'My feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit" - Flavia Drozdan

[JenniferJames]

A frustrated Flavia Drozdan once wrote this line in an essay which opened up a raging debate within feminism about who, exactly, feminism is for. Interested to hear people's thoughts?

Will check back, ppl. Mumsnet: you are mighty. 👊

So this is the danger in intersectional egalitarianism - that it is easy to view those with a 'class' of privilege you don't have as a bunch of sexist/snobby/racist/homophobic/disablist/etc (delete as appropriate) bastards - rather than perfectly good-willed people who simply can't see your plight.

Feminism (and egalitarianism) is all about examining where we fall short, where people are left behind and trying to address that.

Also why are we being asked about this? My take on Drozdan is that she's chosen the second option and her feminism is indeed bullshit.

I think it's to tell us how to be the 'right'-(on) kind of feminist.

And it is important to gather in smaller groups around a shared oppression to support each other to articulate and strengthen your understanding of some painful reality of your lives in privacy, dealing with all those nasty feelings of guilt, fear and shame, before sharing it with the wider group.

For example - 'colourism' - white people generally have no idea about it. They (in the UK) normally have a crude classification of 'black', Chinese, Indian and 'white' in terms of race. But colourism particularly affects WoC - darker-skinned girls can feel they are treated as not the ones to be 'stepped out with' and treated as lesser, just for sex, etc, whereas 'light-skin girls' are the prize among black men. Black men aren't discriminated against in the same way, to the same degree at all.

I would feel like such an arse to intrude upon women consciousness-raising about something as personal and painful as this, but really appreciate the women who have done so and shared about it.

It has caused a shift in both feminism and anti-racism and helps egalitarians to be more vigilant and challenge it.

This is why you can have no 'trans' whatsoever in this. Imagine Rachel Dolezal sitting in on WoC sharing about colourism? It couldn't happen until she left the room.

Just the same - women can't discuss sexism until the men (whether they are in make up and tights or not) leave the room and close that door behind them.

women can't discuss sexism until the men (whether they are in make up and tights or not) leave the room and close that door behind them

I'm stealing that!

Angry and little
Sorry to have carried on like you weren't there. I am writing on my phone and it has a nasty habit of losing posts half way so I posted in sections.

I think we are being asked because there are some fuckwits who are addicted to loathing women and Flavia's bullshit lit the blue touch paper.
I bet you there are pomo fuck wits (ie TRA handmaidens) aplenty who still see it as an 'important feminist text'.

Go ahead lang thanks

Eh, no worries, your deconstruction is a lot more useful than my irritable eye rolling in terms of any lurkers who might be reading.

Not looking to be picky OP, but you spelt her surname wrong. It's Dzodan.

Dzodan wrote that essay as a woman of colour, and an immigrant. Intersectional feminism looks at the intersections of oppression black women and women of colour face both by being women, and because of being black/of colour. (Like Dzodan), structurally, politically and representationally. It was Patricia Hill Collins in the 1990's who then developed 3 main frameworks to analyse the various impacts of intersectional oppressions:

background (ideas, conflicts, history, debate);
social institutions
critical praxis

The theory however is not new - for example Anna Julia Cooper's 1892 essay "The Coloured Woman's Office" identified black and coloured women as being key to social change, because of the differing levels of oppression to which they are subject, and not just in terms of race and gender.

Other Latina women of colour have also developed theories as they relate to their experiences, because differing contexts means that how that oppression (gendered/racial/social etc) performs differently in different cultural contexts. Theorists such as Vrushali Patil and Marie-Claire Belleau look at how intersectionality can be utilised strategically, and how it impacts in terms of cultural hierarchies'.

It is important to recognise that Dzodan, Hill Collins, Crenshaw et al, were and are speaking in the context of being of colour/black, is also at the root of the theory of misogynoir by Moya Bailey (2010, I think, published by the Crunk Collective), and further developed by Trudy/Gradient Lair who also developed the theory of transmisogynoir.

Dzodan wrote that essay because she was frustrated, by any number of things, as a Latina immigrant woman because western feminism is sometimes a little ... cloth eared... to the specific situations that women Dzodan face and deal with, which too often western feminists co-opt or are tone deaf to. Link here, if anyone wants to read it:

tigerbeatdown.com/2011/10/10/my-feminism-will-be-intersectional-or-it-will-be-bullshit/

See what I mean about some #@*$# seeing it "as an important feminist text'."
Right on cue

My mental clock was already ticking down...

And the patronising, half-baked put down came a little quicker than usual - well done GL. You must have been training hard these past few days, I can see its paying off.

I'm going to stick my head above the parapet and say that some of Dzodan's recent stuff about big data is actually quite interesting.

(Can't stand the critical theory wank, as you'd expect.)

To be fair Luner I do actually appreciate you putting together your thoughtful post and it isn't right for be to me so dismissive.

But that the Tiger Beatdown article is a piece of hate-mongering drivel and isn't worth validating.

Also, the category of 'Latina' doesn't really make much sense in Europe.

In the UK it tends to only be people with military backgrounds who use/know about terms like 'Spick' or 'I-ti, maybe 'Daigo' but 'Frog' and 'Kraut' are the main European negative stereotypes - there's probably something for Poles as well that I don't know.
Most non-UK Europeans are just seen as 'foreigners' without much nuance.

And I thought in mainlaind Europe - Holland/Germany there is more a dislike of Turks rather than the American 'Latina' umbrella (arisen by specifically American patterns of settling).
So Dzodan's piece is a crude stamping of American analysis on her European experience - which is slightly annoying coming from people who claim to be all about the nuance.

My feminism is about women, I've said it on here before. My feminism always has and always will centre women (and to clarify this is people born female) IF the fact they are women also combines with other prejudice they may face for their race, sexuality, disabilities then I will fight alongside them because they are women and I will try to understand the additional prejudice they face. I will support them because they are women. My feminism is not 'trans exclusionary' because it very firmly includes trans men.

I understand the intention behind intersectional feminism and I do appreciate the value of it when it comes to the black women's feminism, to being lesbian etc. and it has made me more aware of the additional issues many women face and I have become more educated about them as a result - which can only be a good thing. My feminism was and still is about the dismantling of patriarchal structures and supporting other women. This will take into consideration other issues as that is part of supporting women but not to the exclusion of central women's issues/ radical feminist issues and certainly not to uphold patriarchal structures.

Totally agree Madam

Here is a picture of Flavia Dzodan. There is nothing in her appearance which could be visibly 'racialised' is there? She's white.

She could be Irish, Scottish, whatever, just looking at her. So it is odd for her to square her own experience with people who could be systematically excluded and racialised by their appearance.

I've got a cousin (100% Scottish) who looks like her.

Here is John Lennon explaining (mansplaining?) the song he wrote with Yoko Ono , that was quoted on a placard by a woman on a Sltwalk - which led to self-claimed WoC Flavia Dzodan's launch into the furious post on Tiger Beatdown.

She makes no mention of the John/Yoko thing, so I assume she didn't have a clue why it was on a placard, or the fact that the woman on the Sl*twalk was quoting an Asian woman.

She's using American terms and relying on European unfamiliarity with those terms to create her persona.