Basic human rights issues need to be addressed; with a feminist’s perspective, the oppression of people based on class, race, gender, sexuality, nationality, and physical ability can be clearly examined and abolished. A feminist’s ideological tool, “Intersectionality”, can help us better understand systematically determined levels of oppression. Redlined real estate developments, discriminating businesses, and racist incarceration rates, need to be examined with an intersectional lens. Intersectionality, the concept behind the intersectional lens, is an elaborate equation of one's intersecting traits. These intersecting traits are as follows: class, race, gender, sexuality, nationality and physical ability. Monique Wittig addresses how intersectionality …show more content…
is taken as an absolute fact by saying, “race [a part of intersectionality], exactly like sex, is taken as an immediate given, a sensible given, physical features, belonging to natural order” (Wittig, 247). This hierarchical idea of a “natural order” is the categorization of a person’s social status based on their intersectional traits. Of course, there is nothing natural about this “natural order”; in fact, this idea of “natural order” oppresses the majority of society in unnatural ways. An oversimplification of the hierarchy in place would look like white upper-class males at the top while black lower class women would be at the bottom, along with others of every other intersecting train in between the two. A hierarchical view from a governmental standpoint can lead to oppression, which can manifest itself in the form of the marginalization of peoples voices, a common instance throughout women's history.
Dill & Zambrana encourage us to examine this history, however, they encourage the use of a new view, a view through the Intersectional lens. Varying levels of marginalization can be seen and interpreted based on one’s intersectionality. Without an intersectional lens, we may only hear the history of people whose opinions were valued in their time. In my feminist manifesto, several issues of importance to feminists will be seen through the intersectional lens. Using this lens, we will see how women of different classes, races, and sexualities are treated differently depending on their intersecting traits. Before we approach issues of oppression against women, we must first define what feminism means in today’s …show more content…
world. To paraphrase the introduction of Feminist Theory: Local and Global Perspectives, feminism is the fight for women's equality pertaining to all social, political, and economic spheres.
When striving for equality, intersectionality is important to understand for one to define modern Feminism. Some “first wave” definitions, or as I would call it “first storm” definitions of feminism, didn’t include all women. These “first storm” definitions only include perspectives from economically privileged white women, whose intersectionality is favored by the white male driven patriarchy. A better, more modern definition of feminism is from Becky Thompson’s essay, “Multiracial Feminism”. She quotes the feminist writer Barbara Smith’s definition: “Feminism is the political theory and practice to free all women: women of color, working-class women, poor women, physically challenged women, lesbians, old women, as well as white economically privileged heterosexual women”(Thompson, 59). She goes on to say: “Anything less than that is not feminism, but merely female self-aggrandizement” which affirms her position on the importance of keeping all women included in feminist thought (Thompson, 59). To modernize this definition, I would include all forms of intersectionality, including the newly defined role, transgendered women. The updated definition would read --“Feminism is the political theory and practice to free all women of inequality: no matter their, race, sexuality, nationality, class,
gender, cultural heritage, or religion.” As the definition of feminism evolves and the action of feminists change, accomplishments in the feminist community become greater and the rights of women around the world grow immensely.
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.
Feminisms Matter: Debates, Theories, Activism, is a book that analyzes gender studies and theories among the ages and relates it to towards the issues that occur in everyday life. Chapter four of the text is seen to draw heavily on the issue of intersectionality and how it creates binary categories that defy the complexities of human beings . Society integrates many identities that work to categorize people into certain groups. These certain groups is what dictate the actions and view of the people within. However, this outdated use of segregating people is the main problem in terms of in terms of intersectionality as it is a form of discrimination . Victoria L. Bromley, the author of Feminism Matter, discusses the use of intersectionality
According to feminist Victoria L. Bromley, if feminism is about combating all forms of inequalities, including oppression, towards all social groups, then feminists must study how masculinity oppresses both men and women. Patriarchy, men’s powers and dominance, hegemonic masculinity, the idea that the “dominant group” in society is most powerful, and hyper masculinity, the exaggeration of the emphasis on male characteristics, all lead to oppression through multiple forms: privileges and unearned privileges, hierarchies of power and exclusion. Bromley argues that the feminist approach towards eliminating oppression, is to use an intersectional analysis, a theoretical tool used for understanding how multiple identities are connected and how systems
Hill Collins’ theory is built around the idea of intersectionality. She defines this concept as “systems of race, social class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, nation, and age [that] form mutually constructing features of social organization” (Hill Collins, 2000, p. 299). Society attempts to categorize its members into groups and project “controlling images” that offer a stereotypical view of a person onto its members (Hill Collins, 2000, p. 69). These images are limiting and are unable to capture the multiplicity of individuals. Rather than seeking to pinpoint a single characteristic to describe and understand a social actor, Hill Collins calls for an analysis that considers how these various systems of classification come together and intersect – intersectionality. When intersectionality between these systems is not present or acknowledged, people tend to be classified by only a very restricted number of categories. These in turn impose controlling images on an individual and are used to define him or her. Hill Collins offers the example of African-American women whose controlling images include “mammies, matri...
Oppression is a term that has been used throughout history to describe the injustices brought upon minority groups. Feminist writer Marilyn Frye shared the definition of oppression, which essentially means to shape or conform certain groups of people (for this paper women will be used as the primary example) into socially constructed ideals through restrictions that mold and immobilize minority groups or females (Frye 11). According to Marilyn Frye, this term is sometimes loosely thrown around and used out of the term’s true context. The misuse of this term often creates a misconstrued view of what true oppression is and how particular groups of people are able to function within
My original concepts of feminism were that it was a theory that denounced men and elevated women beyond a fair or equitable place in society. I recognize now the stereotyping that I inadvertently allowed myself to feel. "Equating feminist struggle with living in a counter-cultural, woman-centered world erected barriers that closed...
In the U.S., feminism is understood as the rights of women (usually affluent white women) to share the spoils of capitalism, and imperial power. By refusing to fully confront the exclusions of non-whites, foreigners, and other marginalized groups from this vision, liberal feminists miss a crucial opportunity to create a more inclusive and more powerful movement. Feminist movements within the U.S. and internationally have long since accepted that, for them, feminism entails the communal confrontation of not only patriarchy, but capitalism, imperialism, white supremacy, and other forms of oppressions that combine together and reinforce their struggle. It means the fighting for the replacement of a system in which their rights are negated in the quest for corporate and political profit. It includes fighting so that all people anywhere on the gender, sexual, and body spectrum are allowed to enjoy basic rights like food, housing, healthcare, and control of their labor.
Intersectionality is a term used to describe a situation whereby an individual has multiple identities and as result, the person feels that he or she doesn’t belong to one community or another. Because of the many conflicts in an individual’s identities, he or she could be a victim of multiple threats of discrimination (Williams, 2017). The discrimination could be a result of race, gender, age, health and ethnicity among others. To give an example, a black transgender woman could be discriminated in the workplace because of being black and also because she is transgender. From an intersectionality perspective, the woman faces multiple threats of discrimination because of the overlapping identities of gender and race and therefore the transwoman faces a bigger struggle (Barber, 2017). Transwomen of color will most likely encounter prejudices in the form of homophobia, racism or sexism in many dimensions of their life. The perspective of intersectionality is not only applicable to women but it can also be applied to males. For example, a gay Latino man could be discriminated based on race because he is an immigrant into
Feminism must be intersectional because equality struggles go farther than gender. As a human race, we are all different, but all deserve justice in social, economic, and political matters. Intersectional feminism is beneficial to everyone. It focuses not just on combating gender inequality, but also racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, fat/skinny shaming, classism, etc.
Among the many subjects covered in this book are the three classes of oppression: gender, race and class in addition to the ways in which they intersect. As well as the importance of the movement being all-inclusive, advocating the idea that feminism is in fact for everybody. The author also touches upon education, parenting and violence. She begins her book with her key argument, stating that feminist theory and the movement are mainly led by high class white women who disregarded the circumstances of underprivileged non-white women.
Intersectionality also known as intersectional theory originally was a theory which was encoded in feminism. Intersectionality was a term in which feminists developed to explain how they were being socially oppressed because they were woman, in particular this theory addressed issues of the women’s suffrage movement and women wanting to retain the same rights as their male counterparts. As time progressed it became more common to see see it branched out into multidimensional levels of institutions such as- race, class, sexism, culture, religion, and even biological transgender. Intersectionality by definition aims to analyze multiple identities exposing different types of discrimination and disadvantages that occur
In fact, the history of feminism has shown that often times, the feminist movement only serves “the most affluent, socially accepted, and privileged women within it” and often fails to secure equality for women who don’t fit this favored status (Rios, “4 Things We Can Do to Make Feminist Organizing More Inclusive”). The feminist movement’s privileges are largely enjoyed by middle to upper class, white women. However, it is critical to understand that the movement fails and is not doing its job to the fullest extent if it does not focus on those marginalized and oppressed women within it. Jessa Crispin, author of Why I am Not a Feminist: A Feminist Manifesto, explains that “Just because a certain population of women — who are mostly white, educated and upper middle class — can participate in higher levels of society, that doesn’t make it a victory for all women, it’s the collective that needs taking care of” (Racco, “Redefining the F
Structural problems get intensified when race, gender, and class oppressions intersect, making it more difficult for women of color to escape their abusers and access appropriate medical and sexual/reproductive healthcare. The principle of intersectionality recognizes that these multiple oppressions are not endured individually, but rather as a single, compounded experience. Identity politics, like those practiced by radical feminists, are inclined to remained silent on intra-group differences (race, class, sexuality), to the detriment of some of its members, in this case black or poor
Seeing gender in terms of femininity and masculinity and their respective relationship to submission and dominance in today’s society is key to understanding the more insidious underpinnings of the patriarchal system and its dehumanization of femininity and masculinity that does not fit within the cisnormative gender binary. Seeing feminism through the lens of fuzzy spectrums of existent or nonexistent intersectionalities is a more cohesive way of understanding oppression and hierarchies of power in which individuals are born into. The allowed passivity on nonbinary issues by individuals in the feminist movement, though not intentionally harmful, leads to severe marginalizations. In an attempt to be seen as equals the marginalized are using the master’s tools to marginalize. Antifoundationalism is a major theory in moving society toward building a foundation of discourse that is not only sound but also one that does not limit the possibility of always learning and adapting with time (where essentialism fails massively). To erasively ignore the needs of the few is to adhere to the same patriarchal stereotypical steamrolling that causes so much systematic sexism and pain. Gendernonconforming individuals have been prevalent and in existence far before the language of intersectionality came to be and thusly forcing feminism into the small
Feminism is often described as a white girl’s hobby. The analysis of this belief reveals the unfortunate reality that, while feminism has benefited many groups, one group is benefiting more through overrepresentation. White women’s voices are the loudest of the movement and they drown out the needs and opinions of every other ethnic group. Looking back, the path that lead Feminism here is obvious; however, the path that takes the group to a place of equality is harder to find. This essay examines the path of mainstream feminism through the frame of race then explores ways to eliminate the racial and classist institutions that currently corrupt feminism.