We live in a time where feminism has become stronger and more recognized than ever before. Nowadays, women have taken feminism and defined it in their own ways in order to apply it to themselves. As a feminist, it’s important to recognize all avenues of being a woman and how all the defining qualities of a person combine and intersect to create individual experiences. Intersectional feminism is defined by Dictionary.com as “A movement recognizing that barriers to gender equality vary according to other aspects of a woman’s identity, including age, race, ethnicity, class, and religion, and striving to address a diverse spectrum of women’s issues”.
Kimberlé Crenshaw, a law professor at U.C.L.A. and Columbia Law School is credited with using the term for the first time in the way we understand it today, relative to how identities intersect. In her 1989 piece titled “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique on Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics”, Crenshaw discusses the struggle of the Black woman to be included in either the feminist movement or the anti-racist movement but also points out how there are limitations within the black women community. She also talked about how the black woman experience can’t be summed up within one movement, as there is not just one type of black woman that can stand as the defining representative.
Intersectional Feminism takes into account all the ways privilege can change the way women live their lives. For example, the experience of a straight middle-class Asian woman will differ from that of a trans-disabled African American woman. I think that white feminism has no space in modern times because of the need for all women’s rights to be represented as an important issue, rather than one demographic. Feminism is not helpful and/or valid if everyone is not included and supported. It becomes very similar to the way many women who were a part of the suffragist movement excluded, or did not care, about the issues of women of color. The issue was also seen in how within racial demographics, other aspects of a woman’s identity were not taken into consideration. One struggle had to be forfeited or virtually ignored, but that allowed other women to seek spaces that allowed all aspects of a person’s identity to be recognized and celebrated.
When the 2017 Women’s March happened, it was a revolutionary moment. Not only was this a moment of solidarity for women all over the world, but it was a big way for women and supporters to show President Donald Trump and those who supported him, that the fight to prevent men in power from using their influence to silence women was a fight that will never stop as long as men, like Trump, remained in power. Even within those small movements that were meant to showcase solidarity, women were still left out. The popular usage of “Pussy Hats” was meant to serve as a visual or unification among all the marchers, but instead, it defined women as having vaginas, which is outdated and trans-phobic.
Intersectionality often gets a bad rep because people view it as minority women wanting to be victims and be negative. Everyone should know that intersectional feminism is not just meant for women who may be included in other minorities or other underrepresented demographics. As feminists, we should fight for each other, create spaces where everyone has a voice in the conversation. Recognize your privilege, but also better understand the aspects of your identity that intertwine to define your womanhood.
All images are courtesy of the Her Campus Media Library.