Dichotomous Poles: Difference and Power

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Dichotomous Poles Difference and Power

• Poles of Difference Demarcate arenas of
  legitimate authority. For example,
  nature/culture.
• Resolving the nature/culture divide means
  theorizing the spaces between poles.
• Resistance to power is always shaped by
  dominant relations of power and privilege.

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Summing Up the Trouble with Difference

• Difference is the guiding paradigm of inquiry.
• It shapes our realm of the fathomable.
• Difference always implies hierarchy.
• Paradoxically, studying relations of privilege
  may reify the ideologies that structure such
  relations.
• The politics of research remains a barrier to
  rigorous critical social science.

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The Social Construction of Reality

• Berger and Luckmanns Three Stages
• Externalization- Cultural Products are Created
  Through Social Interaction.
• Objectivation- The Products created appear to
  take on a reality of their own. People lose
  awareness that they are the authors of the social
  and cultural environment.
• Internalization- We learn supposedly objective
  facts about the cultural products that have been
  created.

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Learning to Think Critically

• Reflect on Facts, Assumptions, and
  Interpretations
• Ask Critical Questions.
• Brookfields Framework
• Identify and Challenge Assumptions
• Be Cognizant of Ones Place in History.
• Search for Alternative Ways of Thinking.
• Develop Reflective Analyses.

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What is Critical Thinking?

• Refers to three inter-related things
• 1) Awareness of a set of interrelated critical
  questions.
• 2) Ability to ask and answer critical questions.
• 3) Desire to actively use the critical questions.

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Critical Sociological Thinking

• Discipline specific Concept- Critical thinking
  in sociology requires a sensitivity to and
  awareness of social and cultural contexts
  (Grauerholz and Bouma-Holtrop, 2003).
• Grauerholz and Bouma Holtrop (2003) ...propose
  the concept of critical sociological thinking
  to refer to the ability to evaluate, reason, and
  question ideas and information while
  demonstrating awareness of broader social and
  cultural contexts. (Graueholz and Bouma Holtrop,
  2003 p.491-3).

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Engaging in Critical Sociological Thinking

• Within sociological thought, this means engaging
  in the dual processes of conceptualizing and
  contexualizing (Graueholz and Bourna Holtrop,
  2003).
• Conceptualizing refers to the process of
  analyzing multiple examples, finding
  commonalities, eliminating non-examples and
  determining the underlying conceptual structure.
  
• Contextualizing refers to a reflective thinking
  process . This involves identifying linkages
  between an immediate problem and larger social
  contexts (Geersten 2003b).

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Privilege and the Sociological Imagination

• Use your sociological skills to critically assess
  structures of privilege and oppression.
• Conceptualizing and Contextualizing Privilege

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Understanding Privilege

• Privilege is always in relation to others. It is
  a zero sum game.
• One participates in systems of privilege,
  oppression, and dominance without necessarily
  being an oppressive or dominant individual.
• The Problem is structural. We, as individuals,
  operate within structures of Privilege/Oppression
  regardless of our desires, perceptions and
  actions.

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Privilege

• Peggy McIntosh defines privilege as existing when
  one group has something of value that is denied
  to others simply because of the groups they
  belong to, rather than because of anything
  theyve done or failed to do.
• Something of value may be tangible (goods, access
  to education, jobs, etc) or intangible
  (authority, legitimacy, etc.)

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Two Types of Privilege

• Unearned Entitlements- Things people should have,
  but dont. For example, feeling safe.

• Conferred Dominance- Gives one group dominance
  over another. For example, being viewed as the
  voice of authority.

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The Experience of Privilege

• Acknowledging privilege is difficult.
• Blaming the victim is easy.
• Most people dont consciously acknowledge
  privilege.

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Exercise in Privilege

• Break into groups of 4-6.
• Turn to Pages 27-33 in Johnson.
• Take a look at his list of privileges that he may
  experience without thinking about them.

• Make your own list of 5 ways in which you
  experience unacknowledged privileges.
• Each student will read his/her five to the group.

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Privilege is a Zero Sum Game

• Whether one likes it or not, he/she benefits from
  others oppression.
• For example, men benefit from internalized female
  nurturance.

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As Johnson puts it,

• The problem of race cant just be the problem
  of being black, Chinese, Sioux, or Mexican. It
  has to be more than that, because there is no way
  to separate the problem of being, say, black,
  from the problem of not being white. This
  means privilege is always a problem for people
  who dont have it and for people who do, because
  privilege is always in relation to others. (p. 10)

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The Example of Male Privilege Rape

• Beneke- How does the Threat of Rape Alter Womens
  Behavior
• Fear of the dark.
• Fear of Solitude.
• Women need more money, but are more constrained
  in available safe choices.
• Dependence on others for Safety.
• Limits Expressiveness.
• Limits Freedom to look.
• Always vigilant.
• Limits party behavior.

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How Do Men Benefit From Womens Fear of Rape

• Dependence- Patriarchal Bargains made for
  protection, financial security and so forth.
• The Devil you know is better than the devil you
  dont.
• Women dont compete for certain jobs.
• Victim blame exonerates male perpetrators.
• Women are less likely to feel confident and
  secure, hence, they may be more easily coerced.

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Why Cant Minority Groups Create Change?

• They can. They have.
• People dont like to change.
• Ending oppression means some must give up
  privileges.
• People dont like to see themselves as bad,
  hence, they dont like to believe they are part
  of the problem.

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The Social Construction of Difference and the
Problem of Privilege

• Privilege rests on structures of difference. As
  noted by James Baldwin, No one is white before
  he/she came to America. It took generations, and
  a vast amount of coercion, before this became a
  white country.
• Social Creations are meaningful and the
  experience of them is real.
• The Power and Privilege of Normal.
• Example Anne Fausto-Sterling, The Five Sexes

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The Social Construction of Gender

• What are our common stereotypes of Masculinity
  and femininity?
• What does a manly man and girly girl look and
  act like?
• How would you explain these stereotypes?
• How are privilege and oppression reified by such
  stereotypes?

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The Five Sexes- Anne Fausto Sterling

• What does she mean by 5 sexes?
• Alice Kessler Harris studies inter-sex
  individuals.
• Relations of Power and Privilege Construct
  Doctors Responses to Intersex individuals
• If it looks male, then it must be. Regardless of
  internal organs or potential functionality,
  Doctors are reluctant to remove a well formed
  penis.
• Intersex individuals are fixed to look normal
  with little regard for function.

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The Paradox of Privilege

• One is only privileged if others perceive that
  he/she is in the privileged group. (And one can
  obtain privileges by convincing others that
  he/she is in the group, even if he/she is not.)
• Being privileged doesnt necessarily mean feeling
  privileged.
• Privilege doesnt make one happy.

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The Machinations of Power

• Repressive/Coercive
• One is either prevented from or forced to do
  something
• Constitutive
• The subject is constituted in such a way that he
  or she never really conceives of doing anything
  else.

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How Does Constitutive Power Operate?

• Ideology
• Hegemony

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Ideology

• Ideology- An integrated system of ideas that is
  external to, and coercive of people. As noted by
  Karl Marx, It is not the consciousness of men
  that determines their being, but, on the
  contrary, their social being determines their
  consciousness.
• Ideology is working at its best when we think
  something is common sense.

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Hegemony

• Hegemony- Dominance. It describes a
  sociopolitical situation in which one way of
  thought and life is dominant and diffused
  throughout various social institutions and
  cultural practices.
• Antonio Gramsci
• It is silent domination, to which we consent inch
  by inch, then pretend not to see the cage we
  allowed to be built around us.

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Hegemony

• By hegemony we refer specifically to the
  influence that dominant classes or groups
  exercise by virtue of their control of
  ideological institutions, such as schools, that
  shape perception on such vital issues as the
  Vietnam War. Within history texts, for example,
  the omission of crucial facts and viewpoints
  limits profoundly the ways in which students come
  to view students from intellectual encounters
  with their world that would sharpen their
  critical abilities. (Griffen and Mariciano,
  1979).

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Oppression and Hegemony

• The limiting of options.
• Oppression results from the social relationship
  between privileged and oppressed categories.
  Individuals experiences of oppression vary
  widely.
• Oppression results form relations between social
  categories. It is not possible to be oppressed
  by society itself.
• Belonging to a privileged category that has an
  oppressive relationship with another isnt the
  same as being an oppressive person who behaves in
  oppressive ways.

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Matrix of Domination- Reinforcing Ideological
Relations

• Interlocking axes of oppression that stem from
  societal configurations including (but not
  limited to) race, class, gender, and sexual
  orientation.
• It demonstrates the interconnectedness of systems
  of privilege/oppression across social categories.
• Heterosexism reinforces male privilege and vice
  versa.
• One can be simultaneously oppressed and an
  oppressor.

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Key Concepts

• Dichotomous Poles
• The Trouble With Difference
• The Social Construction of Reality
• Critical Thinking
• Understanding Privilege
• Experiencing Privilege

• Difference is socially constructed
• Paradoxes of privilege
• Ideology
• Hegemony
• Oppression
• Matrix of Domination