Intersectionality
Intersectionality is one of a theoretical framework that describes the interconnection of various social identities such as gender, race, class, and sexuality contribute to a particular type of systemic discrimination and oppression experienced by a person. Intersectionality has been used as a critical tool in getting all women, regardless of their intersecting identities; obtain equal job opportunities and pay. The theory has been also applied in protecting trans women and trans women of colour from discrimination and violence that they face in their daily lives. The intersectionality concept is not just a theoretical perception but an account of how various oppressions are experienced particularly by Black women. Indeed, different authors use diverse but parallel approaches, denoting to the movement at the intersection, to concretize this concept.
The concept of Intersectionality has been widely critiqued by several literary works such as Framing Intersectionality: Debates on a Multi-Faceted Concept in Gender Studies, by Kimberle` Crenshaw, the founder of the concept of Intersectionality, wherein her efforts to expound Intersectionality, discusses on “Demarginalising the Intersection of Sex and Race: A Black Feminist Critique of Feminist Theory, Anti-racist Politics, and Anti-discrimination Doctrine.” Further, a text on Intersectionality and Marxism, has also explored the dominant paradox of existing identity-politics: Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
On “Demarginalising the Intersection of Sex and Race”, Kimberle` Crenshaw, advances a black feminist condemnation since it sets forth a challenging consequence of the propensity to treat gender and race as mutually exclusive sets of analysis and experience (Crenshaw 1998 p. 316). The author evaluates how this propensity is propagated by a single-axis context that is overriding in anti-discrimination law that is also revealed in antiracist politics and feminist theory (Smith, 2013). This chapter proposes that the single-axis context bars black women in the identification, conceptualization, and remediation of sex and race discrimination by restraining inquiry to the general experiences of otherwise-privileged group members. Crenshaw defines numerous occupation discrimination based on proceedings to demonstrate how the complaints of Black women frequently fail specifically due to discrimination against both as Blacks and as women. A verdict in a case, that Black women discrimination is a reality (Smith, 2013).
A General Motors Company had by no means enrolled a Black woman in its labour force earlier 1964, the time Civil Rights Act was passed by Congress. Besides, the entire Black women signed up after the year 1970 lost jobs impartially hastily, but in massive dismissals throughout the 1973–1975 recessions (Crenshaw 1998 p. 332). This extensive jobs loses amongst Black women steered the plaintiffs to reason that precedence-based redundancies, directed by the opinion that “last hired-first fired,” victimized against Black women workforce at this Company, spreading out past biased practices ever done by General Motors. DeGraffenreid, Travenol, and Moore are doctrinal expressions of a shared theoretical and political approach to discrimination that functions to marginalize the black women (Bengtsson 2013 p. 283). Therefore, Kimberle` Crenshaw diminishes the feminist theory value to black women since it evolves from the racial context of the white that is rarely recognized.
In efforts to elaborate on this concept, Crenshaw states, “Consider a parallel to road traffic in the intersection, going and coming in all directions. Discrimination, similar to traffic through the intersection, can flow in a single direction, and it can flow in an alternative direction. When an accident occurs in the intersection, it can be due to cars moving from several directions and, occasionally, from all of the directions (Crenshaw 1998 p. 314). Likewise, when a Black woman is injured due to being positioned in the intersection, her injury can result from race or sex discrimination. . . However, it is inconsistently easy to rebuild an accident: Occasionally the injuries and skid marks merely point out that they happened simultaneously, provoking efforts to conclude which driver triggered the harm.” In this Crenshaw’s statement above, the author argues that the Black women are victimized against in conducts that frequently do not suit precisely within the lawful sets of either “sexism” or “racism” but rather as a mixture of both sexism and racism. Thus far, the legal structure has in generally defined sexism as grounded upon an assumed orientation to the discriminations challenged by all, including white women, whereas defining racism to denote to the discriminations faced by all, including Blacks males and other individuals of colour (Crenshaw 1998 p. 323). This context normally renders Black women lawfully “invisible” and deprived of legal option.
Further, on the same note, Ashley Bohrer in her article, Intersectionality and Marxism explains how over the previous years, renewed interest has altered the conceptualization and the relationship between capitalism and oppression as well as strong debate on the particular nature of the relationship (Bohrer 2018 p. 52). Ashley Bohrer states that “there is no suspicion prompted by the economic crisis, it is now gradually very clear that capitalism, historically and in the 21st era, has had predominantly overwhelming effects for people of colour and women at large” (Bohrer 2018 p. 54). Therefore, intersectionality, which has materialized in the late 20th century as an approach of addressing the association between gender, race, gender, class, and sexuality, has evaluated orthodox Marxism for its negligence to the multifaceted dynamics of several social locations. In turn, the Marxists in the 21st century have involved with the concept of intersectionality, calling upon the attention to the underprivileged notion of capitalism and class on which it depends on.
Moreover, Ashley Bohrer affirms that “intersectionality constitutes possibly the most mutual approach that contemporary theorists and activists on the left consider identity politics, intersectionality correlation to Marxism analysis is critical for the historical materialists to consider and recognize” (Bohrer 2018 p. 66). Ashley Bohrer seeks to describe the history of the critiques of intersectionality and Marxism on one another to create a synthesis of both contexts (Bohrer 2018 p. 72). The author argues that in the current century, there is a need for a vigorous Marxist analysis on the concept of capitalism and that the only vigorous capitalism account is the one expressed through intersectionally, that is, the one that treats sexuality, race, class, and gender as central to the capitalist accumulation.
Furthermore, Patricia Hill Collins in her text on The Sexual Politics of Black Womanhood, appears that she began from the reflection that black women tend towards being silent over their sexuality and that this context is invisible or partially explored in feminist research or Black studies in general (Collins 2002 p. 124). Collins offers an overview of the several possible methodologies to sexuality, particularly that of the Black women. Although sexuality can be understood as a separate system of oppression that is working is analogous to the other systems based on nation, class, race, or gender, it can also be viewed as a precise element within every precise oppression system (Collins 2002 p. 131). Nevertheless, Collins analysis of prostitution, pornography, and rape relatively offers the critiques to consider it as a “situate of intersectionality,” where diverse oppression systems meet and also intersect (Collins 2002 p. 130). Gradually, as the reader gets close to the last pages of the text, Black Sexual Politics, an alteration in level of intensity and tone makes them aware that analysis of Collins on interconnecting social institutions and the media depictions is meant not only to inform but also at liberating the individual African-American readers, that the author wishes to provide African-American women and men with the power to fight back the internalization of the racist sexual thought and demeaning gender roles.
In another text, Alice Walker like Collins states that “Even I discovered it nearly impossible to let them say what had transpired to them as they perceived it . . . As well as why? Since once a person strips away the lie that the rape is enjoyable, children are not perpetually damaged by the sexual pain, that the violence is washed away by silence, time, and fear, the person is left with a positive horror of the lives of numerous children who have been abused sexually and have never been allowed to report about it in their language,” (Shukla and Banerji 2012 p. 724). In The Color Purple, Alice Walker crafts Celie character as a black teenage girl who is abused sexually by the stepfather. Forming sympathetic relationships with other Black women and writing letters to God assist Celie to make a voice that helps her to transcend the silence and fear of childhood (Shukla and Banerji 2012 p. 724). By Walker crafting Celie and offering her a language to express her abuse, the author complements the voice of Celie to submissive. However, the growing debates on sexual politics of the Black womanhood do not come to an end. But when it is a matter of other vital issues regarding the sexuality of Black women, the United States Black women find it nearly impossible to report what has transpired. This Walker’s sentiments are a true expression of how Black women are caught in an intersection of social discrimination in America.
Besides, this great literary work seems to be a deconstructive work whereby Collins tackles on the Black women stereotypes by focusing more on the robust Black women role (Collins 2002 p. 128). Additionally, this theoretical text not only offers a historical context for the origin and development of gender roles but also improve an emotional and psychological dimension. Collins tries to tell the reader what it means for a particular African-American woman to live up to the requirements of gender role for the Resilient Black Woman. Through this analysis, Collins text offers a sort of discussion that moves in the concept of intersectionality, near a collective perspective on the resilient Black women gender role as well as its emotional and psychological costs.
In this research, the texts by major authors, Crenshaw, Bohrer, and Collins have attempted to describe the concept of intersectionality in details but in different wordings. However, both Crenshaw and Collins have demonstrated that the concept of intersectionality is supported by class, race, gender, ethnicity, and even ability. In other words, these authors believe that certain groups of women have multi-layered facets in life that they have to deal with, and there is no one-size-fits-all type of feminism. On the other hand, Ashley Bohrer is on the opinion that in the contemporary century, there is need for a dynamic Marxist analysis on the concept of capitalism and that the only dynamic capitalism interpretation is expressed through intersectionally, that is, the one that regards race, sexuality, class, and gender as essential to the capitalist buildup. All the three Blacks feminists hold that the experience of black women lead to the rise to a particular understanding of their position concerning sexism, racism, and class oppression, which they perceive they should be addressed intersectionally.
Further, throughout these literary works, Kimberle` Crenshaw seems to be logical and ethical in her efforts to define the contemporary concept of intersectionality, whereby the author vividly explains how most people can often be disadvantaged by multiple sources of oppression such as class, race, sexual orientation, religion, gender identity, and other identity markers. Crenshaw is logical since she uses solid evidence to drive her ideas about Black women discrimination. For instance, the author quotes several work discrimination based on lawsuits to demonstrate how the grievances of Black women normally fail precisely due to discrimination against as Blacks and as women. In this context, the author attempts to create a picture at the back of reader’s mind to enable them to have a snapshot of what had happened before in America that could result into the emergence of intersectionality, but only if the plaintiffs succeed in the case at hand. However, the decision, in this case, shows that Black women discrimination was a reality. The author is also ethical when she attempts to illustrate the concept of intersectionality by use of movement of traffic in an intersection area. In this case, Crenshaw successfully helps the reader to understand first the virtual meaning of intersectionality and then she further brings out the literal meaning of the concept when she vividly combines different aspects of individual discrimination into a single intersection of particular identity marker.
In this detailed research, the concept of intersectionality has been proven to be not merely a hypothetical perception but an interpretation of the way on which several oppressions are experienced predominantly by Black women. Diverse authors use varied but corresponding approaches, signifying to the movement at the intersection, to concretize this concept. The research has also recognized that this concept is a lens by which one can see where power comes from and collides, the intersection and intersection of power to bring about individual oppressions.
Bibliography
Bengtsson, T.T., 2013. Book Review: Framing Intersectionality. Debates on a Multi-Faceted Concept in Gender Studies. pp. 285-287
Bohrer, A., 2018. Intersectionality and Marxism: A critical historiography. Historical Materialism, 26(2), pp.46-74.
Collins, P.H., 2002. Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Routledge. pp. 123-148
Crenshaw, K., 1998. Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and antiracist politics. Feminism and politics, pp.314-343.
Smith, S., 2013. Black feminism and intersectionality. International Socialist Review, 91(11).
Shukla, S. and Banerji, N., 2012. The Shadowed Identity: A Study of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. Academic Research International, 2(2), p.724.