WHAT IS INTERSECTIONAL FEMINISM AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT

“Intersectionality” is a term that was first coined by Kimberle Crenshaw, an American law professor and activist, in 1989. Intersectionality gives a wider and bigger essence to the meaning of feminism. On the surface, it may look complex and critical to understand and implement, but if we look carefully, it is a very effective, simple and significant understanding of feminism. It may be considered that intersectional feminism is the only truest form of feminism we must preach and practice.

To understand intersectionality, we need to first understand the concept of crossroads. When two roads meet, they form an intersection. The intersection is the common point for both the roads and intersectionality is found at this point. Now let us consider these roads as roads of oppression. For an example, if we take one of these roads to be the road of racism, and the other road as the road of sexism, the point at which both these roads overlap is the point of intersection of racism and sexism. It is the women right here at this intersection who cross not only one, but two roads of oppression at a time, and hence, what they face is double discrimination. This is the very basic understanding of intersectionality.

Now as we move on to intersectional feminism, it is the type of feminism that opens up a lot more than just textbook feminism. It is the type of feminism that takes into consideration all types of intersectionality for women as a singular cause to fight for. As Kimberle Crenshaw describes it, it is impossible and absolutely unfair to treat the women at this intersection as black or as female since both of these can no more be treated as separate identities. Black and Woman must be treated as one. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when black men fought against racism and white women fought against sexism, it was the black women lying in the intersection fighting against both racism and sexism. This was when intersectionality came into light. What began as a movement for the black women, has today turned out to be an umbrella term to include women of every colour, caste, culture,  class, sexual orientation, ability, ethnicity, religion and other important terms of identity as one. For example, intersectional feminism shields a black Muslim woman, an abled Dalit woman as well as an Asian lesbian woman. Intersectionality also takes into account immigrant women, poor women, women with mental health issues and others who have been discarded by houses and society since age-old times. During the first and second waves of feminism in America, when civil rights, voting rights and domestic rights were being implemented by the white feminists, they did not look deep enough and beyond their own needs to take into consideration the countless different aspects of a woman’s intersectionality. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when American women, the flagbearers of modern-day feminism, were exercising their newly gained rights and liberty, the black women of America, let alone the women of the rest of the world, were still fighting to get a pay from the white American bosses and their white American wives, they were still trying to survive on the plantation fields. This is where text book feminism or more specifically white feminism fails and intersectional feminism comes into discussion.

Intersectional feminism also opens our eyes to the countless privileges that one inherently carries, in the face of another woman’s marginalisation. For example, a black woman is underprivileged with respect to a white woman, but privileged with respect to a black Muslim woman, and a black Muslim woman is privileged than a black Muslim lesbian woman. This is how the chain begins and intersectionality comes in with countless crossroads meeting at a common juncture. Some intersections are very heavy for women, some are lighter. The intersections do not mean to hold up quantitative difference from the text book feminism, or feminism of the whites or privileged, but it means to hold up the qualitative difference from them. However, it is important to remember that intersectionality isn’t an issue of multiple identities. People mistake intersectionality to be a fight to prove and establish who has more identities. Kimberle Crenshaw says, “Intersectionality is not primarily about identity; it is about how structures make certain identities the consequence of in the vehicle for vulnerability”. It is because of the ill treatment and the unfair, unjustified ways of dealing with the marginalised women community that have turned them vulnerable and underprivileged. It is because of the inequal treatment meted out by these same systems of oppression and the inequal distribution of basic rights within the woman community that have left some of them marginalised and some of them privileged. And the marginalisation and privileges vary in quality and quantity.

Now what is our role in this? The role of us in this is to not invalidate any of the narratives and to consider our own privileges. What should we do when a woman with a number of intersectional underprivileges come up to share their story? First, we listen, then we point out our own privilege and agree to them, and lastly, we empathise and help them fight for their cause. But we should remember to never snatch away their narrative. The white American feminists during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries made the most fatal flaw of hijacking narratives. They talked and fought as representations of every other woman of the world, but they could never truly look into their problems or fight for their causes. Yes, there came slow progress of inclusion of the marginalised women community in the feminist sphere, but as Kimberle Crenshaw states, inclusion is not enough. In today’s world, where many women are woke enough to take intersectionality into account and also consider their privileges, inclusion is the very basic thing one can expect. Inclusion is the first and the basic step but what’s next? It is important to look into the systematic institutions of oppression that have made the marginalised women the way they are. Crenshaw says, “Without frames that allow us to see how social problems impact all the members of a targeted group, many will fall through the cracks of our movement, left to suffer in virtual isolation. But it doesn’t have to be this way.” She says that it is our duty to scrutinise the systematic structures, institutional structures and their policies that contribute to excluding some people and not others. In her work "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Anti-discrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics", Crenshaw identifies intersectional feminism from three aspects – structural, political and representational. She says, “Structural intersectionality deals with how non-white women experience domestic violence and rape in a manner qualitatively different than that of white women. Political intersectionality examines how laws and policies intended to increase equality have paradoxically decreased the visibility of violence against non-white women. Finally, representational intersectionality delves into how pop culture portrayals of non-white women can obscure their own authentic lived experiences.” I think this is beautifully and very neatly put.

Now in the end, what do we learn from this? You must have questions in mind like how to begin with intersectional feminism and how to implement it. First of all, you do not need to change your feminism, but all you can do is broaden the horizon of it. As stated by the IWDA in an article on intersectionality, “This doesn’t mean one person’s feminism is more important than the other. It doesn’t take away from any of their experiences. It’s just means approaching women’s rights issues from a position that takes into account all women, in all their diversities.”

 There are mainly three steps to begin with intersectional feminism is :

1. Listen to the narratives of the women,

2. Accept and consider your privileges,

3. Help them in their fight by empathising and fighting against the system that has oppressed them without snatching their voice for representation.

Once you do all these three basic steps, you can consider yourself an intersectional feminist or an intersectional feminist ally. 

I will end this blog with a few very beautiful words stated by the IWDA in their article on intersectional feminism –

“At the end of the day, we might all experience discrimination and gender inequality differently and uniquely, but we are all united in our hope for equality.”