a-spoon-is-born:

strugglingtobeheard:

vellocent:

politicalsci:

IMPORTANT: Intersectionality is not primarily about identity. It’s about how structures make certain identities the consequence of and the vehicle for vulnerability. What are the policies? What are the institutional structures that play a role in contributing to the exclusion of some people and not others?

Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced the theory of intersectionality to feminist theory in the 1980s.

[FULL VIDEO LINK]

I didn’t understand how important the intersection of feminism was until
I realized I fit into an intersection due to having a mental illness.  Well, actually when you have a mental illness you usually have more than one diagnosis and I definitely have more than one.  The main one is schizoaffective disorder.

So you didn’t listen. It has nothing to do with identities and how structures inform them. Meaning if you’re mentally ill and white, the structures allow for you to have more access to mental health care, less stigma and more generalized support. Bc the structures support white people. This isn’t just another check box situation to claim oppression and why do people keep making it that when they aren’t even Black and this was about Black women first and foremost?

I’m a nonBlack (and genderfluid) woman of color, and I want to say here that because I’ve familiarized myself with the history of these terms, WHO originated them, and what and who they are FOR, intersectionality isn’t even really for ME, much less white women. People everywhere need to be actually LISTENING to Black women when they are talking…but they don’t because of the specific combination of racism AND sexism that Black women face.

Kimberle Crenshaw’s work is very specific: it identifies three aspects that
affect the visibility and safety of Black women:

• structural intersectionality,
• political intersectionality
• representational intersectionality

Structural intersectionality: Black women experience gendered violence in a manner qualitatively different from the
ways that white women experience it.

example: white women have access to being seen as worthy of protection, social constructs of perceived “purity”, being seen as younger and more “innocent”, etc. Although those ideas are often used in order to harm white women, Black women do NOT have any access whatsoever to those constructs in the first place, because they are hypersexualized, hypermasculinized, and are often immediately perceived as the inherent OPPOSITE of those ideas because of racism and sexism against them at the same time.

Political intersectionality: Feminist and anti-racist/equality
laws and policies have paradoxically decreased the visibility of
violence against women of color.

example:  Black feminists, including Pearl Cleage, challenged Yoko Ono’s racist (to Black women) statement. “If Woman is the “N” of the World, what does that make Black Women, the “N, N” of the World?” It should obvious that such a crassly racist statement utterly erases the very EXISTENCE of Black women, while additionally appropriating something that nonBlack women don’t face to make it seem as thought they do.

Representational
intersectionality: portrayals of Black woman (and to some degree other woc) can obscure the actual, real life experiences of women of color, and often ignore the fact that something meant to uplift white women does not do the same for Black women, because of the racism and sexism they face AT the SAME TIME.

example: artwork featuring a white woman carrying a man in her arms subverts concepts about white femininity and can be empowering and uplifting; however, artwork showing a Black woman carrying a man in her arms REINFORCES the racism+ sexism that presumes that Black women are hypercompetent, superhumanly (or merely “unfemininely”) strong, or inherently more “masculine” than white women-but especially, that their role is to take care of everyone else.

Here’s a final example of how this works:

Inspiration struck as a law student, when she came across the case of
Emma DeGraffenreid, an African-American woman who sued a manufacturing
company for not hiring her on the basis of race and gender. The judge
dismissed her claim, noting that the company had hired people of her
color, and hired people of her gender.

It just didn’t happen to hire
people who were both.

Crenshaw seeing this obvious injustice
(or “injustice squared,” as she puts it) imagined DeGraffenreid standing
at the intersection of being both a woman and an African-American. This
intersection is at the heart of the theory of intersectionality, a
theory Crenshaw has developed to describe how our overlapping social
identities relate to structures of racism and oppression.

Now as for “the combination of racism and sexism that Black women specifically face”, since it is QUALITATIVELY different and unique in its horrors, a specific term was coined by queer black feminist Moya
Bailey, who created the term misogynoir to address misogyny directed toward Black
women in American culture. Trudy of Gradient Lair and others who you may even see around here, still blogging, further developed context and applications for this word and idea: the toxic combination of racism and sexism Black women suffer under.

The worst and bitterest part of all this is that Black women no sooner come up with terms and structures to discuss their specific lives and experiences than everyone white & non-Black and their whole family comes in and decides that actually, it’s really about everyone else except Black women, BECAUSE OF MISOGYNOIR. Misogynoir is why everyone else feels owed the labor of Black women, the activism of Black women, personal sympathy, personal education and literally anything else they decide they deserve FROM Black women.

And while some tacit and tentative permission has been allowed toward nonBlack women of color in regard to “intersectionality”, also consider where the term comes from, who fought on the front lines for justice, and who needs to be prioritized in both discourse and in practice…much like the term PEOPLE OF COLOR itself. We’re on borrowed and limited territory, and too few people ever act like it.

If you are not fighting for, helping, supporting, protecting, listening to, and prioritizing Black women, you are NOT an intersectional feminist.

[and keep in mind that I’m not a Black woman, so what I have to say here might well need to be taken with a grain of salt, but I can’t stand to see more Black women exhausted and worn down by people expecting hours of research to “convince” them they need to be listening to Black women]