Intersectional Feminism: Taking a Look at Race
Letter submitted by Raizel Jillian
America has a long way to go before we achieve a semblance of true equality. The Pew Research Center (1) reports that the gender pay gap has remained stable over the past 15 years, with women still earning just 84% of what men did in 2020. These are often caused by underlying issues of educational attainment and workplace discrimination. But women of diverse backgrounds are more likely to encounter these issues than others.
Racial discriminations toward women compound to be largely disempowering. Even today, in places like Kenosha, Black girls are still disproportionately criminalized. (2) They are more likely to be neglected and deprived of the resources to fight for their rights within the legal system. Issues like these cannot be approached by tackling gender oppression alone. Instead, they must be treated as an intersection of multiple power structures, considering both sex and race.
How Feminism Evolves
Feminism has always been about achieving women’s rights and equality. Earlier feminist movements were centered around earning women fundamental rights. Later, it became about putting women in places of power where men traditionally ruled. But with each success we achieve, we grasp more concretely just how deeply inequalities run in traditional power structures. And so, each successive win gives way to further discourse.
Feminists nowadays understand that true equality isn’t about women replacing men in positions of power within a patriarchal power structure. Instead, it’s about interrogating — and then subverting — traditional notions of power. But to do this, feminism must look at factors beyond sex and understand that the same systems that propagate the oppression of women also perpetuate other power imbalances.
This is where intersectionality comes into play.
Oppression has Always Been Intersectional
Intersectionality is a framework that looks at the dynamic interplay between sex, sexuality, race, and even other power structures like class. An individual's location in different power structures can result in a vastly different reality. A Black woman remains subject to more prejudices and power imbalances than a white woman. As Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term intersectionality in 1989, says, “all inequality is not created equal.” (2)
In many ways, intersectionality isn’t even a novel concept — it is built into principles of feminism. But the articulation of intersectionality, the acknowledgment that inequality is all-encompassing for many women, enlightens us about how inextricable these forms of oppression are.
Intersectionality is Critical in the Fight for Women’s Rights
The same people who are benefiting from current systems of power are the same ones who often overlook historic oppressions that still exist. bell hooks’ “Ain't I a Woman” traces the disenfranchisement of Black women back to the days of slavery. (3) Although there has undoubtedly been significant progress since, many of the inequalities suffered by Black women today are rooted in this history. They are not merely echoes but direct results of the same oppressions. This is why it’s vital to assert the severity of diverse realities and demand that they are corrected.
In “Hood Feminism,” Mikki Kendall furthers that concrete issues like food insecurity, gun violence, and poverty must be viewed through intersectionality. (4) These issues often persist because of the failure to recognize these problems as feminist problems. As a result, women — often women of color — are left out of feminism because women are oppressing others within the movement itself.
This is why it’s essential to understand that womanhood is not universal. It consists of diverse experiences impacted by many different systems of oppression. To sustain the rights that we have won and continue fighting for the freedoms we deserve, we must view womanhood from an intersectional lens and amplify the voices of women speaking about their own realities.
References:
1) https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/25/gender-pay-gap-facts/
2) https://womensliberationfront.org/news/wolf-signs-letter-to-free-chrystul-kizer
4) https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/396890500/Ain-t-I-a-Woman-Black-Women-and-Feminism