In Tina Grillo’s essay, Anti-Essentialism and Intersectionality, her claim is that when speaking about essentialism, and the experience of being an oppressed woman, “race and class can never be just ‘subtracted’ […]. The attempt to subtract race and class elevates white, middle-class experience into the norm, making it the prototypical experience” (19). In traditional feminism, feminist would approach a woman’s oppression by defining the essence of what it meant to be a woman. In order to create that definition, they had to look at a woman who didn’t suffer from any other oppressions whatsoever, other than simply being a woman. What that entailed was subtracting the essence of a woman’s race and class, which unfortunately meant taking any woman
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.
In “In Living Color: Race and American Culture”, Michael Omi claims that racism still takes place in America’s contemporary society. According to Omi, media and popular culture shape a segregating ideology by giving a stereotypical representation of black people to the public, thus generating discrimination between races (Omi 115:166). In “Bad Feminist: Take One”, Roxane Gay discusses the different roles that feminism plays in our society. She argues that although some feminist authors and groups try to create a specific image of the feminist approach, there is no definition that fully describe feminism and no behaviors that can make someone a good feminist or a bad feminist (Gay 304:306). Both authors argue
An intersectional view of Mock’s (2014) multiple identities and social locations, for instance, reveals the presence of both oppressed and privileged identities: she is a biracial (Hawaiian and Black), trans, able-bodied, woman who grew up in a lower-working class family, although has since achieved a higher socioeconomic status. Many of her identities are marginalized, as they are oppressed by the white-dominant, heteronormative, cisnormative, middle-class patriarchal privileged society that surrounded her throughout her life. Although Mock’s (2014) life provides a plethora of examples of the ways in which her oppressed identities intersect with one another to exacerbate the barriers and marginalization she faced, applying a lens of privilege still holds value, despite the limited examples, because it sheds light on the larger existence of privilege in society and brings awareness to the topic as a
Sociologists often employ intersectionality theory to describe and explain facets of human interactions. This particular methodology operates on the notion that sociologically defining characteristics, such as that of race, gender, and class, are not independent of one another but function simultaneously to determine our individual social experiences. This is evident in poetry as well. The combination of one poet’s work that expresses issues on class with another poet’s work that voices issues on race, and so forth, can be analyzed through a literary lens, and collectively embody the sociological intersectionality theory.
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
Bell Hook states that the leading issues with gender inequality is: “cultural imperialist, white supremacy, and cultural patriarchy”. Hook makes a strong point that is far beyond valid or legit. Poor women have the most difficult time with succeeding in life. For instance, poor women have issues with paying for bills, education, and finding jobs that will accept them. I am not saying that wealthy women do not have issues with succeeding in life, but if one was to have monetary riches more resources are available. Culture imperialism is the cultural aspects of imperialism, in which is the maintenance of unequal relationships between civilizations favoring the most powerful civilization. Hook is referring to the taking of essence from minorities as in their characteristics. This alone enables women of color to feel powerless. If one was to take all of the riches and cultural benefits of one ethnic group, and in return they use it for another that only creates a greater disparity or difference for others. White supremacy is an ongoing issue that is international. There are groups or cults of people who truly believe that there is a “Supreme Race”. These people are discriminate and epitomize hatred towards others who are not of their origin or ethnic group. If there are cults of people that will negate, discriminate and spread hate towards minorities. Which as well limits or lowers a woman of color
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
Intersectionality according to Patricia Hill Collins is the “theory of the relationship between race, gender and class” (1990), also known as the “matrix of domination” (2000). This matrix shows that there is no one way to understand the complex nature of how gender, race and class inequalities within women’s lives can be separated; for they are intertwined within each other.
The message of Lugones and Spelman in Have We Got a Theory for You! Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism and the Demand for “The Woman’s Voice,” is that the entire worldwide experience of women cannot be universally articulated. Blanket definition of woman is impossible due to the many characteristics of women that make the gender so diverse, specifically race and economic status in society. “The women’s voices most likely to come forth and the women’s voices mostly likely to be heard are, in the United States anyway, those of white, middle-class, heterosexual Christian women” (Lugones and Spelman 21). Since “feminist theory” has been established without encompassing the inherently different experiences of non-white/non-Anglo women “much of the theory has failed to be relevant to the lives of women who are not white or middle class” (Ibid. 21). This displacement of a large population of the world’s women from feminist theory is extremely threatening to the development of a woman’s voice, in so far as this voice is key to fighting the battles that feminism sets out to fight: the end of re...
White supremacy and society in general alongside interprets the inability to see racism, classism, homophobia, and imperialism as forms of violence, it is both a reflection of and a mechanism to solidify white women’s privilege. That is, privileged white women cannot stand not being able to claim status as victims of gender oppression as we exposed through this course’s discussions when race, class, sexuality, disability, and nation complicate this status. The Color purple exposes this point magnificent when Sofia is forced to serve the major’s wife and child bear her kids for her. White women enjoy their roles of saviors and will readily cast women of color in order to capture the liberator roles for themselves when they confronted with their roles as oppressors they quickly turned to been victims as well.
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
Intersectionality was one of the greatest concepts this course shed light on, intersectionality is can be broadly defined as the coming together of various social groups to work together to fight against forms of oppression. In the conceptual frameworks portion of the book Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, they talk about the importance of privileged identities and disadvantaged identities coming together to work towards solving a particular issue. While before taking this course I was somewhat aware of the various forms of oppression, I never gave much thought to how I could help combat forms of oppression that I did not necessarily experience with my own identity.
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.
Thus, feminist have aimed to increase the wellbeing of individuals and created the concept of intersectionality. Intersectionality illustrates that there are multiple types of oppression that must be examined together one simply cannot be examined to explain the situation. Originally intersectionality was used within black feminism to describe the oppression within race and gender. As it expanded this theory shows interlocks between many different institutions of oppression such as race, class and gender, ability, sexual orientation that all come together to create social inequalities. Intersectionality is simply not restricted to one factor that oppresses women but rather a set of oppressions that intersect and interlock. For example, an Afr...
In contemporary society, many social issues involving gender still prevail today and influence many of our everyday life choices, from what one wears, the jobs one pursues or how one may think. In this essay, the issues being discussed involve the importance associated with gender, essentialism and deviance around gender inequality.