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Jul. 13th, 2008 12:09 amI keep punishing myself pretty harshly and very often. I can't remember what it is I did, but it must have been pretty awful.
Jul. 13th, 2008
Identity is tricky, really. It's one of those concept, words, that everyone thinks means the same thing to everyone, or at least means the same things for everyone else as the speaker/writer does, at that time. I know I'm opening up myself to the accusation of projection here, and I'll accept the accuracy of that, but I'm pretty sure it's not just projection.
From the social sciences side, particularly the cultural studies angle, identity seems to come across as a sense of self in relation to group membership or the potential of group membership. It's largely internal in origin; there's a lot of focus on the validity of self naming, self assigning, as a fundamental level of individual respect, and honestly, I think that's a good argument.
But there's also a social aspect of identity that's largely external, I think. It's how people, all of us, sort others (at least some of the time; I've yet to meet, or be, anyone who doesn't). It's not simply a question of objective perception and accurately delineating, though; people can only be sorted by criteria that are known, accepted, and perceptible. It's in this bit that the social aspect of externally sourced identity can come into contrast with the personal, internally sourced identity.
I could make a series of attempts to draw on examples more removed from me than not, in categories more generally in play than those most directly of interest to me, but that'd be a bit of uncomfortable deflection, and wouldn't serve my longer term project, which is at least in part to get those categories more widely distributed. So, I'm getting personal.
When people see me, I think they generally see someone they presume to be male, and based on that presumption, think I'm some flavor of a man (that the link between male and man is largely unquestioned and automatic is another problem). For the most part, this isn't really their fault; they've been trained pretty much since birth in those categories, to see them as natural and half of the only game in town. However, it is their fault that they discard potential bits of data that might call one or both of those into question. If not for the perceptual 'error handling', I think it's not that difficult to tell that I have small, but present, breasts in most of the clothing I wear. If one is looking, there are other so-called secondary sexual characteristics present in me that aren't generally lumped under either male or man, but they tend to be discarded because they don't fit the perceptual filter assigned to contain my meaning.
But, if they want to be people who respect others, and who expect to be respected in return, they are responsible for their own education and the damage their own ignorance does. Everyone has at least one area in which it would be perfectly understandable if others interpreted them differently than they define themselves, but in which it is also perfectly understandable if they get hurt and frustrated at. I don't think this experience is that foreign.
But, back to my own case, I say I'm not a man (as far as I know, I'm male, but I've never sought to confirm or deny that). To the extent that anyone is, I'm the expert on my sense of self, and it's not unreasonable to expect that to be acknowledged. I think in a lot of cases, what confuses the issue for me is that I also say I'm not a woman. If I were to present myself within the widely accepted binary of male/man, female/woman it would be something people could more easily accept, because it doesn't question the conceptual framework, merely my place within it. I'm not saying that would lead to instant, easy acceptace; there are a lot of people who don't accept transsexuals or the concept of transsexualism, but I would suggest that they understand what they're rejecting. The idea that someone can experience themselves as not a man, not a woman, and not just some combination of the two (another pet peeve of mine) is really dissonant to a lot of people. I suspect this is why I'm so generally taken as a man with modifiers, because I don't accept the easier (not easy) out of woman with modifiers (I include the common misperception of transsexualism, that of a 'man who wants to be a woman', in my case, in that category).
So, I'm generally perceived of as a man. Because I don't express a certain amount of standard man-markers, I think a lot of people who are open to perception of difference tend to assume I'm non-straight (usually gay). On rare occasions I' assumed to be bi, but this is no more accurate than when people relievedly decide I'm straight because my SO appears to be female and a woman ('assume' because in the former instance, they'll likely never know, and in the latter, they'll likely never ask). From my perspective, this is inaccurate, a case of specious logic based on the miscategorization of me as a man; from that perspective, it's legitimate for me to balk.
But socially, I am perceived as a man, and as heterosexual. That means, whether I ask for it or not, I am granted heterosexual privilege (I definitely don't ask for it, if there's any question). This underscores the fact that there are consequences, be they positive, negative, or indifferent, to socially recognized identity, and that in many cases, they're often more than simply positive or negative across the board. That's not my conclusion, because I don't think I have one; I don't mean to make a tidy bow on this so that everyone (me included) can feel better about the mistakes they make, and will continue to make, regarding others because they're both miscategorizer and miscategorized; that's much, much to simple to be accurate or useful.
I have tended to adamantly, and at times, aggressively, insist on the total supremacy of self definition. I still think people have the right to that, and it's not at all unreasonable for people to insist on that in dealings with others who claim to respect others, either generally or individually. I still maintain that the burden of educating others is not mine alone, or even at all (and the opposite is true; it's not the responsibility of others to educate me on their issues, but mine). I say it's understandable that people make the misperceptions and mistakes they do, and it is, but that excuses nothing, and it does nothing to make it less painful when they do. Knowing that in all likelihood, I do something similar to them doesn't make me feel better, or justify complacency in any way. What I hope it does is make me more open to the idea of other possibilities, to the idea that I might be wrong and/or ignorant, and that while it might be understandable, from my perspective, it's not ideal, and I should work hard to learn and understand when that is the case. I'd like to think that's the case with others, but honestly, some days, it feels like a luxury I can ill afford. I'm working on that, too.
From the social sciences side, particularly the cultural studies angle, identity seems to come across as a sense of self in relation to group membership or the potential of group membership. It's largely internal in origin; there's a lot of focus on the validity of self naming, self assigning, as a fundamental level of individual respect, and honestly, I think that's a good argument.
But there's also a social aspect of identity that's largely external, I think. It's how people, all of us, sort others (at least some of the time; I've yet to meet, or be, anyone who doesn't). It's not simply a question of objective perception and accurately delineating, though; people can only be sorted by criteria that are known, accepted, and perceptible. It's in this bit that the social aspect of externally sourced identity can come into contrast with the personal, internally sourced identity.
I could make a series of attempts to draw on examples more removed from me than not, in categories more generally in play than those most directly of interest to me, but that'd be a bit of uncomfortable deflection, and wouldn't serve my longer term project, which is at least in part to get those categories more widely distributed. So, I'm getting personal.
When people see me, I think they generally see someone they presume to be male, and based on that presumption, think I'm some flavor of a man (that the link between male and man is largely unquestioned and automatic is another problem). For the most part, this isn't really their fault; they've been trained pretty much since birth in those categories, to see them as natural and half of the only game in town. However, it is their fault that they discard potential bits of data that might call one or both of those into question. If not for the perceptual 'error handling', I think it's not that difficult to tell that I have small, but present, breasts in most of the clothing I wear. If one is looking, there are other so-called secondary sexual characteristics present in me that aren't generally lumped under either male or man, but they tend to be discarded because they don't fit the perceptual filter assigned to contain my meaning.
But, if they want to be people who respect others, and who expect to be respected in return, they are responsible for their own education and the damage their own ignorance does. Everyone has at least one area in which it would be perfectly understandable if others interpreted them differently than they define themselves, but in which it is also perfectly understandable if they get hurt and frustrated at. I don't think this experience is that foreign.
But, back to my own case, I say I'm not a man (as far as I know, I'm male, but I've never sought to confirm or deny that). To the extent that anyone is, I'm the expert on my sense of self, and it's not unreasonable to expect that to be acknowledged. I think in a lot of cases, what confuses the issue for me is that I also say I'm not a woman. If I were to present myself within the widely accepted binary of male/man, female/woman it would be something people could more easily accept, because it doesn't question the conceptual framework, merely my place within it. I'm not saying that would lead to instant, easy acceptace; there are a lot of people who don't accept transsexuals or the concept of transsexualism, but I would suggest that they understand what they're rejecting. The idea that someone can experience themselves as not a man, not a woman, and not just some combination of the two (another pet peeve of mine) is really dissonant to a lot of people. I suspect this is why I'm so generally taken as a man with modifiers, because I don't accept the easier (not easy) out of woman with modifiers (I include the common misperception of transsexualism, that of a 'man who wants to be a woman', in my case, in that category).
So, I'm generally perceived of as a man. Because I don't express a certain amount of standard man-markers, I think a lot of people who are open to perception of difference tend to assume I'm non-straight (usually gay). On rare occasions I' assumed to be bi, but this is no more accurate than when people relievedly decide I'm straight because my SO appears to be female and a woman ('assume' because in the former instance, they'll likely never know, and in the latter, they'll likely never ask). From my perspective, this is inaccurate, a case of specious logic based on the miscategorization of me as a man; from that perspective, it's legitimate for me to balk.
But socially, I am perceived as a man, and as heterosexual. That means, whether I ask for it or not, I am granted heterosexual privilege (I definitely don't ask for it, if there's any question). This underscores the fact that there are consequences, be they positive, negative, or indifferent, to socially recognized identity, and that in many cases, they're often more than simply positive or negative across the board. That's not my conclusion, because I don't think I have one; I don't mean to make a tidy bow on this so that everyone (me included) can feel better about the mistakes they make, and will continue to make, regarding others because they're both miscategorizer and miscategorized; that's much, much to simple to be accurate or useful.
I have tended to adamantly, and at times, aggressively, insist on the total supremacy of self definition. I still think people have the right to that, and it's not at all unreasonable for people to insist on that in dealings with others who claim to respect others, either generally or individually. I still maintain that the burden of educating others is not mine alone, or even at all (and the opposite is true; it's not the responsibility of others to educate me on their issues, but mine). I say it's understandable that people make the misperceptions and mistakes they do, and it is, but that excuses nothing, and it does nothing to make it less painful when they do. Knowing that in all likelihood, I do something similar to them doesn't make me feel better, or justify complacency in any way. What I hope it does is make me more open to the idea of other possibilities, to the idea that I might be wrong and/or ignorant, and that while it might be understandable, from my perspective, it's not ideal, and I should work hard to learn and understand when that is the case. I'd like to think that's the case with others, but honestly, some days, it feels like a luxury I can ill afford. I'm working on that, too.