Self, Status, and Intersectionality
IP or Identity Politics like PC, Political Correctness, is a familiar, yet unclear and controversial sound bite in the recent political theater. Among these IPs, “intersectionality” out-stands as almost as a complicated cliché, which found its contemporary alternative perspective of social reproduction theory (SRT). The concept of social reproduction was originated from Karl Marx in Das Kapital. It is a variety of his broader idea of reproduction under capitalism of his time. According to sociologist C. B. Doob, it "refers to the emphasis on the structures and activities that transmit social inequality from one generation to the next". The designed/structured race, gender, class, and the rest of man-made inequality under capitalism interplay into a totality of human exploitation and oppression in the contemporary neo-capitalism. In the following writing focuses on intersectionality. For SRT, will be available in the near future. Stay tuned.
Intersectionality is an academic jargon, used by many people in different
fields. This writing intends to provide some relevant information about it and its deep roots.
So, what is Intersectionality? It can be traced back to
1980s. An anthology was titled “All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are
Men, but Some of Us Are Brave,” addressing the issue that black women were both
invisible as women in the women’s movement and invisible as blacks in the civil
rights movement. From the intersectional perspective, black women were
marginalized or invisible within both movements, even though they were doubly
discriminated (The Meaning of Difference, 2016, p.215) . Later, in the early 1990s, Law scholar Kimberle Crenshaw
explained African women’s experience in the US. through the lens of interaction
of gender AND race, not a discrete experience of race OR gender (class can be added too). Such a multiplied effect of several statuses or identities is called the “Matrix of Domination” or “Complex Inequality.”
The analysis of intersectionality is like ANOVA[1] and factor analysis[2] in statistics to exam “main effect” and often time, “interaction effect” of variables. For example, a research studies how race AND gender affect income, or educational level, age, AND marital status affect promotion and income. In these situations, certain variables through mutual interactions create detectable effects and are given priority for calculation. Similarly, in examining man-made intersectional inequality, some conditions have priority over other traits or forms.
To understand intersectionality in human diversity, one needs to delve into the basic, analytic units (building blocks of social structures) in sociology – role, status, the concept of self. In philosophy, psychology, and spirituality, the concept of self was developed and interpreted according to the disciplinary approaches.[3] In this writing, I only focus on sociological perspective.
As mentioned in a previous blog of mine regarding cultural capital (https://ci8395.blogspot.com/2019/06/june-15-sa-2019-classic-video-is.html), social status has three major categories: ascribed, achieved and master. Each given/involuntary, earned/voluntary status has multiple roles to act out a specific status. People carry multiple status sets, of which the multiple roles (role sets) to act out the specific status set accordingly. Thus, status functions like scripts of dramas, while role acting out the scripts. Sociologist Peter Burger referred it as puppets and puppeteers acting in front of and back of the human stage. By being aware of the whole world being a stage, the awakening dynamics can cut off the Invisible String to gain freedom.
Regarding multiple statuses and roles that one carries, the master status tends to be the conspicuous one that overshadows the rest. The connection between role and status, also relies on socialization process. George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) developed the concept “social self” through “generalized others” as an important step that children form their concept of self through playing, and interacting with others (particularly, the significant ones.) Mead proclaims that the self is a part of an individuals’ personality comprised of self-awareness and self-image that are the product of social experience. By taking the role of others, the interaction of the two parts of self: I and Me, develop. People gradually form self-image and shape self-aware, as Cooley’s looking glass self indicates.
Among the four major socialization agents, family is the most important one. Parents give various identities to children. Among them, race and gender are the most essential two. Social class though tends to be invisible or unaware of, playing a major part in shaping children's personality. Different cultural capital, positive and/or negative, is passed through family dynamics to offspring. No matter what social class children are born into, in the long run, they learn how others see them and in terms, they could see their own class, intersecting with other ascribed statues to form self-identities.
To explain the complexity of intersectionality in the classroom, I use the following example to identify the multiple layers of intersections within a person as the first step to decode this term: “Here is a female, "non-White" person with mental illness, who is a lesbian and homeless.” Surely, students can identify race, gender, sexuality, class, and invisible disability based on the above description. But in the real life situation, class, sexuality, and mental condition tend to be hidden, or invisibly discreditable, which can be passed into, or perceived as “normal.” Furthermore, the severity of each dimension of inequality and multiply interfaced dimensions of class, race, gender, sexuality, disability, religion, language, nationality...etc. comprised a complex package of identities which are incomprehensible to most of the dominant group. Generally speaking, color is the most obvious signifier among all, and gender follows (WYSIWYG, what you see is what you get.) Most of us understand how color ties to the disturbing history and is still lingering to today’s big words of instinctive or implicit biases.
The analysis of intersectionality is like ANOVA[1] and factor analysis[2] in statistics to exam “main effect” and often time, “interaction effect” of variables. For example, a research studies how race AND gender affect income, or educational level, age, AND marital status affect promotion and income. In these situations, certain variables through mutual interactions create detectable effects and are given priority for calculation. Similarly, in examining man-made intersectional inequality, some conditions have priority over other traits or forms.
Intersection
Totality of Intersection: Complex Inequality
To understand intersectionality in human diversity, one needs to delve into the basic, analytic units (building blocks of social structures) in sociology – role, status, the concept of self. In philosophy, psychology, and spirituality, the concept of self was developed and interpreted according to the disciplinary approaches.[3] In this writing, I only focus on sociological perspective.
As mentioned in a previous blog of mine regarding cultural capital (https://ci8395.blogspot.com/2019/06/june-15-sa-2019-classic-video-is.html), social status has three major categories: ascribed, achieved and master. Each given/involuntary, earned/voluntary status has multiple roles to act out a specific status. People carry multiple status sets, of which the multiple roles (role sets) to act out the specific status set accordingly. Thus, status functions like scripts of dramas, while role acting out the scripts. Sociologist Peter Burger referred it as puppets and puppeteers acting in front of and back of the human stage. By being aware of the whole world being a stage, the awakening dynamics can cut off the Invisible String to gain freedom.
Regarding multiple statuses and roles that one carries, the master status tends to be the conspicuous one that overshadows the rest. The connection between role and status, also relies on socialization process. George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) developed the concept “social self” through “generalized others” as an important step that children form their concept of self through playing, and interacting with others (particularly, the significant ones.) Mead proclaims that the self is a part of an individuals’ personality comprised of self-awareness and self-image that are the product of social experience. By taking the role of others, the interaction of the two parts of self: I and Me, develop. People gradually form self-image and shape self-aware, as Cooley’s looking glass self indicates.
Among the four major socialization agents, family is the most important one. Parents give various identities to children. Among them, race and gender are the most essential two. Social class though tends to be invisible or unaware of, playing a major part in shaping children's personality. Different cultural capital, positive and/or negative, is passed through family dynamics to offspring. No matter what social class children are born into, in the long run, they learn how others see them and in terms, they could see their own class, intersecting with other ascribed statues to form self-identities.
To explain the complexity of intersectionality in the classroom, I use the following example to identify the multiple layers of intersections within a person as the first step to decode this term: “Here is a female, "non-White" person with mental illness, who is a lesbian and homeless.” Surely, students can identify race, gender, sexuality, class, and invisible disability based on the above description. But in the real life situation, class, sexuality, and mental condition tend to be hidden, or invisibly discreditable, which can be passed into, or perceived as “normal.” Furthermore, the severity of each dimension of inequality and multiply interfaced dimensions of class, race, gender, sexuality, disability, religion, language, nationality...etc. comprised a complex package of identities which are incomprehensible to most of the dominant group. Generally speaking, color is the most obvious signifier among all, and gender follows (WYSIWYG, what you see is what you get.) Most of us understand how color ties to the disturbing history and is still lingering to today’s big words of instinctive or implicit biases.
For convenience, using the above case, if one wants to understand why an individual ends up being homeless, there could exist multiple factors related to it. If race had been identified as the “main effect” in the study, what about the "interaction effect" among the rest of relations within variables, and to the main effect? For example, how gender, class and disability interact with race, creating a new impact on the conditions of homelessness? Furthermore, which type of interaction carries more obstacles for being homelessness? In most situations, due to the WYSIWYG effect, one's master status supersedes the rest of hidden or invisible identities. Thus, the complexity of privileges or stigmas turn into the main sources of explicit and implicit advantages, biases, benefits, stereotype, prejudice, entitlements, and aversive/discrimination that people are not aware of, or intend to ignore/deny their existence. For example, a common "natural law language" (will be addressed in the next writing) goes this way, "Poor people are lazy." Most people immediately visualize (explicitly) with emotion (implicit) about what poor people look like, which easily dismisses other severe inter-playing factors causing poverty, such as, job downsizing, outsourcing, lack of training/education, chronicle illness, lack of reliable vehicles and the cost of maintenance, and the rest of man-made unemployable conditions, not to mention the rooted ideologies of racism, sexism, classism, genderism, ableism imposed upon it (surely, not excluding the personal traits.) Don't stereotype and natural law language make life less complicated? Doesn't ignore or downplay intersectional effects making society less "irritable"?
Let me try the flip side of scenario to see how intersectionality applied to the not-so-sad stories. In the world of worshiping idols, heroes, celebrities, tagged with wealth, power, and prestige, one is humbled by the glittering stars deemed as if they shone from every bit of their energy, rose from the ground 0, stood tall never on any other giants' shoulders. Yes, meritocracy! Visualize a successful man or woman: smart, hardworking, self-disciplined, goal-oriented, sometimes, tall, handsome, beautiful, speaking in good English with the rest of great personal traits. Like reading Horatio Alger's glorious stories - from rag to golden fleece, everyone strides on the leveled playing field to achieve their dreams. The "self-made" men and women branded with Individual Exceptionalism, sweat through their OWN brawn and brain, 25 hours per day. The WYSIWYG success is admirable, yet nothing to do the intersections from class (particularly, the upbringing/beneficial cultural capital, inheritance), race, gender, nationality, language, religion, and the rest of institutional advantages or invisible entitlements. Furthermore, which of the above factor(s) does enhance the success more than other variables? Don't people tend to dismiss these Positive Intersectionality in making heroes and heroines? Isn't it much easier for people to recognize and glorify idols, heroes/heroines, celebrities in an efficient way by dismissing their positive intersectionality ? Why isn't the Positive Intersectionality applied to the majority, instead of the few?
The above section of writing just reminded me of a poster designed for my sociology and diversity studies classes when covering the interfaced class, race, and gender in domestic and global stratification:
So, people are born (e.g., skin color, male/female) or involuntarily assumed later in life (e.g., a PTSD veteran) with different ascribed statuses. Some of them are positive and some, negatives, which either reinforces life chances or bring forth life hurdles. Based on the ascribed, individuals pursue the achieved, both positive and negative. The social self is constructed through socialization processes to acquire these embedded and obtained statuses to form part of the individuals’ personality and identities.
In examining “intersectionality” requires to unpack the basic building blocks of social structures. Through dissecting the microscopic complexity of the social self (other selfhood [4] in different disciplines is not included in this casual writing), the built-up social statuses (ascribed, achieved, master, positive and negative), and how they intersect within an individual of a specific society, the “mystery” of the “Matrix of Domination” might not be too opaque to be seen. Thus, the unearned intersected privileges may make one humbling, the undeserved, unduly intersected stigmas could give one strength and being forgiving, and the intersectionality of privileges and stigmas would enhance human empathy and understanding.
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[1] ANOVA is Analysis of variance, a collection of statistical models and their associated estimation procedures (such as the "variation" among and between groups) used to analyze the differences among group means in a sample. ANOVA was developed by statistician and evolutionary biologist Ronald Fisher.
[2] Factor analysis is a statistical method used to describe variability among observed, correlated variables in terms of a potentially lower number of unobserved variables called factors.
[3] The psychology of self is the study of either the cognitive, conative or affective representation of one's identity or the subject of experience. The earliest formulation of the self in modern psychology derived from the distinction between the self as I, the subjective knower, and the self as Me, the object that is known. James, W. (1891). The Principles of Psychology, Vol.1. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1891)
In philosophy, a subject is a being who has a unique consciousness and/or unique personal experiences, or an entity that has a relationship with another entity that exists outside itself (called an "object"). This concept is especially important in Continental philosophy, where 'the subject' is a central term in debates over the nature of the self. The nature of the subject is also central in debates over the nature of subjective experience within the Anglo-American tradition of analytical philosophy. Heartfield, James (2002). "Postmodernism and the 'Death of the Subject'". The Death of the Subject. Retrieved 28 March 2013.
In Buddhism, Ātman, attā or attan, is found in Buddhist literature's discussion of the concept of non-self. (Thomas William Rhys Davids; William Stede (1921). Pali-English Dictionary. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 22.) Most Buddhist traditions and texts reject the premise of a permanent, unchanging atman (self, soul). However, some Buddhist schools, sutras and tantras present the notion of an atman or permanent "Self", although mostly referring to an Absolute and not to a personal self.
[4] Such as the narcissistic injured self, the true self, false self, memory self, emergent self, self-knowledge, self-perception, self-esteem, public-self, private-self, interpersonal-self, agent-self, self-consciousness, non-self and the rest.
