INTERSECTIONAL FEMINISM: what is it, types, books and phrases

Feminism is a social and political movement born out of the need to end the oppression of women. Despite maintaining its objective, this movement has been evolving and incorporating new currents and contributions that nurture the knowledge of feminist theory. Currently, the concept of intersectionality it is key to understanding the contemporary feminist movement.

If you want to know what intersectional feminism is, keep reading our Psychology-Online article about intersectional feminism: what is it, types, books and phrases.

Since the early 1960s, the feminist movement began to question systematically the universality of a single female subject (Western, heterosexual and bourgeois white woman) as representative of the reality of all women and of the category "woman". This universal subject omitted and ignored the differences of race, class and sexuality, for which reason it was questioned that the knowledge produced from feminism was universal and could be generalized to the experience of all women.

That is why, since the 1960s, black feminism has criticized the discourse of white middle-class women as central within the hegemonic feminist movement. This critique therefore focuses on liberal feminism, whose feminism is individualistic and reflects only the values ​​of a part of women, in this case, privileged white women without including the rest of the women.

Thus, the activist Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 coins the term intersectionality which refers to the approach by which each subject suffers oppressions or discrimination based on their belonging to different social categories, among which we find gender, race, class, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, etc.

These oppressions interact with each other and are intertwined. Thus, they must be analyzed simultaneously and merged, and not as separate and independent categories, in order to fully address and understand one's identity. The latter implies not analyzing the experience as "woman" and "immigrant" separately, but rather as "immigrant woman".

What is intersectionality

The intersectionality in feminism shows that the experience of a middle-class white woman is not the same as that of a black woman of the black class due to the breed component, just as it is not that of a middle-class black woman practicing as a doctor and that of a poor immigrant black woman due to the class component. Intersectionality argues that the more a subject deviates from the norm, in this case man heterosexual wealthy white man, he will be traversed by further discriminations or oppressions, intertwined with Yes.

However, before the appearance of the term "intersectional", this denounces feminism as a movement not representative of reality and oppressions of all women was already carried out to the suffrage movement, early 20th century, among others by Sojourner Truth and Flora Tristan. Sojourner was a black slave who spoke of the double oppression of being a woman and a black woman, while Flora reveals the double oppression of being a woman and a worker.

The definition of intersectional feminism is one that recognizes that there is no single axis of oppression, gender, that has to be taken into account in the theory and practice of gender. Feminist movement, which would transversal feminism, which omits oppressions and defends the category of woman as unitary and abstract.

Rather, intersectional feminism recognizes and defends that there are multiple intersecting axes of discrimination. This feminism is what breaks with the universality of the experience of women and is built by the diversity of women and their experiences and struggles. Therefore, intersectional feminism is not based on the premise of unifying identity and seeking the interests shared by all women, but rather arises from recognize different needs and experiences of all women, and defends alliances as the basis of the collective organization of the movement.

With this decentration of the political subject of feminism and as a result of intersectional feminism, they include different feminisms already existing and previous to the concept of intersectional feminism, as well as other new. The different feminisms they arise from the need to complete feminist theory. They are a reflection of the different concerns and discriminations of women.

• Black feminism: Regarding the category of “race”, it is during the movement to defend black identity in the 1960s when black feminism criticizes the representation of black women from the hegemonic discourse predominant. They defended the existence of the intersectionality of race, gender and class.
• Lesbian feminism: became popular between 1970 and 1980, arises from the union of the feminist and homosexual movements, and analyzes discrimination against women from the axis of compulsory heterosexuality as a system and institution. Likewise, it criticizes the discrimination of lesbian women within the hegemonic feminist movement.
• Chicano feminism: movement initiated by Hispanic women that lays the foundations of border thinking and reflects the being and coming of a border. They demand their right to recognize themselves with more than one identity not yet recognized by the prevailing feminism.
• Indigenous feminism: movement in which women have a double militancy or struggle: the gender struggle and the struggle for the autonomy of their roots and peoples, as well as the defense of their culture.
• Arab feminism: feminism of the Arab world of the late twentieth century that defended women's rights, secular identity and independence from European colonialist domination.
• Gypsy feminism: look for the gender equality real between women and men, but they also criticize and point out ethnic-racial and socioeconomic privileges as a source of oppression of Roma women.
• Socialist feminism: This movement places the oppression of women not only in the patriarchal system, but also in the capitalist, defending that the liberation of women will only be a reality when both are put to an end systems.
• Transfeminism: apart from the struggle for the liberation of women, it conceptualizes gender as an oppressive system that seeks to control, limit and adapt those bodies that do not conform to the regulations socially.

These are some of the feminist movements that can be identified today, however, the reality is changing and Voices of women and activists continually emerge denouncing the oppressions experienced by the group to which they belong, such as the women disabled, prostitutes, neurodivergent, etc. It is necessary to listen to all of them and carry out an exercise in critical reflection on our own ideas, attitudes and practices within feminism.

Here is a list with a selection of books on intersectional feminism so that you can learn more and train in the movement:

• Women and madness. Phyllis Chesler (1972).
• The lesbian body. Monique Witting (1973).
• Women, race and class. Angela Davis (1981).
• The sister, the foreigner. Audre Lourde (1984).
• Half of the sky. Claudie Broyelle (1987).
• The new mestizo. Border. Gloria Anzaldúa (1987).
• Encounters with strangers: Feminism and disability. Jenny Morris (1997).
• Feminism is for everyone. Bell Hooks (2000).
• The harem in the West. Fatema Mernissi (2001).
• Fires in the dark. Louise Doughty (2003).
• Letter from an indignant woman, from the Maghreb to Europe. Wassyla Tamzali (2011).
• Transfeminisms: epistemes, frictions and flows. Mariam Solá (2013).
• Women and class struggle. Alexandra Kollontai (2016 year of edition in Spanish).
• Indigenous women in defense of the land. Aimé Tapia González (2018).
• Dissidence in the body: feminist perspectives. VV.AA. (2019).
• Difficult women. Roxanne Gay (2019)

Next, we will see different phrases of intersectional feminism from different promoters of the intersectional movement:

• "What is the aim of the bourgeois feminists? Get the same advantages, the same power, the same rights in capitalist society that your husbands, fathers and brothers now have. What is the objective of the socialist workers? Abolish all kinds of privileges derived from birth or wealth. "Alexandra Kollontai.
• “I am a feminist, so I know the contradictions that exist. I believe in making contradictions productive, not in having to choose one side or the other. Unlike choosing one or the other, I will choose both. " Angela Davis.
• "I will not be a free woman as long as there are still women subjected." Audre Lourde.
• “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept and celebrate those differences. " Audre Lourde.
• "Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression." Bell Hooks.
• “Feminist politics intends to end domination so that we can be free, to be who we are, to live lives in which we embrace justice, in which we can live in peace. ” Bell Hooks.
• “The feminist movement has to dream of something more than the elimination of the oppression of women, he has to dream of the elimination of sexualities and compulsory sex roles. " Gayle Rubin.
• "To be an intersectional feminist is to give other women rights and the opportunity to choose things that we would not necessarily choose for one." Georgina Orellano.
• “Feminism is a political thought, a social movement and a way of life. Being so many things, the normal thing is that there are many interpretations, many ways of being it. In fact, it is such critical thinking, so transformative and so constantly evolving that there are a lot of open debates ”. Irantzu Varela
• “Keep learning to defend each other. To generate spaces of safety and collective joy. To minimize the immense damage we receive when we respond to their violence. Not to question each other and empathize politically. Not to blame ourselves for the alliances that we choose and not those that we do not choose. " Itziar Ziga.
• “You don't necessarily have to do something once you accept your privilege. You don't need to apologize for him. You have to understand the extent of your privilege, the consequences of your privilege, and remember that there are different people than how you move and experience the world, in ways you may never know. " Roxanne Gay.

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Intersectional feminism: what it is, types, books and phrases