Stereotype Threat and Alienation

Abstract

In this article, I expand our understanding of the normative profile of stereotype threat and point where to take that inquiry next. My focus is the realization of the threat of stereotype threat, a phenomenon I call succumbing to stereotype threat. I show that in cases of stereotype threat that present us with the threat of what Sally Haslanger identifies as epistemic self-objectification, succumbing to stereotype threat is characterized by a corrupt relation of the individual to herself. That baneful relation, I argue, is what stereotype threat is a threat of. We also learn that that relation is facilitated by the individual’s social environment, in which the individual is an active participant. The individual, then, contributes to the forces that set her against herself. That social dimension is the area that stands in need of further investigation. To carry on that task, I suggest we harness the notion of alienation as understood by Marx. This notion neatly captures the corrupt relationship at the heart of succumbing to stereotype threat while acknowledging the individual’s role in the social forces that contribute to that plight; and it is a notion that is nested in a tradition that is well attuned to the ontological and normative nuances of social environment. The notion of alienation, then, lends a name to the wrong of succumbing to stereotype threat and thus to the threat of stereotype threat, and it has the credentials to lead further research into those phenomena.