Gender sexuality and law seminar Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Gender sexuality and law seminar - Essay Example Non-British people who happened to be in Britain assumed a rebellious attitude and harboured notions of giving it back to the English what they had learnt in terms of equal rights, prerogatives and position in society. This is reflected to this day in modern British society as remnants of the populations who had migrated to Britain in the post colonial era continue to maintain their distinct identities and regional preferences. Although hobnobbing with on equal terms with native English, their resentment and defiance shows its colours from time to time. The author has specifically implied that historical events have a definite impact on the emergence of collective identities in human populations. According to him, the late modern democracy as an entity has emerged out of ‘selected contradictory operations of politicized identity’ (Wilson, pg. 54). Forces of global capitalism and the disciplinary-bureaucratic regimes typical of the colonial period have shaped the politica l identities of people living in the modern world. Quote 2: â€Å"The tension between particularistic ‘I’ and a universal ‘we’ in liberalism is sustainable as long as the constituent terms of the ‘I’ remain unpoliticised....† (Wilson, Pg. ... The perception of ‘I’ imparts s degree of individualism despite remaining part of the mainstream society. This prevents the formation of a politicized identity. The author has specifically illustrated this by giving examples of homosexuals and Jews, as they exist in modern society. While remaining part of the society, both these identities continue to be characterized into a specialist category due to the peculiarities of their identified characteristics. The possibility of existence of democracy has been facilitated in liberalism only due to the fact that what is considered as universal does not have either a body or content i.e. it is an abstract entity. The author believes that social identities are established in modern liberalist democratic societies through the action of liberalism’s companion powers which he names as ‘capitalism and disciplinarity’, originally identified by Marx and Focault (pg. 57). Capitalism’s endeavours in the modern society produce desires in individuals which emerge as identities and disciplinary forces regulate subjects into behaviour-based identities which are recognizable in society. The exemplary examples of such identities provided by the author are those of ‘alcoholic professionals’ and ‘crack mother’ and many more categories can be visualised under this lens. Quote 3: â€Å"Within lesbian and gay rights movements, few, if any, people believe that winning human rights will achieve equality, much less liberation (Herman, pg. 33)†: The author, in his argument entitled ‘Beyond the Rights Debate’ contends that legal academicians’ have diagrammatically opposing inferences on what are considered as ‘rights’ in