Intersectionality Essay

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.

The notion of making the invisible visible is this concept that recognizes the forces of power because they highlight how experiences and certain identities get constructed and normalized into the dynamics of society. For instance, being a poor person of color, or a queer person allows those people to be subjected under different layers of power, such as gender stereotypes, economic expectations, which are ultimately social control mechanisms that place humans on this spectrum of who deserves success and who does not. Intersectionality, in regards to Honduran Americans references the different layers of forces which are subjecting them to be discriminated inside a white dominated nation. For instance, white males are at the top of the spectrum while poor black queer women are at the bottom of latter thereby indicating how oppression is reactionary toward subjective identities.

Kimberle Crenshaw’s “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex”, where Crenshaw discusses the role of intersectionality from a judicial point of view. Crenshaw states “focus on the most privileged group members marginalizes those who are multiply-burdened and obscures claims that cannot be understood as resulting from discrete sources of discrimination” (Crenshaw 140). Crenshaw adds that the struggles of Women of Color are usually individualized and not seen as a systematic attack on them as a group.

Early feminism was typically focused only on white women, likely because racism was still extremely prominent at the time feminism began emerging. It was not until Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced the term “intersectionality” in 1989 that feminism started to look at oppressed group’s needs (Nash, 2008, 2). Intersectionality is a way of thinking that acknowledges that when a person has identities that belong to more than one oppressed group, it impacts their quality of life more negatively. In this paper, I will argue that intersectionality is important in the discussion of feminist theories and activism because it ensures that feminism is for all women, not just a select group of them. Intersectionality has changed the way the feminist movement handles the overlapping of different identities, which has helped feminist theorists understand the experiences of women of colour much more clearly. While intersectionality has a very important role in the conversation and practice of feminism, there are certainly critiques of the concept that should be brought up. These critiques, however, can offer a way to improve the study of intersectionality.

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

Underlying the feminism movement of the 1960s and 1970s was the “white racist ideology.” The women’s movement of the 1960s was in fact the white women’s movement. It was an opportunity for white feminists to raise their voices, but they only spoke about the plight of the white woman and excluded themselves from the collective group of women across all races and social standings. White women assumed that their experience was the experience of all women. When black women proclaimed that the movement was focused on the oppression of white women, the white feminists asserted “common oppression” and retorted with “oppression cannot be measured.” Ironically, feminists in the 1960s compared their oppression to the oppression of African Americans as

For centuries and even today, gender inequality and racial prejudice continue to exist. Throughout time these concepts have overlapped and intertwined, each other creating complex interactions and a negative influence upon society. In the 1980s, Kimberle Williams Crenshaw through her article, named Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color, introduced the term “Intersectionality.” Intersectionality, is the theory of how different types of discriminations interact thus, goes hand in hand with Judith Butler, in her article titled “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory” which expresses the term “gender acts” and helps decipher a probable cause of the many discriminations faced in contemporary society. Since both gender inequality and racial inequality share a common thread, I believe that what intersectionality represents will help understand Judith Butler’s view on gender classification and the dynamic it’s caused on our social and political formation.

I will try to explain intersectionality. First of all you need to know what intersectionality is. Intersectionality is a theoretical framework which explains violence or discrimination against humans. Now I will give you an example and then try to connect it to intersectionality. I will use an example of spider web to explain this theory. This example will give you some idea about intersectionality. Think about a spider web. A Point in the centre and all threads connected to each other. If we remove one thread from the spider web, it will fall apart. Now consider yourself. You have some identities and these identities are connected just like spider web and we cannot remove any identity from you. If we remove any identity from you, then

I attended the Gender, Labor and Politics event provided by the Black Studies Project at UC San Diego. During this event, I was able to hear about the research done by three black women in which they examined the intersectionality of black women in America during different time periods. There were three speakers but I found that the research done by Sarah Haley brought forth the most relevant and interesting information.

The idea of intersectionality is that all of our identities overlap and are also constantly affecting our privileges and oppressions. People do not always think about their interactions despite them playing a pivotal role in our human experience. This is what causes some writers to feel the need to put them into words so that maybe more people will look at themselves and do some thinking about their own intersections. Some of the authors that I believe have done this well are Patricia Collins in her work titled Black Feminist Thought. Another work that discussed intersectionality well is titled “A Black Feminist Statement” which is powerful in the way it discusses how race interacts with womanhood. The final piece I feel as though needs discussed is Women, Race, and Class which is a piece written by Angela Davis that discusses the intersections that can be seen in

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

In Bromley’s “Feminism Matters”, Chapter Four effectively argues that the way in which race, gender, class, ability, sexual orientation, and a variety of other social categories interact within each other to create a hierarchy of power within our society that has lead to an imbalance of privileges. Additionally, she manages to convince the reader that all these concepts are incorporated in the theoretical tool of intersectionality and that once we can understand this we will be better equipped with the approach to handle the struggles of modern day. Thinking of our positionality as being a blend of pre-existing conditions, we can realize that the advantages and disadvantages we receive in life are not only due to our gender, but the reality that “[we] might be living in Canada, in [our] first year of university, born in South Africa, a Buddhist, and struggling to pay for [our] living expenses, yet able-bodied and employed” (Bromley 2012).

Oppression signifies an authority over another group, disengaging that particular group from the rest of society. “The term oppression encapsulates the fusion of institutional and systemic discrimination, personal bias, bigotry, and social prejudice in a complex web of relationships and structures that shade most aspects of life in our society” (Bell, 1997). In one way or another every individual experiences some form of oppression, whether it be through race, sex, gender, religion, age, wealth and/or sexual orientation. These cultural minorities experience inequality where a dominant culture casts its authority and power through exercises of unjust and cruel methods; these methods have been experienced through the Women’s Movement, the

To conclude, Black feminist are constantly striving to overcome sexism, class oppression, and racism. They have also argued that black women are positioned within structures of power in fundamentally different ways than white women (Collins). Black feminist organizations had to overcome three different challenges that no other feminist organization had to face. The first challenge these women faced was to prove to other black women that feminism was not only for white women (Burns). They also had to demand that white women share power with them and affirm diversity, and fight the misogynist tendencies of Black organizations (Burns). Black feminism argues that sexism, class oppression, and racism are inextricably bound together (Collins). All three aspects are related to one another through intersectionality, which is the study of intersections between different disqualified groups or groups of minorities; specifically, the study of the

Black Feminism argues that sexism, class oppression and racism are linked together. Mainstream feminism that more than often benefits white women, strives to overcome class and gender oppression, however they do not recognise that race can discriminate against women also. Activist, Alice Walker states that black women experience a different kind of oppression when compared to their white counterparts. Professor of Sociology and social activist, Patricia Hill Collins summarises that Black feminism is ‘a process of self-conscious struggle that empowers women and men to actualise a humanist vision of community.’ Her quote welcomes individuals of any gender, whom understands black women’s struggle to fight with them. [Collins, 1991:39]