TABLE OF CONTENTS Letter From The Editor AUTHOR The Current State of Conflict Raghav Sinha Queer Americans and Unions Shanan Riley America's Colony: Puerto Rico and the Nationalist Party Franklin Rangel LGBTQ Experiences in World War II Sofia Zasiebida Ayn Rand's Selfless Woman Anyomous Frued's Influence on Gay Conversion Therapy Aubrey Hall 1 2 4 9 14 19 21
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Welcome to the second published issue of Zeitgeist. Since our last issue the editorial team has been hard at work collecting pieces from across campus. We're excited to present our second issue's theme: Identity. While reading, we encourage you to take the time to examine how identity is irremovable from history. Every person can be sorted into different identity groups: race, gender, sexual orientation, political ideology, age, economic class, religion, geographic location, ethnicity, the list is endless. Many of these essays aim to share the voices of minority groups throughout history. For instance, you'll find articles that examine Queer history in WW2, and share the perspective of Puerto Rican citizens in the twentieth century. JSA is committed to engaging students of all political identities in respectful and purposeful ways. Zeitgeist is a physical representation of this mission. You'll notice student authors of all identities writing about historical and political topics that they care about. Zeitgeist articles are student's attempts to understand the world around us. Please take the time to read and learn about people, places, and events you might not have known about before. Enjoy! Sofia Zasiebida
THE CURRENT STATE OF CONFLICT economy. As people were forced into poverty, they felt betrayed by other countries. This created a mix of hyper-nationalists and hyper-aggression which took part in creating the Nazi Party. Another example of this is the Boston Tea Party, which occurred directly after the Tea Act came into effect, giving colonists less freedom of trade. This factor is known as a perceived social injustice, and it is required in conflict. We, the people of the US, haven’t completely stopped committing violent acts, but we haven’t been creating revolutions either. Instead, violence has been replaced by mass protests and activism, PAGE 2 VOL. 2, NO. 1 ZEITGEIST BY RAGHAV SINHA Conflict shapes the world around us. Without them, we wouldn’t have the same countries we do now, the same technology, or be governed by the same set of rules. Each of these aspects of life was forged by war and unrest. What makes us fight? Why have we stopped fighting? Throughout history, conflict has been prevalent due to the creation and rise of aggression within society; yet aggression has been extinguished by the media and government during the Present Age. Aggression stems from misfortune. For example, the rise of foreign aggression occurred in Germany after the Treaty of Versailles plummeted the German Conflict occurs often throughout history. Soldiers fighting from a trench by Piotrus
where violence can still occur (though it wouldn’t be as widespread). For example, riots during the BLM protests and the January 6th riot caused lots of property damage and injuries. But, public outrage has still declined throughout the modern era due to the dissipation of violence. However, not much change occurred after these protests. I believe the reason for this is the speed at which media, corporations, and the government act to prevent further damage from occurring. This is not to say we are controlled by these groups, they simply play a large role, when working as a group, in quelling mass hysteria. For example, in January 2021, a group of Redditors decided to mass purchase GameStop stock and agreed not to sell it. The goal of this was to increase the stock price to cause a financial crisis for those in hedge funds and short sellers. The problem arose when a variety of brokerage companies changed their software to prevent investors from purchasing the stock. This led to a variety of class-action lawsuits that were unsuccessful due to the terms and conditions of Robinhood. Rather than further publicizing the issue and taking legislative action, the issue was forgotten and the media decided to publicize other stories. The government remained inactive on the issue, with empty promises to those affected. This concept was first brought to attention by Soren Kierkegaard, who wrote The Present Age: On the Death of the Rebellion, a political philosophy book that described how in the future, the media, government, and large companies would quell rebellions. This book was published in 1846, yet it still relates to current events. We used to fight wars for change, yet it seems as if we have come to terms with serious attacks on our democracy. Regardless of the context, each person deserves the right to make their own decisions. No company, media outlet, or government organization should have the ability to overwrite our inalienable rights. I fear an age where protests and outrage never occur as we are silenced before we can respond. PAGE 3 VOL. 2, NO. 1 ZEITGEIST The January 6th Capitol Insurrection A peaceful protest
Queer Americans and Unions: Redefining Equality at Work By Shanan Riley
BY SHANAN RILEY Throughout the twentieth century and continuing into the modern era, labor unions in the United States have advocated for members’ rights within and outside of the workplace. Labor unions are uniquely positioned to further advocate for the rights of marginalized people because they exist as regulatory bodies outside of governmental structures and derive their power from their membership. Looking specifically at equality for LGBTQ+ employees, labor unions have consistently been ahead of the rest of America. As early as the 1930s, unions with substantial queer membership were strong advocates for fair and equal treatment within the workplace. ‘Queer work,’ or jobs that are held primarily by queer individuals, provide unique avenues for advocacy, as the majority interests within the union are the minority interests outside of it. In other unions, smaller coalitions of queer workers pushed the policies and politics further to the left, eventually having national impact. The queer communities within labor unions propelled a new idea of equality at work that shaped the labor movement throughout the twentieth century. Historically, unions have not always worked to foster inclusive environments but have remained ahead of the curve in terms of recognizing and advocating for the rights of marginalized people. Unions are designed to represent the collective ideas of the membership, and in industries where the membership is largely heterosexual white men, diversity frequently falls to the far edges of their political agendas (1). Internal politics of unions also deeply impact the acceptance or rejection of diverse leadership and membership. Exclusion can be used PAGE 5 VOL. 2, NO. 1 ZEITGEIST as a tool to limit the supply of labor and increase the bargaining power of an organization. Fear of lower wages or strong prejudices can lead to large-scale attempts to exclude certain groups from the workforce (1). On the other hand, diversity can also be an asset for unions. The power of a union comes from collectivism, and building a large tent of support can increase the negotiation power of the union(1). Across America, people of color, specifically Black men, make up a greater percentage of union membership than white men. Of the Black working population, twenty percent are union members compared to just fifteen percent of white men(1). Beyond having racially diverse membership, the Council for Industrial Relations, a national governing body for unions, distributed anti-discrimination propaganda as early as the 1950s, and the President of the American Federation of Labor-Council for Industrial Relations delivered a speech in 1951 affirming that, “Our fundamental aim is inclusion, rather than exclusion… The labor movement has done more than any other organization or group to advance the cause of interracial justice, and of economic and social democracy”(2). Additionally, unions backed the feminist movement of the 1970s, distributing propaganda displaying the message “A woman's place is in her union”(3). Although labor unions have a complex history with diverse membership, they have consistently supported social movements fighting for equality. In relation to the queer liberation movement, unions representing members in traditionally queer jobs were uniquely positioned to successfully advocate for radical inclusion as early as the 1930s. The Marine Cooks and Stewards Union, established in 1901, had substantial queer membership(4). The reasoning for this is twofold: first, the union was one of very few places that would hire queer men discharged from the military during WWI for being
PAGE 6 VOL. 2, NO. 1 ZEITGEIST gay, and secondly, the reputation as a ‘safe space’ for gay men led to many workers joining (4). The power of the queer workers within the union can best be demonstrated through a slogan they adopted in the late 1930s, “It is anti-union to race-bait, red-bait, and queen-bait”(4). By centering queer people, they were better positioned to advocate for their own rights and the rights of their fellow workers. Tying the struggles faced by queer and non-white workers to the union cause promoted a culture of respect and acceptance far beyond what existed outside of the union. As one heterosexual sailor put it, “The most important thing was not that we had gays. It was that an injury to one was an injury to all — and we practiced it” (4). Similarly, at Barney’s, which was described as the ‘gayest workplace ever’, union members leveraged their queerness in their advocacy for more fair treatment(5). In 1996 when Barney’s filed for bankruptcy, the workers began advocating for a Successor Clause to be added to their contracts that were set to expire within months. This clause would guarantee that any new ownership of Barney’s would be required to retain all of the union contracts and maintain the benefits that had already been negotiated. Progress on this front was slow, as the workers staged subtle protests inside of the store, and eventually, the contracts expired without the clause. On April 6th, the day Barney’s was set to open for the season, the workers staged a union-themed drag show on the street outside(5). The show attracted enough attention to sway management, and the contracts were closed shortly after(6) By being out, loud, and proud, the workers at Barney’s were able to gain public favor at a time when support for the queer community was not strong. Coming together and leveraging identity has proven to be one of the most effective strategies for the advancement of both union and queer rights. In cases where the majority of union membership was not queer, small coalitions were still able to dramatically change policy. In 1970, the American Federation of Teachers became the first union to openly voice its opposition to discrimination against LGBTQ+ workers. In a statement released after the national conference in 1969, they report: WHEREAS, professional people insist that they be judged on the basis of professional and not personal criteria; and WHEREAS, it is the responsibility of trade unions to provide job protection from all forms of discrimination that are not based on performance such as race, color, sex, religion, age, or ethnic origin: RESOLVED, that the American Federation of Teachers protests any personnel actions taken against any teacher merely because he or she practices homosexual behavior in private life. (Executive Council) (7) This resolution was adopted only because of the enormous effort made by a small number of queer workers in attendance at the conference. James Mitchell, a representative of liberal local 280 attended the conference in western-themed drag and introduced a resolution on gay rights (8). The resolution was initially killed in the Human Rights Committee but was later read by the Executive Council. At the conference, no vote was taken on gay Union nurses represented at New York City's LGBTQ pride parade in 2018. Photo: NYSNA
on AFL-CIO policies. One of the strongest advocates for the gay rights resolution in the AFSCME, William Lucy, was the co-founder of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists. Lucy leveraged his platform to speak before the AFL-CIO Building Trades and the Industrial Union departments. His impassioned defense on the grounds of shared interests between the two movements won the support of the departments (9). In 1983, the AFL-CIO adopted a gay civil rights resolution. The adoption of these resolutions demonstrates the sort of ripple effect that small coalitions had on the national union agenda. Steadily, they pushed the union to support gay rights building this national stance on the rights of gay workers. Additionally, at the same convention, the AFL-CIO released another resolution urging the federal government to fund AIDS research and develop systems to protect people from workplace exposure to AIDS, a cause central to the queer rights movement of the time. The resolution says, “To respond to the growing concern about AIDS and AIDS-related problems in the workplace, the Centers for Disease Control ... must develop and issue guidelines to protect all workers who may face occupational exposure to AIDS” (10). In a political climate as conservative as that of the 1980s under Reagan, this was an extremely bold move. Again, the strong support of unions up and down the ladder stems from the work of small organized coalitions of gay union members. The labor movement as a whole began to notice the strategic importance of queer workers after their support helped to turn the tide in a boycott. The first major inroad between queer activists and the labor movement came in 1974 during the Coors beer boycott (11). Teamsters unions in the San Francisco Bay area were attempting to win exclusive union contracts with several companies, including Coors. When faced with extreme resistance, the Teamsters PAGE 7 VOL. 2, NO. 1 ZEITGEIST rights, but several months later AFT released the statement. Although it was substantially less radical than Mitchell’s initial draft, the adoption of a pro-gay stance in the 70’s by a national organization was revolutionary (8). Mitchell was not the only queer teacher advocating for change in the union. In New York City, the Gay Teachers Alliance worked within the local union to create change, and in San Francisco, the Gay Teachers Coalition did the same(8). Inspired by the work of Mitchell and the other teacher's unions, members of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Workers also began advocating for gay rights. Tom Stabnicki and Barry Friedman were local union leaders in Chicago and an out-gay couple. At the national conference in 1981, they dressed in drag and held caucuses for queer members. By the next conference in 1982, they had built a strong group of activists, including Bailey T. Walker Jr., an organizer. Together, they introduced a resolution at the conference. Walker described the experience, “They were steeling themselves for what they thought was going to be a horrible battle… He said, ‘These are members of the union, working men and women,’ and emphasized that the resolution square with the union’s tradition of civil rights, [Dr.] King and Memphis, and the women’s movement. Not another negative thing was said” (8). Although the group supporting this resolution was small, they were able to pass it with minimal resistance. This can partly be attributed to the support of the Black Caucus, who wore pins at the convention saying “Another AFSCME Member for Gay Rights” (8). The collective nature of their efforts is the foundation of unions and was successfully utilized to allow a small group to make a large impact. The advances in queer protections made in individual unions and locals had a dramatic impact
constituency group within the AFL-CIO. The organization now works to advocate for the rights of queer workers from the top down, creating a space for workers to be represented both as union members and as queer people. The advancement of queer rights within the labor movement was carried on the backs of queer workers fighting to improve their conditions both at work and at home. The labor movement consistently remained ahead of the nation in terms of recognizing and protecting the rights of queer workers. For many to this day, a union is the only form of workplace protection they have, which is why the victories won by persistent activists are so important. PAGE 8 VOL. 2, NO. 1 ZEITGEIST turned to a variety of minority community leaders, including Huey Newton of the Black Panther Party and Harvey Milk, a gay community organizer (12). These communities, inspired both by the desire to support fellow working-class people and by the discriminatory hiring practices within Coors, took up the boycott. Milk was able to convince the Tavern Guild, an association of more than one hundred gay bars, to participate in the boycott based on the discriminatory hiring practices enforced by Coors and the rumors that they specifically sought out gay men to fire. Still to this day, Coors beer is not sold in a single gay bar in San Francisco (12). The shared interest of the queer community and the teamsters lead to an extremely successful boycott. Although this boycott did not produce any major culture shifts within the Teamsters union or the broader labor movement, it did provide an inroad to work supported by mutual interests, which was increasingly important in the following years. The efforts of these small coalitions and strategic moves culminated with the creation and acceptance of Pride at Work representing the influence that queer people had on the labor movement. The organization was created by queer labor activists in 1994 as a way to lobby the union to continue their support of gay rights after the relative silence on the Defence of Marriage Act (13). PAW’s affiliation with the AFL-CIO was not easily won. In spite of the historic support, members of the executive council argued that the group did not represent a population that was historically discriminated against in the collective bargaining process(14). These complaints are representative of much of the pushback that activists throughout the twentieth century faced. However, a strong ally, John Sweney, was the president of the CIO at the time and pushed hard for their affiliation. Eventually, in 1997, Pride at Work was recognized as an official UFCW members at LA Pride in 2019. Courtesy of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770
AMERICA'S COLONY: PUERTO RICO AND THE NATIONALIST PARTY
BY FRANKLIN RANGEL The people of Puerto Rico have never had the chance to fully self-govern. Although the relationship between Puerto Rico and the US has changed over the 120+ years since the Spanish crown ruled, one thing has remained consistent: the US has never let its territory free from its domain. The island is considered to be a commonwealth, the mainland government recognizes that Puerto Rico is still ruled like an unincorporated territory (1). Puerto Ricans still cannot vote in presidential elections, negotiate trade deals, or maintain their citizenship. And there are scant options for the people. Puerto Ricans virtually no longer have the option to fight for freedom from the US. The persecution of the Nationalist movement by the US and the Governor’s office in the twentieth century has led to the independence movement in Puerto Rico becoming irrelevant, resulting in most of the island voting for statehood. Although the Nationalist Party in Puerto Rico was founded in 1922, the real first impact made by the group came at the hands of an agricultural strike, inspiring acts of violence committed by the authorities. In January 1934, workers at the United Porto Rico Sugar Company revolted and went on strike for better pay. Pedro Albizu Campos, the president of the Nationalist Party, spoke to the striking workers, and then represented them in court, eventually leading to the workers doubling their wages (2). The response by the government, however, was ferocious. “The FBI initiated round-theclock surveillance of the Nationalist leadership. An additional 115 Insular Police were armed with carbines, submachine guns, and grenades (3). Police PAGE 10 VOL. 2, NO. 1 ZEITGEIST killed four Nationalists in Río Piedras and executed two others in front of the San Juan Police Headquarters (4). The FBI and the Insular police were already motivated to target the Nationalists, and the deadliest day in this struggle was still to take place. On March 21, 1937, the Nationalists gained permits to hold a parade in the mid-sized city of Ponce. The procession marched up until the corner of Calles Marina and Aurora. They had gathered to commemorate the end of slavery on the island in 1873 and to protest the imprisonment of Pedro Albizu Campos (3). When they got to that corner, the mayor and the captain of the Insular police stepped up to them and announced that the parade license had been revoked. The governor at the time, Blanton Winship, a US-appointed former military, had revoked the license and told the police chief to vastly increase the presence in Ponce. The paraders found that around two hundred police officers had surrounded them, submachine guns drawn (4). After a short argument, the first shot rang out. By the end of the chaos, nineteen people lay dead. A majority of them had been shot in the back (5), and two Insular officers had been killed in the crossfire. After the fact, the chief of police staged a photo in an effort to convince the public that the police were simply returning fire (6). Families of those slain were forced to give affidavits contradicting what actually happened, and no one other than the Governor was removed from office (two years after the fact). All of this shows just how much the mainland government wanted the Nationalists silenced. But this was a two-pronged attack. The mainland press skewed their reporting of the massacre to serve the cause of discrediting the Nationalists. Take the staged photos from Colonel Orbeta for example. The photo was depicted in many Puerto Rican newspapers, even appearing on
PAGE 11 VOL. 2, NO. 1 ZEITGEIST the front page of El Mundo. However, every paper reported these photos as staged. “In the pages of El Mundo, a doctor from a local hospital, José A. Gándara, testified that many of the wounded he’d seen had been shot in the back (4).” Florete magazine ran a political cartoon of the event with the caption: “Now we can say that they fired at us from the rooftops (7).” In the US, however, the most powerful publications recycled the government’s whitewashed version of events. The New York Times wrote that 68 Nationalists were arrested in a “Nationalist riot (8).” Fourteen NYT articles in 1937 were run that described the events, and eleven of them described the massacre as a “riot (4).” The Washington Post, in one article, described it as a “lamentable affair (9).” The clear difference in coverage of the Ponce Massacre shows just how different the intentions were between the local and mainland peoples. After the release of Campos from his first prison term, the US-influenced Puerto Rican government worked even harder to neuter the Nationalist’s reach and message. Campos was released in 1947: the Gag Law was signed by the US-appointed governor Jesús T. Piñero in June of 1948. The law basically made being a Nationalist illegal. It “made it a felony to own or display a Puerto Rican flag (even in one’s home); to speak in favor of Puerto Rican independence; to print, publish, sell, or exhibit any material that might undermine the insular government; and to organize any society, group, or assembly of people with a similar intent (4).” Thousands were arrested, and fines of up to ten thousand dollars, (equivalent to $113,000 in 2021) were handed out. For example, a poet and Nationalist supporter named Francisco Matos Paoli was imprisoned for ten years, simply for writing four Nationalist speeches and owning a Puerto Rican flag (10). The law was repealed in 1957, giving life to the theory that the law was explicitly written to obstruct the Nationalists from gaining any traction. This was a targeted action by the government to take out the Nationalists, and the answers to this action were fierce. The culmination of this conflict exploded in the uprisings of 1950, where the extent to which the US put down the Nationalists reached its highest point. Both the passage of the Gag Law and the proposed new commonwealth was extremely unpopular with the Nationalists. The Gag Law was passed on June 10, 1948; Campos gave a speech to thousands of Nationalist supporters on June 21, 1948. Supporters were gathered all around him, just in case the authorities tried to arrest him (10). In this speech, he expressed how the Law violated the First Amendment and the need for real action. In secret, Campos planned an armed revolution to bring attention to the Puerto Ricans’ plight. Gaining the attention of the international community was to become a common theme at the end of the Nationalist movement, as Campos and others believed that bodies like the United Nations would be partial to their struggle (4). The revolution was originally planned to take place in 1952 when the new status was to become a reality. However, news Protesters marching for independence in 1998. Image courtesy of WNYC Studios.
support. In 2012, 5.6% of people voted for independence (12). Although there are small pockets of independence support, the events of the twentieth century have essentially murdered the Nationalist cause. With the option of independence gone, the Puerto Rican people turned to a new option: statehood. With the current status that Puerto Rico is under, it is extremely easier for American corporations to exploit the island for cheap labor, set up monopolies, use it as a tax haven, or all of those at once (11). As a result, the people have been suffering. In April of 2022, power outages occurred across the entire island when a fire took out an electrical plant, leaving people without food or access to the outside world. The plant is owned by LUMA, a subsidiary of a Canadian company, that has run the Puerto Rican power grid since June of 2021 (13). With no way of advocating complete freedom from these conditions, the majority of Puerto Ricans have turned towards statehood as a way to gain safer, more stable resources. In 1967, the support for statehood stood at 39%. Over time, as the island became more entrenched in the culture of privatization, the support for statehood grew. In 1998, 46.5% of Puerto Ricans voted for it, and in 2012, 61.1% did. However, this increase is not completely due to the virtues of statehood. In the 1998 referendum, 50.3% voted for “None of the Above (12).” The people were still partial to a better status than either option. However, with independence removed from the conversation, their hand had been forced by the actions of the US. The US, to this day, has sought out Nationalists and their families. In 2005, the FBI raided Filiberto Ojeda Rios’ house, killing him in the process. Approximately 104 rounds were fired at Ojeda, and after he was finally hit, the FBI agents didn’t allow PAGE 12 VOL. 2, NO. 1 ZEITGEIST of Campos’s imminent imprisonment arose in 1950, and so the revolution was moved up. On October 30, Nationalist revolts in Ponce, Arecibo, Naranjito, Mayagüez, Utuado, San Juan, and Juyaya occurred (11). They were all put down in different ways. In San Juan, Nationalists drove to the Governor’s mansion and attempted to assassinate Luis Muñoz Marin. They were killed immediately. In Utuado, where all militants were to regroup, 70% of the town was bombed by the Puerto Rican National Guard. The same happened in Juyaya, with both bombs and machine guns used to ruin the town (4). After these events, Campos and other Nationalist leaders were arrested with lengthy prison times. Two days later, two Nationalist members, Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo, attempted to take Harry Truman’s life at Blair House. Torresola was killed, and Collazo was sentenced to death (4). This conflict absolutely crippled the Nationalist cause, and just about all momentum was taken away from them. After the Nationalist uprisings and the attempted assassinations, the independence movement had lost all steam. The people had been effectively scared off from the option. In 1945, some 57 percent of Puerto Rico’s elected representatives supported independence publicly (4). After the events in 1950, including the arrest of Albizu Campos, the Nationalist Party had essentially been decapitated. They had lost their leader and a good amount of members from the uprisings, and the failed assassinations had scared people from the cause (11). The effects of this would soon show themselves in the ballot box. In 1967, a referendum was held on the status of Puerto Rico. In 1967, only 0.6% of people voted for statehood, and 60% of people voted for a commonwealth status (12). Over those seventeen years, the threat of retaliation turned people completely away from the option. Over the years, independence would stay at that low level of
PAGE 13 VOL. 2, NO. 1 ZEITGEIST any medical attention to be administered to him for 18 hours (14). The report would later state that “We (the Inspector General’s office) found that the senior FBI officials who ordered the delayed entry believed that the concerns about agent safety outweighed Ojeda’s need for medical attention (14).” Ojeda was an important part of the independence movement post-Jayuya. In 1967, he founded and was the head of the Armed Revolutionary Independence Movement. He had a big role in organizing and had already been living in hiding for 15 years (15). There was a cry throughout the entire island, with even the pro-commonwealth Governor of the time, Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, searing the FBI and vowing to complete his own investigation on the matter. However, not much changed. As observed earlier, support for independence only rose 2.95 percent between 1998 and 2012 (12). The government, both that of the mainland and the Governor, persecuted the Nationalist movement enough that Puerto Ricans lost the option of independence, and turned to statehood as a way to improve their conditions. However, this is most likely a dead end. Becoming the 51st state will require federal action, with the act being passed by both houses and signed by the president. No recent president has made a push for statehood, and each of the two major political party platforms either doesn’t mention statehood or has made no effort to advance legislation pertaining to it (16)(17). The chance that independence had to be a popular option in the determination of Puerto Rico’s future was taken away by the actions of the US government, the FBI, and the Insular government in the twentieth century.
LGBTQ EXPERIENCES IN WORLD WAR II AND THEIR IMPACT ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF LGBTQ CULTURE wartime effort, placing themselves in a maledominated environment. For the women that enlisted in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), the results were similar, they were socialized solely with women. The WAAC also gave women the ability to exist outside of the strict gender stereotypes they experienced at home. These situations allowed people to explore and pursue their sexuality. Experiences that LGBTQ people had as enlisted soldiers during World War II led to the creation of visible gay culture and identities in 20thcentury America. After the war, these experiences gave LGBTQ people the community, confidence, and knowledge of themselves to create visible gay culture. This led to meeting places and PAGE 14 VOL. 2, NO. 1 ZEITGEIST BY SOFIA ZASIEBIDA An often overlooked consequence of World War II in America is the effect it had on the expression of people’s sexuality. World War II caused an extreme disruption in gender roles and patterns of the twentieth century. Aggression stems from misfortune. For example, the rise of foreign aggression occurred in Germany after the Treaty of Versailles plummeted the German Many men and women were taken from the overwhelmingly heterosexual environments of their families and small towns. They were sent to gendersegregated environments in an attempt to help the wartime effort. For instance, Men were drafted or voluntarily enlisted in the military to help the Two unknown American sailors. Image courtesy from the National WWII Memorial.
Lesbians in the WAAC found each other quickly and developed relationships and communities with each other (1). One lesbian GI, Pat Bond, described how the dating culture functioned at camp as follows, “Everybody was going with someone, or had a crush on somebody or was getting ready to go with someone" (1) Before joining the WAAC, few women were given social spaces to pursue relationships, especially lesbian ones (3). The WAAC created a strong social community through weekend trips to cities, common room activities, and dining halls (1). Women were constantly socialized only with other women, letting lesbian relationships start and grow. Another lesbian GI named Johnnie Phelps described the high quantity of lesbians in the WAAC as follows, “There were almost 900 women in that battalion. I could honestly say 95 percent of them were lesbians" (5). The living, dining, and working conditions women experienced while enlisted in the WAAC gave out lesbians the ability to find partners and gave questioning women the chance to explore their sexuality because of the constant socialization. Joining the WAAC was also a gender-affirming and identity-affirming experience for lesbians and gender-queer people because of the type of work they were able to pursue and the uniform they had Before the war, women could only serve as nurses in the military and had very limited jobs opportunities in society (1). The WAAC allowed women to do jobs that were considered much less feminine, like becoming pilots (7). For some lesbians, this was a very gender-affirming opportunity because they were finally given the chance to work outside of the strict, gendered expectations that had been placed on them. Johnnie Phelps described the manner in which they were trained, “...but the guys who trained us did not allow for the fact that we were PAGE 15 VOL. 2, NO. 1 ZEITGEIST organizations, effectively serving as a coming-out experience. The blue discharges that many LGBTQ veterans also received effectively caused veterans to recognize themselves as a targeted minority and fight against discrimination publically. Before World War II, many LGBTQ youth in America lived in sheltered, small communities that did not generally encourage the pursuit of relationships that were not heterosexual (3). LGBTQ people were never given the support to come out and live as themselves. There was minimal media to acknowledge them and no leaders or organizations to support them, and oftentimes because of this, LGBTQ people didn’t know anybody else that was like them (1). They lived lives in which they were never able to understand their sexuality because of a lack of support from society. They often felt alone, confused, and ashamed of who they were (1). One gay GI, named Chuck, described his motivation to leave his hometown as follows, “I was 17, my home life wasn’t that happy, and it was wartime- a way out for me. That’s really why I went in the first place, as an enlisted soldier” (5) For many young people who were unsure of their identities and knew they wouldn’t be able to find the support they needed at home, enlisting in the military provided an opportunity to get out. The promise of new people and potential community away from the strict rules of their hometowns. The women-only environment of the newly established WAAC offered lesbian women the ability to pursue lesbian relationships and overcome isolation by finding community. The WAAC was established to enlist women soldiers in combat positions for the first time in American history (1). Lesbians in the WAAC found each other quickly and
who understood them. This offered the opportunity for gay men to overcome the isolation they may have felt and to recognize that their sexuality was not something to be ashamed of because so many other men had the same experiences. Once gay men and women found each other and formed strong friendships and romantic relationships they started to socialize with other gay and lesbian people. On the weekends and when they went off bases, men and women went into cities and were introduced to other LGBTQ people and places (1). They learned and became socialized into LGBTQ culture (1). One GI, Bert Getis, described the social events that his other gay friends would introduce him to, “There was this wonderful queen of gay society in Louisville. He had wonderful parties for gay men and women. That was the first time I ever went to parties where there were gay women also” (1). Gay men and lesbian women started to socialize with each other in large numbers because they were able to build communities and move past the shame and isolation they previously felt about their identities. Unfortunately, the visibility that LGBTQ people in the military found also led to unjust backlash from the United States Government. While LGBTQ people became more confident in their identities and started to create meaningful relationships with each other, the government enlisted anti-gay policies (3). The government deemed homosexuality unnatural and deviant and decided that LGBTQ soldiers had no place in the service (4). To remove them from the service they asked screening questions and gave any suspected LGBTQ person a dishonorable discharge (1). Dishonorable discharges, also known as blue discharges, prevented veterans from obtaining benefits provided by the government as well as jobs because of the negative connotations associated PAGE 16 VOL. 2, NO. 1 ZEITGEIST women at all. We trained exactly like any other military unit” (5). In the WAAC women were trained to work with the same expectations and methods as men were (7). The uniform that the WAAC women had to wear also deviated from the societal norms of the time (1). Pat Bond described the uniforms as follows, “We wore what amounted to a men’s uniform except we wore a skirt. We wore a tie, and we wore an Eisenhower jacket. And your hair had to be off your collar- it had to be that short” (1). WAAC women were given the chance to exist outside of gender stereotypes that had been enforced upon them their whole lives. This served as a genderaffirming experience for many people, allowing them to become more comfortable with themselves and live according to their identities. Gay men who enlisted in the military experienced a similar ability to pursue gay relationships and community unlike they had experienced before. The military brought large numbers of gay men together, allowing communities to form. Arch Wilson, a GI enlisted in the military, described his experience of finding other gay men and coming to terms with his sexuality because of the military, “...I began to look for more types like me. I was, of course, surrounded by men all the time, but having little opportunity to do anything about it. The attractions were, of course, very powerful. In fact, by the time I got out of the service, I was pretty sure that was the direction I was going to go” (5). Oftentimes gay men would form strong groups with each other (1). Allan Bérubé describes the motivation behind forming cliques and their function as follows, “To protect themselves from ostracization or ridicule gay men could band together in cliques…Cliques gave lonely trainees that chance to belong to a group of like-minded friendsa home away from home” (1). In the large male-only environment the military offered, gay men were able to find each other, people they could connect with,
experienced in a very public manner. Americans were unable to ignore the LGBTQ minority any longer and had to recognize the discrimination that they faced. After the war, LGBTQ men and women who had found community and confidence because of the military went forth and pursued lives centered around their identity, forming a visible culture. Instead of returning back to their hometowns, LGBTQ veterans stayed together in citites. One GI wrote in a diary entry the following describing his desire to stay with the community he had found, “I can’t change, have no desire to do so, because it took me a long, long time to figure out how to enjoy life…I’m not going back to what I left”(1). In cities, physical places of meeting like bars started to show up (4). Bars provided places for LGBTQ people to socialize unlike they had been able to before. With the availability of community and also physical meeting places, LGBTQ veterans could live lives centered around their identity. A lesbian living in New York right after the war described the phenomenon, “..my experience was that it gave me an identity, a self-identity and for the first time a community identity” (4). People had large LGBTQ friend groups and engaged in and created different parts of LGBTQ culture including slang terms. This subculture became increasingly visible to the rest of American society (1). People recognized gay bars and interacted with gay subculture on a much more frequent basis than they had before the war because there was a much more distinct gay culture and identity. LGBTQ people had used the war as a way to explore their sexuality and come out and they had no intention of going back into the closet after the war. Before World War II, many LGBTQ people and people who were questioning their sexuality were PAGE 17 VOL. 2, NO. 1 ZEITGEIST with blue discharges (1). One lesbian woman named Pat described the fear she had surrounding her blue discharge, “I myself was discharged from the service because of being a homosexual. I was given a U.D. or what is known as a Gay discharge. I of course thought my life was ruined. I didn’t know how I was going to explain away my years on a job sheet” (6). Blue discharges proved extremely harmful to people's lives and prevented LGBTQ veterans from living their lives freely. In post-World War Two America, veterans with blue discharges joined together to fight against their unjust treatment, making themselves visible to Americans. Veterans that received discharges from the military returned home angry that they were denied the benefits that other veterans received (1). The discrimination against LGBTQ people further reinforced to LGBTQ veterans that being LGBTQ was a part of their identity that they could suffer for. They realized that they had large numbers and that being LGBTQ in America was something to fight for. The government had recognized them, though negatively, which affirmed to them that they were different, and that their homosexuality was important and real. To protest their blue discharges and exclusion from veteran benefits, they organized political groups, held protests, and wrote letters urging the government to revoke their blue discharges (1). All of this protesting was very public for the rest of America to see at the time (1). One reporter summarized the public nature of the protests as follows, “For a person to make such a complaint in his own case implies that he feels a sense of injustice so great that he is willing to risk publicizing the stigma of having been discharged from the Army under circumstances which savor disgrace” (1). LGBTQ veterans had overcome the shame they might have felt in their identity to band together and protest the discrimination they
given very little opportunity to pursue romantic relationships that were not heterosexual. World War II gave people the opportunity to find, socialize, and love other people who identified in similar ways that they did. Gay men and lesbian women were socialized in single-gendered spaces when they enrolled as soldiers, which gave them the freedom to explore their sexuality. Lesbian women that enlisted in the WAAC were also given the opportunity to work in jobs that were outside of the rigid, stereotypical work that women could do before the war. Though the war was beneficial for LGBTQ people in creating a strong community, the United States Government also enacted unjust policies that harmed LGBTQ soldiers. Many LGBTQ soldiers received a blue discharge from their position because they were found out to be homosexual. After the war, the confidence and community that LGBTQ soldiers had gained fueled the formation of a strong, visible gay culture. The persecution of LGBTQ soldiers also caused people to band together and fight against the oppression they were experiencing, again making LGBTQ people more visible in postWorld War II society. PAGE 18 VOL. 2, NO. 1 ZEITGEIST Phyllis Arby and Mildred, Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps. Image courtesy of Deep Focus Productions.
Ayn Rand's Selfless Woman Dominique Francon is not a person; she is a barometer. The only significant woman character in Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead, she serves solely as an indication of her current husband’s success. While she is Mrs. Peter Keating, her husband is at the height of his architectural career. When Keating trades her to Gail Wynand, it is then Wynand who is at his best, having secured as wife the woman he desperately wanted to possess. As Mrs. Roark, finally, Dominique signifies the victory of the virtuous egoism that her husband represents over its antithesis, evil altruism. Dominique herself, however, does not adhere to this same virtuous egoism, instead becoming, paradoxically, selflessly dependent upon others in her need for fulfillment from the men whom she embellishes. Thus, in her portrayal of Dominique’s relationships in The Fountainhead, Rand suggests that women are not people in and of themselves; they require men to worship and so are unable to achieve Rand's ideal of pure egoism. Rand first indicates that women are not self-contained people when she has Dominique relish in the memory of her rape at the hands of Howard Roark, the man who will become her long-term partner. Dominique, Rand writes, does not feel as if she has been violated following the assault but rather experiences “the same kind of pleasure she had felt in [Roark’s] arms” (1) when thinking of it. Roark, Rand’s protagonist and ideal man, cannot bear for his buildings to be built in any way other than that which he specifies, as evidenced by his dynamiting of Cortlandt Homes. But according to Rand, Dominique, The Fountainhead’s only candidate for the ideal woman, not only suffers but savors the desecration of her own body. Here, Dominque is captivated by an experience that Roark, had he been the victim rather than the rapist, would have considered a repulsive evil. But because Dominique is a woman, she is not sufficient alone, so Roark’s rape is considered a gift to complete rather than an infringement upon her ego. Rand reiterates women’s lack of independent ego when she marries Dominque to Peter Keating. Dominique does not choose this marriage out of love for her groom but out of a need to suffer in a way commensurate to the pain of her hero, Roark: If he cannot create the buildings that are his passion, then she, because she is his dependent, must be similarly hindered. Thus, she marries Keating, Roark’s opposite and the archetypal selfless man. Keating, Dominique observes, is one of the people who “want nothing but mirrors around them. To reflect them while they’re reflecting too”, he has “no center and no purpose” (2), or in other words, no ego. Therefore, by marrying him, Dominique puts herself in as close proximity as possible to the “blank death” (2) of collective thinking that she so despises. Here, it nearly seems as though Dominique has an opinion of her own. Nevertheless, she does not, as her hatred for those who think the thoughts of others —or even engage in collaboration and cooperation with their fellow humans—is identical to Roark’s. Even in her resolve, she is an echo of her first lover, a version of him without agency: Roark would scorn the idea of wounding himself in response to harm wrought upon another. ZEITGEIST VOL. 2, NO. 1 PAGE 19 BY: ANONYMOUS
Yet, Dominique forces herself into misery because of her connection to Roark, living as Mrs. Peter Keating for many years. Again, Rand subordinates women to men and, in doing so, implies that women are given their sense of self by the men with whom they are affiliated. In her most blatant denial of self to women, Rand makes explicit her view of women as creatures without ego during the sex scene between Dominique and her second husband, newspaper editor Gail Wynand. In this scene, Dominque is, out of fidelity to Roark, resolved not to enjoy the sexual act. However, even the self that has been imparted to Dominique is, here, compromised, as Dominique does experience pleasure: “She thought that [her “answer of hunger, of acceptance, of pleasure”] was not a matter of desire, not even a matter of the sexual act, but only that the man was the life force and woman could respond to nothing else” (3). With this scene, Rand furthers her refusal of self to women, arguing that women are not even bound to a particular man who embodies the self that they desire to possess. Instead, women are objects that exist merely to respond to men, without the agency to decide whether or not they wish to do so. Sex, the act that Rand portrays as defining a woman's life insofar as it joins her to the man who supplies her sense of self, and the enjoyment derived from the act are involuntary for women. Thus, women’s lives are dictated entirely by their sexual partners, in that their sexual partners perform the necessary function of completing women's egos and do so regardless of whatever degree of will a woman might possess. Rand deprives women of not only innate but assumed self. Throughout The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand argues that women are selfless dependents of men by having her representative woman character, Dominique Francon, rely upon a man, Howard Roark, to provide her with an ego. Dominique’s actions throughout the next section of the book, particularly her marrying Peter Keating, are dictated by the sense of self Dominique has received from Roark. However, Rand then denies Dominique even this ego that has been forced upon her by having her succumb to the will of a third man, Gail Wynand. Through these interactions of Dominique's, Rand outlines her belief that women are lesser than men because they are incomplete without them, leaving women unable to achieve the ideal of pure egoism that Rand propounds. ZEITGEIST VOL. 2, NO. 1 PAGE 20 Ayn Rand Image owner: Leonard Peikoff, credit :Ayn Rand Archives
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