How Identities are Socially Constructed - Assignment Example

Bhattacharya Fall Q.I Part Why various want us to understand, personally & politically, how identities are socially constructed and always intersectional The women have reorganized in groups that help them achieve higher bargaining powers to deal with their plight in the society. Authors have recognized the realization by women that political demands of a group powerfully convey messages as compared to few isolated voices. This politicization thus presents effective avenues to understand violence subjected to women. Particular violence like battering that were previously rated private and aberrational have since been rated broadly as systems that jointly impacts on women (Kimberle, pp, 279). Identity politics in Africa-American, gays and lesbian as well as other people of color thus become definite through the process of recognizing as social and systemic the previously perceived as isolated and private violence issues against women. Identity-based politics is therefore the sole source of strength, intellectual and community development. There is a challenge, however, based on embrace of identity politics that has been at loggerheads with dominant conceptions of social justice. Identity categories such as gender and race are according to the mainstream liberal discourse viewed as vestiges of domination that describes social power as power excludes along the social class. In light of all these, the Authors seek to help us liberatory projects at breaking away from the bondage of the social significance of these identity categories. The source of social empowerment and reconstruction arise from the fact that social power in delineating difference does not call for power domination. However, the challenge with the identity politics goes beyond its failure to transcend difference but its frequent conflating of intergroup variations. Identity categories thus determine the particular set of violence faced by women. In addition, neglecting the intergroup variations along class and race leads to intergroup tensions and hence justifies the authors need to understand politically and personally how identities are socially constructed and intersectional hence the efforts to politicize women violence. Racism and sexism do intersect and thus need to by feminist to politicize experience of women and antiracist efforts to politicize the people of color experience since these identity categories mutually occur on exclusive terrains. Feminist and antiracists discourses have ignored the intersectional identities like women of color. The experience of women of color arise from the intersecting trends of racism and sexism besides showcasing how such experiences are represented in discourses through antiracism or feminism. Women of color are thus marginalized based on their intersectional identity with respect to both women and color based on their discourses that are shaped to respond to one or the other. Implications of precepts of a social constructionist and intersectional to understanding social phenomena Identity Politics The implication of this precept is the challenge that goes beyond its failure to transcend difference but its frequent conflating of intergroup variations. In addition based on embrace of identity politics, it has been at loggerheads with dominant conceptions of social justice. Identity categories such as gender and race are according to the mainstream liberal discourse viewed as vestiges of domination that describes social power which segregates along the social class. The intersectionality is only depicted as a vessel to frame the many interactions of identity categories (race and gender) with regard to violence against women. In essence, intersectionality goes beyond this and significance to mediate the tension between multiple identity and the current necessity of group politics. It is important that we distinguish intersectionality from antiessentialism where women color critically incorporate white feminism with regard to absence of women color on one end and speaking for women of color as well. Thus the categories that are at times merely perceived as representational are constructed in a linguistic economy of difference. The identity of politics with respect to intersectional concepts contradicts the project of postmodernism that doubts how meaning is socially constructed thus misreads the actual meaning of social constructions hence distorting its political relevance. In addition, antiessentialism recognizes the concept of vulgarized social construction that renders the concept of identity of politic vague as all categories seem socially constructed hence sense to proceed with the reproduction of these categories (blacks or women) through organization around them. Thus constructionist approach has serious implication even in the Supreme Court that have trashed the notion that any set-aside aimed at increasing conveying the grievances of the marginalized were ill-informed based on racist assumption of skin color as being connected to segregation on broadcast contents. Thus the values attached to these categories foster and create uncalled for hierarchies with the process of categorization viewed as the source of power thus much more nuanced. Identity politics may fail at times based on the descriptive content of the particular categories as well as narratives do favor some experiences. Why the shift in perception toward social construction & intersectional nature of identities important and necessary The shift in perception towards social construction and intersectional nature of identities is important and necessary. This is because through this concept, we can trash the notion of biological essentialism. We need to vacate and destroy the concept of vulgar constructionism that solely adversely serves to distort the chances for meaningful identity politics through ignoring at least two distinct but linked manifestations of power. The key principle of the politics of social location is to empower the disempowered groups resulting from the concept of biological essentialism that trashes the significance of the concept of the identity politics (Yancy, pp, 62). Thus needs to be resisted and rebelled against destruction of the politics of social location through occupation and defending. Despite the frequent failure of the concept of the identity politics, it is based on the fact that politics embrace natural particular categories socially constructed but rather the descriptive content of a particular strategy associated with experience favoritism. The solution goes by beyond argument for multiplicity of identity and essentialism but rather determining what difference the Hill’s location crucially had. Identity politics is currently understood with the multiplicity concept in mind, goes beyond mere recognition but rater understanding that the said identity categories are fact collisions waiting to establish. The inability with respect to Thomas and his antiracist proponents to tell dimensions of gender and race is a consequence of the biological essentialism concept where antiracism had essentialized blackness and feminism essentializing womanhood. Feminists discourse obscure gender identities. Intersectionality is thus beneficial as it presents avenues for reconceptualising race as an alliance between male and female of color. This can particularly be illustrated with respect to rape where intersectionality offers the basis to understand the reason behind the need by the women of color to relinquish the uncalled for concept that interest of community is embedded on the suppression of confrontations circumventing intraracial rape. Intersectionality further presents amicable solutions to marginalization as race is viewed as an alliance of straight and gay persons of color hence criticize religions that reproduce heterosexism. Part 2: How Lived Experience are embedded within Power Structures and Domination Individual life events are embedded within larger structures of power and domination. Women of color have come together and organize to raise the bargaining power. It is understood that individual voices are less impactful than a million voices spoken through a particular voice. Social construction and intersectional concepts have become the sources of power and domination. The values attached to a particular identity categories is very key for a particular category to dominate. The women from the communities victimized by white supremacy do unite around the shared oppression to gain power and domination. Women are thus categorized as Native women, Arab/Muslim women, Latinas, Black women and Asian American women that overlap taking the Venn diagram’s form. The logic of Orientalism is another source of power and domination as segregate along superiority depicting whites as superior to women of color which are viewed as permanent threat to the Native. The heteropatriarchy facilitates white superior and it is found that same sex-marriage leads to terrorism. As asserted in the #BlackLivesMaster, police brutality really impacts on Back women that have been subjected to rape and other oppression by the police violence (Andrea, pp, 69). The Black lives are attached to no value within the White Supremacy. They are therefore subjected to hyper-criminalization and sexualization. The levels of white supremacist domination through the reproduction of a tired trope of people being equal. Domination and racism impacts both black and non-black hence the need for anti-black racism to simultaneously benefit all the oppressed. The state apparatus reaction of building a program of genocide and repression mostly on blacks; theft of millions of people for free labor aimed at controlling murder and benefit off other communities of color as well as immigrants communities. BlackLivesMaster present an opportunity to understand the struggles across class, race, gender, sexuality, nationality and disability. The reaction to the state on the oppression of black further perpetuate the white supremacists domination as the state uniquely, systematically and savagely target the black. The categories of identity such as race and gender are at times merely perceived as representational but are constructed in a linguistic economy of difference. The identity of politics with respect to intersectional concepts contradicts the project of postmodernism that doubts how meaning is socially constructed thus misreads the actual meaning of social constructions hence distorting its political relevance which facilitates violence against women. The oppression of the disabled has been based on the idealization of human body based on size, shape and structure thus preventing us from identifying with our real body (Susan, pp, 246). The physical disabled is thus marginalized in a society that idealizes the body hence devaluating the disabled. The abled bodies thus marginalize the disabled based a long employment and other activities as this becomes their source of power and domination. Disability is thus viewed as personal or family challenge but not as social responsibility according to the scientific findings. The disabled are thus expected to thrive against the hindrances to participation based on self-efforts or through the provision of whatever they need by their families. Scientific studies further attach the provision of resources to disabled as charitable and superogatory as the disabled are viewed as unproductive societal people. The government and charitable organizations spend much in providing for the marginalized lots Bhattacharya Fall 2014 Q. II Bend it Like Beckham: Stereotypes The society we reside today is embedded in a lot of stereotypes. The stereotypes are showcased in each spot, job as well as items of clothing that depicts much stereotypes. The film Bend it Like Beckham reproduce stereotypes. It is a metaphoric film that describes how Jules and her friend (Jesse) have to bend rules of stereotypes as valued by their parents to get of the bondage of girls being unable to engage in certain spot or jobs (football). For example, these two ladies become rebellious against these stereotypes and are viewed as strange and unconventional as they can permanently stuck with these stereotypes for the whole of their life span. In the film, we observe how stereotyping the centerpiece becomes as the two ladies are not allowed to play football since all ladies who play football become lesbians. In the film we see how the girls struggle for their plight with respect to identity in the society in order to achieve whatever the desire in life even it means denouncing their parents (Politics of Anti-Racism Education, pp, 67). Despite the aim, much stumbling blocks resulting from stereotypes are erected on their ways resulting from the societal prejudice. In addition, stereotyping is also advanced through restricting ballet to upper class boy’s sport. When Jules mother meets Jess she identified her as Jules Indian friend and accepts that Jess should teach Jules their culture besides respect for elderly which shows both a happier and rude mother to Jess. The stereotypes however are changed with Jules mother accepting her daughter’s desires of being more into shopping and into boys hence realizing that Jules is not a lesbian but a traditional woman playing football just as the girls had read about in the football magazine. Work Cited Politics of Anti-Racism Education: in Search of Strategies for Transformative Learning. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2014. Internet resource. Yancy, George. The Center Must Not Hold: White Women Philosophers on the Whiteness of Philosophy. Lanham, Md: Lexington Books, 2010. Print. Kimberle Williams Crenshaw. Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color. Andrea Smith. Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of white Supremacy: Rethinking Women of Color Organizing. Susan Wendell, Towards a Feminist Theory of Disability. Read More