Race and Gender — Will Their Roles Continue to Dominate Through the Next Generation While Intersecting Within Identity Formations?

Society fixates itself through a hierarchy of divisions within personal identity creation. The power of each hierarchy drives every identity in a different direction to create a distinct individuality. Gender, race and sexism are all aspects in which our power overshadows our judgements of other human beings. The power that evolves is created through multiple relation identities to others and ourselves within society. Our social and cultural meaning within sexual differences is related to our Gender, establishing what is known as social construction. Race is a division within humankind that is frequently linked to stereotypical representations. Oppression is embedded within institutional practices, meaning that rather then distinguishing gender and race for what it is — we construct and create a perspective of our own around the self of multiple oppressed identities[1].

Race is often confused with ethnicity. Ethnicity is where one belongs to a definite group that has common cultural or national tradition. Race was a term created by us, in order to categorize people in society (this is known as social construction). Racism, is confused with physical attribution, cultural values, and shared language[2]. It is a term used to label individuals in a discriminating way based upon the colour of their skin or cultural beliefs. Gender can be associated with race, as gender is confined into two categories in which they oppose — feminine and masculine. Within race and gender, there are expected gestures and markers labelled to our sexes, skin colour, or cultural beliefs. Due to this, we attempt to perform a specific role that is expected of us through the social conventions existing in society.

As easily as rules are written, they are just as easily broken. By society trying to construct certain expectations, it drives individuals and their identities to form outside the barrier in which they have established. Therefor, people who have dealt with racism will create their identity around what people have tried to force upon them. Similarly with gender you cannot define two specific categories when there are identities forming around homosexuality — ultimately creating a new category and identity of its own. Both gender and race are interconnected, as they are both something that you ­do and not something that you have in creating your identity[3].

Marketers and advertisers drive revenue based off of what is going to be most successful towards their target audience. Gender roles are segregated within many video games, where either the women is deemed the damsel in distress or a sexual toy for men to drool over (e.g. Laura Croft)[4]. By mass corporations creating imaginary cultural and gender identities on video game players it creates a stigma on those gender perceptions in real-time. The social constructionism around the characters allows individuals to explore assumptions about the use of language and knowledge of what is being communicated[5]. Therefor if I am communicating the gender role of a female to be weak and fearful to fight back, then I myself, as a young girl may create my own identity around that concept (or have a masculine figure perceive me as such).

The oppressiveness that surrounds race and gender characteristics is not oppressive in itself, but the practices of the social construction around them. In order to deter the social construction around stereotypes and gender roles, we must first look to ourselves. Our perspectives are what we construct our identities on. We fail to recognize and understand the difference between oppressive practices and identity construction. Lets compare race and gender to being disabled. The term disabled delivers an inability, which ultimately overshadows other descriptors of that individual’s identity[6]. In turn, those descriptors become the exclusive role of those who are disabled or impaired. Similar to gender and race, if we choose to focus on that one singular aspect we over shadow the other identities of that individual and what they have to offer — ultimately limiting the way we could connect with those that we perceive as different.

[1] (Robinson, “Intersections of Dominant Discourses Around Race, Gender, and Other Identities,” 73)

[2] (Clemens, “Doing Gender”)

[3] (Clemens, “Doing Gender”)

[4] (Clemens, “Gender and Video Games”)

[5] (Robinson, “Intersections of Dominant Discourses Around Race, Gender, and Other Identities,” 73)

[6] (Robinson, “Intersections of Dominant Discourses Around Race, Gender, and Other Identities,” 74–77)