Identity as Social Location

The author offers conception of social identity that accompanies the theory of social. This conception is to meet the following requirements: 1) do justice to how our identity is constrained by others; 2) do justice to our own contribution to our identity; 3) do justice to how highly contextual our identity is; 4) make sense of the phenomenon of passing; 5) make sense of the intersection of the various aspects of our identity; and 6) be compatible with a plausible account of agency in which identity can be a source of reason for action, including a moral reason for action. The conception of identity the author offers is this: our objective social identity is the location on a social map that we occupy stably in a context; our subjective identity is the location on that same map that we identify with.

Categories We Live By

In the book’s conclusion, the question is discussed how the radically contextualist theory of social features of individuals offered in this book can ground claims of solidarity across place and time and account for the systematicity of oppression. How can women in the US ground their claim to solidarity with women in Bangladesh or Syria? How can LGBTQ individuals ground their solidarity with oppressed sexual minorities in a faraway time or place? The author offers two suggestions. The first one is to focus on fact that certain features of individuals, such as genitalia, serve as base features for differential treatment in many, many contexts. The second is to notice similar constraints and enablements across contexts. Both of these, and a combination of them, can ground claims to solidarity and systematicity.

Sex and Gender

A conferralist interpretation of the status of sex and gender on the post-Beauvoirean feminist picture is offered as well as an interpretation and critique of Judith Butler’s accounts of gender and sex. On the post-Beauvoirean picture sex is biologically given and gender is the cultural meaning of it. Butler offers a reorientation of the relationship between gender and sex, where what counts as sex and a sexed body is determined by gender practices. Male and female are regulative ideals masquerading as biological givens that justify gender practices. The author makes use of the notion of a game, Austinean exercitives, Hegel’s account of subjectification and objectification, and Kant’s Copernican revolution to flesh out the details of her interpretation of Butler before offering her critique of the position, which will set up her own account, offered in the subsequent chapter.

Introduction

The author introduces the project and methodology of the book, which is to give a metaphysics of social categories from a feminist analytic metaphysics perspective. To engage in such a project is to address the question what a social category is and how it is created and sustained. The author discusses her strategy in giving a metaphysics of social categories and explains what it is to do so as a feminist. The author’s strategy in giving a metaphysics of social categories is to give a theory of the social properties of individuals that define the categories. To engage in such a project as a feminist is to take oneself to be accountable in one’s theorizing to feminists and their allies engaged in other liberatory projects.

Social Construction as Social Significance

Various ways in which a category of people can be said to be socially constructed is discussed before a conception of social construction that can underwrite the project of offering a metaphysics of social categories is offered. The author discusses several conceptions of causal social construction, including where the social is the cause and the effect, and where ideals or norms play a role in the construction. The type of social construction needed for the project of giving a metaphysics of social construction is constitutive social construction. The author offers her conception of constitutive social construction, the key component of which is an account of social meaning. Comparison with the accounts of social construction by Ian Hacking, Ron Mallon, and Sally Haslanger is made.

The Conferralist Framework

In this chapter, the author offers a framework for conferralism about any property and then argues that social properties of individuals are conferred properties. Institutional and communal properties are distinguished, where institutional properties are conferred by someone (or something) having (deontic) authority and communal properties by someone (or something) with non-deontic standing. Institutional acts of conferring are acts of classifying individuals and communal acts are acts of placing individuals. The author compares acts of conferral to Austinean and Searlean speech acts such as verdictives, exercitives, and declarations. The author argues that conferralism is a better account of social properties of individuals than a constitution account such as John Searle’s and a response-dependence account. The use of the conferralist framework to account for other social properties is discussed.

Conferralism about Other Social Categories

The conferralist framework is applied to some of the other “usual suspects”, that is, to some of the other categories that are protected classes in various jurisdictions, such as race, religion, and disability. On the author’s view there are a host of institutional race categories, with different sort of base features in different contexts. Likewise there are a host of context-dependent communal race categories, with varying base features. There is also a number of institutional disability categories as well as context-dependent communal ones. Similarly, institutional and communal religion categories exist in various contexts, with varying base properties for the conferral of the social status in the context. A brief comparison is made with the views of Charles Mills on race and Elizabeth Barnes on disability.

Conferralism about Sex and Gender

In this chapter, the author offers a conferralist view of sex and gender, where sex is an institutional category and gender a communal one and both are context-dependent. The communal category of gender is radically context dependent and in different context people are trying to track different base features, such as sex assignment, style and presentation, role in the preparation of food, role in the reproductive economy, or role in the sex economy. Being of a certain sex is, likewise, not to have a certain biological feature, but to have a certain institutional status, where authorities are attempting to track the presence of various physical features in their conferral of that status. Comparison is then made with recent theories offered by Linda Alcoff, Talia Bettcher, Sally Haslanger, and Charlotte Witt. A conferralist theory of LGBTQ status is also offered.