Intersectionality is a buzzword that we've been hearing a lot of in conversations about feminism
some say that if you're feminism is an intersectional
It isn't feminism
others say that intersectionality, as a concept has muddied the waters
of an already complicated feminist discourse
So in this video, I wanted to investigate and answer. What is
intersectionality
Intersectionality is a term coined by civil rights advocate and law professor kimberlé crenshaw
she introduced the term to feminist theory in her paper for the University of Chicago Legal forum in
1989 called Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination
Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Anti-racist politics
in the paper, she discusses how what she calls the single access framework
that's used to discuss discrimination
has erased black women.
She discusses how often racial discrimination cases focus on black men
and sex discrimination cases tend to focus on white women
She argues that this narrow focus distorts our
Understanding above sexism and racism and that black women experience both of these things simultaneously
she renders heavy criticisms of the feminist movement which at the time focused largely on white womens experiences with sexism and the
anti-racist movement that focused largely on how black men experience racism
Arguing that because a black woman's experience is greater than the sum of sexism and racism that a black woman cannot simply be
Included into these pre-existing structures, but that rather these structures had to be rethought and recast
in her paper she discusses a court case that occurred after the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
where five black woman sued General Motors for specifically discriminating against black women
when they noticed that all of the Black Women hired after 1970 were laid off during the recession
They lost their case when the courts essentially concluded that there wasn't evidence that the company
specifically having a bias against black people or women because they currently employed
several black people and women.
the women were all white and all the black people were men
And this was evidence enough to the court that General Motors was not discriminatory on the basis of race or gender
The court further argued that black women do not have a specific claim to racial discrimination
That outweighs that of a black man
Crenshaw concludes that this means according to this narrow view of single access basis for the nation that legally a black woman's
Experiences with discrimination are only validated by how close and proximity of their experiences are to a white woman or a black man
In another case she discusses how a black woman working for Hughes Helicopters
Argued that she faced sex and race discrimination
when she noticed that black woman ,unlike the black men who worked at the company
Weren't being promoted to upper level or supervisory jobs
the court argued that because she specifically argued that she was facing discrimination
Not just as a woman, but specifically as a black woman that she wasn't the class
representative for the white woman in the area of sex discrimination at the company
Crenshaw concludes that this logic reveals how white women are centralized in the discourse around sex-based discrimination cases
White womens claims the sex-based discrimination are seen as pure which makes it so that even if a policy is against all women
Black women are placed at odds with a white woman because the racism they experience makes the consequences of the policy
harsher for black women.
That not allowing those two experienced multiple
disadvantages to represent those who are singularly disadvantaged complicates the redistribution of opportunity and
reinforces a hierarchy where white women are
incentivized to protect the source of their privilege and their place at the top of the hierarchy.
And this often leads black women alone to fend for themselves.
In another case two black women sued a pharmaceutical plant on behalf of all black employees for racial discrimination
The court immediately argued that they could only argue on behalf of black women, but not black men
They managed to prove their case and they were awarded back pay.
But the back pay was only issued to black women in the company not black men
She points out in her paper that while all three of these cases
reach different and potentially contradictory conclusions about what is and isn't discrimination
that they all share the commonality of excluding the intersection of sexism and racism the black women experience
and that this particular type of discrimination
materializes in various ways
she writes:
I'm suggesting that black women can experience discrimination in ways that are both similar and different to those experienced by white women and black men
Black women sometimes experience discrimination in the ways that are similar to white women's experiences. Sometimes they share very similar
Experiences with black men
Yet often they experience double discrimination
the combined effects of practices which discriminate on the basis of race and on the basis of sex and
Sometimes they experience discrimination as black women not the sum of race and sex discrimination
But as black women
In the broader sense to a black woman factored into the civil rights movement and feminism
She argues that black women are regarded as either too much like women or blacks the compounding nature of their
Experiences is absorbed into the collective experiences of either group or as two different in which case black woman's blackness or femaleness
Sometimes has placed their needs and perspectives at the margin of the feminist and black liberation is agendas
She argues of the very way that the law looks at discrimination is too narrow
But often it believes that you can be discriminated against because of race for sex alone
But not together and because of this narrow way in which we view
discrimination the ideas of what discrimination is and isn't argued through the lens of the most privileged within the group ie
Sexism through the lens of white women and racism through the lens of black men and black woman's experiences aren't considered at all
Ultimately, she argues that the elusive goals of any racism and patriarchy are made even more
complicated by the erasure of black woman's unique experiences with those sexism and racism
Crenshaw's concept of intersectionality has since been expanded to include those outside of black and female experiences
But the general concept is that people can experience more than one type of discrimination and that by not
Acknowledging this the goals of both the feminist and the civil rights movement are made even more complicated
So today an intersectional feminist is someone that acknowledges the ways in which multiple axises of oppression can impact different
Individuals who attempts to create a type of activism that is more inclusive of things outside of the dominant idea of what sexism looks like
Intersectionality isn't a collection of identities but rather an acknowledgement that one person can experience different types of discrimination
That inform each other
Well, I hope this video helps you understand intersectionality a bit better
And if you'd like to continue to learn share and grow
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