When you think of the word ‘feminism’, what comes to your mind? What about ‘Black Lives Matter’ or ‘LGBTQ+ rights’? If your brain immediately created images along the lines of white business women, wrongful arrests of black men by the police, and a wedding of two white cisgender men, it is probably a sign that your defintion of equality fails to include those who are the most vulnerable in our society. In other words, it ignores intersectionality.
What is ‘intersectionality’, you might ask? The term was first coined in 1989 by Kimberlé Crenshaw, an American lawyer and civil rights advocate. Essentially, it’s the notion that our social justice movements must consider all of the intersections of identity, privilege, and oppression that people face in order for them to be just and truly effective. The lack of intersectionality has a lot to do with the fact that even for the few of us with highly progressive and liberal views, it’s always much more convenient and comfortable to settle on discussing the rights of the most privileged and widely represented population. Race, gender, religion, sexuality, nationality, and disability are some of the many factors that facilitate the differentiation of individuals based on their privilege within minority groups. This can cause serious problems as it is almost guaranteed to leave out the voices, opinions, and valid experiences of the more underprivileged and marginalized people. Therefore, if we, as participants of social justice movements, refuse to embrace intersectionality to its full extent, we are destined to turn into “oppressors.”.
Let’s revisit the examples I provided in the beginning. First of all, feminism. Feminism, by definition, is a range of movements and ideologies that aim to establish the political, social, economic, and personal equality of the sexes. Among many other topics, race and economic disparity are largely left out in conversations of feminism. One of the biggest issues today is the discrimination faced by women of ethnic minorities due to the supremacy of white feminism, a form of feminism that exclusively focuses on the rights of white women. On top of that, discussions about abortion tend to be simply divided into two sides - you’re either pro-life or pro-choice. However, what many of us fail to realize is that there are many women out there who do not have access to high-quality health care. Viewing abortion as an issue of promoting the rights of every single woman around the world instead of a mere political controversy is important if we want to create meaningful change.
Similarly, the BLM movement must reach outside the topic of police brutality in the United States in order for it to fulfill the ultimate goal of dismantling racism and obtaining equality. A lot of social activists and influencers onlineare emphasizing the importance of acknowledging that every single Black life matters, regardless of if the person is a woman, queer, disabled, or poor. Not only that, all other movements around the world fighting against racism still face the challenge of including the voices of and promoting the rights of lesser-talked about racial groups such as South and Southeast Asians.
The same goes for the LGBTQ+ community. One of the initial and most important steps that needs to be taken by the global society is to recognize and validify the experiences of all underrepresented individuals within the larger ‘queer’ community, including but in no way limited to bisexual, transgender, intersex, asexual, and pansexual. In fact, the widespread practice of associating ‘queerness’ to white gay cisgender men or women is believed to have created internalized phobia towards trans people. Also, abuse in queer relationships are also one of the countless topics that are in need of more attention and in-depth conversations.
Intersectionality is utterly necessary for making all of our social justice efforts more inclusive and fair, and thus effective. It helps each of us to stay true to what we believe in as it challenges us to constantly check our privilege and prevent it from making us get distracted or further discriminate against others. With that being said, I sincerely encourage each and every single one of you to make efforts in your daily lives - however small or big - in order to help create an environment where everybody feels safe and respected to speak out.
Works Cited
“Intersectional Feminism: What It Means and Why It Matters Right Now.” UN Women, www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2020/6/explainer-intersectional-feminism-what-it-means-and-why-it-matters.
Oluo, Ijeoma. So You Want to Talk About Race. Illustrated, Seal Press, 2019
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