On Intersectionality

There is this popular image which has been shared over the course of time in support of affirmative action. It depicts a race, where people are asked to step behind the starting line by one step depending on the how disadvantaged they are; so the greater the boxes you check the poorer the chance you have of winning this race. Intersectionality can be visualized in a similar way, where you are already part of a disadvantaged community multiple times. It may not be as simple as being behind in a race or just being ‘generally more’ oppressed, it can materialize in various different ways as Crenshaw lays it out for us.

But is intersectionality productive? Is it productive to look at this from the lens of Audre Lorde and say that there is no hierarchy of oppression or should we look at it like a huge matrix where different groups are affected in different ways? The answer here is both. The idea of intersectionality the way that Crenshaw writes is productive, at the same time we must look at it from the larger movement perspective as well, perhaps together such ideas would lead to the betterment of the oppressed groups in society in a much stronger way.

Intersectionality is productive realizing the nuance differences in how different policy impacts intersecting groups and it is helpful in making the larger movement more successful and inclusive in the longer-term. As Crenshaw describes the specific provisions of the Immigration Marriage Fraud Act, where immigrant women ended up being stuck in more abusive marriages. The point here is, policy impacts different groups in varied ways, in unforeseen or unintended ways even. Without the acknowledgement of intersectionality, policy can not be made in a way so that it includes a vast majority of women of color who also happen to not be economically privileged or immigrants etc.

Additionally, if a movement ends up not really including the voices of diverse intersecting groups, it may end up alienating people from it and lose support. For any movement to be successful, it needs to have support. If an anti-racist movement continues to turn a blind eye to domestic violence towards women within or if a feminist group is not concerned about the issues faced by women of color – you will end up pushing those people away from the movement. Krenshaw writes:

“Among the most troubling political consequences of the failure of antiracist and feminist discourses to address the intersections of racism and patriarchy is the fact that, to the extent they forward the interest of people of color and "women," respectively, one analysis often implicitly denies the validity of the other.”

But what about the modern debate on ‘oppression Olympics?’ Or even the divisions within the movement(s) that Audre Lorde writes about. There is indeed wisdom in the ideas of focusing on the overall cause of the movement, to not lose sight so that the movement can continue and be successful rather than splinter into smaller and smaller sub-movements. But from what I understand from Krenshaw’s writing, her idea of valuing intersectionality is not at the expense of the larger movement. In-fact the negation of intersectionality leads to the movement being less efficient. I mean may very much be a hierarchy of oppression, but that hierarchy does not mean that the movement gets marred by infighting. If a movement gets so divided hearing the voices of women of color in feminist circles or of women in anti-racist groups, that movement itself probably wasn’t very beneficial to those underprivileged groups whose support the movement may very much rely on. Krenshaw aptly summarizes it:

“The effort to politicize violence against women will do little to address the experiences of nonwhite women until the ramifications of racial stratification among women are acknowledged. At the same time, the antiracist agenda will not be furthered by suppressing the reality of intra-racial violence against women of color.”