Start of Intersectional feminism
Intersection is the feminism is a concept first explained by Kimberle Crenshaw 30 years ago as the experience of intersection that is beyond racsim and sexism. On Friday, during a panel discussion at the annual Netroots Nation conference in Atlanta, she gave a gloss on intersectionality in a way that made clear the immense value of the concept.
“There are many, many different kinds of intersectional exclusions ― not just black women, but other women of color,” Crenshaw said. “Not just people of color, but people with disabilities. Immigrants. LGBTQ people. Indigenous people.”
“The way we imagine discrimination or disempowerment often is more complicated for people who are subjected to multiple forms of exclusion,” she continued. “The good news is that intersectionality provides us a way to see it.”
Crenshaw noted some of the ways in which intersectional feminism helps activists advocate for women of all backgrounds and identities.
Crewnshaw realized that there was a gap in the feminist theory that excluded the intersections of black women. She developed intersectional feminism to allow those gaps to be viewed from a feminist stand point. “The development of Crenshaw’s intersectionality, originated from the failure of both feminist and anti-racist discourse; to represent and capture the specificity of the discrimination faced by black women. This failure resulted from an inability to identify the multiple grounds which constitute an individual’s identity; meaning that well-intentioned scholarship was unable to acknowledge and address the specific ways in which race and gender could mutually reinforce discrimination against black women (kings)”.
Intersectionality theory viewed at the micro or individual level, is a concept that helps us think about the ways that a person might be oppressed in one category, and be privileged in another. A person is likely not simply an “oppressor” nor simply “oppressed.” It is the idea that we all hold multiple categories of identity within each of us.
Understanding Eco-Feminist principle
The goal of ecofeminism is to have a healthy balanced eco-system, including human and non-human inhabitants. We must maintain diversity and renew our understanding of the relationship we (humans) have with nature.
Building western industrial civilization in opposition to nature, ecofeminist take on life-struggles of all nature as our own.
Eco feminism and Intersectionality
A.E. Kings describes it as “using tools of intersectionality to help illuminate the interconnectedness of race, class, gender, disability, sexuality, caste, religion, age, and the discrimination, oppression, and identity of women and the natural environment”.
Because women and nature face similar oppression, intersectionality helps open up a better understanding to define the inequalities between both.
Here is an example of the two connections. “For black women there is a lack of recognition for combating environmental racism within the environmental justice movement. Black women are involved with environmental justice movements because environmental racism often directly affects their homes, families, and communities. For example the Flint water crisis. It’s impact created a higher miscarriage rate and a reduction in fertility for black women in that area (BFT)”.
http://aapf.org/media/2017/12/kimberl-crenshaw-explains-the-power-of-intersectional-feminism-in-1-minute
https://medium.com/black-feminist-thought-2016/the-necessity-of-black-women-s-standpoint-and-intersectionality-in-environmental-movements-fc52d4277616
https://muse-jhu-edu.libproxy.umassd.edu/article/660551
You make some very key points on the connections in intersectionality. A.E. Kings statement you put rings true for me. The pieces that really stir me up is the lack of dialogue happening in Flint and the mass black women affected. How would you really change what is happening in Flint? I’m thinking when we don’t look at the world as a all connected there is problems and I think you helped me to see that clarity of much much it is a necessary piece to change and equality. Viewing intersectionality as a connected web that we are connected to Nature and nature to us and when we are sick the earth is sick. I don’t know if many can really grasp how huge that feels. Even as a women I am blown away by how connected everyone is. Do you feel that hierarchy is part of the problem? Audre Lorde states we must get rid of the hierarchy before equality can happen. I think the intersectionality can be confusing more so for those that don’t experience the world as a minority.
Hi Sierra,
I really like the quote you used, ‘“The way we imagine discrimination or dis-empowerment often is more complicated for people who are subjected to multiple forms of exclusion,” she continued. “The good news is that intersectionality provides us a way to see it.”’ I feel like it is easy to continue institutionalized oppression when you don’t see it for yourself. So much of being able to make a change is having peoples voices heard and letting them be seen. Intersectionality is the start to giving marginalized groups within a larger oppressed community a platform to speak on. I think it just helps to have a name for it!
You say we need diversity and to restore our connection to nature. I see the connection between our ecosystem and the way humans interact with each other. I feel like what you are saying is intersectionality shows the necessity to appreciate the diverse relations we have as humans and shows what happens when diversity is exploited and taken for granted, like we have done with nature. Celebrating our diversity will bring us closer to appreciating natures diversity, and the power of a well-balanced ecosystem.