Intersectionality: Why it is Important & it’s Value in the Feminist Movement
Content warning: This article discusses topics such as domestic violence, poverty, sexual assault and mental health. Please read and proceed with caution. Ensure you are in a safe place when reading and absorbing this information.
What is intersectionality?
Kimberlé Crenshaw is an American lawyer, civil rights advocate, leading scholar of critical race theory and the woman who coined the term intersectionality. She defined intersectionality as, “the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage”. Kimberlé used this term to explain how race and gender intersect to produce a large amount of barriers for Black women. Stemming from her contrasting experience in law school, where gender and race were viewed as separate entities. She wanted to show that a woman's experiences in life and the barriers a woman encounters are a result of the intersection between her race, sexual orientation, gender, class etc. It is a theory and practice that strives to challenge the simplistic ways of understanding differences between people and their experiences. An important component of the theory is the acknowledgement of how people’s experiences can be shaped by multiple aspects of one’s identity and cannot be explained by simply examining one dimension of a person. Intersectionality is crucial to understanding how women will move through the world, as they will face prejudice, discrimination and barriers that go beyond their gender. Intersectionality helps explain why some women experience a greater risk of gender based violence, experience a bigger wage gap and limited access to economic opportunities than others.
One cannot, and should not talk about feminism without talking about intersectionality. It is a vital part of the movement, a movement that advocates for women’s rights and equality. Intersectionality must be brought into the conversion when talking or thinking about feminism because many people simply consider the differences between men and women. However it reminds us to consider the differences between the individuals who identify as women as well.
What happens when intersectionality theory is ignored in feminism?
When we ignore intersectionality, we ignore people’s lived experiences. The feminist movement has quite often focused on the experiences and barriers faced by cisgendered white women. These select experiences have then been generalized to all other women, despite cis-white women being the least marginalized group of all. Although white women face barriers in their life and continue in their fight for equality against the opposite gender, they are the most privileged women in the world due to their race. White women carry white privilege in this society of injustice, meaning they gain inherent advantages based on the colour of their skin. White privilege as well as white supremacy, are often named to be the reasons white women received the right to vote in 1917, long before other women did. During this time white women believed they were the only ones who deserved this right and actively worked to ensure they were the only women to obtain this right in order to keep their privilege. This shows how feminism was, and in some ways still is largely based in nationalism and racism, which is often not discussed when talking about the movement.
Because the feminist movement strictly focused on the rights of Western white women, the rights of all other women were pushed aside and they actually faced more discrimination due to the movement. This is because by only engaging in feminism that benefits and empowers white and cisgendered women, it actively works to perpetuate harm against women of colour, transgender women, women in the 2SLBGTQIA+ community as well as women in other marginalized groups.
Intersectionality and Indigenous women:
As mentioned above intersectionality strives to understand mainly women’s experiences based on their intersecting identity dimensions (race, gender, class, etc.). Intersectionality is important and necessary to understanding women’s lived experiences and the real barriers they face due to prejudice. In the current article we are going to focus on Indigenous women, their experiences, the challenges and marginalization they face daily.
Firstly, compared to white women Indigenous women have a much harder time accessing quality healthcare, reproductive healthcare and planning services, mainly due to the colonization practices that these systems were built on. The lack of access to these services can cause Indigenous women’s physical and mental health to suffer and if they do eventually access these services they are subject to mis-diagnoses and racism. There are also significant differences in the treatment of pregnant Indigenous women, compared to their non-Indigenous counterparts. After giving birth it has been seen that Indigenous women are often denied medications, questioned about their ability to provide a safe and stable home for their newborn and social workers are assigned to watch new Indigenous mothers more often. These examples are only some of the disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous women in relation to the healthcare system that must be acknowledged and brought to light.
Another example of how Indigenous women experience more discrimination due to their identities is the disproportionate rate at which they face domestic violence. Domestic violence includes any harm brought to another person, and it can be emotional, psychological, physical or sexual. Across the board women are much more likely to fall victim to domestic violence perpetrated by their partner. 44% of women in Canada experience domestic violence in their relationships, while 61% of Indigenous women are victims of these types of violence, showing they are at greater risk throughout their lifetime. The response from the police and government in relation to domestic violence, sexual assault and disappearances involving Indigenous women has often been ineffective and the cases are not seen as important. An example of this is the police and government response to missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and Two Spirit peoples (MMIWG2S), more so their lack thereof. Indigenous women go missing at a much higher rate than their counterparts and there is often no justice served for MMIW G2S. This illustrates how institutions were built to benefit white people and not Indigenous peoples. They are performing in the exact way they were made to as the authorities within them work to further the social and economic marginalization of Indigenous women.
Lastly, many Indigenous women are a part of the 2SLBGTQIA+ community, meaning they are also subject to marginalization based on that identity. There is also an overall barrier to accessing the resources one needs due to the transphobic and homophobic nature of many of these institutions. One barrier they face is higher unemployment rates due to many systems in our current society being rooted in capitalism, colonialism and white supremacy. They also experience a bigger wage gap compared to men than white women do. All of this results in a mistrust of these systems that were supposedly designed to benefit all people and provide help when needed.
All of what was mentioned above shows why it is necessary to understand and acknowledge the lived experiences of Indigenous women, girls and 2SLBGTQIA+ peoples. It is a great failure of the feminist movement to have ignored and pushed aside the voices of certain women to focus and centre the voices of white women.
A word for white women:
Do not simply focus on the struggles and voices of only white women, instead direct the attention to women who have been silenced in the past by society and by this movement. Avoid fixating on white feminism, alternatively bring awareness to the intersectional approach to feminism as it is more inclusive, less harmful and centres the voices and perspectives of powerful and incredible women. When talking about the feminist movement be cautious about the generalizations and beliefs made about marginalized groups, avoid making the assumption that all women move through life with the same experiences. Ensure individual identities are recognized and respected, do not reduce anyone to a singular identity. The most powerful tool to abolishing white feminism is education. As white women, ensure you are educating yourself and others around you about how to approach this movement in a much better way.
In order for policy makers and the governments to view feminism as intersectional and make decisions based on that fact, this change has to happen at an individual and community level. When governments make decisions and implement policy around things such as sexual and reproductive rights, climate change and violence against women, it is necessary that they take an intersectional approach or these things will only improve for a small percentage of women in our world.
As white women we have taken the stage for far too long and it is long overdue that we recognize our privilege, our racism and our part in the harm this movement and white women as a whole have caused. Go inside to examine your privilege, how it has benefited you and what role it played in getting you to where you are today. It is necessary and crucial that Indigenous, Black and women of colour as well as all other women are at the front of this movement so their voices can be heard, their rights can be fought for and their needs can be met.
IF YOUR FEMINISM IS NOT INTERSECTIONAL IT IS NOT FEMINISM!
Resources:
https://canadianwomen.org/the-facts/intersectional-feminism/
http://blogs.ubc.ca/annapriceportfolio/files/2017/04/Final-Paper.pdf
https://ampglobalyouth.org/2015/01/10/indigenous-women-and-the-importance-of-intersectionality/
https://www.theiwi.org/gpr-reports/indigenous-women-and-the-canadian-healthcare-system
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2021001/article/00003-eng.htm#r12
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/feminism
https://denison.edu/academics/womens-gender-studies/feature/67969
