Race, Gender and National Identity

How Nagel and Chavez investigate Gender, Race, and National Identity ideologies in connection to the judicial dismissal of rape allegations

Nagel investigates the ethnosexual connections of gender, race, and national identity in chapters 1–3. Nagel investigates this through the persuasive ideology of how issues of sex are significant in ethnic relations and how they infiltrate issues of gender, race, and national identity. According to Nagel, large-scale immigration of people aided by politics, tourism, civil conflicts, and military campaigns results in the development of potentially broad cross-cultural sexual encounters occurring within ethnosexual boundaries (Nagel 23).Nagel further argues that gender, race and nationality are frequently used as a means of oppression and domination as well as collective act of abuse and violence and a strong descriptor of racial difference. Towards that end, Nagel cohesively contends that women from different ethnic, racial and national groups remain oppressed through rape and the law enforcement chose to ignore them due to personal gratification and reinforcing power relations (Nagel 33).

On the other hand, Chavez through his Latino Threat narrative asserts that due to their incapability and unwillingness to integrate into America, the Latinos are different from other immigrants (Chavez 21). Chavez argues that the Latinos, especially the Latino women, have been rendered underserving of social benefits such as citizenship due to their characterization as illegal immigrants which tends to identify them with criminality and illegitimacy. To that end, Chavez contends that the Latino women are more vulnerable to sexual oppression and the judicial system ignores their plight based on their characterization as alien intruders.

Relationship between Gender, Race and National Identity and the established Social Condition that make women vulnerable

According to Nagel and Chavez, gender, race and national identity are comprehensively informed through a social constructionist approach. Chavez assert that gender, race and national identity account for the historical development of sexual and ethnic boundaries (Chavez 30). In addition, the three interceptions relate according to historical era which mainly led to quest for sex and power motives. Towards that end, gender, race and national identity tend to result in sexual oppression of women in order to exercise power over women. Notably, the two sociologists turn to war and sex in which they devote a long time discussing the use of sexual exploitation and rape as weapons used to reinforce ethnic, racial and national boundaries during periods of war and political turmoil. Additionally, Nagel argues that the global sex tourism is thriving based on the eroticization of race, gender and nationality (Nagel 77). In a nutshell, gender, race and nationality are intertwined to create a bedrock that is used as a platform to advance sexual oppression against women during times of war and harsh political atmosphere.

Works Cited

Chavez, Leo R. The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation. Stanford UP, 2013.

Nagel, Joane. Race, Ethnicity, and Sexuality: Intimate Intersections, Forbidden Frontiers. Oxford UP, 2003.