While I've been hesitant to join in some of the more heated conversations about these topics of late, I have read with interest a few diaries and comment threads related to them. Forgive me for overgeneralizing, but I've found a common, even if minority, opinion among the left that identity politics are somehow secondary to the real issues that Americans face, and that identity politics somehow distracts us from that.
From where I stand this should be obviously and blatantly false, but I suppose I forget that if one is a member of the default American brand, it would be easy (although incredibly lazy) to view it through that prism. The fact is that identity politics and income inequality are, and always have been, inextricably linked.
Let's do the jump and discuss this topic with some clarity.
First, let's get all of my "othernesses" out of the way. I'm a woman, I'm gay, I'm an atheist, I spent most of my life in poverty, I'm a high school dropout, and I belong to a non-traditional family; i.e. I'm an aunt who has always been more of a mother. I had to step in to help fill that role.
Each of these issues taken individually places me in a minority category- even that of being a woman, where I am a member of half the freakin' world! Yet as it relates to American politics, I am a minority for simply being a woman.
For the purposes of this discussion I am not going to address every single facet of my "otherness," but I am going to discuss the two that seem to dominate conversations about identity politics: that of being a woman and that of being gay.
Women's issues seem to get boiled down and oversimplified to such a degree that even those on the left- those who should be allies- tend to view those issues as one or two singular issues: abortion and the wage gap. The fact is that women's issues go far beyond that and, again, they are and always have been inextricably linked to income inequality. The wage gap alone should be self-evident. Yet somehow, it isn't. (I'm not going to go into depth on this point because, really, it is self-evident and anyone who would argue counter to that is not someone that I'm willing to engage with any further.)
But let's look at the issue of choice. This, to me, should also be self-evident, yet it clearly isn't for far too many.
The thing is, when a woman does not have full autonomy over her body, she loses a great deal of her own economic security. And it's NOT just about abortion. It really is about simple autonomy.
I'll offer myself up here as an example: I have what I refer to as "angry lady parts." Not that the lady parts make me angry, but the lady parts themselves are angry. Simply put: my reproductive system has been a disaster since it started doing what it's supposed to do.
In my early twenties there was talk about a hysterectomy and I was 110% on board. The problem? No doctor would perform one for me because I hadn't yet had children. I have never wanted children but the doctors couldn't trust me on that. What if I met a man who did? I don't want to be with a man so that's not an issue.
Well, you silly little young thing, you just can't be sure about that!
And that really should have been the worst of it but it wasn't, because instead of progressing in this area we've actually gone backwards.
Because my lady parts haven't gotten any less angry as I've gotten older. In fact, if anything, they've gotten worse. BUT! One of the simple and most effective ways of getting my body to stop bleeding for weeks on end has always been to take The Pill for a few months. I'm not in love with this method because while The Pill is relatively safe, I'm quite sensitive to nearly every form of medication and if there's a side effect to be had, I'm probably going to have it.
Still, it is what has to suffice until I'm actually taken seriously about my lack of desire to have biological children.
It's cheap, it's easy, and it makes me stop bleeding. That's really all I want out of the deal and that should be the end of that.
But now we've regressed so far that even friggin' birth control is now controversial in ways it wasn't even ten years ago. My employer has the right to decide whether I have it or not? Are you fucking kidding me?
Now, I know men don't like to hear about stuff like this, but seriously, just listen: imagine you bled from your butthole once a month. It's not fun but it's manageable because there are pretty decent products out there to deal with the mess and even though it seems like a lot of blood, it really isn't.
You could handle that for a few days a month. But now imagine that your butthole just starts bleeding massive amounts of blood, to the point where you've become anemic and can barely get out of bed. There's a surgery that can fix this permanently, but no doctor will perform it because what if your wife or future wife would rather you wait until it's more convenient for her? She might not even be real at this point; she may never materialize! But just in case you meet the right woman someday in the future and her one condition for marriage is that you have an undisturbed butthole, no doctor will do surgery.
Okay, fine. It's frustrating but you'll deal with it because there's a pill you can tak- oh. Damn. That's right. This pill has to be approved by your employer. Your employer who, by the way, is getting really tired of your lethargy and illness and just needs an excuse to fire you. Yeah, that guy will determine whether you can take this pill or not.
Now, can you say with a straight face that none of this would impact your economic security? Now is this a "side issue" that detracts from the "real" problem of income inequality?
It's not just about abortion and it never has been.
(Fun fact: even if I had been born heterosexual, I am essentially sterile and if I did accidentally get pregnant it would be a high-risk pregnancy, which makes the denial of services even more ironic.)
Then there are gay rights, which have also been classified by some on the left as side issues unrelated to income inequality.
And once again, I offer myself up as an example.
Now, don't get me wrong, the day I married my wife was the happiest fucking day of my life, ever, hands down. But we didn't get married for romantic reasons. We're just not really romantic people.
We got married for practical purposes, nearly all of which had to do with economics.
I've always been the breadwinner in the relationship. I'm okay with that, and I actually take a lot of pride in being able to provide for my family. But for the first few years of our relationship she was uninsured and there was essentially nothing I could do about it. This placed a huge strain on us financially for what should be obvious reasons. She needs medications and regular doctor visits.
So right out of the gate we were taking a financial hit. And then tax season would roll around and she'd get a negligible return and I'd end up owing something equally negligible. But every year I couldn't stop myself: Id' do a mock up of what our tax situation would look like if we were married, and the results were staggering.
But taxes are the least of it. Once we were married I could put her on my insurance which saved us hundreds of dollars a month. I could make her the sole beneficiary of my life insurance and retirement plans. Before we were married, I split that between her and my brother. My brother would get a tax free portion to pay for my final expenses, then hand the rest over to her. She'd get the taxed part to get her by until she was able to get on her feet.
Even that is insignificant, because I'm legally married now but I am still a second class citizen. I can be legally discriminated against in housing and employment, among other things. I mean, I was legally married when I was forced out of my last job by my homophobic boss. I had no legal recourse for that, marriage license or not.
This is a struggle I'll continue to face even when it becomes illegal to discriminate against LGBT people. It's illegal to discriminate against black people but it still happens on the daily.
And that brings me to my last point:
In the wake of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, ad infinitum, I've been saying the same thing: I don't think white people are going to start to care until it starts happening to them.
And I see that a lot in the current discussions of income inequality as discussed by straight white dudes. It's kind of scary: for everyone who rode the supposed wave of the last economic boom, there were thousands of us, unseen, who were stuck under the thumb of a biased economy. No one cared until it started happening to default Americans.
Yet those default Americans are now so worried about the economy that they think everyone else's burden is a side issue, a distraction, telling those of us who've been under the thumb of the economic facade that our issues just aren't all that important.
With the situation in Baltimore we saw people who were more upset about a CVS being burned down than they were about a man having his fucking spine severed. Property is more important than the person, and people wonder why the people are rioting?
Seriously, think about that for a minute.
Now ask yourself if you really care about economic fairness, or if you care about something much more primitive.