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May. 21st, 2007
I've been thinking a lot about identity lately, probably the same identity used in identity politics. Too many of my questions could have been specious, because I haven't examined premises much at all. What is identity? Is it 'natural' (sorry, I have a hard time with that word sans scare quotes), visible, social, individual, assigned, (re)claimed, what? Being from the US south, my default on identity is race, which is visible, and is often treated as 'natural', but that also hides social assignment, reclaimation, social as well as individual, so... no real help there. I think most of the focus on race is on the 'natural' and visible fronts, which makes it easy to brush over or ignore the other aspects, but they're still present. Because of the history of the US, I think race is the most obvious public identity, and I think that colors a lot of the defaults; I know it does in me.
The next default for me is sexuality, which isn't always visible, isn't generally taken as 'natural' despite the very focused efforts of some to make it so, is usually claimed rather than assigned, and again is both individual and social. Because it isn't inherently visible at all times, sexuality (particularly nonmainstream) brings with it the closet and the attendant pressures to pass, to keep a secret self separate from others, as well as the subcultural acceptance (or promise of it) based on the shared burden.
There's always sex (bodies, not acts). It certainly meets most people's criteria of 'natural', though it's also always assigned, sometimes claimed, and at once very often visible and yet below the radar. I don't mean that there are tons of people who continually have their sex misread (though what an awesome world that would be), but that in terms of identity, I think sex is grasped yet unexamined, almost pathologically so. I don't think people look at what sex, as they define it/is defined to/for them, means. Even crappy sensationalistic media coverage of the bad science of sex differences isn't about meaning, but about validating the nebulous prepackaged concepts.
Then comes gender. It's 'natural' to many, generally if one assumes sex=gender (in which case gender may as well disappear, swallowed by the former term), and to some others who buy into either/or, but are arguing for a different seat at the table. It's usually only claimed if one is rebelling against the assignment (which would make it assigned, though largely invisibly so; see 'natural' above). Social or individual? Visible? Good questions.
Class? Class doesn't exist in the US, don't you know? It's a curious artifact of old Europe, where it's lingering effects are often social, visible, and assigned. Here in the grand US of A, we're a collection of rugged, entrepreneurial individualists (though there is an ugly undercurrent that assumes 'success' or 'failure' is 'natural').
For me, the expectation of 'natural' and visible are the trickiest. To the untrained eye, I'm a white dude; questions of my 'apparent' sexuality are often up in the air, and I don't generally look or speak like poorwhitetrash, but sex/race/gender is generally assigned. I think this is why I have such issues with identity groups; they expect me to come with identities I don't possess, with good chances of being blind or hostile to identities that might be closer to true for me. It's not that I'm not validated; I think I'm less likely to expect validation from groups than ever before; it's that I have trouble engaging projects whose premises are, or appear to be, not only woefully insufficient, but deeply flawed. I have the wrong connector for this very common hardware.
But, I don't think I can just shrug off identity and identity politics. There's a whole lot of privilege in asserting the color/sex/gender/class/sexuality-blind; it tends to assume unspoken norms be like, or similar to, those generally possessed by those making the assertions. There is power in collective action, but the organizing principles don't make sense to me in practice; they seem much more convoluted and dangerous than overtly stated.
The next default for me is sexuality, which isn't always visible, isn't generally taken as 'natural' despite the very focused efforts of some to make it so, is usually claimed rather than assigned, and again is both individual and social. Because it isn't inherently visible at all times, sexuality (particularly nonmainstream) brings with it the closet and the attendant pressures to pass, to keep a secret self separate from others, as well as the subcultural acceptance (or promise of it) based on the shared burden.
There's always sex (bodies, not acts). It certainly meets most people's criteria of 'natural', though it's also always assigned, sometimes claimed, and at once very often visible and yet below the radar. I don't mean that there are tons of people who continually have their sex misread (though what an awesome world that would be), but that in terms of identity, I think sex is grasped yet unexamined, almost pathologically so. I don't think people look at what sex, as they define it/is defined to/for them, means. Even crappy sensationalistic media coverage of the bad science of sex differences isn't about meaning, but about validating the nebulous prepackaged concepts.
Then comes gender. It's 'natural' to many, generally if one assumes sex=gender (in which case gender may as well disappear, swallowed by the former term), and to some others who buy into either/or, but are arguing for a different seat at the table. It's usually only claimed if one is rebelling against the assignment (which would make it assigned, though largely invisibly so; see 'natural' above). Social or individual? Visible? Good questions.
Class? Class doesn't exist in the US, don't you know? It's a curious artifact of old Europe, where it's lingering effects are often social, visible, and assigned. Here in the grand US of A, we're a collection of rugged, entrepreneurial individualists (though there is an ugly undercurrent that assumes 'success' or 'failure' is 'natural').
For me, the expectation of 'natural' and visible are the trickiest. To the untrained eye, I'm a white dude; questions of my 'apparent' sexuality are often up in the air, and I don't generally look or speak like poorwhitetrash, but sex/race/gender is generally assigned. I think this is why I have such issues with identity groups; they expect me to come with identities I don't possess, with good chances of being blind or hostile to identities that might be closer to true for me. It's not that I'm not validated; I think I'm less likely to expect validation from groups than ever before; it's that I have trouble engaging projects whose premises are, or appear to be, not only woefully insufficient, but deeply flawed. I have the wrong connector for this very common hardware.
But, I don't think I can just shrug off identity and identity politics. There's a whole lot of privilege in asserting the color/sex/gender/class/sexuality-blind; it tends to assume unspoken norms be like, or similar to, those generally possessed by those making the assertions. There is power in collective action, but the organizing principles don't make sense to me in practice; they seem much more convoluted and dangerous than overtly stated.