Difference, Diversity and Multiculturalism

How does the matrix of domination framework differ from other ways of conceptualizing race, class, and gender relationships? We think this can be best understood by contrasting the matrix of domination framework to what might be called a difference framework of race, class, and gender studies. A difference frame- work, though viewing some of the common processes in race, class, and gender relations, tends to focus on unique group experiences. Emphasizing diversity and multiculturalism, the difference framework will likely examine the different experiences of various groups in society. Valuable as such studies may be, they tend to treat each group separately, or perhaps they focus mostly on the culture of particular groups, seldom looking at the systems of power that link groups together. Such studies are valuable because of how they document unique histories and cultural contributions, but we distinguish our work by looking at the interrelationships among race, class, and gender, not just their unique ways of being experienced.
You might think of the distinction between the two approaches as one of thinking comparatively, which is an example of one of the core features of a difference framework, versus thinking relationally, which is the hallmark of the matrix of domination approach. For example, in the difference framework individuals are encouraged to compare their experiences with those supposedly unlike them. When you think comparatively, you might look at how different groups have, for example, encountered prejudice and discrimination or you might compare laws prohibiting interracial marriage to current debates about same-sex marriage. These are important and interesting questions, but they are taken a step further when you think beyond comparison to the structural relationships between different group experiences. In contrast, when you think relationally, you see the social structures that simultaneously generate unique group histories and link them together in society. You then untangle the workings of social systems that shape the experiences of different people and groups, and you move beyond just comparing (for example) gender oppression with race oppression or the oppression of gays and lesbians with that of racial groups. Recognizing how intersecting systems of power shape different groups’ experiences positions you to think about changing the system, not just documenting the effects of such systems on different people.
The language of difference encourages comparative thinking. People think comparatively when they learn about experiences other than their own and begin comparing and contrasting the experiences of different groups. This is a step beyond centering one’s thinking in a single group (typically one’s own), but it is nonetheless limited. For example, when students encounter studies of race, class, and gender for the first time, they often ask, “How is this group’s experience like or not like my own?” This is an important question and a necessary first step, but it is not enough. For one thing, this question frames one’s understanding of different groups only within the context of other groups’ experiences. It can assume an artificial norm against which different groups are judged. Furthermore, such a question tends to promote ranking the oppression of one group compared to another, as if the important thing were to determine who is most victimized. Thinking comparatively tends to assume that race, class, and gender constitute separate and independent components of human experience that can be compared for their similarities and differences.
We should point out that comparative thinking can foster greater understanding and tolerance, but comparative thinking alone can also leave intact the power relations that create race, class, and gender relations. Because the concept of difference contains the unspoken question “different from what?,” the difference framework can privilege those who are deemed to be “normal” and stigmatize people who are labeled as “different.” Because it is based on comparison, the very concept of difference fosters dichotomous (either/or) thinking. Some approaches to difference place people in either/or categories, as if one is either Black or White, oppressed or oppressor, powerful or powerless, normal or different when few of us fit neatly into any of these restrictive categories.
Some difference frameworks try to move beyond comparing systems of race, class, and gender by thinking in terms of an additive approach. The additive approach is reflected in terms such as double and triple jeopardy. Within this logic, poor African American women seemingly experience the triple oppression of race, gender, and class, whereas poor Latina lesbians encounter quadruple oppression, and so on. But social inequality cannot necessarily be quantified in this fashion. Adding together “differences” (thought to lie in one’s difference from the norm) produces a hierarchy of difference that ironically reinstalls those who are additively privileged at the top while relegating those who are additively oppressed to the bottom. We do not think of race and gender oppression in the simple additive terms implied by phrases such as double and triple jeopardy. The effects of race, class, and gender do “add up,” both over time and in intensity of impact, but seeing race, class, and gender only in additive terms misses the social structural connections among them and the particular ways in which different configurations of race, class, and gender affect group experiences.
Within difference frameworks, additive thinking can foster another troubling outcome. One can begin with the concepts of race, class, and gender and continue to “add on” additional types of difference. Ethnicity, sexuality, religion, age, and ability all can be added on to race, class, and gender in ways that suggest that any of these forms of difference can substitute for others. This use of difference fosters a view of oppressions as equivalent and as being the same. Recognizing that difference encompasses more than race, class, and gender is a step in the right direction. But continuing to add on many distinctive forms of difference can be a never-ending process. After all, there are as many forms of difference as there are individuals. Ironically, this form of recognizing difference can erase the workings of power just as effectively as diversity initiatives.
When it comes to conceptualizing race, class, and gender relations, the matrix of domination approach also differs from another version of the focus on difference, namely, thinking about diversity. Diversity has become a catch- word for trying to understand the complexities of race, class, and gender in the United States. What does diversity mean? Because the American public has become a more heterogeneous population, diversity has become a buzzword— popularly used, but loosely defined. People use diversity to mean cultural variety, numerical representation, changing social norms, and the inequalities that characterize the status of different groups. In thinking about diversity, people have recognized that race, class, gender, age, sexual orientation, and ethnicity matter; thus, groups who have previously been invisible, including people of color, gays, lesbians, transgender and bisexual people, older people, and immigrants, are now in some ways more visible. At the same time that diversity is more commonly recognized, however, these same groups continue to be defined as “other”; that is, they are perceived through dominant group values, treated in exclusionary ways, and subjected to social injustice and economic inequality.
The movement to “understand diversity” has made many people more sensitive and aware of the intersections of race, class, and gender. Thinking about diversity has also encouraged students and social activists to see linkages to other categories of analysis, including sexuality, age, religion, physical disability, national identity, and ethnicity. But appreciating diversity is not the only point. The very term diversity implies that understanding race, class, and gender is sim- ply a matter of recognizing the plurality of views and experiences in society—as if race, class, and gender were benign categories that foster diverse experiences instead of systems of power that produce social inequalities.
Diversity initiatives hold that the diversity created by race, class, and gender differences are pleasing and important, both to individuals and to society as a whole—so important, in fact, that diversity should be celebrated. Under diversity initiatives, ethnic foods, costumes, customs, and festivals are celebrated, and students and employees receive diversity training to heighten their multicultural awareness. Diversity initiatives also advance a notion that, despite their differences, “people are really the same.” Under this view, the diversity created by race, class, and gender constitutes cosmetic differences of style, not structural opportunities.
Certainly, opening our awareness of distinct group experiences is important, but some approaches to diversity can erase the very real differences in power that race, class, and gender create. For example, diversity initiatives have asked people to challenge the silence that has surrounded many group experiences. In this framework, people think about diversity as “listening to the voices” of a multitude of previously silenced groups. This is an important part of coming to under- stand race, class, and gender, but it is not enough. One problem is that people may begin hearing the voices as if they were disembodied from particular historical and social conditions. This perspective can make experience seem to be just a matter of competing discourses, personifying “voice” as if the voice or discourse itself constituted lived experience. Second, the “voices” approach suggests that any analysis is incomplete unless every voice is heard. In a sense, of course, this is true, because inclusion of silenced people is one of the goals of race/class/ gender work. But in situations where it is impossible to hear every voice, how does one decide which voices are more important than others? One might ask, who are the privileged listeners within these voice metaphors?
We think that the matrix of domination model is more analytical than either the difference or diversity frameworks because of its focus on structural systems of power and inequality. This means that race, class, and gender involve more than either comparing and adding up oppressions or privileges or appreciating cultural diversity. The matrix of domination model requires analysis and criticism of existing systems of power and privilege; otherwise, understanding diversity becomes just one more privilege for those with the greatest access to education— something that has always been a mark of the elite class. Therefore, race, class, and gender studies mean more than just knowing the cultures of an array of human groups. Instead, studying race, class, and gender means recognizing and analyzing the hierarchies and systems of domination that permeate society and limit our ability to achieve true democracy and social justice.
Finally, the matrix of domination framework challenges the idea that race, class, and gender are important only at the level of culture—an implication of the catchword multiculturalism. Culture is traditionally defined as the “total way of life” of a group of people. It encompasses both material and symbolic components and is an important dimension of understanding human life. Analysis of culture per se, however, tends to look at the group itself rather than at the broader conditions within which the group lives. Of course, as anthropologists know, a sound analysis of culture situates group experience within these social structural conditions. Nonetheless, a narrow focus on culture tends to ignore social conditions of power, privilege, and prestige. The result is that multicultural studies often seem tangled up with notions of cultural pluralism—as if knowing a culture other than one’s own is the only goal of a multicultural education.
Because we approach the study of race, class, and gender with an eye toward transforming thinking, we see our work as differing somewhat from the concepts implicit in the language of difference, diversity, or multiculturalism. Although we think it is important to see the diversity and plurality of different cultural forms, in our view this perspective, taken in and of itself, misses the broader point of understanding how racism, class relations, and sex and gender privilege have shaped the experience of groups. Imagine, for example, looking for the causes of poverty solely within the culture of currently poor people, as if patterns of unemployment, unexpected health care costs, rising gas prices, and home mortgage foreclosures had no effect on people’s opportunities and life decisions. Or, imagine trying to study the oppression of LGBT people in terms of gay culture only. Obviously, doing this turns attention to the group itself and away from the dominant society. Likewise, studying race only in terms of Latino culture or Asian American culture or African American culture, or studying gender only by looking at women’s culture, encourages thinking that blames the victims for their own oppression. For all of these reasons, the focus of this book is on the institutional, or structural, bases for race, class, and gender relations.
This book is not just about comparing differences, understanding diversity, or describing multicultural societies. Instead, we attempt to develop a structural perspective on the relationships among race, class, and gender as systems of power, the hallmark of the matrix of domination framework. We recognize that reaching these goals will require rejecting the kind of exclusionary thinking that has virtually erased some groups’ experiences, and instead embracing an inclusive perspective that incorporates neglected groups and themes. Inclusive perspectives begin with the recognition that the United States is a multicultural and diverse society. Population data and even casual observations reveal that obvious truth, but developing an inclusive perspective requires more than recognizing the plurality of experiences in this society. Understanding race, class, and gender means coming to see the systematic exclusion and exploitation of some groups as well as the intergenerational privileges of others. This is more than just adding in different group experiences to already established frameworks of thought. It means constructing new analyses that are focused on the centrality of race, class, and gender in the experiences of us all.