7.2: Bias and Identity

As society evolves and shifts in discourse happen, we are able to acknowledge that a lot of our biases and implicit biases are socially constructed and based in historical traumas built into patriarchal structures. Bias can be defined as, “Prejudice for or against one thing, person or group compared to another, usually in a way considered to be unfair” and implicit bias is defined as, “when we have attitudes towards people or groups of people or associate stereotypes with them without our conscious knowledge. A fairly commonplace example of this is seen in studies that show that white people will frequently associate criminality with black people without even realizing they are doing it” (New York Institute of Technology, 2020). In this chapter, we will discuss the social constructions we continue to hold in high regard, along with their negative outcomes, such as sexism, heteronormativity, racism, classism, ableism, ageism, and colorism.

"Fingerprint in Art" by Adaiyaalam is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Thanks to the important critiques of transnational, post-colonial, queer, trans and feminists of color, most contemporary WGSS [Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies] scholars strive to see the world through the lens of intersectionality. That is, they see systems of oppression working in concert, rather than separately and independently. For instance, the way sexism is experienced depends not only on a person’s gender, but also on how the person experiences racism, economic inequality, ageism, and other forms of marginalization within particular historical and cultural contexts.

Feminism is not a single school of thought, but rather, encompasses diverse theories and analytical perspectives—such as socialist feminist theories, radical sex feminist theories, black feminist theories, queer feminist theories, transfeminist theories, feminist disability theories, and intersectional feminist theories. The common thread in all these feminist theories is the belief that knowledge is shaped by the political and social context in which it is made (Scott 1991). Acknowledging that all knowledge is constructed by individuals inhabiting particular social locations, feminist theorists argue that reflexivity—understanding how one’s social position influences the ways that they understand the world—is of utmost necessity when creating theory and knowledge. As people occupy particular social locations in terms of race, class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, and ability, these multiple identities act in combination at the same time to shape social experiences. At certain times, specific dimensions of their identities may be more salient than at others, but at no time is anyone without multiple identities. Thus, categories of identity are intersectional, influencing the experiences that individuals have and the ways they see and understand the world around them.

In the United States, we often are taught to think that people are self-activating, self-actualizing individuals. We repeatedly hear that everyone is unique, and that everyone has an equal chance to make something of themselves. Sociologists call a place where this would take place,  a meritocracy. While feminists also believe that people have agency— the ability to influence the direction of their lives—they also argue that an individual’s agency is limited or enhanced by their social position. A powerful way to understand oneself and one’s multiple identities is to situate one’s experiences within multiple levels of analysis—micro – (individual), meso- (group), macro- (structural), and global. These levels of analysis offer different analytical approaches to understanding a social phenomenon. Connecting personal experiences to larger, structural forces of race, gender, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and ability allows for a more powerful understanding of how our own lives are shaped by forces greater than ourselves, and how we might work to change these larger forces of inequality. Like a microscope that is initially set on a view of the most minute parts of a cell, moving back to see the whole of the cell, and then pulling one’s eye away from the microscope to see the whole of the organism, these levels of analysis allow us to situate day-to-day experiences and phenomena within broader, structural processes that shape whole populations. The micro level is that which we, as individuals, live everyday—interacting with other people on the street, in the classroom, or while we are at a party or a social gathering. Therefore, the micro-level is the level of analysis focused on individuals’ experiences. The meso level of analysis moves the microscope back, seeing how groups, communities and organizations structure social life. A meso level-analysis might look at how churches shape gender expectations for women, how schools teach students to become girls and boys, or how workplace policies make gender transition and recognition either easier or harder for trans and gender nonconforming workers. The macro level consists of government policies, programs, and institutions, as well as ideologies and categories of identity. In this way, the macro level involves national power structures, as well as cultural ideas about different groups of people, based on race, class, gender, and sexuality spread through various national institutions, such as media, education and policy. Finally, the global level of analysis includes transnational production, trade, and migration, global capitalism, and transnational trade and legal bodies (such as the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, the World Trade Organization). These larger transnational forces that affect our personal lives but that we often ignore or fail to see.

Recognizing how forces greater than ourselves operate in shaping the successes and failures we typically attribute to individual decisions allows us to see how inequalities are patterned by race, class, gender, and sexuality. Approaching these issues through multiple levels of analysis—at the micro, meso, and macro/global levels—gives a more integrative and complete understanding of both personal experience, and the ways in which macro structures affect the people who live within them. So if we look at sexuality or how someone is allowed to express their sexuality through multiple levels of analysis, we can connect what is experienced at the micro level as personal problems, like a person who’s sexuality identity is questioned or shamed, to macro-economic, cultural, and social problems. For example, an entire demographic of people not able to access reproductive services or education. This not only gives us the ability to develop socially-lived theory, but also allows us to organize with other people who feel similar effects from the same economic, cultural, and social problems in order to challenge and change these problems.