← Home
How the categories we create shape reality. The story of a woman born intersex whose assignment to a gender category reshaped her identity, and research showing that the mere act of categorization changes how we perceive the things we categorize.
This summary was generated from show notes and public descriptions, not from a full transcript review. Details may contain inaccuracies.
Highlights
•
Categories are constructed — and once constructed, they constrain perception and identity
Miller: the categories we impose on a continuous world (male/female, black/white, success/failure) are not natural kinds — they're human constructions. But once a category is assigned, it retroactively reshapes perception, making the categorized thing seem more like its category than it actually is.•
Social categories create the differences they claim to merely describe
Miller: racial, gender, and diagnostic categories don't just describe pre-existing differences — they create differences through differential treatment, expectation, and identity formation. The category comes first; the difference follows.Was this useful?