Critical Theory, Difference and Identity

Identity theory (my general term for theory that foregrounds issues of gender, race, class, ethnicity, sexual orientation, dis/ability, etc.) has an ambiguous relationship to critical theory as narrowly understood (that is, Frankfurt School theory). Apart from the general conditions of human freedom, most of these theorists don't focus very much on specific sites of freedom. Or, following Marx, class structure becomes the fundamental pivot point that accounts for all other forms of inequality and injustice.

But most of those who would recognize injustice in one of these areas would also recognize it in all the others, and in fact treat all injustice as more or less the same thing. Careful theorists realize that this is not true, though. Gender, for instance, is not the same as race or as sexual orientation when it comes to sorting the world out and defining, recognizing, or claiming identity. The debates are different from each other, at the very least, and pretending that they are all the same kind of identity has provoked tensions within these communities.

Differences in the Questions & Issues in Identity Politics
Gender	Race	Ethnicity	Class	Sexual Orientation	Dis/Ability
Where does gender come from? Is it the same as sex? How is gender marked? What specific kinds of oppression have existed based on gender?	Does race exist, and if so, how? How is race recognized or marked, and how does this differ from the way other identities are marked?	Who is marginalizing your ethnic group, and why? What counts as membership in the ethnic group? Does marriage, for example, count? Can you move between ethnicities?	Is class at the bottom of all other forms of difference? Is all oppression really just class oppression? What constitutes class difference? Is it solely economic?	Does sexual orientation have a biological cause, and if so, what difference does this make? How is sexual orientation "marked"? Are those marks appropriated as a kind of group identification?	How does dis/ability relate to identity construction (e.g., the deaf community)? What counts as a disability? Does this not assume a version of "normal" which other forms of identity construction have tried to reject?
Unique Features
Gender	Race	Ethnicity	Class	Sexual Orientation	Dis/Ability
Gender is often read by mainstream people as equivalent to biology, that is, biology necessitates certain actions, and therefore certain roles in society. Issues of gender appear in all other forms of identity politics.	There is a history of "passing", that is, masquerading as a member of a more privileged race.	Like race, kinship ties are more likely than in other forms of identity; unlike race, ethnicity does not have a philosophically legitimated hierarchy. In other words, the struggle for identity tends to be a local one, against the oppression felt by those of another ethnicity, rather than an ontological one (see Fanon on this).	Nothing biological about this, although at times in history people have tried to link class and one's biological place (e.g., the 19th century English view of the Irish as both less advanced biologically and as more fit for labouring positions).	You can be "out" or not out, that is, your membership in this group can be public knowledge or not, unlike other forms of identity, in which one is necessarily "out" (short of dramatic efforts to disguise it). There is dispute about whether biology plays a part. Opponents of gay rights often assume that "they chose" to be "that" way, and could therefore choose differently, or be cured. This is most obviously constructed as a threat to mainstream society, rather than just a difference from it.	There is a strong sense of "normal", which those outside of the community assume is desired by those within. In other words, if you are deaf, many assume that the universal desire is to not be deaf. Disability is seen as least constitutive of a community of all these forms of identity.
What's Being Critiqued or Resisted?
Gender	Race	Ethnicity	Class	Sexual Orientation	Dis/Ability
Patriarchy Phallocentrism	Whiteness Colonialism	The West Eurocentrism	Bourgeoisie False consciousness	Straight Society Assumptions of gender as normal or biological	Assumptions of the "normal"

It is worth noting as well that there are questions that will be common to these forms of identity construction. For example:

• How is this form of identity ubiquitous, even though it is often not seen as such? (that is, everyone has a gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, level of ability, not just those who deviate from a socially accepted norm.)
• What strategies exist for challenging cultural norms?
• What is ultimately being resisted?
• What is the difference being claimed or asserted, and how does that which forms the "mainstream" or "natural" attitude determine the nature of the identity in question?
• What specific kinds of oppression have existed based on the particular form of identity construction? How is that form of oppression similar to and how is it different from other forms of oppression?

The point here is that these ways of defining identity (and there are more) do not all amount to the same thing.