I am astonished at the retro-gender politics displayed in commentaries over the Sanford affair. More than once, I've exclaimed to myself, "Good grief, has nothing changed at all in the last fifty years"? Here are the most egregious backlash narratives:
- Because of their biology, men can't control their lust and are driven by their penises; that's why philandering male politicians do this far more than female politicians (read "scary old ladies like my mum").
- The sanctity of marriage must be protected. It naturally exists to keep lust-driven men in check and to "protect" the children from pain and knowledge of inevitable impermanence.
- Jenny is the pure Madonna; Maria the "hot sauce" whore. (Let's add racism and ethnocentrism here as well.) These women must be in a perpetual state of competition over the over-valued man.
- Maria's looks (whatever they might be) must have been the driving force behind the affair because men are biologically driven to favor youthful looks over brains and power. Despite the alleged sociobiology, this argument is accompanied by a completely narrow, culturally derived view of beauty as youthful, "athletic" and "big breasted."
Anyone who may be persuaded by these narratives needs to return to Feminism 101 for a refresher on biological determinism, critiques of marriage and the nuclear family, a deconstruction of the outmoded cliches of the Madonna/Whore stereotypes, and an analysis of "romantic love" as a social construct that, as Shulamith Firestone once said, is "complicated, corrupted or obstructed by an unequal balance of power."
In a recent review of books about scandal in Harper's (March 2009), Laura Kipnis writes that scandals serve to confirm our ideas of social normalcy and that "no wonder we rule-besieged citizens have such insatiable appetites for these convoluted little tales."
Whatever delight I may take in watching a Southern Republican governor caught in his own snare of cheating and hypocrisy, I certainly can't see confirming the social normalcy of oppressive 1950's-style gender stereotypes or lauding heteronormative traditional marriage as very sound tactics. Indeed, we should expose these arguments and argue in favor of equality, openness, and love without secrecy and oppression.