Has the Feminism *Chat* link disappeared?

[TooBigForMyBoots]

From Sex and Gender, or is it a glitch? The Sex snd Gender link is still on my Chat but I can't click a link to Chat from here.

Yes, it's gone from the main board but it's still there when you're in a discussion thread like this one.

When did that happen? Wasn't it available before?

Yes it was there before. A week or two ago it changed. There's now some gubbins there about how this is a forum for intersectional feminist theory and gender chat.

So they removed a helpful UX link, to use the space to tell us something we already know. Nice work MN!

Thanks for clearing that up @VoodooQualities, I thought I might have done something on my phone.

Never considered this place intersectional. I thought that sort of thing was looked down on as identity politics here.

I found the relevant(?) thread in Site Stuff. Will read it later on for more clarity.

I can't think how you picked up that impression about the value of Crenshaw's intersectional work. There is much to be gained from considering overlapping systems of oppression and power dynamics: Intersectionality was a prism to bring to light dynamics within discrimination law that weren't being appreciated by the courts.

The concept of intersectionality has been appropriated - like so much else - to try and argue that a historically very powerful class of human has suddenly become opressed. The original concept remains very important.

Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw originally developed intersectional theory using the case DeGraffenreid v. General Motors. At General Motors, Black women were not employed in the office so they sued GM for discrimination.
General Motors won the case. They were held to be not racist because they employed Black men on the assembly line; and not sexist because they employed women in the office.
So Black women effectively stood at an intersection where two characteristics meet, and were left unprotected by equality laws that were supposed to protect them.

''The experience of being a black woman cannot be understood in terms of being black and of being a woman considered independently, but must include the interactions between the two, which frequently reinforce each other.''

That's very interesting, 'intersectionality' makes sense to me now.

What a shame the meaning has been so warped.