Download - WGST 202 Day 3 Intersectionality
Dr. Sara DiazWGST 202: Gender, Difference, and PowerGonzaga University
Feminism & Intersectionality
More on the 2nd Wave
•1st Wave movement focused on structural change (suffrage).
•2nd Wave included structural AND cultural change.
2nd Wave Agenda• Abortion/Birth Control• Women’s Health Movement
• Sexual Liberation• Professional Work• Equality in Education (Title IX)• Equal Rights Amendment (failed)• Egalitarian marriage • Wages for Housework
• Welfare Rights (originally intended for white middle class women)
• Other Movements: Peace Movement, Civil Rights, New Left, Black/Brown/Red Power movements.
Key Terms
•Patriarchy/misogyny (cultural and structural)•Consciousness raising (CR)• Separatism (Lesbian)• “Radical” feminism
“The Personal is Political”
• Second wave slogan• Connects what happens in our own lives to
larger political forces.• Conceptualizes politics as something that
effects us as individuals.
What is Feminism?
“Feminism is the political theory and practice to free all women: women of color,
working-class women, poor women, physically challenged women, lesbians, old
women, as well as white economically privileged heterosexual women. Anything
less is not feminism, but merely female self-aggrandizement.”
--Barbara Smith
Multi-racial Feminism
•What is “hegemonic feminism”?
•What is “multi-racial feminism?
Multi-racial Feminism
•What does Becky Thompson want us to understand about the history of the Second Wave?
•Why is it important that our feminist histories are accurate?
Daily Response Question
Why do the members of the Combahee River Collective argue that we must understand oppression as "interlocking"?
Intersectionality• Feminist framework• Oppressions,
institutions are mutually reinforcing• Racism is reinforced
by sexism which is reinforced by classism.
Privilege
The social positioning of one group over another group that leads to unearned,
systematic advantage for those who are privileged and unwarranted systematic
disadvantage for those who are subordinate.
Intersectionality
•We all occupy multiple social locations•Our identities cannot be reduced•Mix of privileged and subjugated
positions•Oppressions are not additive • a black woman is not simply twice as
oppressed as a white woman
Intersectionality
• System of Domination• Interlocking, mutually reinforcing• All the “isms” work together•Not all privileges and oppressions are
equivalent to each other• “There can be no single-issue politics”
– Audre Lorde
The problem with “Sisterhood”
“Even when there is evidence of female oppression among women of diverse
backgrounds, it is important to listen to the individual assessment which each woman makes of her own condition, rather than
assume that a synonymous experience of female oppression exists among all
women.”--Johnnetta B. Cole
Difference: A Tool for Liberation
“Certainly there are very real differences between us of race, age, and sex. But it is
not those differences between us that are separating us. It is rather our refusal to
recognize those differences and to examine the distortions which result from our
misnaming them and their effects upon human behavior and expectation.”
--Audre Lorde
Our Central Questions
•Which women, when, and where?• How do systems of oppression/privilege
intersect and what are their impacts?• How are our identities constructed by
interlocking systems of domination?• How can we work toward feminist social
justice?