I think in western culture it might be a bit of both, and also a bit of xenophobia - it’s different, so it must be bad. I’d be interested in knowing more too. Very good question.
Mormons used to (some still do) practice polygamy and we had just as much, if not more of a problem with their practices as we do with “foreigners”.
From my perspective as another polyamorous person, I think polygamy is kinda fucked up, at least in the ways it manifests today. It’s an inequitable power dynamic that relies on the exploitation of women. I’m all about subversion and defiance of hierarchies. Polygamy reinforces those hierarchies
Just to be clear, I see polygamy as bad only because of the women oppression aspect. But the world is a big place and history is long, so I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point there was some system that allowed for polygamy without oppressing women. Mentioning mormons - don’t you think they can be seen as another weird different group - and therefore be also object of xenophobia? Notice I intentionally didn’t use the word racism, what I mean is just the sentiment that people doing things differently than my group must be deadly wrong.
Yeah, there’s some aspect of “they’re different so they’re bad” in LDS history (not without reason, the church did and justified many fucked up things), but the modern polygamous Mormon splinter groups are kinda overlooked for the most part. They’re pretty embedded in a lot of smaller towns and cities across southern Utah and northern Arizona (there may be more, it’s been a while since I’ve looked at the topic), and they get very little national attention.
Contrast that with stuff like this tweet that just so happens to play to a lot conservative notions about how “backwards” Islam is.
I think in western culture it might be a bit of both, and also a bit of xenophobia - it’s different, so it must be bad. I’d be interested in knowing more too. Very good question.
Mormons used to (some still do) practice polygamy and we had just as much, if not more of a problem with their practices as we do with “foreigners”.
From my perspective as another polyamorous person, I think polygamy is kinda fucked up, at least in the ways it manifests today. It’s an inequitable power dynamic that relies on the exploitation of women. I’m all about subversion and defiance of hierarchies. Polygamy reinforces those hierarchies
Just to be clear, I see polygamy as bad only because of the women oppression aspect. But the world is a big place and history is long, so I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point there was some system that allowed for polygamy without oppressing women. Mentioning mormons - don’t you think they can be seen as another weird different group - and therefore be also object of xenophobia? Notice I intentionally didn’t use the word racism, what I mean is just the sentiment that people doing things differently than my group must be deadly wrong.
Yeah, there’s some aspect of “they’re different so they’re bad” in LDS history (not without reason, the church did and justified many fucked up things), but the modern polygamous Mormon splinter groups are kinda overlooked for the most part. They’re pretty embedded in a lot of smaller towns and cities across southern Utah and northern Arizona (there may be more, it’s been a while since I’ve looked at the topic), and they get very little national attention.
Contrast that with stuff like this tweet that just so happens to play to a lot conservative notions about how “backwards” Islam is.