Taking Pride Seriously:
Race and Gender Identity in Social Constructionist Models

by Nathan Haynes, Philosophy

In light of social constructionist models of race, questions pertaining to fighting oppression and identity are often interrelated. In this paper, I argue that race and gender identities should not be primary aspects of identity on the grounds of maintaining self-determination. Other theorists like Haslanger argue political approaches that offer similar conclusions, but this approach does not clearly conclude that these identities need to be rejected, running into contrary beliefs on political organization. Using the work of Alcoff and Garcia, I contend that self-determination allows us to see how racial or gender-based identification has negative implications. Both constructions are not freely chosen and put constraints that run contrary to the agency of the individual. Even in the case of positive sentiments or pride, which may otherwise seem neutral, there are problematic consequences in allowing this form of membership. This is overlooked by Garcia yet can contribute to the issues of determinacy he and Alcoff are concerned with. By thinking in terms of backgrounds instead of strictly racial or gendered terms, we are able to avoid perpetuating hierarchical and harmful aspects of gender and race identity while being true to our sentiments and experiences, allowing for self-determination and solidarity.

philosophy, race, gender, identity, self-determination

In public discourse, race and gender are discussed primarily as it pertains to racism and identity. The presence of self-identification and racial pride is evident in social and political discourses, yet is often neglected or trivialized by academics. Still, many view these two discussions as deeply interrelated, leading a well-meaning few to assume or denounce their socially imposed racial identities for various reasons. Following the scientific discovery that disproved classical racial thinking and categories, social models have emerged, explaining the continued significance and existence of race. Because of the remaining problematic implications in racial categories left over from classical race thought, various thinkers have proposed reasons why race should not be thought of as a significant part of one’s sense of self or decision-making. 

However, identifying positively within assigned racial or gendered categories seems to cause little harm, and might, at first glance, contribute insignificantly to the larger question of identity. I argue that social constructionist models of race and gender reveal problematic consequences of holding racial or gender identities as integral to self. I contend that both constructions ought not be a primary aspect of self-identity as they are incongruent with self-determination, which should center oneself and ethical considerations. Furthermore, positive sentiments of self-identification with gender or race categories, rather than backgrounds or lived experience, also produce possible negative repercussions. While thinkers like Haslanger provide reasoning for rejecting racial identities by appealing to political ends, these grounds are sometimes disputable and do not address identity. Building off the work of Garcia and Alcoff, I acknowledge that awareness of social backgrounds is important in many ways, and positive feelings about one’s own experience are not wrong in and of themselves. This distinction allows for solidarity and sentiments while rejecting hierarchical and problematic features of race and gender categories.

Sally Haslanger’s work presents a strong account of both race and gender from the social constructionist perspective. She asserts that race is a nonbiological category that is “unified by social features.”1 She claims that race is defined by her expanded concept of ‘color,’ which includes a multitude of bodily traits and geographical distribution.

To make this model more salient, Haslanger compares another socially constructed kind to better explain the features and implications of both. Gender, often defined as the social expression of sex, provides a complementary example beside race. Race and gender can both be understood as socially constructed expressions of real-world bodily differences of ‘color’ and sex, respectively. In both instances, physical traits are socially organized to create new groups with distinct meanings. One posits, for example, that individuals with certain reproductive organs will also like certain activities, or that one person’s nose shape could indicate something about their character. Haslanger generally acknowledges that race and gender have important and distinct features but chooses to work primarily with their similarities. Nevertheless, features like ancestry in race thought have important implications that should not be forgotten to better fit this comparative approach.

Since race and gender are still related to their classical essentialist categories, which contain hierarchical stratifications, Haslanger claims that how we organize social groupings remains hierarchical in the contemporary world.2 This is evident in the persistent nature of sexism and racism in subjugating their respective groups. With these pertinent issues in mind, Haslanger argues for her social constructionist model on the political and social justice grounds that support feminist and antiracist ends for the betterment of society.3 

In “Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do We Want Them to Be?”, Haslanger lays out her conclusions regarding the problem of dealing with race and gender. To the extent that her model attempts to address and stop racial and gender discrimination, Haslanger asserts we should not perpetuate a social kind with subjugating and hierarchal components. Since gender and race currently include these features, they must be rejected.4 Though Haslanger asserts we could one day overcome and redefine the categories, they cannot be accepted in their current form. Without their hierarchical orderings and structures, Haslanger may be allowing for race and gender to exist arbitrarily. Gender and race, if transformed, may no longer be gender and race as we identify them, and Hanslanger’s vision of idealized categories could prove to be ineffective, tying new structures to historically oppressive ones.

Haslanger’s social constructionist model has offered one perspective on why race and gender should be challenged and rejected by individuals, aimed toward her political goal of ending discrimination. To achieve social groupings without hierarchical structures, one should challenge rather than accept racial categories to reform them. Haslanger insists we cannot identify as within a social group while maintaining a purely critical eye. This implies that positive identification, at best, slows social justice efforts. Nonuse of racial categories and political change are not immediately related, and there may even be cases where the use of racial categories could lead to political change. Nevertheless, Haslanger holds to this position.

Resisting race and gender categories may not always be of immediate use to political projects if we approach the question of identity as it relates to Haslanger’s project. There might be some instances where the use of racial or gender identity may be of use to political ends of fighting subjugation. Paul Taylor, for example, points out that racial identity can be and often is a “basis for political mobilization.”5 Self-identity may act as a reminder of how racial discrimination affects one’s immediate circumstances or helps rally large groups in often decade-long social movements. 

Taylor’s alternative way of thinking about self-identity and membership as it pertains to political goals reflects that it is not clear on purely political grounds whether one should exclude race in self-identity. While political arguments sufficiently represent antiracist or antisexist goals, the practical political grounds that Haslanger uses can lead to confusion as to whether we must self-identify in some specific contexts or not. Because of this ambiguity, another argument is required to encompass the use of racial categories which would more adequately address the neglected question of identity.

Both Linda Alcoff and Jorge Garcia do not use Haslanger’s political justification when providing arguments against viewing race as a primary part of self, avoiding a political aim altogether. They argue that race ought not be a primary part of self-identification because it is incongruent with self-determination. The limitations on our constructs of race and gender, in these arguments, impede self-determination, creating problematic constraints on identity.

Linda Alcoff’s analyses of race and gender in Visible Identities highlight how a social identity category like gender or sex is incongruent with self-determination. Citing and following the tradition of Hegel, Sartre, Butler, and others, her conclusions against identities stem from a focus on the indeterminacy of self, or the belief that one can never be completely defined and is instead a fluid and contextualized being.6 To preserve the freedom of an indeterminate self, Alcoff concludes that hard, external, and social categories like race and gender put constraints on the individual.7 Social identities are socially determined, meaning that one’s race or gender is decided for them by a society or group. These categories and groupings are controlled by a plurality of voices, giving little or no individual agency in choosing them in most cases. In the case of gender, the agency to associate with a gender category is limited at best, and in the case of race, an individual has no power to assign themselves to a group. Because social identity categories are not self-determined, they may provide inaccurate and inflexible representations of self and put the individual under various constraints. For example, certain individuals may be stereotyped by assumptions that often reflect conventional hierarchies due to socially constructed categories.

Alcoff does allow one to self-identify within these identities, but not if they are a primary constitutive aspect of identity. She maintains that our identities embody “horizons from which we each must confront and negotiate our shared world and specific life condition.”8 This positional description of race and gender identity does not describe personal identity, but does allow us to negotiate with our societal backgrounds. One could, in this way, hold positive sentiments about their position or support others in their group; these emotions are not targeted at races per se, allowing space for self that racial and gender identification may not. In numerous situations, it is important to acknowledge these groupings as they pertain to the individual, but this does not strictly refer to the identity of self. It is important to draw this distinction here, Garcia notes, since thinking of identity historically and contextually may lead to a determinate, aggregate view of identity, in which our political and moral thoughts stem directly from our assigned groupings.9 Such a limited sense of self can create feelings of atomization, isolation, and futility. Alcoff’s appeal to the indeterminacy of self and negotiation helps ward off this alternative conclusion, and this distinction is important to understand Alcoff’s argument. 

Alcoff uses the descriptive incongruencies of identity and self to provide an argument which is grounded in self-determination and freedom. By placing freedom and the indeterminacy of self as the primary concern of self, she addresses identity without an appeal to a practical political aim. Based on the grounds of self-determination, we can strengthen Alcoff’s conclusions. Categories of race and gender are socially prescribed by society without choice, and while we can resist them, the fact that we do not determine them means they do not limit but contradict self-determination. Alcoff implies this in her arguments but chooses a more moderate assertion. Garcia acknowledges this and derives his conclusions about identity from similar grounds. 

Garcia, similar to Alcoff’s insistence on the indeterminacy of self, asserts that “the core of the self” should take precedence over any externally imposed identity.10 What he means by this is that social constructs, if we take race and gender to be such, should not be a primary factor in determining identity, since they are constructed outside oneself. Instead, our agency and self-willed affiliations and beliefs ought to center our sense of self. This primary argument supports Alcoff’s in that it asserts adjacently that self-determination should dictate how we view ourselves. Besides placing identity and agency within the control of oneself, a concept that is not socially pre-determined, this argument gains the advantage that individuals do not have to strive towards some sort of “purity,” as Garcia states, to perpetuate their identity, which may have dangerous consequences.11 Self-determining people should think of themselves and guide their actions following their freedom of will. 

Garcia admits that many aspects and positions in our lives constitute our identity but maintains it should be our self-determined groupings that define identity in the proper sense. At first, social grouping seems to be a vague descriptor and could include gender, religion, as well as far less serious groupings, like sports team affiliation, favorite color, or music preferences, as thinkers like Appiah propose.12 Garcia resists this view and clarifies that only groupings that have a serious influence on our self-concepts and moral reasoning can properly constitute identity.13 Only significant identities which shape our values and worldviews can truly influence the self in a central way. Race falls under this category but fails to accommodate a self-determined identity since racial categories are strictly predetermined by society, even when compared to gender. Simply stating you are of a race is problematic as well as insufficient for racial membership. Because identifying as a race or gender can have consequences in ethical reasoning and is unchosen, it is contrary to the freedom of an individual to self-determine, and creates issues if it is understood as fully constituting oneself.

In addition to the nature of a social construct, Garcia asserts specific, contextual reasons race acts as a particularly poor category for self-identity. For one, contemporary society and multiculturalism have obscured racial definitions, leaving many to be defined in several or even no groups, thus leading to conflicts. This inherent instability of racial categories is insufficient for a centered sense of self. Regarding political discourse, thinking in terms of race affiliation degrades democratic actions and political justice to a “grab for power,” or a predetermined performance, as opposed to political action based on justice or freedom.14 Blind racial solidarity, for Garcia, has no merit of its own. At best, positive sentiments for one’s race are normatively neutral. By putting our racial identity at our core, we put great restraint on our ability to act in a multitude of situations, limiting ourselves and having possible ethical repercussions.

While Garcia has properly addressed the problematic nature of acting from a central perspective of race, as in the case of blind solidarity, he overlooks possible repercussions of positive racial sentiments. Though positive sentiments seem inconsequential when compared to solidarity and decision-making, Garcia avoids how sentiments often lead individuals to view racial identity as a constitutive aspect of self. When one feels deeply about their identity as, or within, a social category such as race or gender, these emotions perpetuate the significance of racial membership and its constraints. The hierarchical and rigid concepts are reified and survive within these sentiments, which otherwise seem harmless and normatively neutral. 

I, by no means, intend to argue that one cannot feel sentimental or passionate about racial or gendered categories. For one, racial injustice is a clear example where strong emotions related to race are evoked on a basis independent of racial membership. Alcoff’s insistence on thinking of racial and gendered backgrounds, as opposed to racial identities, is of great use to highlight a difference in self-identifying with background and background groups as opposed to racial concepts. Garcia may be correct to call these emotions neutral, but only given that we clarify we are speaking about racial backgrounds, which are shared and continue to help us organize against societal inequalities. By making this clear, we see how the common positive sentiments of many for their racialized groups can remain neutral without an insistence on maintaining and sustaining racial categories, which, as we have seen, are hierarchical. This distinction also allows us to feel passionate about our backgrounds and the issues that affect those who are categorized similarly to us, all while acknowledging the negotiation between self and social categories. 

It seems unlikely that individuals could hold strong emotions towards their respective social groupings without the repercussions Garcia previously asserted if they do not negotiate and contextualize their racial positionality. Therefore, to seriously maintain positive self-identification within social categories like race without negative implications, it is important for the individual to keep in mind their ability to negotiate with their assigned backgrounds. Luckily, accepting this does not require much work or systemic upheaval, and racial backgrounds often ground positive self-identification in the form of shared experience. Nonetheless, this distinction helps us work with the ideas of socially constructed racial categories without denouncing our emotions on grounds of impeding self-determination, or worse, blindly accepting the limitations and hierarchies of racial categories.

Garcia draws stronger and clearer conclusions than Alcoff’s similar grounding of self-determination. She comments on Alcoff’s assertion that socially constructed identities like race and gender constrain the individual, noting that it should prohibit race or gender categories from defining the core self since we cannot choose these identities freely. Because freedom to center oneself in identity is the foundation of both arguments, Garcia’s conclusion that they indeed work contrary to self-identity follows and provides a stronger normative argument. Garcia’s self-determination argument also accommodates political action. Additionally, we should not center our identity around social identities since they narrow our thinking. We have also seen that they are insufficient for deciding political affiliations in accordance with freedom. Garcia’s account appears stronger than Haslanger’s political approach, as it appeals to the inherent freedom of choice in politics rather than a political goal that could be accomplished in several ways. 

It seems, still, that Garcia’s insistence on self-determination itself could be viewed as blocking self-determination. After all, if people freely determine to embrace their social identities, does asserting that one should not do so limit their right to self-determination? Garcia maintains nonetheless that if we embrace race or gender identity as a primary aspect of identity, these categories will put limitations on our self-expectations or ability to morally reason. If race is at the core of the self, then it will always pose a threat to self-determination since it is externally conditioned and constructed. By putting one’s agency ahead of others on the basis of justice and virtue, as opposed to race or gender membership, favoritism is avoided and, when needed, solidarity is still achieved.15 Any attempt to remove the self from the center will limit the capacity of self-determination and will be harmful to the self. Furthermore, viewing the limitation of action in such a way is more congruent with a negative definition of freedom that is not focused on the end of self-determination and moral action presented by Alcoff or Garcia. Having positive sentiments toward one’s social background grouping is vastly different than making the grouping and concepts an integral and determining factor of identity. Garcia’s argument aims to put freedom of self at the forefront and is less concerned with positive sentiments that are not pertinent to the question of identity.

From the perspective of social constructionist models of race, the question of identity is often subordinated to antiracist concerns. In this paper, I have argued against thinkers like Haslanger who use political grounds to refute that race and gender should be primary aspects of self-identity. Instead, the groundings of self-determination used by Alcoff and Garcia are more-encompassing foundational arguments. The benefit of these arguments is that they avoid disagreements over efficacy by bypassing the practical political argument, that, as we see in Taylor, can be contested. This paper has also addressed and accounted for positive sentiments of identifying within races or genders. By drawing a distinction between backgrounds and acceptance of racial categories, I have shown a way to recontextualize our sentiments of solidarity and belonging while keeping a focus on agency and negotiation. To make a normative assessment of how we ought to identify ourselves, it is only fitting that an argument should be based upon the interests and freedoms of an individual, as opposed to a consideration completely outside of ourselves. 

Notes

  1. Sally Haslanger, “‘A Social Constructionist Analysis of Race.’”, In Revisiting Race in a Genomic Age (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008), 64. ↩︎
  2. Sally Haslanger, “Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do We Want Them to Be?” Noûs 34, no. 1 (2000), 49. ↩︎
  3. Haslanger. “‘A Social Constructionist Analysis of Race.’”, 56. ↩︎
  4. Haslanger, “Gender and Race”, 51. ↩︎
  5. Paul C Taylor, Race: A Philosophical Introduction (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2022), 56. ↩︎
  6. Linda Martín Alcoff, Visible Identities: Race, Gender, and the Self. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 74. ↩︎
  7. Linda Martín Alcoff, Visible Identities, 80. ↩︎
  8. Linda Martín Alcoff, Visible Identities,288. ↩︎
  9. Jorge Garcia, “Racial and Ethnic Identity?” In Philosophy and the Mixed Race Experience, (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2016), 204. ↩︎
  10. Jorge Garcia, “Racial and Ethnic Identity?”, 211. ↩︎
  11. Jorge Garcia, “Racial and Ethnic Identity?”, 211. ↩︎
  12. Jorge Garcia, “Racial and Ethnic Identity?”, 206-208. ↩︎
  13. Jorge Garcia, “Racial and Ethnic Identity?”, 207. ↩︎
  14. Jorge Garcia, “Racial and Ethnic Identity?”, 206. ↩︎
  15. Jorge Garcia, “Racial and Ethnic Identity?”, 206. ↩︎

Bibliography

Alcoff, Linda Martín. Visible identities: Race, gender, and the self. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. 

Garcia, Jorge. “Racial and Ethnic Identity?” Essay. In Philosophy and the Mixed Race Experience, 187–219. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2016. 

Haslanger, Sally. “Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do We Want Them to Be?” Noûs 34, no. 1 (March 2000): 31–55. https://doi.org/10.1111/0029-4624.00201. 

Haslanger, Sally. “‘A Social Constructionist Analysis of Race.’” Essay. In Revisiting Race in a Genomic Age, 56–69. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008. 

Taylor, Paul C. Race: A Philosophical Introduction. Vol. 3. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2022.

Acknowledgements: Thank you to Professors Aaron Meskin, Elizabeth Brient, Richard Dien Winfield, and Ed Pavlic for your continued support and guidance.

Citation Style: Chicago

Back to 12.2 Table of Contents