Intersectionality

not one or the other. For Crenshaw, the term “intersectionality” is a simple word with a great number of meanings, because “it managed to encompass in a single word the simultaneous experience of the multiple oppressions faced by black women’. It’s the way women of color experiences life based on different identities. She discusses how white women get more benefits than women of color, simply because of a number of different factors. Intersectionality is set to draw attention to the forgotten or…

Google, the definition of intersectionality is “the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.” While this definition scrapes the surface and definitely encompasses the definition of the word, it’s hard to fully grasp the concept of intersectionality. It is not one-dimensional and we see intersectionality everywhere…

Joanna Dreby, author of The Burden of Deportation, and Hyeyoung Kwon, author of Intersectionality in Interactions, both discuss the unique, yet different, challenges that non-White children of immigrants face in the U.S. Dreby discusses the challenges of forced separations, children’s families struggles, and the threat of deportation, while Kwon discusses the challenges of passing as American adults, shielding parents from racialized nativism, and posing like middle-class adults. In Dreby’s…

Prior to starting Social Inequalities in January, intersectionality was a term that I did not even know existed. I had never taken a sociology course before, and I honestly did not have much interest in learning about it. Throughout the course though, my eyes were opened to so many of the inequalities in our society, and also, the oppression that comes along with being different in any way from the majority. As I started to discover so many things about oppression, privilege and discrimination,…

Drawing upon lecture, intersectionality is a feminist theory in response to white women feminism not making space for women of color. In the early 60’s, the women’s movement was only coming from a white perspective in The Feminine Mystique and there was a problem that had no name, which was the boredom white women faced when they stayed at home while their husbands were at work. However, this did not resonate with women of color because they were tirelessly taking care of these white women’s…

Intersectionality is a concept often used in critical theories to describe the ways in which oppressive institutions (heterosexism, homophobia, sexism, sizeism, etc.) are interconnected and cannot be examined separately. Heterosexism is the discrimination or prejudice against homosexuals on the assumption that heterosexuality is the normal sexual orientation. Homophobia is the dislike or prejudice against homosexual people because of who they are attracted to. Sexism is the prejudice,…

1. After reading the article by Crenshaw, I would define intersectionality as a concept to describe race and racism and how they are related and looked at when put together. Intersectionality is important when trying to understand racism and race relations because they go hand in hand and when you understand them together, you better understand the overall idea of them. An example of inequality that is intersectional is racism intersecting with sexism. This is actually an example from class,…

Deidre Ray TLIT 4 March 2018 Review of Intersectionality: Exploring the Racial Dichotomy Nella Larsen’s Passing introduces us to the idea of intersectionality through the eyes of two co-protagonists featured in her narrative. Passing is a literary work that embodies the realist and truest forms of race as a social construct. This does not however, diminished its power when it comes to the real life experiences of those imbedded in its feral grip. Intersectionality is a key thematic reference…

An examination of trans women’s identities through the lens of Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality can remedy this issue. Kimberle Crenshaw’s theory of Intersectionality holds that categories of race, gender, class, and sexuality are “mutually reinforcing” and must be analyzed and understood in conjunction with one another. According to sociologist Leslie McCall, intersectionality emphasizes an analysis of “the relationships among multiple dimensions and modalities of social relations…

As we have learned throughout the course, intersectionality affects our experiences within our social category. Intersectionality can either give us privilege or reduce privilege depending on which categories we fall into. Each individual’s personal experience in a situation will differ due to intersectionality. In Heather Kuttai’s “Maternity Rolls”, we see how her experience with disability is shaped by her gender, and vice-versa. Although Kuttai does mention that being feminine was important…