Feminism's oppression obsession undermines women

Identity politics instructs people to define their politics not by reference to general moral principles of justice and rights, but some shared experience of oppression. It divides people into myriad oppressed groups, each jockeying for power to secure its own interests against others — not put in place neutral rules that work for everyone (because such rules, in their thinking, only serve to entrench “existing power relations” and “structural marginalization”).

The problem with identity politics is two-fold: One, given that everyone is oppressed in one respect or another, any group can invent a plausible narrative of oppression. Even white men increasingly see themselves as oppressed given that affirmative action policies favor other groups over them in admissions and hiring. In the game of identity politics, every group thinks only of the oppression it confronts rather than the opportunities it enjoys in order to move up the oppression scorecard. A balanced account of one’s life and identity has become a ticket to marginalization, which is why it doesn’t even occur to someone like Arquette that, all in all, she has it pretty good. Feminists can lecture Arquette and her ilk to “check their privilege” all they want, but it’s unlikely that they’ll convince them to take a backseat to other groups.

But the bigger problem with identity politics is not that it lets privileged people claim oppression, but that it prevents oppressed people from actually getting redress. That’s because often the latter’s main problems stem not from targeted discrimination but the unintended consequences of social policy.