Peterson and Parisi
In their work “Are women human?” Peterson and Parisi first define heterosexism in their own way (because it’s true meaning is discrimination or prejudice by heterosexuals against homosexuals, which was incorporated into the piece as well at some point) which is to incorporate heterosexuality into a structured and formalized system, as the only norm for sexuality, and relations socially.
If you take the structure of family, in a patriarchy, it is the woman’s job to rear the children. Women are inherently deemed as the oppressed one to be dominated over by the males. The text discussed a “mother tongue” where through cultural transmissions one learns the world view, symbols, rituals, who is doing what labor, etc, which naturalizes heterosexism. Through this experience is where gender hierarchy is learned. The family is a microcosm of society; it is where social interested is developed, frustrated or thwarted.
In state making, the state circumscribed the female in every aspect in general. Their sexual behavior, their rights reproductively and its promotion was governed. The existing human rights are implicitly men’s rights. Thus, this leaves the woman having to be more like a man if she is to be on the receiving end of these rights. Women are more vulnerable in he private sphere and he states have made sure to kind of stick their hands into that realm as well, through their promotion of heterosexuality.
Women’s experiences and women’s issues are excluded from the law making processes because, within the patriarchy, the laws were made dominated by men. Thus the creation of human rights have been based on the experiences, bodies and perceptions of men. There is an artificial distinction between public-private spheres: home is where the woman dominates and public is where is the males dominate.
Laws have also made women’s honest contribution to society invisible. Women are seen are reproductive instead of productive in the eyes of the law. Women perform two thirds of the worlds labor but only receive the percent of the income to do so. The text expresses that since women’s identities are tied to their socially constructed roles as caregiver, emotional supporter, mother, their value as a earner of wage are not validated in the eyes of he law. Women are so undervalued in the workplace that even if the workplace is deemed unfit to work in for the woman (i.e. sexual harassment), nothing is done about it under the full extent of the law.
