One of the issues that Iâm thinking about that is very rarely addressed is that most uses of the term âsocializationâ on here heavily imply that having a certain identity (or gendered experience) will necessarily lead to having a certain understanding of social systems. So like, and example of this is something like âI might be a man, but i was socialized as a girl so I understand about the social system of misogynyâ or its converse âYou donât know what itâs like to be a Real Woman, because you didnât spend [whatever age the arguer wants] being socialized that way and therefore have male privilege (or whatever).â
The problem is that we already have so much evidence that there are women out there who have been socialized female, who clearly have no good grasp of how misogyny works in this world. You have your Michelle Bachmanns and various pro-life women and the state representative where I grew up (she believed that women shouldnât be allowed to vote, go figure), antifeminist women. And really, none of us have a *complete* grasp on how exactly it is that misogyny functions: even women donât have the full picture from their experiences. This is exactly why 'consciousness raisingâ was seen as necessary in feminist circles.
So what this ends up being is an incredibly shallow form of identity politics - the idea that everyone with some hypothetical form of oppression or experience will all come to the same conclusion, even when we have plenty of evidence that that isnât true. This chain of âIâve had X experienceâ (what experience? itâs never quite elaborated what specifics actually matter) to âI understand X social system completelyâ is based on the idea that these are just obvious intuitive, inherent connections. So to hear someone say that they 'understandâ or what is going on with a social system, because of experiences they had in the *past* that even some women currently undergoing those experiences dont necessarily understand is to me just self-assured arrogance, or a desire for a carte blanche of their own personal purity (which obviously doesnât actually come from those experiences - there are plenty of women misogynists who experienced this mythic socialization).
And because this sort of argument appeals to the more basic prejudices and intellectually 'easyâ answers to complex questions, youâll have people who rail against 'identity politicsâ just completely cosign it in its most blatant (and obviously incorrect) form when it comes to this specific conversation.
