The problem of the dominant identity
It is natural that people express an identity that is relevant to a particular context.
What is problematic is the ‘privileging’ of a particular identity so that it becomes
one that dominates all others. By this, we mean that one identity is deemed dominant
over a range of different contexts so that it is seen as far more important than other
identities. Thus a nationalist could argue that national identity is more important
than class or gender identity; a radical feminist would contend that being a woman
is more important than being poor; a devout Christian could insist that her religious
beliefs ‘trump’ her identity as a woman or the property she owns.
But why is having a dominant identity a problem? We would argue that if you
have a dominant identity, then it is more difficult to put yourself in the position of
another. You are much more likely to see differences as attributes that threaten
you, rather than as a natural part of everyone’s identity. You arrange your own
identities in strictly hierarchical fashion, so that, for example, the fact that you are
a white, heterosexual man seems less important than the fact that you are, for
example, Russian. You may be unaware of these other identities or you certainly
downgrade them, and hence you are more likely to feel that other people with
different identities have something wrong with them. Since you repress or de-
emphasise your own different identities, you will repress and respond hostilely to
the differences of others.
MacKinnon, a radical feminist, argues that difference is a secondary idea –
difference, she says, is ‘ideational and abstract and falsely symmetrical’ (1989: 219).
This means that asserted differences may be unreal and relatively unimportant. Being
a woman is thus more important than being black, a Catholic, lesbian or whatever.
This, in our view, makes it difficult to empathise with those who are not women,
or who prefer not to identify themselves in gender terms, or who link gender with
questions of class, religion, ethnicity, etc. Germaine Greer characterises men as
women haters and among the other unsavoury attributes that men have, she sees
them as ‘doomed to competition and injustice’ (1999: 14, 287). But would she take
this position if she did not privilege female identity in a way that downgrades all
other identities? Surely some men are concerned with justice, while some women
extol competition (to echo Greer’s example): these facts come to light much more
easily if being a woman is regarded as one identity among many, relevant in some
contexts but not in others. Having a dominant identity makes toleration of others
more difficult.
Proponents of a dominant identity may seek to exclude difference altogether.
Gould gives the example of Habermas’s notion of the public sphere where he sees
difference as ‘something to be gotten past’. ‘Diversity may be the original condition
of a polyvocal discourse but univocity is its normative principle’ (1996: 172). By
this Habermas means that differences get in the way of the idea of human freedom
and emancipation. Of course, regarding all people as human is important, but so
is identifying the differences between them. In fact, the two go together. It is because,
for example, that as a Christian you see Muslims as human, you feel that their
differences should be respected and even celebrated. Gould finds it problematic that
Habermas takes the view that in the public sphere ‘the enhancing role of difference’
is downgraded (1996: 173). It is true that differences result in conflict. But we shouldChapter 21 Difference 469