Intersectionality In Feminism Essay

Intersectionality has become the latest feminist “buzzword” as it comes to the discussion of pop culture, politics or academia. the article “Intersectionality” by The Washington Post, tells us how the term intersectionality was initially used to describe how race and gender could bisect as the forms of oppression. However, now the term is used to trace how different forms of discrimination overlap and relate. It also describes how important is it for feminists to consider women from diverse backgrounds when advocating for social causes. This term encompasses numerous social factors such as sexual orientation, disability, class and nationality. Recently, this term has been used by social activists either as a rallying cry or punishment for

Moreover, Intersectional feminism opens the door for oppressed women who are different from the overly white, middle class, cis-gendered and able-bodied women who claim to “want power for all women”, but will not advocate and let her privilege be called out by a woman of a different race. Another key point is that though people of white decent cannot be oppressed in the ways that a person of color can be, they can use their privilege to bring light upon the people who need help. If society would shine more light on the oppressed women of the world, then they could understand the trauma and heartbreak it feels like to not be treated equally to a woman of the Caucasian

Intersectionality can be defined as the study or concept of discriminative or oppressive institutions on marginalization of groups or minorities, and the way such institutions are interconnected. The concept of Intersectionality is based on the theory that oppressive institutions within a society, such as racism, classism and genderism, do not act independently, but are instead interrelated and continuously shaped by one another. This theory on Intersectionality is an important concept for the sociology of health and illness because it provides an understanding of other factors that can explain a health or illness phenomena. It also provides the thinking of health, disease and how it is socially produced. For example we can see a person who

1.The theory/concept of intersectionality is a theory centered around oppression, domination and discrimination through various mediums from the social and cultural elements of society.

It is impossible to discuss gender and the influences it has on one livelihood without acknowledging the other aspects of one’s identity. Other aspects such as race, class, and sexuality in combination with will always play a major role in one’s life choices and the way they are perceived by others. The term intersectionality as stated by Susanne Hochreiter offers a way to understand the multiple grounds of identity when considering how the social world is constructed. Intersectionality explains why gender cannot be in isolation from other inequalities in the social world. As a black Haitian woman raised in America, it is clear to see that my identity occupies several spheres. The experiences of being a woman in Haitian culture often conflicts with that in of American culture. In Haitian, there are specific roles and social spaces that women occupy. Traditionally in Haitian culture women are the head of the household but still place their husband’s authority above them. Young Haitian girls must learn many things before they are considered young women in their society. These

The old feminism is crumbling because it simply does not answer the needs and questions of the 21st-century women. “Women are the equals of men. Men and women are not separate political classes” (Socialist Alternative, 2). Anyone who shares the desire to reduce inequality and promote opportunity must embrace feminism. “If the future is men and women dwelling as images of each other in a world unchanged, it is a nightmare” (Greer, 2). All of us benefit from the same political circumstances… like freedom of speech, conscience, private property, and the right of self-defense. Any particular man is no more my enemy, no more a threat to me, than any particular woman is. We are all individuals to be evaluated

The predominant ideas put forth in the piece from the Combahee River Collective were those that addressed the shortcomings of the feminist movement to include all women and to address the full range of issues that oppress individuals and groups of people in our patriarchal society. This greatly furthered my ongoing development and understanding of what intersectionality is, what its goals are, and how it can help everyone instead of the predominately white, cisgendered, heterosexual, upper middle class women that composed and continue to compose a large portion of the feminist movement.

Without applying intersectionality in analysis, oppression can only be understood in general terms, which can cause forms of oppression to become undetected (Mattsson, 2014). Instead, intersectionality, demonstrates the complexity of gender, sexuality, class, and race avoiding stereotypes as a whole, rather than simplifying an individual based on one characteristic (Mattsson, 2014). For example, when I was working at a Community Centre in the Jane and Finch area, I had a conversation with my co-worker. He described the barriers and struggles he has faced because of his race and socioeconomic status. It was through this conversation that I realized the pre-conceived notions my co-worker had about me, as a white individual who did not grow-up in the same neighbourhood. More specifically, my co-worker was surprised to hear that I experienced similar barriers as he did in regards to socioeconomic status. In other words, due to my race, my co-worker had perceived notions about my economic class, which conflicted with my actual experience. In this example, my identity was simplified based on my race, while my socioeconomic status was concealed. This is because race and class are structural systems of oppression that are often conflated. Thus, without the use of intersectionality, assumptions were made and forms of oppression became

Intersectionality is when there is other problematic society that affects a certain group of people within society is interconnected. The minority may all belong to the same group but yet there are many categories within that group that also deal with more than one form of oppression. In the article, the author makes valid points of the daily struggles of being a woman in society but also shines light on the issue that she also faces other forms of oppression because of her skin color. To the average white woman, the only form of institutionalized oppression they experience is solely gender based and therefore they tend to dismiss the idea that other races and religious fight for equality is much more intense. Intersectionality also contends

Intersectionality is described by Davis as “the interaction between gender, race, and other categories of difference in individual lives, social practices, institutional arrangements and cultural ideologies and the outcomes of these interactions in terms of power”(p. 456, Davis). In relation to inequality and intersectionality, Browne and Misra discuss the anti-categorical approach which explains how by placing people in categories of race, class, and gender, we are only perpetuating inequality by continuing to acknowledge our differences. These categories are inherently intersectional, with race being gendered and “classed”, and gender being “raced” and classed”. (p. 468, Browne, Misra)

Fostering this, both Black women’s empowerment and conditions of social justice within the academy can align with the movement that adequately addresses intersectionality of race, gender, class, and sexuality. The black feminist framework seeks to reconfigure being Black and a female in white misogynistic society were the cross of race, class, and gender are theorized as everyday realities. The intersectional analysis of race, class, gender, and sexuality is termed as intersectionality. A term created by Kimberlé Crenshaw, intersectionality explores the systematic structures of dominance of race, class, gender and sexuality that affect those who are neither White nor male (Mirza, 2015).

According to the article Intersectionality, intersectionality is “a theoretical framework that posits that multiple social categories intersect at the micro level of individual experience to reflect multiple interlocking systems of privilege and oppression at the macro, social-structural level.” In other words, this means that intersectionality means that a person can be multifaceted, in that they have multiple aspects of themselves which can them to experience things differently. An example of intersectionality is given by Kimberlé Crenshaw, she wrote about the court case in which several African American women sued General Motors because they were segregated by their race and gender. These women faced discrimination because they could not

Hill Collins(1998) further expatiates her argument by stating that, “ for example, intersectionality holds that knowing a woman lives in a sexist society is insufficient information to describe her experience; instead it is also necessary to know her race, sexual orientation, class, etc. , as well as her society’s attitude toward each of these.”

Intersectionality is a systemic framework which underlines the fact that different social identities are not separate and specific entities but they are rather interconnected and complex. It illustrates the importance of how much greater every, individual facet of one’s identity is much greater and accurately represented when looked at together. This essential framework that chooses to acknowledge the fact that various facets of one 's identity can affect our lives and therefore our varying degrees of oppression is often dependent on social, systemic power relationships. These relationships are most often defined by four different systems: race, class, gender, and

In the text “Feminisms Matters”, Bromley uses intersectionality to pin point and discourse how people are not just classified by one identity but by various, complex and interconnected ones which unified, define a person. “We are likely to identify with a particular gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age group and ability” (Bromley 47). These are some of the social groups used in terms of intersectionality to analyze how components of our identity fall under these categories which are influenced by a numerous amount of factors such as our experiences and positionality (Bromley 47). Evidently an individual would relate to all of these categories but in different ways, making distinguishable identities. “For example, you might be living