Kimberle Crenshaw is feminist critic of race theorist that speak on behave of intersectionality and the effect it has on politics. As Crenshaw describes intersectionality as the way that certain structures in our society cause vulnerability for certain identities especially, for black women. Crenshaw states, “Black women are sometimes excluded from feminist theory and antiracist policy discourse because both are predicated on a discrete set of experiences that often does not accurately reflect the interaction of race and gender” (140). This statement is support through her keynote speech during the Women of the World festival in 2016. One example that she uses through her speech is employment opportunities for black women. When black women wanted to work in industrial plants, they found themselves in a problem. Employers has set up was to make sure they were not being prejudices to gender by allowing white women to work, and not being prejudice to race by allowing black men to work. Black women found themselves in a problem that their mixture of race and gender caused them to be discriminated. But, policies to prevent discrimination …show more content…
As she states, “Find another connection to the rest of the world/ Find something else to make you legitimate/ Find some other way to be political and hip” (This Bridge Called My Back, xxxii). Meaning, that she understands that failures that are seen through society when it comes to, in her case, radical women of color. She uses the term “political and hip” to make a point that those who do not understand that faults in our patriarchy system try to make up program to help those that are being excluded, which is not the case. If they took intersectionality into consideration, they would not need someone to explain their faults and would be able to take people’s differences into
In many contemporary spaces, intersectionality is taught and consumed as a static concept of merely listing identities carried by one person simultaneously. It’s used more often as a checklist than a place of analysis or resistance. However, the use of intersectionality as just an apolitical tool, rather than a theory born from the knowledge of Black women experiencing a “triple jeopardy” of oppression and seeking liberation by deconstructing the institutions that bind them, is reductionist at best. In “Intersectionality is Not Neutral”May communicates that intersectionality pushes us to question and challenge the relatively mundane or acceptable norms in society that lend themselves to a continuous legacy of systemic inequality.
The theory of intersectionality is one put forth by the feminist theorist known as Kimberlé Crenshaw. Crenshaw developed this theory as a critique to what she called a single-axis framework. A single-axis framework is one that considers an issue, be it feminist or otherwise, as a product of a single aspect. To be clearer, and to provide an example, a single-axis framework would consider the experiences of a woman of colour as either those experienced by an individual of colour, or those experienced by a woman. Crenshaw introduced the concept of intersectionality to explain that some experiences are unique to those who fall under a combination of these categories. In her article, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex”, Crenshaw describes intersectionality as “the combined effects of practices which discriminate on the basis of race and on the basis of sex” (385).
However, intersectionality originates separately from its current application. As a development from Black feminist thought, intersectionality originates from Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, a Black feminist legal scholar (Carastathis 2014, p 304-305). Yet, the notion of multiple oppressions was not created with intersectionality or even third-wave feminism but in the 1970’s as Frances Beal’s “double jeopardy” as well as several other iterations of the concept through Black feminist thought, as explained by Carastathis (2014, p 305). The application of intersectionality in cases of age, sexuality, and class is an extrapolation of “double jeopardy” which was originally created to address the experiences of black women. In current scholarship, intersectionality is utilized as a theory, methodology, or tool to discuss how identities are never independent, monolithic experiences (Carastathis 2014, p 307). Rebecca Ann Lind writes in an introduction for Race/Gender/Media: “The variety of social groups noted above raises an important issue: Each of us is a product of a combination of experiences and identities, rooted in a variety of socially constructed classifications” (2004, 5). Applying double jeopardy and intersectional concepts to the protagonists of Grace and Frankie without acknowledging its origins to measure race exhibits poor scholarship and erasure of Black
Like the article “African American Women in the Workplace: Relationships Between Job Conditions, Racial Bias at Work, and Perceived Job Quality” Dina is being restricted from the opportunity to work in the modeling industry. The modeling workforce is plagued with institutionalized racism, which therefore hinders Dina from finding a job. Since institutionalized racism is dominant when Dina tries to find a job, this causes segregation amongst individuals of different races in the modeling workforce.
Institutions in the businesses sector are swarming in racial discrimination, much of which is covert and difficult to detect and prove. Racial discrimination excludes, marginalizes and exploits those citizens who are discriminated against, ceasing any opportunity for economic progress and development. Under certain regulations some businesses are required to diversify their workplace by hiring certain amounts of people of color, but in reality these small quotas do not do much for the overall condition of the people who are being discriminated against. Businesses that fail to take action on racial discrimination tend to have lower levels of productivity. This stems from employees not being interested in working hard, or because people with exceptional talents and skills choose to shy away from certain places of employment due to the fear of racial discrimination. Employees who feel wronged also tend to switch jobs, forcing the organization to spend more time and resources on hiring and training new employees, besides coping with the low productivity of a new employee. (Nayab)The effects of racial discrimination in the American work force could be identified with funded research on the topic. With ample data employers will be able to better understand the negative affects that racial discrimination have
On Being Young-A Woman-and Colored an essay by Marita Bonner addresses what it means to be black women in a world of white privilege. Bonner reflects about a time when she was younger, how simple her life was, but as she grows older she is forced to work hard to live a life better than those around her. Ultimately, she is a woman living with the roles that women of all colors have been constrained to. Critics, within the last 20 years, believe that Marita Bonners’ essay primarily focuses on the double consciousness ; while others believe that she is focusing on gender , class , “economic hardships, and discrimination” . I argue that Bonner is writing her essay about the historical context of oppression forcing women into intersectional oppression by explaining the naturality of racial discrimination between black and white, how time and money equate to the American Dream, and lastly how gender discrimination silences women, specifically black women.
Blacks are prevented from enjoying life in the American work force because of their race. The problem is that Whites cause Black misery, but do nothing to change this. Jill Nelson’s White supervisors could have been more accommodating to Nelson’s needs. They could have taken measures to make her more comfortable in the work place, possible by hiring more Blacks. Their newspaper could have began to portray Blacks in a more positive, truthful light.
Critical race theory’s key concepts include discourse on notions of essentialism, white privilege, institutional racism, and radical critiques that emphasize the implications of racism in America. CRT poses that the oppression of minorities in America is not by chance but a form of systematic deception illustrated through American bureaucracy. Furthermore, such laws and institutions help to empower the white voice by making it increasingly difficult for minorities to attain justice in a legal system that has racist underpinnings. From CRT, however, emerged critical race feminism, a theory that focused primarily on issues of race, gender and class. Critical race feminism first came to prominence after the contributions set forth by scholars like Mari Matsuda, Regina Austin, Adrien Wing, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Patricia Williams seeking to redefine feminism through the experiences of colored women. Furthermore, these authors challenged the theoretical frameworks of institutionalized racism by critically examining the often-overlooked perspectives of black women in law, culture, and society. Additionally, critical race feminism offered women of color newfound recognition under the guise of the term interesctionality (Crenshaw,
The article argues how each identity marker that is not the dominant trait, experiences a different type of racism. Without considering the intersectionality of identity markers and social classes, one may never understand the amounts of racism, oppression and other struggles an individual such as a black woman from a working class background may experience. A woman with those identity markers may experience sexism due to their gender, racism due to their skin colour, and mistreatment due to their social class. At the same time, a white woman from the upper class whose every need is put first may also experience forms of sexism as they are perceived to always need male protection. In turn, this can prevent the individual from having their own decisions. Although both women experience forms of sexism, the black women from a working- class experiences a harsher reality of the situation, which can only be recognised when using intersectionality to distinguish the different levels of oppression and discrimination between different groups of
The way humans look externally and feel internally has been a barrier and the kernel to many of America’s social conflicts. Audre Lorde’s essay, “Eye to Eye: Black Women, Hatred, and Anger,” attempts to answer why Black women feel contempt among one another. It resonates that Black women, in lieu of their hatred for each other, should replace it by bonding together because they share the same experiences of being women and Black. In the essay titled, “Colorblind Intersectionality,” penned by, Devon W. Carbado seeks to expand the definition of “intersectionality,” which is a theory Professor Crenshaw initially introduced as a, “Drawing explicitly on Black feminist criticism,” (Carbado 811). Carbado is able to provide other forms of intersections by
Elsa Barkley Brown focuses on the intersectionality of being a black woman in America, in “What Has Happened Here?”. Black women experience different forms of oppression simultaneously. Indeed, racism, sexism, classism, as well as heterosexism, intertwine and form layers of oppression.
Intersectionality is a term that is often seen in feminist discourses. The term refers to the idea that multiple forms of oppression often affect one person at the same time (Levan, 127). This phenomenon is also sometimes referred to as interlocking oppressions. In Deborah K. King’s work, it is explained how the term “double jeopardy” was coined by feminist activist Frances Beale to refer to the multiple oppressions faced by black women (222).
She argues that disregarding other dimensions of intersectional identities in discourses dealing with one such dimension, say ignoring impact of racism in feminist discourses, leads to marginalisation in all such dialogues. Crenshaw, in her two papers, uses interaction between gender and race to highlight its role in shaping structural, political and representational aspects of various social realities. She uses this to emphasize on the need for intersectionality, to account for multiple grounds of identity. She additionally concedes that the concept can be expanded by factoring in other issues like age, class, sexuality etc which also play an important role in shaping the experiences of the subjects. Richard Delgado, a civil rights and critical race theorist, critiquing the concept of intersectionality in general, and that of Crenshaw in particular, does not understand when the process of formation of sub groups stops because several sub groups may arise with one or more characteristics different from the original group.
In relation to the Critical Race Theory, the idea of the “gap between law, politics, economics, and sociological reality of racialized lives” (Critical Race Theory slides). The critical race theory gives us a guide to analyze privileges and hardships that comes across different races and gender. For example, analyzing how and why a “black” or “indigenous” woman may experience more hardships versus not only a “white” man, but a “white”
Throughout history, society is in a constant stage of development and change which is exemplified through laws surrounding same sex marriage, immigration, and issues of human rights in regards to race, status, or class that contribute to society’s advancement. Focusing specifically on Western Society, we have improved significantly in relation to wars, slavery, and segregation; yet scholars and political activists argue that segregation and racism against minorities is still prominent in the 21st century. Indeed, the primary focus for this argument will be around the identities of Black Women in the past and present. Even more so, it is clear that in society Black Women’s identities are constantly marginalized within the law and society in