Has it? Not sure quite what you mean by either identitypolitics or structual analysis.
I've never read Marx but then I've never met a Marxist who didn't tell me I was misguided or wrong in whatever I was doing at the time. Can a dead white man talking about the industrial age really be relavant to my life now?
Must admit I probably don't have a structural analysis - I'm not looking at this academically I've just been trying to survive.
Thanks - well put Ska
I recall straight a straight man I met, espousing marxism and dismissing issues to do with sexuality as 'just a personal matter'. This was back in the 80s, when oppression of queer people was rife and still entenched in law (eg you could be sacked for it, arrested for kissing in the street etc, imprisioned if you were a man for sex with a man under 21) For me the personal was political. The patriachy was a structure I was against. Many trade unionists then still thought that queer issues (and black issues and womens issues) weren't their issues, but I supported L&Gs support the miners because I could see we all suffered oppression. We were all oppressed by Thatchers govt back then.
We're all still oppressed by govts following Thatchers evil ideas. I feel characterising the struggle of any group of people based on their common oppression whether thats gender, race or whatever as 'identitypolitics' and 'not an opposition to structures of oppression' sounds like a dismissive attitude. We can all listen and can learn from each other.
I don't think your experiences here are identity politics (not what I mean by identity politics anyway). You might not be a marxist, but you do seem to have a structural analysis - of patriarchy, of oppression by governments and thatcherite capitalism. You supported a solidarity project, despite homophobia and sexism from straight male trade unionists (and would have helped push queer issues, anti-sexism, anti-racism into the unions by doing this). I've also come across socialists (and anarchists) (specific individuals and specific groups) that were sexist, homophobic, (or at least dismissive of sexism and homphobia) or just wankers frankly - I do think that Marx is relevant to understanding the way society is structured though. I also don't see anything wrong with oppressed groups organising autonomously against the oppression they face, and I don't think that organising efforts against oppression have to have a perfectly formed structural analysis for me to have solidarity with them. I agree that listening and learning from each other is important.
I think you said in another thread that you thought that Pride had been stolen from us. I think by analysing what is wrong with identity politics and how it has been used by neoliberal capitalism we can see why and how this has taken place, for example.
It's worth recognising the good impulses behind it - there's an 'injury to one is an injury to all' thinking behind it that says we can't be free without everyone being free. And there's also been a realisation that political movements are often led by privileged people and this has inhibited their radicalism.
But there are a few more problematic assumptions that I see behind it all;
1. That you know how 'oppressed' someone is by their stated identity (even worse, it sometimes comes down to their visible identity)
2. That the most oppressed person in the room knows the most about fighting oppression
3. That focussing on the specific oppressions is the core of liberatory thinking. This implicitly contains a rather liberal negative view of freedom and offers no positive vision of what a different world might look like.
I think this is a good starting point for what people are getting at when they criticise identity politics. I don't just think the onus for this is on oppressed people fighting oppression. I think in many cases these assumptions have been adopted by "radical" or "left-wing" groups, well-intentioned people who do not experience those particular oppressions, along with boss class and [edit:] conservative members of oppressed groups, and can actually undermine organising by working class oppressed people who in many cases might not share these assumptions.
I would add:
4. That oppression can be erased through personal action - obviously its important for people to stop being racist, sexist, etc, and for sexism, racism, and other bigotry to be criticised, and calling for solidarity is an important part of organising, but lots of identity politics goes further than this and there's often a belief that if enough people stop being racist/sexist etc that oppression will disappear - without looking at the structures that would remain underpinning the oppression. Conversely I can't smash patriachal capitalism through my personal actions no matter how "empowered" I become through my chosen hobbies.
5. Essentialising political attitudes- so assuming that the actions people suffering a particular oppression will always be radical, or writing off huge swathes of working class people as social conservative whose views can never be changed and who are incapable of acting towards social change
6. Asking people to become allies rather calling for solidarity - so discouraging the linking of struggles and the view of "an injury to one is an injury to all", but it also often tends to mean certain people from outside an oppressed group, often those who are able to express their anti-oppressive attitudes and guilt at their privileges in the correct way, are listened to while others are dismissed.
7. What others on here have called community brokering - I would add that as well as this being by certain members of oppressed groups (usually those who are not working class) to advance their own interests and being used by the state to control us [and steal stuff away from us], this is also a way that "radical" or "left wing" groups often act against the interests of people actually fighting oppression (ie anti-racist organisations that rely on working with "community leaders" without interrogating their class position or wider politics or investigating the various organising efforts and controversies within those communities).
8. The politics of representation (ie how many women managers/mps/etc there are) and ignoring class or turning it into another identity.
9. Reducing political struggles against oppression to our rights to be free to make choices, with no analysis of what actually limits those choices.