The Suppression of Female Sexuality as a Tool for Social Control
Suppressing female sexuality is one of the remarkable interventions in which societies, especially Western culture, can quote. Most women are living and have lived with far much less sexual desire and expression compared to how they would be without suppression. The suppression is visible in many ways, for instance, cultural acceptance of men having several wives and on the other way around while demoralizing prostitution for females. On the other hand, different cultures have utilized surgical means, for example, through female genital mutilation [FGM] to minimize women’s joy and, therefore, the desire for sex. The practices have, as a result, reduced women’s enjoyment for intimate gratification and multiple orgasms. Regardless of who has more passion for sex and sexual expression, women have the power to control society because they give birth and provide pressure to men. Community has, therefore, suppressed female sexuality to control the power which some cultures and men have through reduced population and negotiation strength in families and the workplace.
Society suppresses women’s sexuality to control the population of a particular group and hence retain power and authority. America is a living example of how society has regulated women’s sexuality to reduce specific groups, for example, African Americans from increasing and hence retain society power. In America, there more than twice women of color who are losing their lives, babies, during birth compared to their white counterparts (Vyas et al. 201). Most of the claims that come from medics are that African Americans are at higher risk of getting birth complications than white females. However, inequality in healthcare and the provision of autonomy is one of the noted reasons for the discrepancy in deaths and other complications during childbirth. One such inequality is in choice of vaginal birth versus cesarean, where more black women face cesarean compared to white women (Vyas et al. 201). Another inequity is the denial of traditional midwife and midwifery practices to African Americans, which they believe offers the best maternal care (Ehrenreich & Deirdre 10). The results of such inequalities are more deaths for African Americans infants, infections, and complications, which makes the mothers unable to deliver again. The experience also impacts fear among African Americans to reduce their desire to have children. In general, Americans are achieving social control, especially in regulating African Americans’ population by suppressing women’s choice and ability of childbearing.
Birth injustices, sexual surgeries, for example, in FGM and sexual morality that discriminates women are, on the other hand, strategies that the society has used to put men under family control. According to the male control theory, men suppress women’s sexuality to achieve political objectives, especially to improve paternity (Rolón 5). Various practices, such as sexual surgeries, reduce women’s desire for sex so that they can have less attraction for other men, and keep one husband. Having more than one man is illegal, a practice that makes men capable of controlling their families. Through the strategies, the society has been able to elevate men as superior to women to have more control even in their families.
Western cultures have also employed the concept of suppressing female sexuality to develop a distinction between levels of human being and humanity for labor and sexual pressure. The idea of slavery and the use of African Americans’ women as tools to satisfy sexual desires for white men started with suppression of female psychological and physiological expressions. Before the Europeans arrived in America, there existed no racial classification and, therefore, no slavery due to similar superiority levels. However, slavery and the use of women as sexual tools started with the argument that women of African descent were not beautiful and respectable as wives compared to their White counterparts. The claim was not factual because of the statements which some of the Europeans made clamming that African American women were beautiful. Morgan quotes one of the European statements describing an African American woman “Her stature large, and excellently shap’d, well favour’d, full eye’d, and admirably grac’d…” (13). However, Europeans were looking for ways to disrupt African American families so that they could use their women as sex objects. On the other hand, African American women sort white men to get the approval of a practice that continues today.
The idea of labeling African Americans’ women as unrespectable and ugly has succeeded in controlling African Americans enabling the White to use them as slaves and sex objects. Labeling of women as ugly and unrespectable enables the whites to achieve success in their plantations and even in today’s work environments as the women seek approval (Morgan 14). The nature of women is in a way that they seek to get the approval of their beauty, which is one of their sexuality. Europeans took advantage of the beauty female sexuality to control who is beautiful and who is not among African Americans women and hence, command hard working in the fields without questioning work conditions. According to the National Partnership for Women and Families [NPWF], African Americans’ women have a considerable wage gap compared to white men and women, and they still seek employment without questioning the order (2). Such a vast difference has become a norm due to their labeling as ugly and incompetent to handle mental work. The consequences of low pay for African American women are more social control by the Whites to continue providing cheap labor as they maintain poverty. Therefore, Americans have used female sexual suppression to control African American women’s negotiating power in employment to make more gains through low payment and other harsh working conditions.
Another evidence of female sexuality’s use to manage the society is in control of all women’s power regardless of race in the workplace. According to the Pew Research Center, there are more men in leadership positions compared to women (3). The debate on why there are few women and men in leadership has always revolved around belief in the idea that women are weak in management. However, respondents in the research by the Pew Research Center shows that no gender is better than the other in leadership (4). Men have historically popularized the idea that the female gender is weak in issues related to management. The society has suppressed women’s ability to work like men by arguing natural disability to what men can do. An old saying, “what men can do, women can do better,” best shows that that the idea of the natural inability of women to lead and in other activities is a suppression strategy as opposed to reality. Women have proved successful in different leadership positions, even outdoing men. The suppression of females as a low productive gender has enabled men to lower wages and promote women in the workplace. Today, low wages and job positions among women are a social norm, and any person, even women who oppose the order, appears to be out of context. Society has, therefore, suppressed female abilities to allow men to control women’s income and power in the job market.
Men have also used female sexuality suppression to block women from professional control so that they can perpetuate their illegal practices. Ehrenreich and Deirdre demonstrate a case where male physicians restricted women from engaging in medical practices by suppressing their female sexuality to maintain their incompetence (15). The male physicians labeled women incompetent while that was not the case since one of them proved better after getting a chance. Female midwives have even received labels of incompletes to pave the way for men to infringe women autonomy in choosing issues means of giving birth and related healthcare choices (Ehrenreich & Deirdre demonstrates 13). Men use the labels of women as incompetent in specific fields to kick them out of the profession and level or the employment and decision-making opportunities to them for benefits such as income.
In conclusion, female sexuality has been a tool through which men and the whole society controls who is in authority and benefits in the workplace and families. The concept is evident in the slavery where Europeans’ labeling of African Americans’ women as ugly led them to control how and where they should work. On the other hand, Americans have labeled females as weak and men’s sexual objects to control their ascendance to power and accumulation of wealth. By suppressing female sexuality, society has managed to put men under the control of families, workplaces, and nations with women serving as subordinates.
Ehrenreich, Barbara, and Deirdre English. Witches, midwives, & nurses: A history of women healers. The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2010.
Morgan, Jennifer L. Laboring women: Reproduction and gender in New World slavery. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.
Pew Research Center. 2018 Women and Leadership 2018
Apart from African Americans women, the
Rolón, Vania. Does female promiscuity increase religious beliefs? testing the male control theory versus the female control theory. Diss. 2017.
National Partnership for Women and Families [NPWF], Black Women and the Wage Gap 2020 https://www.nationalpartnership.org/our-work/resources/economic-justice/fair-pay/african-american-women-wage-gap.pdf
Works Cited
Vyas, Darshali A., et al. “Challenging the Use of Race in the Vaginal Birth after Cesarean Section Calculator.” Women’s Health Issues 29.3 (2019): 201-204.