Intersectionality: its origins, its practice and its criticisms

Feminism hasn’t been one long movement. It currently in its fourth wave as the systems of power continued to be challenged. The first wave occurred during the late 19^th century and into early 20^th century and focused on the stations of middle- and upper-class women who fought for a political voice and suffrage. The second wave occurred in the 1960s and started to focus on social and cultural inequalities. The third wave occurred during the 1980s and it is during this wave that created the theory of intersectionality. The term of intersectionality is one I first heard this year as it has gained popularity. It is a term I hadn’t really wanted to know more about until recently when I started hearing it more and more. I knew I had to research it. To discover its origins as well as the criticisms that have been stated about the theory itself and its practice.

Intersectionality is a theoretical framework for understanding how aspects of a person’s social and political identities. It is a qualitative analytic framework identifying how interlocking systems of power affect those who are marginalized to promote social and political equity. It attempts to broaden the lens of feminism to include women of color, immigrant women and other groups. The term was created by Professor Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, a black feminist, in 1989, when studying three legal cases that dealt with issues of racial and sex discrimination, and argued that treating black women as purely women or purely black ignored the challenges that faced black women as a group (Coaston, 2019). Intersectionality was not widely accepted until the 2015 and is gaining popularity. Intersectionality is intended to illuminate how often racial inequality has been overlooked by feminist theory and movements. Linda Carty and Chandra Talpade Mohanty of the Feminist Freedom Warriors Project at Syracuse University summed up intersectionality. “All of us live complex lives that require a great deal of juggling for survival. What that means is that we are actually living at the intersections of overlapping systems of privilege and oppression” (Coleman, 2019).

Professor Crenshaw took a simple observation that black women were subjected to racism by a predominantly white feminist movement and sexism by the male dominated anti-racism movement and offered an explained why it is a dynamic that keeps repeated (Robertson, 2017). Unfortunately, her original theory has receded to the background as others have taken her idea and ran with it, adding and expanding. It reminds me of scientists who took Charles Darwin’s original theory of evolution and expanded on it so much that the original theory has been lost. The idea of intersectionality makes sense as the observation was made by Sojourner Truth in her 1851 speech “Ain’t I a Woman?” in which she identifies the difference between the oppression of white and black women. White women were often treated as emotional and delicate, needed help simply to get into a carriage while black women were subjected to racist abuse and not treated as delicately (National Park Service). Intersectionality attempts to explain the multiple dimensions to the human experience (Shelton, 2019). Intersectionality in simple terms is double or multiple discrimination as the group identities one can claim intersects and explains their experience.

 

Intersectionality is not without its critics. The main criticism discusses theological definitions. Kathy Davis (2008) argues that intersectionality is ambiguous and open-ended, and that its "lack of clear-cut definition or even specific parameters.” In a podcast, Dr. Mark Horowitz, a professor of sociology at Seton Hall University, stated that at its core, intersectionality is a way to explain the world and how people experience it; however, the definitions are so fluid that it is hard to pinpoint definitions across the different studies (Shelton, 2019). Rekia Jibrim and Sara Salem (2017) state that intersectionality “does not have a clear methodological preference to study the intersections of social categories or identities” (2017). One of the biggest critics has been conservative commentor Ben Shapiro. According to Shapiro, intersectionality creates a “us” versus “them” paradigm where racial and sexual identity count for everything (2018). In the Sensibly Speaking podcast, Dr. Horowitz echoes this sentiment as he states that the attempt to use biology as a part to explain the human experience, an intersectional sociologist will argue that “you are only trying to bring women down” and “you must have a patriarchal power agenda” (Shelton, 2019).

In conclusion, intersectionality makes sense that we are more than just one group. It makes us that we cannot and should not separate discrimination and as our experiences intersects. However, it is an idea that seems to work in theory but with no clear, well-defined definitions, intersectionality is a confusing idea. It is an empirical view which makes sense and has a usefulness to explain the world and how people experience it. While many of the criticisms focus on its lack of suitable definitions, there are criticisms focus on the activist side. It is the automatic dismissal which dismisses someone’s opinion or view simply because of their group identity or majority status. As Ben Shapiro snarky commented at the end of his PagerU video, “But what do I know? I’m just a straight white male” (2018). Unfortunately, for far too long, voices were kept out of the conversation and intersectionality, in practice, simply follows suit.

 

 

References

Coaston, Jane (May 28, 2019). The intersectionality wars. Vox. www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/20/18542843/intersectionality-conservatism-law-race-gender-discrimination. Retrieved October 8, 2020.

 

Coleman, Arica L. (March 29, 2019). What's Intersectionality? Let These Scholars Explain the Theory and Its History. Time. www.time.com/5560575/intersectionality-theory/. Retrieved October 8, 2020.

 

Davis, Kathy (2008). Intersectionality as buzzword. Feminist Theory. www.kathydavis.info/articles/Intersectionality_as_buzzword.pdf. Retrieved October 9, 2020.

 

Jibrim, Rekia & Salem, Sara (May 27, 2017). Revisiting Intersectionality: Reflections on

Theory and Praxis. Trans-Scripts: An Interdisciplinary Online Journal in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Retrieved October 7, 2020.  

 

National Park Service (no date). Sojourner Truth: Ain't I A Woman? Women’s Rights National Historical Park. www.nps.gov/articles/sojourner-truth.htm. Retrieved October 10, 2020.

 

Robertson, Eleanor (September 30, 2017). Intersectional-what? Feminism's problem with jargon is that any idiot can pick it up and have a go. The Guardian. www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/30/intersectional-feminism-jargon. Retrieved October 9, 2020.

 

Shapiro, Ben (June 17, 2018). What is Intersectionality? PragerU. www.prageru.com/video/what-is-intersectionality/. Retrieved October 13, 2020.

 

Shelton, Chris (October 18, 2019). Intersectionality - Pros, Cons and Pitfalls ft. Dr. Mark Horowitz. Sensibly Speaking Podcast. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lshLPJJKbyU&feature=youtu.be. Retrieved October 15, 2020.