Intersectionality – Part 1 Posted by Guest Author | Jan 6, 2021 |
Written by ‘Classical Liberal’
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Introduction
We live in troubling times! Society is undergoing dramatic changes, from the impact of transgender rights on women to gender reassignment for children. The mainstream media is obsessed with identity politics and brainwashing us to be ‘woke’. Much of this poisonous nonsense stems from intersectional theory with its Marxist foundations. We can only protect liberal democracy from this latest Marxist attack if we understand intersectionality.
Intersecting Nature of Privileges and Oppression
American sociologist Nicki Lisa Cole explains that the term ‘intersectionality’ is used to describe the ‘simultaneous experience of categorical and hierarchical classifications including but not limited to race, class, gender, sexuality, and nationality’. Thus, what are often viewed ‘as disparate forms of oppression’, such as sexism, racism, xenophobia, and classism, are really ‘mutually dependent and intersecting in nature, and together they compose a unified system of oppression’. Therefore, ‘the privileges we enjoy and the discrimination we face are a product of our unique positioning in society as determined by these social classifiers’.
Intersectionality
Patricia Hill Collins, an American sociologist, expounded the concept of intersectionality in her book, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (1990). Intersectionality has become a key part of race studies, feminist studies, queer studies, and critical sociology. As well as focusing upon race, class, gender, sexuality, and nationality, many intersectionalists now include categories like age, religion, culture, ethnicity, ability, body type, and even looks in their approach.
Crenshaw on Race and Gender in the Legal System
The term ‘intersectionality’ was first popularised by the American critical legal and race scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in an academic paper entitled, ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrines, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics’, published in The University of Chicago Legal Forum in 1989. Crenshaw’s analysis of legal proceedings in the USA led her to conclude that it is the intersection of race and gender that determines black women’s experiences of the legal system. She noted that when cases brought by black women did not match the circumstances of those brought by white women or black men, their claims were not taken seriously because they did not fit perceived normative experiences of race or gender. Therefore, she concluded that black women were disproportionately marginalized due to the simultaneous, intersecting nature of how they are read by others as both raced and gendered subjects.
Matrix of Domination
Crenshaw’s analysis of intersectionality focused on what she called ‘the double bind of race and gender’. Collins expanded this concept, adding sexuality, class and nationality. She also theorised how the intersecting forces of race, gender, class, sexuality, and nationality manifest in a ‘matrix of domination’.
Privileges and Forms of Oppression
Intersectionality claims to provide a means to appreciate the variety of forms of oppression and/or privileges that an individual may simultaneously experience at any time. Thus, a wealthy, white, straight, male US citizen experiences the world from the apex of privilege. He belongs to the upper strata of economic class, he sits at the top of the US’s racial hierarchy, his gender gives him a position of power in a patriarchal society, his sexuality marks him as ‘normal’, and his nationality affords him considerable privilege in a global context.
Ideas and Assumptions Encoded in Race
This is in stark contrast to a poor, undocumented Latina living in the USA. Her skin colour marks her as ‘foreign’ and ‘other’ compared with the perceived normality of whiteness. The assumptions encoded in her race suggest to many white US citizens that she does not deserve the same rights as others who live in the USA. Some people may also presume that she is living on benefits, manipulating the health system, and a burden on society. Her gender, particularly when combined with her race, marks her as submissive and vulnerable and a target to those who want to exploit her labour and pay her criminally low wages. Her sexuality is also an axis of power and oppression, as it can be used to coerce her through the threat of sexual violence. Furthermore, her nationality, perhaps Guatemalan, and her status as an undocumented migrant, also functions as an axis of oppression, which might prevent her from seeking healthcare, speaking out against dangerous work conditions, or reporting crimes against her, owing to fears of deportation.
Analytic Lens of Intersectionality
Proponents of intersectionality claim that it is useful because it enables us to consider a variety of social forces simultaneously, whereas a class-conflict, gender, or racial analysis would limit our ability to appreciate the way privilege, power, and oppression operate in interlocking ways. It also shows that what are perceived as disparate forces are mutually dependent and co-constitutive. The forms of power and oppression present in the life of the undocumented Latina described above are particular not just to her race, gender, or citizenship status, but are reliant on common stereotypes of Latinas in particular, because of how their gender is understood in the context of their race, as submissive and compliant.
Critique
The foundational tenets of intersectionality are antithetical to liberal democratic values – inviting censorship and illiberalism. Intersectionality uses imprecise and inflammatory language, necessitates ideological conformity, encourages groupthink, and fosters radicalism. I will look at each of these in turn.
Intersectionality Uses Imprecise and Inflammatory Language
Crenshaw et al specifically label a wide spectrum of social phenomena as ‘oppression’ without actually defining what the mean by it, or recognising that different people might suffer from different types of oppression. This imprecision is just one of the many examples of how intersectionality is built upon lazy generalisations and lacks true academic rigour.
Chris Martin argues that intersectionality ‘posits unambiguous axes of oppression’ because it fails to consider ‘the influence of the situation’ and also ignores the fact that minorities often benefit from affirmative action. ‘For instance’, he notes, ‘being African-American might be an advantage when you apply to an undergraduate college, but it might be a disadvantage when you apply for a summer internship’. Therefore, particular identities might offer advantages in some areas, but disadvantages in others.
This strongly suggests that not all of the members of the various victim groups supposedly subjected to oppressive power structures suffer from oppression. Consider men and women, for example. Men enjoy some biological advantages, they tend to be stronger and more suited to hard physical labour, but they also suffer from biological disadvantages, they are 3.5 times more likely to commit suicide than women and 80% of those with autism are male.
Social advantages and disadvantages are also not evenly shared by men and women. For example, women outperform men at US universities – in 2013, women gained 57% of all undergraduate degrees, 60% of master’s degrees, and 52% of all PhDs. Of course, one can easily find areas where men are dominant. However, the point is that reducing all male-female social outcomes to a simple formula in which ‘women are oppressed’ is far too simplistic. Men and women benefit and suffer from different advantages and disadvantages. To suggest that all women suffer from oppression is patronising and sexist – and an insult to all the women who have worked hard and succeeded on their own merits.
It is also not self-evident that all ethnic minorities are oppressed. Research in the USA has shown that Asians, Nigerians and some other non-white minority groups outperform whites in a range of objective standards, including educational attainment, employment levels, and income. Indeed, the notion that black people are oppressed is not accepted by all black people. Independence Daily guest author.
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