Can someone explain why intersectional feminism might be problematic?

Thank you for posting the Krenshaw video, intersectionality in her terms makes sense and I can see in her laid out example in employment law the specific problem, it's origins and a solution.

Shame it has been hijacked by identitarians.

"Intersectionality does not mean everything must intersect with penis"

Not sure if it's a Berns-ism, but it's a pithy summation I came across about the misinterpretation about intersectionality.

It's 'divide and rule' of 3rd wave feminism. Old tricks and new names.
Like Berns said, MRA been doing this nonsense for 100s of years.

God I love Magdalen Burns

My understanding of it is that (if done well) it acknowledges that there are layers of oppression.
E.g. a white hetrosexual female is affected by being a woman whereas a BME heterosexual female has being a woman and being BME against her.

Theoretically, it's just about being aware that certain elements of discrimination against women only affect some women. (E.g. a straight woman will have a different experienve from a lesbian or bisexual woman) and it is useful to be aware of that.

Sadly, it can easily become oppression top trumps where people try to gather as many labels that make them a victim as possible (go read the bios on everyday feminism with their 'trans-gender-non-binary-femme-lesbian who is interested in the intersectional experiences of queer women of colour and writes from the perspective of someone expliring gender critical views through the medium of interpretive dance and painting with ethically sourced teabags'

nancywheeler thanks for that lovey Berns film.
"They hate you" seems a fair summation.
I always wondered why 'everyday sexism' smelt funny.
Angela Davis and Magdelen Berns. Puts a spring in my sunday step, cheers

"Crenshaw herself". Sorry. Awful typo.

I agree with wrappedupinmyselflikeaspool.

Kimberle Crenshaw intended the concept of intersectionality to be a structural critique. She is a legal academic and her paper, Mapping the Margins, which introduced intersectionality, was a critique of equality legislation. The US had legislated for anti-discrimination in hiring for both sex and race. And everyone thought job well done.

Crenshaw used an anti-discrimination law suit by black women at a particular company to show that the job wasn't well done. The women lost their case because the firm employed both women (who were all white) and black people (who were all men). Therefore legislation intended to outlaw discrimination actually reinforced it at the intersection of sex and gender.

This structural concept of intersectionality has, like everything else, been hijacked by postmodernists to make it all about subjective identities when Crenshaw itself introduced it as something entirely different. I find it infuriating!

*oppressed

The theory makes complete sense. But in practice it creates dictators who say things like "only poc are allowed to be angry" or "poc are allowed to be rude [to allies in a fb group]" because if oppression. They create a system of handmaidens who fawn on them and who are scared of getting cast out in the cold so when someone falls out of favour with the queen bee they join in as bullies. It's very unpleasant. Note terms like 'calling out' and 'check your privilege' are part of this culture.

It prevents solidarity and ignores multiple perspectives from an opressed group. It is condescending and elitist.

Goosegrass have you watched Magdalen Berns's video above?

It’s not so much that there’s something wrong with intersectionality but that the idea is being interpreted badly - in a way that obscures the original thinking around how specific and different types of discrimination meet (as at an intersection) and how it’s sometines difficult to distinguish in law the motivation for discrimination. Intersectionality is a term coined by an American academic, an African American woman named Kimberle Crenshaw. She speaks clearly and in a way that’s easy to understand in the video I’ve linked to here. I think the most unfortunate thing about the current interpretation of intersectional feminism is that it has lost sight of race/sex/disability intersections and also that the idea is meant to help those who are fighting discrimination through the courts.
Krenshaw herself says here that intersectionality is not about a pick and mix of identities.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=-DW4HLgYPlA

‘it’s only women who have to put everyone else’s feelings first before getting down to their own specific fight.’

But it’s about other WOMEN...ALL WOMEN. It’s not about putting other people first. There are gay, disabled, non-white women who have it harder than most and it’s about recognising that and all the structures in place that mean it is twice or three times as hard if you fall into those categories.

A contention that occurs to me is I would have no idea how to form a null hypothesis for intersectionality. In other words what would the data look like if it was an inaccurate model? Thus it becomes more like religious doctrine than rational analysis.

We are then in territory of what if we're wrong? If we misdiagnose a problem we spend a lot more time chasing our tails and arguing than arriving at tenable and actionable solutions.

Fighting every other group's battles just means that women's rights will be pushed down the list, as the men in other groups will unfortunately become centred.
Also, it risks diluting the message, as everyone who feels strongly about feminism probably won't feel equally strongly about every other cause. E.g. race rights are important to me but class isn't such a biggie. Everyone has their own hierarchy.

The only time I've really seen intersectional feminism in action was in a babywearing group. It seemed to involve white American women "calling out" everyone else for using the wrong terms, including shouting at women of other races for apparently using the wrong labels for themselves. They then gave each other virtual high fives, whilst bullying and driving out a number of members from different racial groups. The admins removed the 'troublemakers' who wouldn't repeat the standard script and complimented the aggressive social justice warriors. The whole thing was grim.
As an aside, I'm mixed race and refuse to use the sjw preferred label "women of colour" although I didn't get involved in the arguments. I stepped in to stand up for a friend but in general I like to stick to my policy that life is too short to argue with idiots on facebook .

nowt tbh I think you were right the first time it’s only women who have to put everyone else’s feelings first before getting down to their own specific fight.

If you want to understand several of the criticisms of the ideology of intersectional feminism, this is an excellent place to start.

I'd be really interested to know what you think.

Everyone else is probably the wrong phrase. Having to fight all issues simultaneously makes it hard to fight the specific issues that are common to all women.

For me, it’s because although it is generally a good idea, it only seems to apply to feminism. Race activists don’t have to be intersectional, gay activists don’t have to be intersectional, it’s only women who have to put everyone else’s feelings first before getting down to their own specific fight.

Or, a critique of the culture of intersectional feminism perhaps.

Funny you mention Sophie Hagan. I think her comedy is awesome, but her (old?) podcast is an excellent example of some of what's wrong with intersectional feminism. There was a group for following the The Guilty Feminist. Sophie welcomed in intersectional feminists and obviously wanted to create a space they could be.

Only it was a fucking car crash. It quicky became a place full of people calling each other out on not using the "right" language (even though people were obviously trying), lots of oppression olympics (where people decide their mate is the most oppressed therefore everyone else should STFU and listen to them). If you ask someone to explain the rules you'll probably get a lecture about emotional labour. Loads of people with very rigid thinking and so up their own arses they think it's absolutely fine to just being really fucking unkind to anyone who doesn't get their exact rules.

They had no respect for Sophie either! She got told to STFU too IIRC.

Sophie tried really, really hard to solve the issues. She trained up a load of new admins and tried to moderate the situation. But it was beyond saving. Her co-star Deborah came along and pulled the plug on the whole thing (I suspect because Sophie had reached the limit and I don't blame her).

Before anyone jumps down my throat - I know this is not a critique of intersectional feminst theory. It's a critique of a certain kind of person who represents intersectional feminism online. There are lots of them sadly.

Magdalen Berns does a good critique of the actual ideology, I'll dig it out...