LIT 11 - Crenshaw Intersectionality Flashcards
What is Intersectionality Crenshaw?
Intersectionality is a concept coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a prominent American civil rights advocate and scholar of critical race theory, in her 1989 article “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics”¹.
The term refers to the way various aspects of a person’s identity, such as race, gender, social class, and sexuality, interact and overlap to create unique experiences of privilege or oppression¹. Crenshaw introduced this concept to address the limitations of viewing discrimination through a single lens, arguing that the experiences of Black women, for example, are shaped by both race- and gender-based prejudices¹².
Intersectionality has since been expanded to include a wide range of social classifications, such as socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, age, and physical or intellectual disabilities¹. It provides a framework for understanding how different forms of discrimination and disadvantage intersect and compound each other in the lives of individuals¹.
What is Intersectionality?
Crenshaw uses the term “intersectionality” to highlight the unique experiences and challenges faced by individuals who exist at the intersection of multiple social categories
What is Crenshaw’s 1991 article about?
Kimberlé Crenshaw’s 1991 article, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color,” examines how the experiences of women of colour, particularly in relation to violence, are shaped by the intersection of racism and sexism
What is structural intersectionality? Crenshaw
Structural Intersectionality
● Structural intersectionality refers to how social structures and systems create and perpetuate the marginalisation of women of colour.
● Crenshaw illustrates this concept through her field study of battered women’s shelters in minority communities in Los Angeles.
● The study found that shelters serving women of colour must address not only the violence inflicted by batterers but also the interconnected forms of oppression, such as poverty, unemployment, and lack of job skills, that hinder these women from escaping abusive situations.
What are examples of structural intersectionality affecting woman of colour? Crenshaw
The Marriage Fraud Amendments of 1986, although aimed at preventing immigration fraud, created obstacles for immigrant women seeking waivers to escape abusive spouses.
○ These amendments required evidence of abuse that many immigrant women, due to cultural barriers and limited access to resources, were unable to obtain.
● Undocumented women are particularly vulnerable to sexual abuse due to their precarious legal status and fear of deportation. They often face limited access to legal and social services, making it difficult to report abuse or seek help.
● Many shelters lack resources to serve non-English-speaking women, further isolating them from support systems.
● Rape crisis centres in minority communities face unique challenges, including serving a population with fewer resources and navigating cultural barriers that discourage reporting or seeking help
What is Political Intersectionality? Crenshaw
Political Intersectionality
● Political intersectionality highlights how the political agendas of both antiracist and feminist movements have often marginalised the issue of violence against women of colour.
● Crenshaw demonstrates this dynamic through her experience of attempting to access data on domestic violence interventions from the Los Angeles Police Department.
● Activists feared that statistics revealing the prevalence of domestic violence in minority communities could be used to undermine efforts to address the issue seriously, potentially leading to the dismissal of domestic violence as a “minority problem”.
What are examples of political intersectionality? Crenshaw
Examples of political intersectionality affecting women of colour:
● Within some communities of colour, addressing domestic violence is seen as potentially divisive and harmful to community unity, leading to the suppression of the issue.
○Shahrazad Ali’s book, The Blackman’s Guide to Understanding the Blackwoman, exemplifies this perspective by blaming Black women for community problems and advocating for male dominance.
●The controversy surrounding Alice Walker’s novel, The Colour Purple, highlights the internal debates within the Black community about the political consequences of exposing gender violence.
●The focus on demonstrating that domestic violence is not exclusively a problem of minority or poor communities can inadvertently marginalise the experiences of women of colour. The emphasis on appealing to dominant social groups can obscure the need to address the unique challenges faced by women of colour.
●The media often portrays domestic violence in a way that reinforces stereotypes and ignores the complexities of the issue, particularly when the victims are women of colour.
●Feminist organisations often lack the cultural competency and resources to effectively serve non-English-speaking women, creating barriers to accessing support services
What is Representional Intersectionality? Crenshaw
Representational Intersectionality
● Representational intersectionality focuses on how cultural representations of women of colour often fail to capture their unique experiences at the intersection of race and gender.
● Crenshaw uses the controversy surrounding the obscenity prosecution of the rap group 2 Live Crew to illustrate this concept.
● While opposing the prosecution, Crenshaw critiques both the defence’s focus on cultural expression and the prosecution’s reliance on racist stereotypes that portray Black men as hypersexual and violent.
● She argues that the debate surrounding 2 Live Crew ultimately fails to address the interests of Black women, who are often objectified and dehumanised in rap music
What are the examples of representional intersectionality? Crenshaw
Examples of representational intersectionality affecting women of colour:
●The selective prosecution of 2 Live Crew, while overlooking other artists with similar or more explicit content, highlights how racist stereotypes contribute to the perception of Black male sexuality as uniquely obscene.
●The court’s dismissal of 2 Live Crew’s artistic claims, by reinterpreting culturally specific elements of their music in generic terms, demonstrates how Black cultural expression is often devalued or misrepresented.
●The use of Black women’s experiences with violence and degradation to justify the prosecution of 2 Live Crew illustrates how women of colour are often instrumentalised in debates that do not ultimately serve their interests.
