Identity development

1. Identity development Race, Class and Gender

2. Racial identity formation • As we learned on Monday, racial identity is not biological, and is not fixed or given, but develops over our lifetimes.

3. Racial identity formation • Some sociologists think of racial identity as a kind of performance. This is not to say it’s fake, or not deeply felt, but that we do race through our everyday actions. This might include eating certain kinds of foods, preferring particular music or clothing, affiliating with various subcultures, etc.

4. Racial identity formation • Some sociologists think of racial identity as a kind of performance. This is not to say it’s fake, or not deeply felt, but that we “do” race through our everyday actions. This might include eating certain kinds of foods, preferring particular music or clothing, affiliating with various subcultures, etc.

5. Racial identity formation • There are various ways to perform any particular racial identity, and we as a society, and as different subgroups within a society, often police individuals’ racial performances. Thus, middle class Latina girls who are good students, as we saw in today’s readings, are accused of acting white, and work to counter that accusation through their dress and choice of friends.

6. Racial identity formation • Watch this clip from Bay Area slam poet Aya de Leon. What is she saying about the process of racial identity formation? How is her interpretation more flexible, and how does it offer more possibilities, than the idea that race is biological and fixed? • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlXSmK9tTC0

7. Racial identity formation Now remember, just because race isn’t fixed, doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Others look at our bodies and make assumptions about our racial identity, and often the consequences of these assumptions greatly affect our life chances.

8. Racial identity formation Think, for example, of a black family applying for a loan. Remember the NY Times article we read Monday that said black and Latino families were more likely to be given sub-prime loans than white families with similar incomes. While that family’s process of racial identity is fluid, it is the loan officer’s perception of their racial identity that helps to determine the kind of loan they will be offered.

9. Racial identity formation Similarly, a person of middle-eastern descent may perform their racial identity through their everyday dress, behaviors, etc. But when they are singled out for extra security at the airport, they are having race done to them. In this situation, race is imposed from outside the individual.

10. Racial identity formation Indeed, experiences with racism are one way that racial identities are formed. Sometimes we conform to the stereotypes that others hold of us. Other times, we develop and perform identities that are directly opposed to these stereotypes. But either way, the perceptions others hold of our racial backgrounds guide our process of racial identity formation.

11. Racial identity formation This is often very different for whites versus non-whites. In our society, whites are the dominant group. Even when whites are not the majority, they hold a disproportionate amount of political and economic power.

12. Racial identity formation Moreover, white is considered the norm in US society, and other races are generally seen as different from the norm. For this reason, people of color in positions of power are often asked to describe the ways their background has affected them in ways that whites are not. We can see this in the questions being asked of Sonia Sotomayor. John Roberts, on the other hand, was never asked about his ethnic background, or how it would affect his work as a judge.

13. Racial identity formation Moreover, white is considered the norm in US society, and other races are generally seen as different from the norm. For this reason, people of color in positions of power are often asked to describe the ways their background has affected them in ways that whites are not. We can see this in the questions being asked of Sonia Sotomayor. John Roberts, on the other hand, was never asked about his ethnic background, or how it would affect his work as a judge.

14. Racial identity formation Indeed, because whites are the norm, they are often referred to by labels which are not racial markers. For an example, check out this clip from the Daily Show’s election coverage. http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184114&title=The-Best-F - @king-News-Team-Ever---Small-Town-Values

15. Racial identity formation Do you agree that “small town values” functions as a code for white? Here is a list of what some bloggers believe are ways the media indicates whites without using language to indicate race. By doing so, these terms further imply that white is normal while non-white is other. http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2008/09/use-virtually-innumerable-array-of.html

16. Racial identity formation How might our society’s view of whiteness as the norm, rather than a distinct racial identity, shape white people’s processes of racial identity formation? How does this play into Water’s idea that white ethnicities are optional while those of people of color are not?

17. Sex and gender • Like racial identity, sociologists see gender identity as something flexible that develops over time.

18. Sex and gender • In this way, gender is different from sex. Sex refers to biology. We’re born with male, female or ambiguous parts (and please note that as many as 1/1500 babies are born ambiguous). Gender refers to the norms and behaviors that we learn to associate with those parts.

19. Sex and gender • Like race, gender is done to us from the moment of our birth. Here, however, it is more obvious. Female babies are treated quite differently than male babies, associated with different colors, spoken to differently, etc. Common children’s stories reinforce stereotypical gender roles of active boys and passive girls.

20. Sex and gender • As we get older, images of gender, and the behaviors and norms expected of us, are everywhere. The clip from Still Killing Me Softly that we watched last week talks about media images of girls. Here’s an example focused on boys: • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3exzMPT4nGI

21. The sex-gender system • The sex-gender system is a set of assumptions held by US society that your sex must match your gender, which must match your sexuality. • Those who are biologically female are expected to identify as girls and women, and to desire boys and men. • Those who are biologically male are expected to identify as boys and men, and to desire girls and women.

22. The sex-gender system • The sex-gender system is contested by a variety of people. Gays, lesbians and bisexuals dispute the notion that your gender predicts who you desire. • Transgendered people--males who identify as women or females identifying as men--dispute the notion that your sex must match your gender. • And intersex and gender-queer people, who identify as neither male nor female, men nor women, dispute the idea that there are only two sexes and two genders.

23. Gender as performance • Like race, we can see gender as a performance. We perform our genders in different ways at different times. Sometimes we conform to gender norms, and other times, we contest them. In doing so, each of us does gender in our own ways.

24. Gender as performance • Some ways of contesting dominant gender performances are more accepted than others. It’s generally considered ok for a female athlete to perform toughness on the field, but women who perform toughness in other aspects of their lives often invoke negative reactions. Professional women, for example, must perform gender very delicately as they aim to be perceived as competent but not pushy. This is particularly true for black and Latina women, who are even more likely to be labeled as confrontational if they contest dominant notions of femininity.

25. Gender as performance • This song by folk singer Dar Williams discusses gender as a performance. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zIB3piK0wE&feature=related • What do you think of Williams’ assertion that she was a boy? What does it tell us about gender identity?

26. Gender as performance • As children, we are often censured for acting in ways others find inappropriate to our gender. Boys are told not to cry and girls are often encouraged to play with dolls. • More seriously, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered individuals often face serious harassment by their families, schools and communities. Gay teens are four times more likely to commit suicide than heterosexual teens. And cases of transgender murder, such as that depicted in the film Boys Don’t Cry, are both common and horrifying.

27. Gender as performance • So like race, we “do” gender thorough our everyday performances, but gender is also done to us as particular performances are encouraged or censored by our families, communities and the media.

28. Class as performance • Not surprisingly, we also perform our class identities. This works somewhat differently from our race and gender performances. While most of us identify with one or more races, and with one or more gender, very few of us identify meaningfully with a class. Indeed 92% of people in the US identify as middle class.

29. Class as performance • And yet, as we see in the reading by Julie Bettie, the ways we identify with various subcultures often embody a class identity. Rockers, smokers and Cholo/as were code for working class identities, while prep indicated a more affluent identity. Think about the various cliques in your high school or college scene. Do they embody class identities?

30. Class as performance • Also unlike race and gender, we are dissuaded from developing class identities. The ideal of the American dream--that anyone who works hard enough can become rich--suggests that class identities are unimportant. • How might Marx regard our society’s insistence that class doesn’t matter?

31. Intersectionality • Intersectionality is a theory that says that systems of hierarchy are mutually constructed. Gender, race, class and nation are understood through one another. Its critical of assumed universalities of what men or women, blacks or Asians feel because those gloss over many differences.

32. Intersectionality • So for example, while largely white, middle class feminists argued for the right of women to enter the workplace, low-income women, many of whom were women of color, were already a part of it.

33. Intersectionality • One of my favorite books that uses this theory is written by a collective of black feminists and its called All the Women are White, All the Blacks are Men, but Some of Us are Brave. It’s responding to white feminists’ assumptions that womens issues are all the same without accounting for race, and men black civil rights activists’ assumptions that all racial issues and identities were the same regardless of gender.

34. Intersectionality • In this clip, Tyra Banks discusses how standards of womens’ beauty that take white women as the norm can affect women of color: • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8C5ZnQA08c&feature=related • How does this clip demonstrate the intersection of race, class and gender with regard to these womens’ identities?

35. Intersectionality • In this clip, Tyra Banks discusses how standards of women’s beauty that take white women as the norm can affect women of color: • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8C5ZnQA08c&feature=related • How does this clip demonstrate the intersection of race, class and gender with regard to these womens’ identities?

36. Intersectionality • Sociologists think about oppressions and privileges as occurring in a matrix of domination. When an individual is privileged as white, male and middle class, the privileges compound one another. When one is female, working class, and a person of color, the same happens with the variety of ways she can experience oppression. Each of us has a position in the matrix of domination that reflects the various privileges and oppressions we are likely to experience.