Intersectionality

A friend of mine recently observed that the Feminists of the first wave in the 1800s and the Abolitionists appeared to have worked closely together in order to achieve the dual goals of freeing slaves and expanding the rights of women. But currently it appears that various groups of marginalized people (and their allies) often work at cross purposes. Why is that? I nominate the idea of intersectionality taken too far as the likely candidate. Intersectionality is defined by Merriam-Webster as …the complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intersectionality This seems to me to be an important and useful concept, but not an entirely new one. It is clear that people often belong to more than one marginalized group and sometimes many marginalized groups. Surely the experience of a White woman is different from the experience of a Black woman – is different from the experience of a Black lesbian woman – is different from the experience of a Black lesbian Jewish woman. This needs to be recognized. But if our gaze is so strongly…

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Thoughts About Dobbs v. Jackson

Cisgender, straight, Christian, White men in positions of power, you need to get over the idea that you are something special – entitled to the first choice of resources, the best jobs, the supreme place in society. Overturning Roe merely reflects your displeasure that the women you let into law schools, medical schools, anchor desks, governmental posts and board rooms are now doing as good a job as you do – or better. This makes you very nervous, I imagine. You are thinking you better get them under control again – or at least give them massively difficult choices. Overturning Roe is not about the sanctity of human life. If it were you would provide for those fetuses after they are born – but you don’t. You let them be raised by single mothers without resources or house them in parking garages for disabled or unwanted children. I thought you wanted them? And if it is about God, I imagine you are praying to the Jesus whose portrait was in the front of the church I grew up in. You know — the white Nordic Jesus with blue eyes and long blondish brown hair. Not the Jewish Jesus from Palestine!…

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Sexual Orientation and Tennis

Congratulations to gay and lesbian couples everywhere – and to the Supreme Court (1). And what does that have to do with tennis?  First, I need to say that this feels like life in a time warp. Not 35 years ago in my home state of Massachusetts I knew a lesbian couple who were really in love, but never lived together because one of them had children and knew that if they did live together, her ex-husband would have sued for full custody and never let her see her children again. And no court in the Commonwealth would have ruled otherwise. Now, no court there would rule in his favor and they could be celebrating their 9th wedding anniversary in the fall. What does that have to do with tennis? In the early 1990s there was a rash of research (or is that rash research?) done by people like Simon LeVay, PhD who stated at the time that he was aligned with those who supported the notion that being gay is all a matter of genetics and biology (Marshall, 1992). The reasoning was that if it were all biological no one could discriminated against gay people. (A dubious thought). My…

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