Intersectionality Gender Equality

As I respond to this essay, I will focus on why we, as society, must look at gender through the eyes of race and racism. I will do this by explaining the concept of intersectionality and its effect on gender oppression. Before I explain how different racial groups experience gender oppression, we must first understand intersectionality. According to Patricia Hill Collins, intersectionality is described as the combination of factors such as: race, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic class, and nationality, and how it works together to cause oppression, more undeniably than those who obtain privilege. In other words, those who are in positions of privilege, more commonly those who are heterosexual, educated, white, and are wealthy, are not as easily oppressed as those whom are apart of the LGBTQ community, are from different race and ethnic backgrounds, have low economic classes, and other factors. These factors all work together, and not independently, to create intersectionality and a series of oppression …show more content…
In Nadine Naber’s Arab American Femininities, she describes how in some cultures, people are held to certain standards and are expected to follow them, or face cultural loss. For example, Naber describes how Arab women are seen as conservative, religious, and traditional, and tend to view Americans as risqué and provocative. Arab women are expected to not conform to American society; If they do conform to the new society, it is seen as betrayal to their home country (Naber). Naber describes how Arab women must avoid being sexualized and stay pure, unlike Americans. According to these writings, when an Arab woman, named Lulu, identifies as queer to her family, it only heightens her gender oppression. Lulu, then, faces criticism and betrayal from her family. The influence of cultural identity, race, and sexual identity effects gender oppression and does not allow women to explore deviant