Incorporating Inclusiveness in the New Year

Reflections on Intersectionality

Systems of privilege and inequality exist in culture and are marked by differences that relate to a norm. When norms are broken, there are consequences. Women and Gender Studies is a means to analyze the complicated interactions of multiple identities. Awareness of privilege and discrimination, as related to perspectives and context, can contribute to change. In her essay “Intersectionality”, Vivian M. May says, “Intersectionality calls for analytic methods, modes of political action, and ways of thinking about persons, rights, and liberation informed by multiplicity.”(WVFV 81)

Normative and conventional elements run like power cables under a building, unseen, but the source of all available energy to drive essential services. Stereotypes operate as short cuts, speed up society, but result in unequal treatment of nonconforming groups.  Intersectionality points out these areas of oppression of all forms, not just sexism and racism, in order to pinpoint different aspects that contribute to disharmony. It is crucial to ferret out those elusive elements which lurk in individual experience to influence context. 

May points out that “Some forms of dependence (heteronormative, middle class) are more idealized (e.g., women’s dependence on men who are their fathers or husbands for protection and care), whereas others are stigmatized as deviant and in need of remediation (e.g., poor women’s dependency on the state via welfare) (80)”.  One is socially approved; the other perceived negatively.

In the case of disability issues, intersectionality may actually diminish activism. The issues are indistinguishable from each other when placed in opposition, as “enabled” versus “disabled”.  The accent on oppression diminishes universal issues of handicapped persons because it assumes a political norm for physical lack of access.  By insisting on classism and racism to prove discrimination, intersectionality interferes with change predicated on disability and gender.

Alison Kafer, writing in Feminist, Queer Crip, voices her concerns about cultural and social stigma from stereotypes concerning persons outside the hetereonormative existence. The FBL billboards messages emphasize “courage”, “determination”, “opportunity”. She says, “Who is involved in determining the characteristics valued in a particular community? Who is included in—or excluded from---the community itself? (100)” The pop culture approach to the physically disabled, as only needing to work harder, or change their attitudes toward their limitations, must be contested. She advocates for activism and dissent.

May says, “Intersectionality offers a vision of future possibilities that can be more fully realized once a shift toward the multiple takes place”. (81)  When surface assumptions create a norm that seems to accommodate most of the population, it runs the danger of becoming stagnant. One example, concerning Brazil, is found in Intersectionality by Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge. Since Brazil has a history of colonial invaders intermarrying with native peoples, it has promoted a policy of racial democracy.  This seems inclusive on the surface, but a group of feminists with African roots gathered to protest being homogenized. Coming together as African-centered women to preserve heritage is a locus-resource for non-blacks to experience.

  Narrowing into specific interest groups therefore provides an almost infinite number of intersections. This “shift toward the multiple” fertilizes the imagination and stimulates change.  What might seem counter-productive for Brazil’s political theory of racial democracy, might lead to other groups following their example. What may seem positive, by subscribing to popular community values, is actually counter-productive for a disabled individual whose perspective from a bed or chair will never change.  Piercing the stereotype of limitations will go a long way to enable empathy and activism. This heightened awareness of the “other”, whether racism, sexism, classism, or crip, will result in greater sensitivity and appreciation for all kinds of diversity.

 

Understanding the approaches that enable tolerance among human beings of all races, cultures, and ranges of ability is absolutely necessary for survival of the species.