The Importance of Intersectional Feminism

My friend and I amble to the back of the Academy Building, finding ourselves exactly where we want to be: in a sea of fluorescent pink. Each and every chest surrounding us is printed with the bold inscription: Feminist. Soon, the other students and I cluster together, organized from shortest to tallest. The photographer starts taking photo after photo of us. Then, I look up at that wall of pink, splotched with black lettering. I scan all of the faces I see around myself, and a thought strikes me: we all consider ourselves feminists, but none of us are the same feminist. There is no same idea of feminism. Everyone is different because of our differing backgrounds, states of being, character and traits. This is what is called intersectional feminism.

As I waited amidst the ocean of pink for our photo, I thought about how privileged I was to be standing among fellow feminists. Other privileges that I will always check up on result from the fact that I’m white, educated and financially stable. There are so many people who can’t say that and don’t have even the smallest types of privilege that I have. For me, this is so important to say out loud, because I am a white person writing this article on intersectionality, which is meant to include all races, ethnicities, genders, abilities, sexual orientation, religion and more.

I believe that it’s absolutely imperative that I speak up and check my privilege, so I can become a fully intersectional feminist. What I don’t want to become is another white, cookie-cutter feminist who only believes in certain rights and lacks the courage to acknowledge the struggles and discrimination that other people face. I’d also like to point out that I, unlike many in this country and world, have the ability to speak out for people who don’t have the ability and will continue to strive to help others through better educating myself.

If you’re still confused about what intersectional feminism really is, Kimberlé Crenshaw, the person who coined the phrase, has made the term much more understandable by using a simple analogy. Crenshaw, an African American woman, civil rights activist and professor at UCLA school of law and Columbia school of law, realized in 1989 that most humans are subject to more than one discrimination. Take, for example, a black woman. She stands in the intersection of two roads. The first road is the road of racism, which she is on the receiving end of. The second is sexism, which she is also the victim of. To solve her problems, she must not only voice the rights of African American people, but also women. She has to voice the rights of her intersection point: her intersectionality.

But here’s the real question. Why is intersectionality important? Why can’t we just be “feminists” as opposed to “intersectional feminists?” Why should we care?

Let’s start with the wage gap. According to the National Committee on Pay Equity, in 2013, white women get 78 cents to the white man’s dollar, black women get 64 cents to the white man’s dollar and latina women get 54 cents to the white man’s dollar. Incidentally, black men get 75.1 cents to a white man’s dollar, and latino men get 67.2 cents. Here’s the thing about the wage gap: not all women are getting the same amount as other women. It depends on their race! This shows that every single race is discriminated against differently. Not only this, but men who aren’t white also have a gap in their pay equity.

Each and every victim of discrimination has many intersection points associated with them. This is why we need intersectionality. Without it, we’re just fighting to raise that white woman’s 78 cents to her male counterpart’s dollar, as opposed to all women’s pay being raised.

Crenshaw also brought up the case of Degraffenreid vs. General Motors to explain the necessity for intersectionality. In the case, a group of black women sued the company General Motors for counts of both racial discrimination and sex discrimination. General Motors denied this, for they did hire women, but only white women. And they did hire black people, but only black men. Here’s the problem: these women, with increasingly clear evidence, lost this case.

A non-intersectional feminist would say that these women were fired because of their gender. A non-intersectional civil-rights activist would say that they were fired because of their race. In fact, General Motors did hire women, just not black women. And General Motors did hire black people, just not black women. We must look at this case through an intersectional feminist viewpoint in order to understand the layers of oppression at work. These women were discriminated against on two counts, not just one: the court failed to understand that. If they had been educated on intersectionality, they could have at least had a different viewpoint.

Intersectional feminism isn’t your average, watered down feminism. To be a truly courageous feminist, we need to advocate for all women. To quote Audre Lorde, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle, because we do not live single-issue lives.”