Intersectionality has been considered an essential aspect of feminist and queer theory, particularly within the last twenty years. Theorist began to recognize that without considering other avenues of oppression their ideas would only go so far and apply to a limited number of people. While recognition and application are innately different, both queer and feminist works have made real attempts to be more inclusive. Yet in many of the attempts made, there is a faltering in what it means to truly be intersectional. Simply mentioning race and class in addition to gender and sexuality is not enough. This can be seen even in Ahmed’s book, Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others, where she offers an innovative perspective on queerness and race as well as other identities through the use of phenomenology. However, due to her own background, Ahmed reproduces the very performativity she criticizes causing her to assume the power and possibility of racial reorientation as significantly more restricted than it truly is. Overcoming racism …show more content…
Published in 2006, Queer Phenomenology emphasizes the consideration of numerous identities and clearly explains how this applies to race, class, and sexuality. Although not technically intersectionality, Ahmed’s examination of intersecting lines reflects the conscious effort made by queer and feminist theorists since the end of the twentieth century. In comparison, phenomenology, on which she bases her entire theory, comes out of existentialism. This too has a deep historical connection to feminist and queer theory, since it was from this philosophy that Simone de Beauvoir wrote The Second Sex. Ahmed reflects on numerous feminist theorists, such as Judith Butler, as well as historical philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant. Although main of these individuals had failed to examine race, the author is able to skillfully apply them to support her
4) The author uses a group of a people with different cultural assumptions about race, manhood, and civilization to explain her
The predominant ideas put forth in the piece from the Combahee River Collective were those that addressed the shortcomings of the feminist movement to include all women and to address the full range of issues that oppress individuals and groups of people in our patriarchal society. This greatly furthered my ongoing development and understanding of what intersectionality is, what its goals are, and how it can help everyone instead of the predominately white, cisgendered, heterosexual, upper middle class women that composed and continue to compose a large portion of the feminist movement. One of the biggest shortcomings that are addressed in this piece focused on the racism within the feminist movement and its limited or even minimal efforts
This question poses an interesting discourse based on the intersectionality
In this part, the intersectionality of race and gender developed by Critical Race theorist can be used. Critical Race Theorist argues that “race does not occur independently of the histories of
In “Intersectional Resistance and Law Reform,” Dean Spade proposes that the United States was founded through “racialization…(which) continues to operate under new guises… that produce, manage, and deploy gender categories and sexuality and family norms” (16). More over, these laws and norms tend to maintain the “status quo,” and employ an inherently flawed justice system that is only equipped to address single-axis discrimination issues (5). Thus, the intersectionality movement is largely dismissed by the social and justice systems, as it utilizes “critical intersectional tools… that are often (too) difficult for legal scholars to comprehend” (17). Interstionality’s progress is also impeded by advocates leaving to support single-axis issues. However, Spade warns that this approach is ineffective, as it fails to protect the most marginalized members of society.
Steven Seidman’s Revolt Against Sexual Identity provides anecdotes that describe the liberation that comes with rejecting these norms, “...her identities as transgender, female,
Divisions within feminism through differences are demobilizing the necessary movement required to create change. In Audre Lorde’s piece, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”, Lorde uses her experience at NYU’s Humanities conference to address how racism and homophobia are present in feminism. Furthermore, she believes not all women of a particular identity share the same experiences, so to change the patriarchy, feminists must work together and use their differences as a uniting factor rather than something to categorize and separate women. Through the reference to metaphor- the master house and the master’s tools- and the use of pathos, Lorde ensures to stress that differences between people need to be used as empowerment
Queer time and space are not terms with wholly concise definitions. Often, they are a matter of
Intersectionality is when there is other problematic society that affects a certain group of people within society is interconnected. The minority may all belong to the same group but yet there are many categories within that group that also deal with more than one form of oppression. In the article, the author makes valid points of the daily struggles of being a woman in society but also shines light on the issue that she also faces other forms of oppression because of her skin color. To the average white woman, the only form of institutionalized oppression they experience is solely gender based and therefore they tend to dismiss the idea that other races and religious fight for equality is much more intense. Intersectionality also contends
In every single one of the books we read this semester all the people, case studies, and stories given in each book all they wanted in the end of everything was a family. They wanted to feel loved, cared for and whole. Even though those things were sometimes affected by different obstacles, just like the women in Mamo’s book, they still made it possible, as did the stories in Scattered family and Road to Evergreen. Which made it possible for each book to have its own way of relating to Queering
Kendi tells a story of two Black queer feminists he was in discourse with and how they separated the underlying issue from what is commonly conceived as the issue. “They had a problem with homophobia, not with heterosexuals. They had a problem with patriarchy, not with men” (Kendi, 2019, p.200). Kendi goes on further to build the idea that the issues within society that relate to oppression all stem from the same beliefs, which then continues to influence and inform the other systems of oppression. Throughout the entire book it is said that to change the issue you must change the policies that inflict this harm to be able to change society’s
Intersectional analysis still matter because race still matters in this generation. Intersectional analysis is a theory of discrimination with an individual identity, race, sex, age, and other characteristics. I personally think that not only women face intersectionality but men do as well. In this essay, I will argue that bell hooks’ main argument is how white people do not know what people of colour are going through and how “whiteness” has more privileges then the blacks. hooks approach is intersectional because people of colour are being treated as slaves to the “white” just because of their race and at times their gender.
As with all theories, this feminist approach to Louise Halfe’s “Body Politics” does not come without its flaws. While it can be argued that this poem criticizes the performativity of feminine gender roles in a patriarchal society, this cannot be proven definitively without knowing the author’s original intentions. Furthermore, the poem does not give its readers enough information to conclude that the society the women live in is in fact a patriarchal society. This becomes evident, as there is no reference to any masculine figure – so any assumptions about the masculine-dominant culture are purely speculative. It is possible that Halfe wrote this poem in an attempt to challenge the gender binary, however one stands to question how successfully she is in doing so.
The queer historical past has been characterized positively, with aspects such as identification, desire, longing, and love highlighted (31). In contrast, Heather Love seeks to focus on the negative aspects that characterize the relationship of queer history amid the past and present, in her work, “Emotional Rescue: The demands of Queer History,” the first chapter in her book, “Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History” (31-32). According to Love, some queer critics have failed to include the harsher accounts when studying queer cross-historical relations. The negative aspects of the past that queer figures can relate to makes it relevant. In her article, Love critiques various works to identify the negative aspects present within the queer history.
Kareen Harboyan English 1C Professor Supekar March 15, 2018 Word Count: Crenshaw’s Mapping the Margins: The Marginalization of Women of Color Analyzed Through Generalization and A Feminist Lens Crenshaw's Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color expands on the multifaceted struggles of women of color and the generalizations ingrained in society that limit women of color and keep them in a box. In this text, Crenshaw builds on the concept of intersectionality which proposes that social categorizations such as gender and race are intertwined and have great influence on one another.