Do racial and sexual and gender identities involve 'bad faith'?

"Do racial and gender identities involve 'bad faith'?"

It seems to me that the answer is yes. However, If we are using the term 'bad faith' as developed by Sartre we should take the time to examine the full implications. For Sartre, Self Deception is a way of life. Only when it takes the form of bad faith does it lead to inauthenticity. As such, an analysis of gender identities should first decide in what way gender is a form of self-deception. If Gender does involve bad faith, it will be in only those cases in which it leads to inauthenticity, viz., when it is used as a denial of the responsibility of freedom.

Gender can be a form of bad faith, Simone de Beauvoir does show how femininity is or can become the vehicle for denying transcendence. This is displayed by her uneasy feeling that the first thing that comes to her mind when trying to define herself is that "I am a woman."

In my opinion, this form of bad faith has taken a much stronger hold an the contemporary consciousness by way of mass media and social expectation (e.g. MTV, questions like 'what do you want to be when you grow up?', etc.) Individuals are forced to objectify themselves more and at a younger age. Thus, an individual is more likely to identify first as a man or women or some other object, (more so than in past ages.?)

I make these comments as a male who is interested the problem of masculinity, and in response to a film entitled "Tough Guise." My response to this Excellent documentary is that instead of, or perhaps in addition to, trying to adjust the images of masculinity, we should find ways to create more authentic individuals. The insistence that 'Real men cry' may do nothing to fix the inauthenticity of a male who has relied on a socially constructed concept of masculinity to define himself. That the individual is intent on being a 'real man' is the source of 'bad faith.' Of course, that men are also in a form of bad faith does not imply that the conditions of men and women are the same. A society of people stagnated in bad faith will tend to befit the privileged and exploit the oppressed.