SOCIAL JUSTICE,SEXUALITY, AND THE CITY

Abstract

The sexualized nature of capitalist development processes has generally been ignored in both critical and mainstream social science. This is due to a largely unexamined heterosexist bias that pervades both perspectives, and whose connections to other forms of oppression are almost always also left unexamined. The social injustices associated with dominant sexualizations cross all five of the faces of oppression identified by Iris Young (1990) and used by David Harvey (1992) to develop a reworked conception of social justice. At least one other face of oppression—closeting—can be identified when issues surrounding sexuality are considered. The underlying sources of these oppressions are to be found not just in a revolutionary dynamic inherent in capitalism, but in a complex social totality that is characterized by dualistic thinking and cross-cutting, mutually constitutive sets of social relationships. These include (but are not limited to) those of race, class, gender, ability/disability, and sexuality.