as male or female, which tells us whether they should perform masculinity or femininity. If we cannot identify people as fitting into one part of the gender binary, we become uncomfortable. Fausto-Sterling explains that this occurs because “What has primacy in everyday life is the gender that is performed, regardless of the flesh’s configuration under the clothes” (Fausto-Sterling 2014: 126). Sex is a signifier for gender, which gives us a sign of what a woman or man should be.
When women or men fall out the pre-determined categories that have been established as being a woman’s or man’s domain, we become uncomfortable. We conclude that they must be the unknown other and ridicule them for not sticking to the so-called natural order. This is particularly noticeable when one looks at society’s perceptions of strong women, such as female soldiers or female athletes. Buttsworth writes that “Constructions of masculinity, which extend the warrior as an ideal to which all men have access through the idea that to be a warrior is ‘natural’” (Buttsworth 2005: 47). To be male is to be a strong warrior, and therefore, “the notion of the ‘female soldier’ [sic] [has always been] considered an oxymoron” (Buttsworth 2005: 47). This extends to the idea of being a strong female. A woman is never simply strong because we operate under the notion that women are not strong. Therefore, when we see a strong woman, we think we are being tricked into thinking that we are seeing a ‘real woman’. Slater sums this up by saying “There has been a long current in modern sport that there must be something wrong with strong women” (Slater 2015). The image of a female is not automatically equated with strength. Strength is a masculine trait, so when we hear of strong females, such as soldiers or athletes, we assume that they must be partially male—that their genetic material is not entirely female.
Female soldiers and athletes cannot be accepted by society since they do not appear to fit the roles of traditionally feminine women. If they are pretty and white, though, society may somewhat accept them. However, there are other groups that make up the rest of the bottom of the gender hierarchy. Jureidini discusses this in terms of race, highlighting how Lebanese madames will enforce the matrix of domination upon Sri Lankan domestic workers. She writes that “‘women, though classed as the embodied Other, may themselves make other women into objects’” (Jureidini & Moukarbel 2006: 586). This othering also occurs with the transgender community on a much broader scale. Regardless of race, the transgender community is always viewed as Other because we are unable to look at them and ever categorize them into a binary gender. They are the most Other—the most unknown, and therefore, the most dangerous. As Baird writes “it is mind-boggling and potentially hugely subversive in terms of the way we think about boys and girls, men and women, and our habit of dividing people into two distinct, gendered groups” (Baird 2014). It is subversive because it makes us hostile towards any group that does not strictly fall into one of two gender groups.
This hostility is particularly evident when one examines the situation of transgendered individuals in Malaysia. In Malaysia, transgendered individuals are referred to as maknyah, which itself is considered a derogatory term (DeAlwis et al 2013: 243). Malaysian society generally refers to them as living in dua alam which means “two worlds” (DeAlwis et al 2013: 246). By referring to them as maknyah and considering them as living in dua alam, Malaysians make it clear that they largely do not accept the transgender community because they are doing two performances at once. The general perception is that a person can only perform one gender, and that the gender that is performed should coincide with the one assigned to an individual at birth. To mix the separate worlds of male and female is to simply be an anathema.
Adversity towards any mixing male and female mixing seems to come from the fear that to do so would upset the world order. Particularly in the field of international relations, men seem to operate on the notion that to let women run the West would cause chaos, and thus, if we are to let any women into international relations, they should only be the select few women who have masculine traits. Fukuyama sums up this fear when he writes “Beating men at their own game: A woman floors her beau, 1910” (Fukuyama 1998: 29). This idea that women entering the male-dominant domain of international relations would destroy it is ridiculous and points to Fukuyama’s desire for masculinity and its traditional domains to remain with men because it is the seemingly natural order. He believes that if women were to step out of their box and try to mix a masculine world with feminine ideas, then we would surely be destroyed by other states that have not upset the gender balance. Tickner states the absurdity of this by writing “The association of women with peace can play into unfortunate gender stereotypes that characterize men as active, women as passive; men as agents, women as victims; men as rational, women as emotional” (Tickner 1998: 4). This path of saying that women and men can only act certain ways is based on abstract ideas of a gender binary, not allowing for any flexibility whatsoever. It keeps damaging gender norms intact and keeps women feeling as though they are “‘a mouse in a man’s world’” (Tickner 1988: 429). This is damaging and will likely to continue us on the path of simply placing people into categories with no basis whatsoever, giving us a very dichotomous view of the world.
IV. Changing Perceptions (Or Sustaining Them)
Our dichotomous view of the world extends from white to nonwhite and from male to female, allowing for little diversity in between. However, we are comfortable wearing rose-colored glasses that make us think we see more. Millet writes that “mainstream America suffers from willful blindness” (Millet 2015). We are blind to the fact that our imaginations stretch only so far as the predetermined picture of nature lets us imagine. It is why the color of power is white and the gender of power is male. Butler says that “Whiteness is not an abstraction; it’s claim to dominance is fortified through daily acts which may not seem racist at all precisely because they are considered ‘normal’” (Yancy & Butler 2015). This normative nature allows us to see and be comfortable with certain bodies in certain places. It feels funny and even dangerous to imagine the world as being run by people that we cannot imagine doing so.
The cookie-cutter imagination we have is fed by the media. Without media we would not have the tools to disseminate traditional views about who people are and what they are capable of. Alsultany writes “Mass media is an essential means through which meaning is produced and exchanged between citizens of a nation” (Alsultany 2014: 459). We may capture the subaltern with discourse, but we end up capturing ourselves by limiting our ability to see. As Tierney puts it, “media reports can affect public perceptions by amplifying and distorting [sic] information” (Tierney et al 2014: 465). Media ensures that we keep our rose-colored glasses on. With the images used in media, the matrix of domination is continuously reinforced to many people.
However, while the media can be an institution of monotony, it can also be an instrument of revolution. If the media controls how we see various groups, then it can sustain the matrix of domination or it can show us different faces of power. Drüeke writes that “The media content provides spaces for identification in which people can position themselves, or let themselves be positioned” (Drüeke et al 2013: 191). Spaces of identification are the subjects by which “The media can be an instrument of change. It can maintain the status quo and reflect the views of the society, or it can hopefully awaken people and change their minds” (Miss Representation 2011). To do this, “we must be mindful of the ideological desires that exist in that ‘murky space between reality and representation, between event and history’” (Woods 2006: 18). Discourse is reflected in the visual representation that we give to a group. By recognizing the impact that discourse has, we can actively work to avoid falling into trappings of discourse and start to represent various groups in new and dynamic ways that would change perceptions of ability.
V. Conclusion
Our perceptions of the world are guided by pervasive discourses. These discourses have given us rose-colored glasses which make us believe that people are imbued with certain characteristics that would make them more suitable for certain positions in the world. By this measure, we also come to believe that certain people are unsuitable for certain positions in the world. Thus, we take abstract ideas of who people are—powerful, dangerous, feminine, or masculine—and assign them to various positions in the matrix of domination. Over time, this appears natural and objective—we become comfortable with our rose-colored glasses. These glasses make us ambivalent to the seemingly natural order.
Assigning arbitrary values to the people we see has left us at the mercy of the matrix of domination. While we continuously disseminate hierarchical views of people, we will only see the color of power as white and gender of power as male. Unless we actively work to show different faces of power, we will continue to live in a world where power is synonymous with only two characteristics, and our rose-colored glasses will remain firmly fixed.
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