With that in mind, consider political commentator Allie Stuckey’s claim that women before the 1960s were not oppressed; this is historically inaccurate but particularly so for women of color. In the run-up to the ’60s, black women were restricted from fully exercising rights such as voting or owning a firearm, which under any definition I’m aware of constitutes being oppressed. When Stuckey referred to “women,” she dismissed the experiences of black women and spoke only in terms of white women (which is still inaccurate, but that’s a discussion for another day).
Identity politics, for its part, involves the taking of political positions and the forming of political alliances based on the interests and perspectives of social groups characterized by attributes such as race, sex, social background, and religion, among others. Many on the right take this to mean attributes such as skin color and genitalia should be seen as more important than qualifications, skills, and principles — and they can usually pick out some example of this in society. But there is a difference between the mentality of “vote for unqualified people based solely on their race/sex/et cetera” and “it benefits us all for our qualified legislators to be diverse, because people have different experiences and therefore can provide different but valuable perspectives.”
The right acknowledges — really, insists — men and women are different. It should naturally follow, then, that we conclude their experiences are different. Ethnic groups are not equally represented across the income spectrum. It should follow, then, that their experiences are not all of a piece.
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