Feminism And The Feminist Movement

Doetsch-Kidder’s (2016) monograph defines the important role of intersectionality as a defining sea-change in the way that women of color began to unify across racial and cultural barriers. Interviews with minority activists define the perception of the diversification of feminist ideology through the lens of intersectionality. One interview with a African-American activist named Donna illustrates the unity between women of color that evolved in the 1970s: “But overall, we are all fighting for civil rights, so there has to be some type of overlap with each one” (Doetsch-Kidder, 2016, p.103). This development defines the “overlapping’ ideology of different feminist groups, which soon began to devolve the racial and cultural barriers not only between women of color, but also with white feminist groups. In Doetsch-Kidder’s (2016) point of view, the civil rights movement laid the foundation for intersectional feminist principles to be practiced for women seeking greater representation in the workplace.

However, intersectionality gained prominence later (the 1980s and 90s) through African American feminist scholars, Crenshaw and Patricia Hill Collins, who criticized white feminists who failed to see that their skin color provided them with advantages that are not often offered to black feminists (Norris; Murphy-Erby; Zajiceck 2007). In time, intersectionality transitioned from an individual group’s experience (black women’s identity/ discrimination) to a larger framework.

Intersectionality is a framework that must be applied to all social justice work, a frame that recognizes the multiple aspects of identity that enrich our lives and experiences. This framework synthesizes and complicates oppressions and marginalization’s. In the article, “Why Intersectionality Can’t Wait” Kimberle Crenshaw talks about how the purpose of intersectionality has been lost. Intersectional somehow creates an environment of bullying and privilege checking. This society cannot afford to have movements that are not intersectional because all races need to be embraced and have equality.

Whiteness and racism comes from the oppression, colonization and systems of dominance over black people and their feelings. In this case, an intersectional feminist analysis matters because women who are able bodied, cis-gendered, privileged and white are only being considered whereas bell hooks argue that men, women and trans people who oppressed should be fought for. And Peggy McIntosh adds onto this but a white woman who addresses and recognizes her privilege to help other white individuals understand what they have and blacks do not.

Roderick Ferguson’s article, “Nightmares of the Heteronormative,” details the ways that the categories of home and domesticity are constructed in a manner made to be accessible by people of color, using the queer of color critique. Similarly, Kimberle Crenshaw’s “Mapping the Margins” coins intersectionality to explore the ways that sexism and racism intersect to produce the doubly marginalized experience of being a woman of color.

It is mandatory to understand the history behind Intersectionality and it’s upbringing to understand how it ties into cultural identity. Kimberlé Crenshaw’s classic article “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color” helps to understand the struggle that women of color face with entwined differences that are not confronted and dealt with accordingly. Crenshaw mentions that, “The problem with identity politics is not that it fails to transcend difference, as some critics charge, but rather the opposite -- that is frequently conflates or ignores infra group differences. In the context of violence against women, this elision of difference is problematic, fundamentally because the violence that many women experience is

As many women struggled to retain their values and traditions, there were existing male dominated conceptions of race and white dominated conceptions of gender. Kimberle Crenshaw describes the concept of intersectionality where race and gender interact in various ways to shape multiple dimensions experiences for different groups

Intersectionality is a term that describes the ways which oppressive institutions such as, sexism, homophobia, racism, classism etc interact. Categories such as gender, ethnicity, poverty and mental illness reinforce each other in ’‘Women on the Edge of Time’’ and they overdetermine a negative outcome. Piercy put Connie in positions where she came to understand sexism, working class opression and white supremacy in both her personal life and in Mattapoisett.

An intersectional approach is an approach which seeks to demonstrate how race, class, gender and sexuality make certain experiences different. Intersectionality is the overlapping of social categories such as race, class, gender and sexuality that leads to further discrimination against a certain individual or group. To take an intersectional approach to understand race, class, gender and sexuality, is to consider hardships not as a similar element for all individuals without regards to race, but instead consider where in a specific hardship different races, genders, classes and sexualities are affected different. According to Crenshaw, “many of the experiences Black women face are not subsumed within the traditional boundaries of race or gender discrimination as these boundaries are currently understood, and that the intersection of racism and sexism factors into Black women’s lives in ways that cannot be captured wholly by looking at the woman race or gender dimensions of those experiences separately” (Crenshaw, 357). Crenshaw explains that the personal experiences of women of color cannot be fully understood by looking at race or gender discrimination as two separate factors, but in fact can be understood if both aspects are looked at together. When race and gender are examined separately, this causes for women of color to be “erased”. Crenshaw says, “ And so, when the practices expound identity as “woman” or “person of color” as an either/or proposition, they relegate

Kimberlé Crenshaw is an esteemed civil rights advocate and law professor. Crenshaw introduced the concept of “intersectionality” to the acclaimed feminist theory close to 30 years ago in a paper written for the University of Chicago Legal Forum, describing the “intersectional experience” as something “greater than the sum of racism and sexism. (Crenshaw)” She wrote in terms of intersectional feminism, which examines the overlapping systems of oppression and discrimination that women face, based not just on gender but on ethnicity, sexuality, economic background and a number of other axes. She speaks on it in a sense that the term intersectionality provides us with a way to see issue that arise from discrimination or disempowerment often being more complicated for people who are subjected to multiple forms of exclusion because of the protected clauses they may possess. Crenshaw speaks on the “urgency of intersectionality” in her Ted talk. This as well as her spreading awareness for the #SayHerName campaign drives a tie between the necessity for intersectionality advocaism and the the occurrences of neglect and violence present in societal happenings today. The question that stands in the forefront of her work is how can we effectively apply an intersectional methodology to analysis of violence and other acts against people who are often being neglected of any sort of recognition in social issues today? Intersectionality is one of the better known concepts within the

Intersectionality according to Patricia Hill Collins is the “theory of the relationship between race, gender and class” (1990), also known as the “matrix of domination” (2000). This matrix shows that there is no one way to understand the complex nature of how gender, race and class inequalities within women’s lives can be separated; for they are intertwined within each other.

The theory of intersectionality has received a widespread of various distinct definitions and usage; it is often unclear of its designed function may be. Intersectionality is defined as “the acknowledgment that different forms of identity-based discrimination can combine to give rise to unique brands of injustice”(Lucas 8). In other words, how the classification of one’s individuality such as gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and class can intertwine with each other among the social structure. The term was first coined by feminist and civil rights advocate Kimberlé Crenshaw who spoke upon the discrimination and marginalization of black women and how both institutions interconnect with one another. The significance of

Patricia Hill Collins’ piece, “Defining Black Feminist Thought”, sets out to do exactly that: to determine what Black Feminism is, who is a Black Feminist, and who can become a Black Feminist. While not always specifically stated, her argument and analysis arises from the historical context of the role of Black women in feminist and activist spaces, as well as the social reality of differing lived experiences of Black women from traditional white female feminists. Created in 1990, Collins’ work is well situated in the time period of Third Wave Feminist thinking, incorporating strong themes of the need for intersectionality and alternate opinions within feminism, as well as proposing that multiple versions of feminism can be possible,

Similar to the author Kimberle Crenshaw, the author of “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics,” I would like to start my critical review essay by mentioning the Black feminist studies book entitled “All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave.” Having this idea of problematic predisposition to treat race and gender as mutually exclusive entities in mind, I would like to review Angela Davis’s book entitled “Women, Race, and Class”, and compare my findings to Kimberle Crenshaw’s groundbreaking article that we have read in class, where she famously terms the idea of “intersectionality.” I will start with the examination of similarities between Davis’s and Crenshaw’s arguments regarding the erasure of the Black women’s experiences in social sciences and feminist writings, and will also point out the additional consideration of class that Davis brings to the idea of intersectionality of race and gender initially suggested by Crenshaw, and further discuss the triple discrimination that Black women face on the fronts of race, gender, and class. My main aim in the review of the two author’s texts is to reveal the prevalent problematic notion in Black societies of viewing race implicitly gendered as male, and recognizing gender mainly from the white women’s standpoint.

Crenshaw mentioned in the article, that “the narratives of gender are based on the experience of white, middle-class women, and the narratives of race are based on the experience of Black men” (Crenshaw). Gender and race still influence women’s lives in the society, but this is not the case in feminist and anti-racist practices. An identity is silenced. Crenshaw trying to explore how this intersectional position can be considered when taking into accounts the violence against women of color. I don’t think that intersectionality is better than the discrimination against the poor. But we can think about that the effect of oppression in a specific time and society area. In other words, maybe we can use oppression as an action in the society.