{"id":57277,"date":"2013-10-04T12:00:22","date_gmt":"2013-10-04T17:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=57277"},"modified":"2013-10-04T14:25:55","modified_gmt":"2013-10-04T19:25:55","slug":"issues-vs-identities-whats-better-for-progressive-social-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/10\/04\/issues-vs-identities-whats-better-for-progressive-social-change\/","title":{"rendered":"Issues, Identities, and Progressive Social Change"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the U.S., we tend to organize politically according to identities. \u00a0For example, we have a Gay Liberation Movement, a Women’s Movement, and the Civil Rights Movement, to name three big ones. \u00a0All of these are personal characteristics made political.<\/p>\n

The cartoon below, by Miriam Dobson, does a great job of showing one of the downsides of fighting for\u00a0progressive social change in this way.\u00a0\u00a0For one, it can make people who carry multiple marginalized identities (for example, gay black men) feel unwelcome. And, two, it makes it seem like people without the identity can’t be part of the movement.<\/p>\n

One solution is to think about oppressions in terms of intersectionality: we are all a mix of identities that resonate with each other in complicated ways. \u00a0This is a rich idea, but one lesson that it has taught us is that the strategy of divide-and-conquer has been an effective way to keep multiple groups marginalized.<\/p>\n

Instead of emphasizing identities, we could identify issues. And if our issue is oppression, we can join-to-resist. \u00a0As the graphic explains: “oppression of one affects us all.”<\/p>\n

\"1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Via Sociology Source<\/a>,\u00a0Another Angry Woman<\/a>, and The Sociological Imagination<\/a>.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the U.S., we tend to organize politically according to identities. \u00a0For example, we have a Gay Liberation Movement, a Women’s Movement, and the Civil Rights Movement, to name three big ones. \u00a0All of these are personal characteristics made political. The cartoon below, by Miriam Dobson, does a great job of showing one of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":57430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[349,29,345,55,2106,12467,778,285,1761,54],"class_list":["post-57277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ageaging","tag-class","tag-disability","tag-gender","tag-gender-transgenderintersex","tag-heightheightism","tag-intersectionality","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-multiracial","tag-sexual-orientation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/10\/Screenshot_11.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57277"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57277\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57432,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57277\/revisions\/57432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}