It’s likely you’ve heard the term “Intersectional Feminism”, possibly within the context of the Women’s March earlier this year. The march faced backlash from women who claim the protest failed to be intersectional.
So what does that even mean?
According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, intersectionality is the complex, cumulative manner in which the effects of different forms of discrimination combine, overlap, or intersect. For example, black women are affected by sexism differently than white women, because they also experience racism, and black women are affected by racism differently than black men, because they are also women. A person who is a victim of multiple forms oppression experiences oppression differently.
The term “intersectionality” was coined by Columbia and UCLA law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989. In her TED talk explaining the theory, she uses the example of black female victims of police violence. They are victims of racial violence, but their stories are unheard of compared to those of male victims. The way the media ignores these victims is an act of violence against women. Crenshaw explains being a black woman as getting in an accident at the intersection of the roads of racism and sexism, then being asked to say which road the accident happened on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akOe5-UsQ2o
Crenshaw’s TED talk on intersectionality.
Intersectional feminism doesn’t only include the intersection of race and gender. Sexism also affects differently abled women, poor women, gay women, and transgender women in unique and more damaging ways. There can be intersections of more than two oppressions – thirteen out of the seventeen transgender people murdered this year were black women. The goal of intersectional feminism is to fight for all women, and to do that, feminists must understand the ways different women experience oppression.
So why does it matter?
A feminist cares about and fights for the rights and liberation of women – all women. To not consider or care about intersections of different forms of oppression, is to not care about all women. Feminism isn’t just about fighting sexism, it’s about fighting for the freedom of all women from their oppression, regardless of what it may be. Intersectionality is essential for feminism in today’s political climate, where more rights are at stake than before, and more violence is prevalent. I encourage all of you to take a look at your privilege and strive to be more inclusive in your feminism.