Intersectional feminist or intersectional feminist ally?

[Hundredacrewoods]

I'm aware of the view that men cannot be feminists, only feminist allies. It seems to me that if you extend that logic, a woman can't be an intersectional feminist unless she herself experiences disadvantages (based on race, disability, class etc.) that intersect with gender based disadvantages - she could only be an intersectional feminist ally. Interested to hear thoughts.

Honestly it sounds like tounge twisting for tounge twisting sake.

As a white woman I can see the oppression of other woman. I can see that it will be different to mine. Should I speak for black woman? Not if they are there. If there is only white woman I should try and illuminate the additional burdens Black woman have.

I think your logic is right, if you accept the first premise. I don’t, for reasons similar to those ICJump uses above as to why she can be an intersectional feminist.

Yes I agree with the logic and I think that some intersectional try to practice that by applying labels such as "white feminist" to certain people/ideas to shut them down.
The thing is though if you follow that logic you end up with only a very very limited number of people who can be feminists (queer fisabled non binary trans women of colour for example).

I'd say men can't be feminists because they are not a subset of women. Which is not the same thing as feminist women incorporating other barriers faced by subsets of women into their feminism.

That said, this proposal also assumes the newfangled individualist understanding of intersectionalism, which demands "lived experience" as the ultimate arbiter of everything. I'm no more big on that than I am all the other pomo stuff.

I prefer the original type of intersectionalism as proposed by Crenshaw, which is a structural critique and has nothing to do with individual identities or identity politics.

"The thing is though if you follow that logic you end up with only a very very limited number of people who can be feminists"

Yy. And then technically, even if you experience an intersectional oppression (say you are a disabled woman) you still can't comment on intersectionality unless you experience the particular oppression (say racism) being discussed. So then are you an intersectional feminist or an ally?

I think it's a tad more complicated than whether men can be feminists

Men can be feminist allies. (In theory, and I wish more genuinely were, instead of paying the usual half arsed lip service). I tend to have a pretty high bar against which men get measured before I'd even consider telling one they were. They certainly couldn't claim it if they weren't doing the work.

I do wish Piers Morgan would stop telling women how to do feminism, because he really bad at it.

I had to be brought up to speed on this whole intersection thing, and as I understand it was a term first coined by a black woman to describe the intersecting oppressions of gender and race that black women experience. I would say that it would therefore be a good thing to be an intersectional ally but I would imagine before claiming to be so, I would need to make sure that I was doing the work of an ally, and it wouldn't be me who could claim being an ally.

Intersectionalists deny the ability to empathise and the ability to think about abstract concepts and apply them to personal beliefs. This is dangerous ground as LangCleg says in the comment.

If you share exactly the same beliefs as a black female feminist but are a white male does this mean you can't be a feminist? Is feminism about being a woman rather than being about an idea? If the answer is yes then identity politics and it's attendant divisions and strife are the natural result. I say no.

Dons flame retardant suit.

I had to be brought up to speed on this whole intersection thing, and as I understand it was a term first coined by a black woman to describe the intersecting oppressions of gender and race that black women experience.

Well, yes, kind of. Kimberle Crenshaw is a legal scholar. I saw her speak in London a couple of years ago and she is fantastic. She coined the term intersectional to speak to the inadequacy of single axis discrimination legislation - you can legislate banning employment discrimination against women and, separately, against black people. But by doing so, you allow employers to employ women (who are white) and black people (who are men) but no black women. So black women have no recourse in law. This means that structural discrimination for black women is reinforced and made worse by single axis anti-discrimination legislation.

This original form of intersectionalism has a class analysis. It deals with laws, institutions and social structures. It has nothing whatsoever to do with interpersonal interactions or so-called lived experience. This individualist stuff is the new, widespread version of intersectionalism. Personally, I think the original version is true and very useful in directing activism towards making genuine change. But the new one is as derailing and useless to actual liberation from oppression as all the other pomo nonsense. It just degenerates into tone policing and the oppression Olympics.

My problem with male people (both trans and not) who claim to be feminists in their own right is the lack of recognition in most cases that there are barriers to women speaking up and putting their needs first. So they often talk over women.

Personally, I think the original version is true and very useful in directing activism towards making genuine change. But the new one is as derailing and useless to actual liberation from oppression as all the other pomo nonsense. It just degenerates into tone policing and the oppression Olympics.

YY my thoughts exactly.