Discussion Time: Intersectional Feminism

We have to talk about it: feminism has an ugly, ugly past. From Rebecca Latimer Felton, a first wave feminist, encouraging lynchings, to suffragettes asking black women to walk at the back of the Woman’s Suffrage Parade, to the hateful rhetoric of thirdwave radfems such as Julie Bindel, to the racist musings of “feminist champions” Lena Dunham and Amy Schumer on Twitter, feminist icons have a long, varied history of exclusionary behavior. All of these actions call into question both the past - and the future - of feminism, especially considering the current tone among radical feminists that feminism is for cisgendered, female-identifying people alone. Intersectionality & incluvity are important to fourth-wave feminism, especially considering feminism’s racist past.

Intersectionality is the study of or careful attention to various intersections in identities that cause varied levels of privilege or oppression in people. It’s important to note that intersectionality addresses not only issues of race and sex, but also: physical/mental ability, sexuality, gender identity, and class, among others.

Without paying attention to how various identities affect people’s day-to-day lives, the feminist movement has defaulted to “white feminism”. Wealthy, white women like Lena Dunham, Amy Schumer, Emma Watson, and Gloria Steinem are the figure-heads of the movement – which makes the movement seem only available to a small subset of women. Additionally, feminists in the House and Senate (and those feminists who vote for those women) end up supporting bills & measures that disproportionately negatively affect women of color and impoverished women (like the Hyde Amendment). The issues addressed by feminist figureheads are superficial - such as the “Free the Nipple” campaign. Instead of real, meaningful change, white feminism prefers campaigns that will attract a significant amount of press or that will go viral on social media. Often times these campaigns leave the true problems - like the fact that the gender pay gap is heavily influenced by race, that statistics on rapes go up when both racial and sexual identity is factored in, or the idea that women can be women without having breasts (and that not all people with breasts are women) - behind in the dirt.



Basically, white feminism is the movement equivalent to selling “save the tatas” slogans on t-shirts instead of actually donating money to Planned Parenthood.



Intersectionality can - and needs to - be integrated into feminism in several ways:

the use of non-gendered language in slogans, hashtags, and materials such as pamphlets and signs



recognition of the contributions that nonwhite and nonstraight/cis people have made to the feminist movement



decentering feminism from only the US and begin to use it to address problems that are global in nature



decentering personal feminism so that individual feminists aren’t only acting towards things that are beneficial to only their identity groups



Intersectional and inclusive feminism can benefit the movement overall! Here’s how:

fourth wave feminism is divided, and the movement has been for a while – especially along racial and class lines – integrating intersectionality can help unite the movement.



intersectional & inclusive feminism will allow for feminism’s continued viability as a social movement, as more people will feel like they have access to the movement



When I discuss feminism on this blog, I am talking about a feminism that is intersectional, inclusive, and continually works towards establishing equality and equity for all people. My feminism strives to be this way, and I think yours should as well. Without it, the movement trends towards either the superficial or the hateful, and that worries me.