Intersectional feminism

[Fauchelevent]

This is my first FWR thread but many of you will know me from the transactivism threads and posts about race and here and there.

On the Rachel Dolezal thread, quite an interesting discussion began about race, feminism and intersectional feminism with Quencher especially raising some very interesting and informed points. But this isn't a TAAT.

The question is intersectionality, intersectional feminism - the movement as it was intended and the movement as it stands.

I'm black, and I feel that discussions with some white women feminists often ignore race or I feel like when race is discussed, there are a lot of issues. Sometimes discussions go down the line of black women setting feminism back by being too hypersexual, muslim/orthodox women seen as backwards and so on. I see on MN a lot of people comparing gender issues to race and saying that if it were race, it would get dealt with but women are on the bottom of the heap. As a black woman i certainly feel shat on for my race as much as my gender. So intersectional feminism seems like the natural destination for women who want and need feminism but feel like mainstream feminism excludes them. Equally, intersectional feminism makes a point to make spaces accessible for disabled people, tackle homophobia and so on.

Yet intersectional feminism has also become a toxic space. It has become a space of stifled debate, regular misogyny and very orwellian. Women who disagree with the party line are blacklisted and sometimes sent death threats. Women who do not toe the party line are also guaranteed to lose any friends in this circle. For example, with student activism becoming increasingly intersectional, it also means there's less room for debate and very little dissent because anyone who disagrees will be ex communicated. So lots of people in their early twenties and younger will have this way of thinking.

I also hear from a lot of feminists who are white that they feel they cannot get involved in intersectional feminist debates because they're shut down as being "White Feminists" even by other (lower case) white feminists.

How do we balance the need for feminism that is aware of racial matters, sexuality, class and so on, because poor women, gay women, and women of colour should not feel shut out of feminism. We have to also understand that women tend to navigate their own cultures and communities differently, we all have different histories and so our feminism may look different and we may need to look outside our experience (making sure disabled feminists can access events and so on)

What we have at the moment is a post modern choice feminism where everyone is included and nothing - including the words woman, female and feminism - has meaning. It means tackling male violence and female oppression takes a back burner and in its place comes discussions of liberating oneself with make up and selfies, whatever you find on everyday feminism, and silencing and violence towards anyone who doesn't agree with absolutely everything in the ideology. Lots of young female feminists are also identifying as non-binary, possibly because they don't have the "feeling like a woman" experience that MTT speak of so assume they must not be women. Occasionally "cis scum" and "white feminists" will be told to shut the fuck up. So its currently full of a lot of issues - but a lot of aspects are it are necessary.

I'm not sure what I hope to get out of this thread really, other than a few thoughts from others. I'm happy to answer any questions - I'm black and early 20s so i have a lot of direct experience with extremely cult like intersectional feminism. Unfortunately I am spartacus though so I get very silenced. Posting on MN is a massive relief. This international womens day was like international virtue signalling day with everyone declaring that its international womens day for everyone who identifies as a woman, non binaries, and all non-cis men and anyone who disagrees should fuck off - so a bit tiresome!

Anyway - no real questions, just hoping for some thoughts and a discussion on intersectional feminism and its issues on the back of the RD thread.

Let me ask you this. A middle class women walks into a room full of sexist misogynistic men, what do you think would happen? Would she she get the same treatment a middle class man would if he walked into the room? I doubt it.

No, of course not - and what's that got to do with my point? Because suppose she walks into a room of working-class men who aren't sexist (and they do exist, as hard as I find that to believe sometimes)? Who has more privilege in that context? Where is the room and who are the men? Are they her friends? Is this the pub? Her kitchen? The company boardroom?

Systematic privilege does not mean everyone in a particular group has more of it than those in another. You can be a man have fuck all power or privilege and be a woman and be PM.

Actually I don't really know what privilege means anymore. Anyone? At least, it isn't a quantity that can be measured. There's no easy way of ascertaining whether one person has more of it (whatever it is) than another independent of context. In certain contexts certain people have more power than others certainly, and a lot of those contexts are ones that favour male power. A pimp has more power than a prostitute. A rapist has more power than his victim. But then a banker has more power than a homeless person - even if she's female and he's male.

I think we should dispense with privilege - it's stupid.

A rapist has more power than his victim. But then a banker has more power than a homeless person - even if she's female and he's male.

What if the homeless man is raping the female banker?

Privilege is a valuable concept, but it only makes sense to look it as part of a class analysis. I agree with you that when you try to apply it to individuals it becomes meaningless. That is my problem with what tends to pass for intersectional feminism now. It's all individualism and "identity."

What if the homeless man is raping the female banker?

Well, sure..but equally what if he isn't? See? It's a predicate that just doesn't work. You could say the homeless man has more power if he's following the female banker down a dark alley with an intention of assaulting her, but if he's just sleeping in a doorway while she walks past on the way to her 150'000 K a year job then his 'privilege' is not really the problem is it? In fact, he should justly be given a bit of hers. But even in the dark alley, he has power rather than privilege. Should we even be talking about the power to rape someone as being a 'privilege'? That's fucked up. Because it really isn't a privilege to express a hatred of women by committing one of the most evil acts there is. 'Privilege' is a perfect example of a feminist discourse that is complicit in what it critiques.

I agree with you that when you try to apply it to individuals it becomes meaningless.

Exactly, and the problem with something that can't applied to individuals is that it's an abstraction. It's got nothing to do with individualism and the identity stuff...in facts those things are often based on abstractions of privilege in that it's assumed that in identifying as one thing individuals have more privilege that those identifying as another. It's not that simple.

Power is much better. Power is real and exists concretely in concrete contexts.

The privilege issue is that the female banker has to think about the possibility of being raped more because women are much more likely to be raped. She has to change her behaviour because of it. She is limited by it. It's a class issue. Men as a class and women as a class.

It's one way of looking at the world. There are others.

Yes that's true she does live in a very real fear of rape, but is that best thought of in terms of 'privilege'? Is the power to rape women a 'privilege'?

And presumably the homeless lives on fear of freezing to death, or being beaten up and urinated on the middle of the night. How do you tot up the banker and the homeless man's privilege in order to ascertain who has more in total? What unit is privilege measured in?

Sorry I think it's a crap idea, and is actually counter-feminist because it takes the emphasis away from the concrete power dynamics in which women are raped, assaulted, prostituted, genitally mutilated and murdered every day and instead sees power as a form of capital. It's a totally neoliberal concept. The idea that a homeless man has privilege because he could rape a woman if he wanted to is just...beneath contempt, to be frank, on multiple levels. It's insulting to women, men and everyone.

That's the point, it's not about individuals. I don't agree with you that it's a worthless concept.

Not all privileges are measured in wealth. ignoring the basic sexism and misogyny that women face regardless of class as what can constitute privilege is wrong. I thought you understood what you were talking about, that's is why a put the question forward.
To assume that most men are not sexist or money prevents all who are rich from it, is silly. It never does and that is what people fight against.

It's like telling a wealthy black women she has privilege when talking about racism and not wealth. A poor white man can still be racist and sexist. That does not take that away. The power to demean the woman, he still holds. It's weather he carries it out or not. It's weather he was brought differently to most men or not. It's about being different to the norm of what men are regardless of money privilege. Some are extreme and other aren't.

When I made my comment about the woman. That was not intersectionality. That was an equal divide between two sexes for the most likely chance of what might happen. Based on how society works. If anyone thinks thought that was intersectionality then they have no idea what it means. To think that it was what I was referring to is bonkers.

And hardly any feminists mention economics.
Lots of feminists mention economics from Marxist feminists critiquing the capitalist elements of self-obsessed identification politics to radfems campaigning around a basic national income, from women in rural communities establishing micro-credit projects to women in deprived areas establishing small banks.
The concept of class, privilege and economics are central to feminism and most modern theorists. I prefer them as tools than vague notions of undefined 'power' because 'power' becomes impossible to quantify or view systemically. It leaves you chasing round trying to establish hierarchies of power in individual situations which puts you right back in the intersectionality morass.

A poor white man can still be racist and sexist. That does not take that away. The power to demean the woman, he still holds.

Well, yeah he does have the power to demean women. But that shouldn't be regarded as a privilege should it? And conversely, walking around not fearing rape shouldn't be a privilege - it should just be a baseline expectation in civilised society - as should having a roof over ones head. If we want to start defining having shelter or not living in fear of sexual assault as a privilege then something has gone very wrong with our frame of critical debate - and that's true whether we call ourselves feminists or socialists.

If you want to talk about power, that's different...but privilege is actually of a way of avoiding about power structures.

APlacethe words I used were 'hardly any' as opposed to 'none'. Marxist feminists exist but have definitely been marginalised. You don't hear those economic discussions on more prominent platforms.

And the thing is about power is that is intersectional whether you like it or not...it might be a morass but..tough. It just is so. If accepting that means we can't integrate everything into neat ideological narratives, then, again, tough.

MLK managed to talk about race in relation to economic class while maintaining an emphasis on racial equality, so it's not like an intersectional feminism is impossible.

The English dictionary would disagree with you on what the term privilege means.

<strong>1.	</strong><strong>a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.</strong><strong>"education is a right, not a privilege"</strong>

* *

It is a privilege to walk down the road at night and not think about the potential of being raped. How to protect your self from being raped.
And if rape did occur, for your sexual history not to be used against you. And this has no class boundary. Yes! society hasn't just come to this. Society is trying to move away from it. The potential of rape is not only from the homelessness man. The chances of probably being raped by homeless man is very slim. From the general understanding, most rapes occur in places we consider a safe space with people we know.

The power they have is not because women can't have power but because by the default of being born male in a system that benefit men. Lots of things cause homelessness and it can include mental health. That has no boundary. It's a fault setting that our society has at the moment.

And hardly any feminists mention economics.
I think when middle class women are mentioned, it's usually referring to economics. That is why class is mentioned as a divide between them and the working class.
When women in abusive relationships who can't leave because they can't afford starting up again, when they feel they don't have the skill to join the work force again,
When wage disparity is discussed which is often, women who give up work to look after their children, and then find themselves stack economically/financially,
How income should be used and divided or not in homes in away that women benefits women. That is all economics. It's talked about here on almost daily basis.

It is a privilege to walk down the road at night and not think about the potential of being raped.

It is regarded as a privilege, but my point is that shouldn't be - in which case you need to look beyond the discourse of privilege to all the structures of power as they materially manifest themselves. You can ask a sexist asshole to 'check his privilege' and he'll be like 'ok, I've checked it; now I'm going to carry on being a sexist asshole'.

I kind of agree what you're saying, but these discussions that circle round and round about privilege get nowhere. Because, what are you going to do? How are you going to take that privilege away from men just by talking about it? In a way all you're doing is confirming it and entrenching it.

And really, it's not what equalitarian politics should be about. I suppose the gentiles in 1930's Germany had the privilege of not being rounded up and massacred, but that would be an odd way of looking at it. The point was that people were being oppressed, tortured in killed by people by hated them. Similarly, misogynists believe women do not have full personhood and therefore feel justified in raping, disfiguring and beating them and then culturally advertising them as bits of meat to be further reviled as class. That's your problem. These problems are systematic, but manifested and enforced in very specific ways.

In a sense, I don't even think the debate should be about power as it's commonly understood. It's not like power can be quantified and then divied up between men and women, or that just giving power to women just because they're women is in every instance a good thing. If you listen to MLK and a lot of the civil rights spokespeople they hardly mentioned power - they didn't want black people to be empowered as such but to have the same civil rights as white people - to be able to get on a bus, register to vote and not get lynched. To be seen as full human beings. And in the course of that they acknowledged the oppression of poor, white men too and how that tied into racism.

Talking in terms of just power or privilege rather than the specific, systematic ways in which women are oppressed and mistreated doesn't make much sense. It doesn't make sense to say 'men have power' as though it's a quantifiable substance that men have shared amongst themselves and are denying women and if only we could wrest some of it back then everything would be fine. It might make sense to say that women are sexually disempowered in patriarchal cultures because of porn/prostitution/the media etc, or that men have most of the governmental power, or twenty billion other things. But if a woman who went to an elite finishing school and Oxbridge and now takes home a 6 figure salary from Goldman Sachs walks up to some poor guy on a street corner shaking a can and says 'I'm a woman and you're a man so therefore you are more privileged and powerful than me' he's gonna quite rightly have something to say about that.

The problem is men hating women, fearing women, feeling disgusted with women. That isn't anything to do with them enjoying the 'privilege' of some measurable quantity of power. At root - it's just hatred - and it's one that a material, and economic system mandates. The power or privilege to manifest that hatred comes secondarily. Take porn. Porn is not just willed into existence by male power - it's an economic operation that interfaces with banks, the IT industry, hotels etc etc and people are making loads of money from. The point is to de-legitimize those institutions - not ask them to share their power or the people who run them to be more mindful of their privileges.

Well said above. I have a feeling we are on similar page but understanding it from different angles.
For me Power offers privilege and not to assume that all privileges are same. The man checking his privilege and still carrying on. He knows he has the power to do it. The woman does not have the privilege to not be in that position because of her sex.

Talking in terms of just power or privilege rather than the specific, systematic ways in which women are oppressed and mistreated doesn't make much sense. But this is power. The system debated within feminism is about power. Hierarchy is about power and dominance to retain power. A system which is an example of power will have people at the bottom too which will include men when talking in a finical sense. Those men will have their issues too which will stop them moving up the ranks because the world is never straight forward and things change constantly.
The difference between these men and women in general is how they are treated based on sex. The role of women when ascribed through gender remains the same through all of the hierarchy in patriarchal society. What is expected of women is the same. Offering services to the men in the class system they are in or above.
Things are changing, but to deny patriarchy (power structure that benefits men in general) is to deny the reason for feminism.

I see your point - I'm not denying power as a predicate ( that would be absurd), but more trying to question this notion of power as a kind of intangible substance that people possess independent of any kind of structural context. As in 'All these men have power, because they're men and we women have much less of it. Wouldn't it just be great if some of these men could give some of this power to women and then we'd be like soo empowered with our big high powered jobs'? Without specifying a particular kind of power expressed for particular reasons in particular contexts, it doesn't really make any sense to talk about it that way.

To give a really obvs example, I was a club at the weekend and there was a great big guy standing at the door and he was probably the most powerful person in that space. And I was quite glad of that - his power, in that context, made me feel safe. So it's not that power is bad, or that even men with power is a bad thing in certain contexts - it's more particular expressions of male power with misogynist motives. This is almost too obvious a point to male in in a way but it's important.

The focus of what feminist debate should be about, which is the way women are dehumanised as a class on a cultural level and in all sorts of socioeconomic ways too. The hatred of women - and it is a visceral hatred - undergirds our society and culture, but that isn't reducible to a very simple accounting of privileges or all that identity stuff.

But I would add that the socioeconomics of gender has got quite complicated. Obvs women have got hit really hard by the austerity, but in the US they called the recession the 'mancession' because it hit the male, working class labour force really hard. Stereotypically male jobs are disappearing while the job market is being more and more feminised. Of course there's still guys at the top, but there are lots of very economically powerless men at the moment, and it's kind of crass to suggest that they have got economic opportunities and privileges by virtue of being men when they plainly haven't got any.Now of course, that isn't feminism's problem, but I think feminists should appreciate the complexity of discussing gender in terms of power, even though their focus should remain on the very real scourge of misogyny, sexual violence and all the other shittiness that women have to live with everyday.

Because we want to be bringing men on side - the good ones anyway - NOT by letting them hijack our debates with their victimhood bollocks - but just by saying, 'yeah, you suffer oppression and degradation and exploitation in this shitty society too. So don't do the same to us and we're cool'. And there are good ones. We should ditch all that crap about 'toxic masculinity' (masculinity being an essentialist notion which implies it's opposite of femininity). We should focus on misogynist male assholery rather than 'men'.

If white, middle-class, heterosexual, non-Jewish, non-disabled women still get the shitty end of the stick in so many areas of life, doesn't this underline how harmful and entrenched the patriarchy is? Rather than argue that because these women enjoy privileges that their POC, working class, gay / bi, Jewish disabled sisters struggle to access they need to turn their attention elsewhere

Absolutely, that's my point.

trying to question this notion of power as a kind of intangible substance that people possess independent of any kind of structural context. But it's within a structure which is patriarchy. That's is why people try to come up with different structures or systems ( the same thing) where women will strive better and be more equal.
Out side of patriarchy you might get a completely different power structure. That is why I said before on one of the post above, only time will tell what structure we end up with if patriarchy changes.

Without specifying a particular kind of power expressed for particular reasons in particular contexts, it doesn't really make any sense to talk about it that way. People do it all the time on Mn when they post about issues based around sexism or misogyny. When it being dissected, that's exactly what what we are doing.

his power, in that context, made me feel safe. So it's not that power is bad, or that even men with power is a bad thing in certain contexts - it's more particular expressions of male power with misogynist motives. This is almost too obvious a point to male in in a way but it's important. Physical Strength isn't the problem. It unfairness in all walks of life based on sex that's the problem. What they assume women can achieve, not by strength but by intellect. It's also a form of control to make sure they hold the power. Not because there is an invisible strength that women have out there that only now belongs to men. It power dynamics on how we interact and how we view people, what we as a society think a group is worth.
I remember reading somewhere years where housework was estimated to be worth £400 week. That is something that benefits society and women are not paid for. Men who work gain more from it than their wives partner. Yes there are men who stay at home too. But at the moment this not the norm. Why? Patriarchy.

The focus of what feminist debate should be about, which is the way women are dehumanised as a class on a cultural level and in all sorts of socioeconomic ways too. The hatred of women - and it is a visceral hatred - undergirds our society and culture, but that isn't reducible to a very simple accounting of privileges or all that identity stuff.
But that's what intersectionality is, because it looks at the anomaly within feminist concept of how patriarchy works. It's the method to work that out. It does not offer a solution.
There is the basic understanding. The same way you would have with most things. However, our society is complex. Its those complexities that always allows men to mansplain or for even a middle class woman to assume that the way patriarchy works is one dimensional.

Obvs women have got hit really hard by the austerity, but in the US they called the recession the 'mancession' because it hit the male, working class labour force really hard. Stereotypically male jobs are disappearing while the job market is being more and more feminised. This is what I would say. the jobs aren't being feminised. In an ideal world there would be no jobs that would be described as female or male based on gender. There shouldn't be such a thing.

Your problem is changes in types of jobs due to globalisation. some countries that started out in manufacturing like the Uk are moving away from it and becoming a service industry as countries. Technology is the driving force behind it all. The internet, machines robots and the better they become, the less manual labour there will be. Poor countries still see manufacturing as a viable way to grow their countries economically, but to richer nations, its expensive and they rather out source them. That is why you have China doing very well in manufacturing goods. When China becomes expensive, other poorer countries will take over. Only time will tell.

It's like complaints about the closure of coal mines in the uk. From what I have heard and read, the coal mines become too expensive to mine. They were easier to import. Which they do now. They weren't making profits. We all know business can only survive if they are making a profit. Unless it's being done for charity or to fill up someone's time and they didn't care whether they made loses or profits.

(Goodness me! I didn't know my A-level geography would come in handy )

@OlennasWimple the problem isn't that they don't receive any form of sexism. It's the fact that they can be in denial of what other people experience when it's out side of their realm or surrounding because they don't experience it. It's the assumption that we are the same. We are not and issues should be dealt with according to the situations that arise.

The other, that can be referred to in terms of privilege is that they get to have a voice more than most people. However, that voice is always not representative of everyone.
They have the privilege of better education. Which can be used as a form of defence and power assertion. It also, offers them better opportunities at getting jobs. racism and classism still plays a part in some cases where it's not about the best person for the job.

As a group of women, they have better standing in society to influence most women.
Their power from the lanes of racism is created by patriarchy through imperialism. It's something that has never left and will remain part of history even if we are to change as people. The view of white women vs the rest of the worlds women.

Women should not be confined to the home and jobs should not be gendered - but we're a long way off from de-gendering the jobs market.

Here's the thing. If you want domestic chores and child care equalized then all men and women will need the opportunity of a part time job that pays them so much that they can both share childcare etc. Or there is going to have to be a basic unearned income.

That is going to mean a massive redustribution of wealth from the top and upper middle to the poor.

That is going to mean a massive redustribution of wealth from the top and upper middle to the poor.

This is exactly what it means.

This idea that the future will be a gradual recovery back to where we were is terribly misguided. A capitalism based on ever-increasing consumption (which is inherent to capitalism) cannot continue. We are approaching the ends of key resources, and the rest of the world, rightly, ares questioning why the West can enjoy these levels of opulence (to them).

In the past we could enforce these global inequalities by gunboat. It looks like we are building military reserves to again attempt to settle things by arms. That way cannot be allowed to happen; it would mean complete destruction.

Nor have we soberly acknowledged the role of risk in financial markets. There can be no risk-free finance....finance is risk. There is no way to guarantee that every bet will be a winner.

We are seeing now the effects of the crash...forestalled for a time....but inevitable. Cuts to the poor, the disabled, the sick. And these are but the tip of the iceberg. And, as always, we are seeing that women are bearing the full brunt...we know who an "unpaid carer" is.

Capitalism is patriarchy....a daemon known by different names. It is power/advantage wielded against those in less powerful positions for gain....the very definition of the free market.

Just want to say something about privilege a man has male privilege irrespective of his social class or ethnicity. A white person has white privilege irrespective of their social class or sex. An upper class/ middle class person has class privilege irrespective of their ethnicity or sex.
You are barking up the wrong tree if you say "in hypothetical situation x, does hypothetical person a or hypothetical person b have greater privilege".
Privilege is only visible to those who don't share it. Sorry more I could say... I need to finish this post later..

It's a different approach. I think class analysis is the only reasonable way of looking at structural oppression, with the understanding that male/female oppression is compounded by other types of class oppression.

Male dominance/oppression of the female can happen in a classless society. For example a tribe where males use their physical strength to overpower females, their penises/semen to rape/forcibly impregnate females and the vulnerability of pregnancy/breastfeeding/protecting small children to intimidate and control females to do their bidding/carrying out the majority of the menial work. The fact that any male born to this tribe will enjoy an absence of this sex oppression, and will most likely benefit from it is his male privilege from birth. Nothing to do with economics.

Women in the upper classes can be passed over for title/inheritance that goes straight to their younger brother, they can also be victims of DV, incest, etc at the same rate as females of other social classes, but of course childcare and menial work will be farmed out to women of a lower social classes.

I don't mean economics. I mean class as in category.

I agree with you, User, about privilege.

What you're saying is a well established critique of the ideology of privilege.

It cannot be a privilege to expect a thorough police investigation if you are assaulted or to not have to be worried about being put in a concentration camp.

The expectation of such things is about basic human rights. The fact that many people are in such situations is a serious human rights violation.

I also agree with posters who have pointed out that capitalism depends upon women's unpaid labour.