class:Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies

Why Intersectionality Can’t wait

Lecture 4 and Snapshots and Soundwaves 5 (Conceptualizing Intersectionality)

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Why intersectionality can’t wait. Chapter 6, page 57. • Intersectionality was a lived

reality before it became a term.

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Why intersectionality can’t wait. Chapter 6, page 57. • Today nearly three decades after

I first put a name to the concept, the term seems to be everywhere. But if women and girls of colour continue to be left in the shadows, something vital to the understanding of intersectionality has been lost.

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Why intersectionality can’t wait. Chapter 6, page 57. • In 1976, Emma DeGraffenreid

and several other black women sued the General Motors for discrimination, arguing that the company segregated its workforce by race and gender.

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Why intersectionality can’t wait. Chapter 6, page 57. • Intersectionality is an analytic

sensibility, a way of thinking about identity and its relationship to power.

• Originally articulated on behalf of black women, the term brought to light the invisibility of many constitutes within groups that claim them as members.

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Why intersectionality can’t wait. Chapter 6, page 57. • Intersectionality has given many

advocates a way to frame their circumstances and to fight for their visibility and inclusion.

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Why intersectionality can’t wait. Chapter 6, page 57. • Intersectionality has been the

banner under which many demands for inclusion have been made, but a term can do no more than those who use it have the power to demand. And not surprisingly, intersectionality has generated its share of debate and controversy.

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Why intersectionality can’t wait. Chapter 6, page 57. • Conservatives have painted those

who practice intersectionality as obsessed with “identity politics.”

• Of course Degraffenreid was excluded because of the use of her identity and privilege.

• The better we understand how identities and power work together from one context to another the less likely our movements for change are to fracture

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Why intersectionality can’t wait. Chapter 6, page 57. • Others accuse intersectionality

of being too theoretical, of being “all talk, no action.” To that I say we’ve been talking about racial equality since the era of slavery and were still not even close to realizing it. Instead we need to examine the structures of power that so successfully resist change.

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Why intersectionality can’t wait. Chapter 6, page 57. • Some have argued that

intersectional understanding creates an atmosphere of bullying and privilege checking. Acknowledging privilege is hard- particularly for those who also experience discrimination and exclusion.

• While white women and men of colour experience discrimination, all too often their experiences are taken as the only point of departure for all conversations about discrimination.

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Why intersectionality can’t wait. Chapter 6, page 57. Intersectionality alone cannot bring invisible bodies into view. Mere words won’t change the way some people – the less visible members of political constitutes – must continue to wait for leaders, decisions makers and others to see their struggles.

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Why intersectionality can’t wait. Chapter 6, page 57. • We simply do not have the

luxury of building social movements that are not intersectional, not can we believe we are doing intersectional work just by saying words.

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Intersectionality wheel diagram

• Refer to course outline and Intersectionality paper proposal handout on UM learn content.

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