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19 Queen's L.J. 179 (1993-1994)
Categorical Denials: Equality Rights and the Shaping of Social Identity

handle is hein.journals/queen19 and id is 189 raw text is: Categorical Denials: Equality Rights and the Shaping of Social Identity Nitya Iyer* Laws to protect equality rights have been structured so that claimants must attempt to fit themselves into narrowly defined categories, categories which themselves are embedded with many assumed, or 'background,' characteristics. This structure forces claimants whose characteristics conflict with those of the background to ignore their own experiences of discrimination, and to caricaturize themselves so that they fit into the prefabricated, rigid categories. Claimants who are discriminated against in complex ways will fail if they cannot simplify the story of who they are and of their unequal treatment, so that it resonates with the dominant group's narrower understanding of the category grounding their claim. Professor Iyer shows that this is a structural problem with all current anti-discrimination law, and argues that it can only be remedied by rethinking the way we use categories in anti-discrimination law. She suggests that we require an alternative vision of anti-discrimination law, one that is more faithful to the contours of complex social identity. Introduction I. Categories, Similarity, and Difference A. Difference as Distinction B. Difference as Hierarchy C. Categories and the Background Norm II. A Model of How Anti-Discrimination Law Works A. Problems of Falling Through the Cracks: Mossop B. Problems of Pushing Others Through the Cracks: Symes Conclusion * Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of British Columbia. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference on Social Inequality and Social Justice, sponsored by the Western Association of Sociology and Anthropology, Vancouver, April 16, 1993. I wish to thank Susan Boyd, Rob Grant, Didi Herman, Judy Mosoff, Kathy Noonan, Wes Pue, David Schneiderman, and Michael Smith for their very helpful comments. Special thanks to Joel Bakan, Gwen Brodsky, and Claire Young for lending their bodies as well as their minds to this endeavour. N. Iyer

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