Dakota Bloch
QS/WGSS 462
CR #5
5/3/15
As I was reading The Epistemology
of the Closet I couldn’t help but think about the words ignorance and language.
Sedgqwick talked a lot about the power of ignorance. He says, “inarguably,
there is satisfaction in dwelling on the degree to which the power of our
enemies over us is implicated, not in their common of knowledge, but precisely
in their ignorance”(Sedgqwick, 7). This sentence a long with the previous
paragraphs about language and the example given about M. Mitterrand and Mr.
Reagan trying to communicate in different languages got me thinking about the
United States model of power and how pervasive it is in every system. For
example, the attitudes around immigration and the common saying “you’re in
America, speak English” or Americans traveling abroad assuming/expecting
everyone to speak English and communicate with them. What I’m getting at is in
Western Culture there is only one way of doing things, the dominant way. We
must only speak English because it is what is expected of us. Other countries
must communicate with US Citizens in English because we are the dominant
culture. If we come across someone who does not speak English or English is not
their first language, we marginalize, other, degrade, view them as lesser, and
force them into learning English to survive. I think this model is also used
when it comes to sexuality.
Our expected and “passing” form of
sexuality is one of heterosexuality. If we come across someone who is not or
does not classify as heterosexual we become uncomfortable, we marginalize, we
other, we degrade, we view them as lesser, and we force them into this mold of
heterosexuality to survive. In terms of forcing people into heterosexuality I
am not talking about a single person, I am talking about our society and
institutions. These two things are responsible for the forcing of the mold of
heterosexuality. With the constant barrage of ads featuring male and female
couples, the institutions of family and marriage, not to mention the benefits
of being married, and the actual self protection of people who are heterosexual
based on societally created attitudes to foster hatred and violence against
those who do not identify as heterosexual and dare to show that in public.
Those examples are what I mean when I say we are forcing heterosexuality on
people. This is where ignorance comes in, the ignorance to not acknowledge that
there are other ways of being than the dominant culture. This is also where
power comes in and the want for people to identify themselves so we know the
script in which to interact with each other. It isn’t until we begin to label
experiences, beings, and sexuality that we begin to see the epistemology of the
closet. The closet is the place created in which one can hide (forced/scared)
from the pain of homosexuality and continue to pass as heterosexual or one can
exit out from and into a world of hatred and violence because exiting the
closet means going against the norms of society. By continuing and fostering
ignorant attitudes and behaviors to other forms of sexuality, the closet will
become deeper, darker, and harder to get out of.
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