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Unmarked categories

The idea of unmarked categories originated in feminism. As opposed to looking at social difference by focusing on what or whom is perceived to be different, theorists who use the idea of unmarked categories insist that one must also look at how whatever is "normal" comes to be perceived as unremarkable and what effects this has on social relations. Attending the un marked category is thought to be a way to analyze linguistic and cultural practices to provide insight into how social differences, including power, are produced and articulated in everyday occurrences.

According to the idea of unmarked categories, when the cultural practices of people who occupy positions of relative power or can more easily exercise power seem obvious, they tend not to be explicitly articulated and therefore are perceived as default or baseline practices against which others are evaluated as different, deviant, or aberrant. The unmarked category becomes the standard against which to measure everything else. For example, it is posited that if a protagonist's race is not indicated, most Western readers will assume the protagonist is white; if a sexual identity is not indicated, it will be assumed the protagonist is heterosexual; if the gender of a body is not indicated, it is assumed to be male; if no disability is indicated, it will be assumed the protagonist is able-bodied. These assumptions do not, however, mean the unmarked category is superior, preferable, or more "natural," nor that the practices associated with the unmarked category require less social effort to enact.

Although the unmarked category is typically not explicitly noticed and often goes overlooked, it is still necessarily visible. As visible but unnoticed and unremarkable, membership in the unmarked category can be an index of power. For example, whiteness forms an unmarked category not commonly noticeable to the powerful, as they often fall within this category. Social groups can hold this view of power in terms of a variety of social distinctions, such as race, class, gender, ability, and sexuality.