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…
