Sexing Political Identities-Nationalism as Heterosexism.pdf

the other hand, I want to distinguish ‘within group’ and ‘between group’
hierarchies analytically in order to clarify how feminism (as a critique of
heterosexism) is differently but signicantly relevant to both. 23
Consider that within heterosexist groups, the dominant empirical register
of hierarchy/oppression is that of sex difference, generalized to gender. Hence,
and conventionally, feminist critique here speaks both to the empirical/
material and symbolic/cultural registers of oppression: to the identities and
practices of those privileged (men, hegemonic masculinity) and subordinated
(women, the feminine) as well as to the ideology that depoliticizes that
oppression.
Between heterosexist groups, the dominant empirical register of hierarchy/
oppression is that of ‘group’ rather than sex difference, in the sense of race/
ethnicity, religious, or class difference as a ‘group’ identication. Feminist
critique here assumes a different relevance. It still speaks to the empirical
register of oppression but in a circumscribed sense: only insofar as women
constitute a proportion of those who are subordinated – and those who are
privileged. But it continues to speak, I believe indispensably (but not exhaustively),
to the symbolic register of conicts between (heterosexist) identity
groups. That is, even though the empirical ‘mark’ of oppression and group
conict is not that of sex difference, the naturalization – read, depoliticization
– of that oppression is inextricable from heterosexist ideology and its
denigration of the feminine. 24 Specically feminist critique is imperative for
deconstructing this – all too effective – naturalization of intergroup conict,
a point which is especially salient to students of IR.
Through conventional – and even many critical – lenses, heterosexism is
not the most visible or apparently salient aspect of political identities and their
potential conicts. I have argued, however, that its foundational binary is
relentlessly productive of hierarchical difference and, especially, the naturalization
of hierarchies through denigration of the feminine/Other. Hence, in the
context of systemic violence (within and between groups), heterosexism
may be the historically constructed ‘difference’ we most need to see – and to
deconstruct.
V. Spike Peterson
University of Arizona
Department of Political Science
315 Social Sciences
Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
Tel: 520-621-7600
Fax: 520-621-5051
E-mail: spikep@u.arizona.edu
56 International Feminist Journal of Politics