voting with your genitals: part 2

Earlier I discussed gender bias in voting. Yes, it exists, but there’s a latent hypocrisy in the assumption that this is some exclusively female problem, given that for centuries men were so gender biased as to exclude women from the public sphere entirely.

This brings me to my next topic: that hegemonic male gender bias may be less obvious to some because masculine identity is so often elided with human identity. The idea of “man” is connected with the supposedly-gender-neutral-universal MAN, as in mankind. In the public space, “men” are able to present themselves as representative of “man” – some pure and complete entity, uncomplicated by sex. Simone de Beauvois writes in The Second Sex: “A man never begins by presenting himself as an individual of a certain sex; it goes without saying that he is a man” and: “Man is defined as a human being and woman as a female – whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.” She points to Julien Benda’s statement: “the body of a man makes sense in itself quite apart from that of woman, whereas the latter seems wanting in significance by itself.  Man can think of himself without woman. She cannot think of herself without man.”

The phallogocentric privilege, then, allows males to shift freely between a specifically masculine claim to power (physical force, the theorized generative power, the power to dictate meaning) and the masculine option of sexual neutrality. The ubiquitous professional suit-and-tie of the man conveys this message: sexual power, but sexual neutrality.

This is borne out in the politics of fashion, in which the reproductive elements of female physique are emphasized either by covering or uncovering. Biology does have a say here, also, because when it comes to maternity versus paternity, motherhood is always rendered physically obvious, from the visible rounded belly of pregnancy to the verifiable exit the child makes from its mother’s body. Paternity remains hidden. This is why “morality clauses” unfairly target women, since an unmarried pregnant woman becomes a visible sign of sexual impurity who must be thrust out of the “pure” Christian community (at which point it ceases to be a Christian community), while men can transgress in relative invisibility.

In American politics at the moment, at least in the Republican field, the emphasis is clearly on sexual power. While Bernie Sanders and John Kasich make decent and responsible use of their male privilege of sexual neutrality, the same can not be said for the three brightest stars of the GOP line-up. In a way, it’s hilarious that women voters would be accused of voting with their vaginas, given that the Republican debate has degenerated into a shouting match over who has the biggest penis (metaphorically usually, but sometimes even literally).

The reason frequently given for Trump’s ascendancy is that our nation wants a “strong leader” (Trump strikes me as fairly weak, actually, but that’s because I have agrarian, not military or corporate ideas of what strength entails). And “strong leader” of course means “strong male leader.” So now the Republican hopefuls compete to prove which one of them will be the strongest man, with the most impressive invasive and explosive powers.

Let’s pause a minute. Is this a morally acceptable idea of strength? As Christians, haven’t we rejected the idols of worldly force and violence? Is it politically irrelevant that God came among us poor, seeking no political office, employing no military might, and allowed himself to be executed shamefully on a cross? What happened to bringing our values into the public sphere?

(Next up: masculinity and militarism)