|
|
|
|
|
|
|
diagnosis of homosexuality as an illness and its demedicalization in the wake of gay and lesbian civil rights. Information scientists work every day on the design, delegation, and choice of classification systems and standards, yet few see them as artifacts embodying moral and aesthetic choices that in turn craft people's identities, aspirations, and dignity.
1 Philosophers and statisticians have produced highly formal discussions of classification theory, but few empirical studies of use or impact. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Both within and outside the academy, single categories or classes of categories may also become objects of contention and study. The above-mentioned demedicalization of the category homosexual in the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 3 (the DSM, a handbook of psychiatric classification) followed direct and vigorous lobbying of the APA by gay and lesbian advocates (Kirk and Kutchins 1992). During this same era, feminists were split on the subject of whether the categories of premenstrual syndrome and postpartum depression would be good or bad for women as they became included in the DSM. Many feminist psychotherapists were engaged in a bitter argument about whether to include these categories. As Ann Figert (1996) relates, they even felt their own identities and professional judgments to be on the line. Allan Young (1995) makes the complicating observation that psychiatrists increasingly use the language of the DSM to communicate with each other and their accounting departments, although they frequently do not believe in the categories they are using. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
More recently, as discussed in chapter 6, the option to choose multiple racial categories was introduced as part of the U.S. government's routine data-collection mission, following Statistical Directive 15 in October 1997. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued the directive; conservatively, its implementation will cost several million dollars. One direct consequence is the addition of this option to the U.S. census, an addition that was fraught with political passion. A march on Washington concerning the category took the traditional ultimate avenue of mass protest for American activists. The march was conducted by people who identified themselves as multiracial, and their families and advocates. At the same time, it was vigorously opposed by many African-American and Hispanic civil rights groups (among several others), who saw the option as a "whitewash" against which important ethnic and policy-related distinctions would be lost (Robbin 1998). |
|
|
|
|
|