Subject Positions, Identity, and Intersectionality Flashcards
Discourses work to construct …
truths about the world
Discourses create ____ _____.
subject positions
Subject positions:
- sets of ideas about who someone is and how they should and shouldn’t behave
- the truth about who you are is temporarily fixed within a discourse
Subjectivities reflect the ways…
people take up the various subject positions available to them
When someone tries to occupy a subject position different from what the _____ constructs, they risk…
- discourse
- being incomprehensible and marginalized
____ is the effect of discourse.
truth
Your very self is a _____ production:
- discursive
- you are who you are vs you are who you have been made into and are being made into
The power of discourse is to make…
certain things truer than others (eg. the idea that your selfhood exists outside discourse is a very true idea)
What the discourse allows is taken to be…
within the true
What the discourse doesn’t allow is taken to be…
outside the true
No one _____ discursive power or is ____ for it.
- directs
- responsible
Discursive power is located in the _____ not ____ _____.
- discourses
- various people
_____ themselves are products/producers of discourse.
people
Performativity is based on ____ ____’s work.
Judith Butler
Judith Butler believed that there is no _____ before its _____.
- gender
- doing
Identity politics normally assume a ….
stable identity category (eg. black, upper class, gay, etc)
Performativity:
- there is no essential identity inside us or before the performances that make up that identity
- thus ‘our self’ is really just a shifting constellation of performances given meaning (temporarily) by various discourses in society
____ are a truth effect.
We
Intersectionality theorists argue that people always hold ….
overlapping, multiple, and shifting socially constructed identities
Intersectionality is:
social identities understood together within political, economic, and additional structures offer a much different perspective than when viewed in isolation
Discrimination operates differently on different _____ with different _____.
- people
- consequences
_____ can be hard to see.
intersectionality
The termination of Harris from the team was seen as evidence of _____.
homophobia
Harris was asked to …
- dress more feminine
- conform to heterosexual norms and white norms
There is no such thing as a…
non-racial heterosexuality
Harris’ coach saw her as …
too masculine but also (covertly) as too black
Baggy clothes and cornrows are issues of both ____ and ____.
- gender
- race
Redundant reading of “be more feminine and stop wearing cornrows”:
both mean stop being a butch homosexual
Conjunctive reading of “be more feminine and stop wearing cornrows”:
the first means stop being a butch homosexual while the second means be less black
What did media do with the Jennifer Harris case? How did this work against Harris?
- separated these, saw them as non-interacting
- her argument was that she was discriminated against for her race/sexuality combination had no place in media and legal frameworks
Black women have a number of subject positions available to them that differ from white women, such as:
- if you work hard at a job = bad mother who neglects her children
- if you stay home to raise those children = welfare queen
- if you enjoy sex = hoe
- if you don’t need a man for sex = emasculating
Black women have ____ healthy, positive subject positions to engage.
few
To compensate for implied lesbianism, a black female athlete risks…
becoming a ‘hoe’ whereas a white female athlete does not
Jennifer Harris case is the intersection of…
- race
- gender
- sex
- sexual orientation
White people are not as often depicted as _____. For a white person, being ____ is not equivalent to being an _____.
- animals
- strong
- animal
For a black individual, being…..is risky.
- fast
- strong
- confident
- powerful
Being animalistic is also linked to being ____ _____:
- sexually aggressive
- for black women: emasculating
- for black men: sexual criminal (rapist)
