Midterm

Exploring Intersectionality

Intersectionality is an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of a person's social and political identities combine to create different modes of discrimination and privilege. Through an awareness of intersectionality, we can better acknowledge and ground the differences among us. For example, a black woman might face discrimination from a business that is not distinctly due to her race nor distinctly due to her gender, but due to a combination of the two factors. Intersectionality broadens the lens of the first and second waves of feminism, which largely focused on the experiences of women who were both white and middle-class, to include the different experiences of women of color, women who are poor, immigrant women, and other groups. Intersectional feminism aims to separate itself from white feminism by acknowledging women's different experiences and identities.

History

The term was concieved by black feminist scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in 1989. While the theory began as an exploration, primarily of the oppression of black women within society and the ways in which they both exist at an intersection, and experience intersecting layers of different forms of oppression, today the analysis has expanded to include many more aspects of social identity. These different aspects include race, gender, sex, sexuality, class, ability, nationality, citizenship, religion and body type.

The concept of intersectionality was intended to shed light on dynamics that have often been overlooked by feminist theory and movements. Racial inequality was a factor that was largely ignored by first-wave feminism. Instead, their primary concern was with gaining political equality between white men and white women. Early women's rights movements often exclusively relate to the membership, concerns, and struggles of white women. Second-wave feminism worked to dismantle sexism relating to the perceived domestic purpose of women, which still pertained mostly to white women. However, third-wave feminism—which emerged shortly after the term "intersectionality" was coined in the late 1980s—noted the lack of attention to race, class, sexual orientation, and gender identity in early feminist movements, and tried to provide a channel to address political and social imbalances.

Research

Crenshaw identifies three aspects of intersectionality that affect the visibility of non-white women: structural intersectionality, political intersectionality, and representational intersectionality. Structural intersectionality deals with how non-white women experience domestic violence and rape in a manner qualitatively different than that of white women. Political intersectionality examines how laws and policies intended to increase equality have paradoxically decreased the visibility of violence against non-white women. Finally, representational intersectionality delves into how pop culture portrayals of non-white women can obscure their own authentic lived experiences.

In the media we see a lot of white people. Times have changed no doubt, and there have been huge improvements to showing more diversity in the world of art and media, but not enough. Growing up, I saw a lot of white things. My Barbie's were all white, my American girl dolls, even my Polly Pockets. My school was white washed and catholic, I grew up hearing a lot of racist things being said before I knew it was racist. I never saw curly hair in ads or dark skin tones for foundation in our makeup stores. The world I was raised in was a neutral white, which isn’t the case in real life. We are taught to see the world in a neutral “white wash” instead of the reality that is diversity and culture of everyone else.

I ended up leaving home when I was eighteen to become a Navy wife, and during that time I saw a lot of sexism endured by the women serving our country. If a new woman joined the unit my husbands friends would talk about her body and looks instead of her achievements or hobbies, unlike if they had been talking about one of their fellow male Seamen. I even took my tools to a wife's house to help with shelving and her husband asked where my husband was, as though it were shocking I could hold a power tool on my own. But my experiences of being a white woman have been covered in all the feminist movements, so I wanted to focus on the more pressing matter of women of color and their hardships.

I struggled to make posters, only because I am not Black, and I can’t speak for their experiences. But I am an ally and I am here to help even if that is just with some artistic skill to bring another poster to the surface that touches on feminism as a whole.

There are ways that women are still being oppressed today in society. Wages, Types of Jobs, Male Power, Rape, and Body Image. In between those broad categories are smaller ones that only pertain to certain groups of women. For example, Over 1 in 4 LGBT youth who come out to their parents are forced to leave home. They often suffer violence, discrimination, and psychological abuse at shelters. Same-sex marriage is still prohibited in 44 states, in 30 states, it is still legal to fire someone on the basis of sexual orientation. It is legal to fire someone for being transgender in 38 states. It remains illegal to serve in the military and be openly gay.

In schools, black girls are suspected of worse behavior even when they aren't out of line — and they're often wrongly punished for it. A 2014 report from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Women's Law Center found that black girls are the most likely group to be suspended from school, even though evidence points to the fact they are no worse behaved than other students. Black Women Are Often Judged in real life according to pervasive media stereotypes. "The Jezebel" (the over-sexualized woman), "The Mammy" (the unattractive, dark-skinned maid or slave), and "The Sassy Black Friend" (this one is self-explanatory) all have their roots in the racist depiction and treatment of black women during during the Jim Crow era and beyond — and still crop up far too often in mainstream media today.

Even though intersectionality began with gender and race it has expanded overtime to cover more identities and oppressions other groups were facing. I created these posters as signs to people to educate or inspire them. The “Black Women Who Broke Barriers” is to educate anyone who reads it about successful Black women of our time. History books forgot to mention women in general in the textbooks. The second one is a call to arms saying “We are sisters” but if you look closely it also says “We resist”. A protest against oppression and misogyny. The third one is based off of the famous Obama posters but with an ordinary citizen in his place, with the words “We the People, Protect Black, Asian, Muslim, Latinx, Disabled, Trans, Poor, Women. This poster is to inspire everyone to become an Ally, or come together even with all their differences. The last poster is a nuance to the idea of intersectionality as a whole: “If you don’t fight for ALL women, you fight for NO women. Reminding us that we should not be selfish with our protests, and to look outward and be conscientious of those around us and their experiences as well.