Karen Crenshaw Intersectionality

In the article The Politics of Black Women’s Studies by Akasha Hull and Barbara Smith, Hull and Smith studiously literate the politics and controversy around the fundamentals of black women’s studies in the past and modern day. Furthermore, the ideology of the article falls under the premise that racism and prejudice are still current and prominent factors that affect the development of black women’s studies in the way it is taught in universities, and the role it takes upon the lives of black women.

In this book, Hillary Potter used the intensive interview with 40 African American women who is living or have been through the domestic violence or intimate partner abuse before. They shared their experience and stories of abuse, obstruction, and triumph to inform the general society how they facing the abusive life.

This gives rise to the idea that only people who identify as black should participate in equal rights protests, read books on African American history, and be in relationships with African Americans. Exemplifying in this paragraph, how there is still a belief that certain behaviors are attributed to different races, the author also shows that people try to confirm their identity by participating in these behaviors. However, this is a misconception because many races, and mixtures of, all take part in similar practices to Ms. LaSonde. Her actions could very likely be influenced by her race, but it is not possible to say that it is the only determinant for her acts. What Ms. LaSonde did in her past does hold meaning, but the idea that it proves her “blackness” is untrue. There is not any behavior that belongs solely to one

Robert L. Boyd is the author of Boyd’s “Race, Labor Market Disadvantage, and Survivalist Entrepreneurship: Black Women in The Great Depression.” Boyd is an associate professor at Mississippi state university where he specializes in sociology, ecology, urban studies, race, human impact, and demography. He presented this article at a sociology conference in Chicago in the summer of 2000.

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

As black women always conform under patriarchal principles, women are generally silenced and deprived of rights because men are entitled to control everything. Women are silenced in a way that they lose their confidence and hesitate to speak up due to the norms present in the society they live in. Hence, even if women have the confidence to try to speak, men wouldn’t bother to listen since men ought to believe that they are superior to women. In addition to that, women often live in a life cycle of repetitions due to patriarchal principles since women are established to fulfill the roles the society had given them. It is evidenced by Celie as she struggles to survive and to define oneself apart from the controlling, manipulative, and abusive men in her life.

Sexual abuse of all black women by wealthy white men was just as prevalent during emancipation as it was during slavery. The sexual abuse the enslaved black women received by their wealthy white male masters, was justified by white men and women due to the Jezebel myth they had created. Deborah Gray White defines the Jezebel myth in her reading, “Jezebel and Mammy”, when she states, "[The Jezebel] did not lead men and children to God; piety was foreign to her. She saw no advantage in prudery, indeed domesticity paled in importance before matters of the flesh” (Gray White 29). The thought of the black woman as hypersexual, allowed white men and women of all classes to sexually and racially oppress the black women, declaring them "unladylike”, not maternal figures and not sexually pure like the white women. The white men and women also

In “Intersectional Resistance and Law Reform,” Dean Spade proposes that the United States was founded through “racialization…(which) continues to operate under new guises… that produce, manage, and deploy gender categories and sexuality and family norms” (16). More over, these laws and norms tend to maintain the “status quo,” and employ an inherently flawed justice system that is only equipped to address single-axis discrimination issues (5). Thus, the intersectionality movement is largely dismissed by the social and justice systems, as it utilizes “critical intersectional tools… that are often (too) difficult for legal scholars to comprehend” (17). Interstionality’s progress is also impeded by advocates leaving to support single-axis issues. However, Spade warns that this approach is ineffective, as it fails to protect the most marginalized members of society.

In Brent Staple “Black Men in Public Space” This story tells of a Black Man walking down the street late at night suffering from insomnia/ walking behind a white woman, who glanced back at him. Staples deal with the perceived aggression of black men, through the cultural misconceptions of white women. Staple’s article illuminated the ugly truths of human nature that resonated toward members of the African American community, In Staple’s excerpt he states “there seemed to be a discreet un-inflammatory distance between us”. The Caucasian woman looked back at him, no words were exchanged. The familiarity of this situation is uncanny. The majority of African Americans have experienced racism in one form or another.

Crenshaw's Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color expands on the multifaceted struggles of women of color and the generalizations ingrained in society that limit women of color and keep them in a box. In this text, Crenshaw builds on the concept of intersectionality which proposes that social categorizations such as gender and race are intertwined and have great influence on one another. She explains how the lack of awareness about intersectionality skews the data behind studies on controversial

In the 1980’s black women are faced with a lot pressure in society, Because women of color are both women and racial minorities, they face more pressure in which lower economic opportunities due to their race and their gender. This pressure is reflected both in the jobs available to them and in their lower pay. Also because they are women of color they are likely to be the giver of the house and also within the families. Through the use of anecdotes,rhetorical questions, anaphora, ethos and metaphors, "In The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism, Audre Lorde argues that women of color need to respond to racism with anger spurred from their fear and that not a bad thing depends on how anger is portrayed.

Crenshaw presents us with many examples of why colored women are more apt to being the victim of a violent

Despite oppression women have always resisted. Women have resisted oppression in many ways. Women have responded to their multiple sources of oppression of sexism, racism, heterosexism and colonialism. Women resisted oppression by standing up for their rights. Women have been left out of the discussion of oppression for centuries. In a patriarchy society where males are the narrators and voices being heard, one is rarely educated on women struggles. In the Western world gender is a construct made to keep one group superior and the other inferior. Gender concerns what it means to be women or men in society. The traditional notion of gender is acknowledged to not be defined the same all over the world. The general concept of gender is challenged

In the essay “Just Walk on By” written by Brent Staples, the author uses a mixture of exaggeration, quoting, and word choice to grasp the attention of his readers and further his point that racial profiling is an unfortunate circumstance that impacts African American men in negative ways.

In an article by the Crunk Feminist Collective, it discusses a video of a white woman who was getting harassed as she walks down the streets of New York City. The article discusses how the Hollaback video was not only sexist but racist as well. The white men who catcalled the white woman were edited out. Meanwhile men of color are still represented in a “dangerous” way that threatens an innocent white woman. The article also discuses how Black women have the right to occupy public spaces without enduring street harassment. The Hollaback video is trying to alert us to fight for women that are being harassed. However, as the Crunk Feminist Collective article points out, the video should also be used to alert individuals about racism. This video