Intersectional Feminism

When you think of the word “feminist” what comes to mind? Do you think of the Women’s March? Do you think of the Women’s Suffrage movement? Now let's focus specifically on the stereotypes of a feminist. Maybe loud, ugly, gay, can't get a man, unshaven legs. These stereotypes were first frequently portrayed through political articles and cartoons in mainstream newspapers as the suffrage movement started to gain momentum. It is obvious that not all women can fit into a stereotype, so why should all women’s experiences in relation to feminism be the same? Intersectional feminism was formally defined by American professor Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 as, “The view that women experience oppression in varying configurations and in varying degrees of
While she will never experience the racism and homophobia that I face, I will likely never experience the economic hardships she faces in struggling to raise her children. However, in discussing feminism, one must address a prominent question posed by many: Is feminism still relevant in today’s society? Naomi Wolf, author, journalist, and political advisor to Al Gore and Bill Clinton once said, “The enemy is not lipstick, but guilt itself, that we deserve lipstick, if we want it, and free speech; we deserve to be sexual AND serious… or whatever we please; we are entitled to wear cowboy boots to our own revolution.” In the US, the gender pay gap still exists, access to reproductive healthcare is becoming more limited, protection against sexual assault and violence is a joke, and representation in the media is confined to about five stereotypes. In many countries outside the US, women are not entitled to own property or inherit land. Social exclusion and restriction, honor killings, genital mutilation, trafficking, and child marriage among others restrict women from advancing in society and deny basic human
The purpose of intersectional feminism is to draw light to the fact that feminism cannot be represented only by white, middle-class, cisgendered, straight, able-bodied women as it has been for so long, because it refuses to acknowledge the hurdles other people face. The existence of this philosophy might initially be refuted, but it slowly becomes apparent through subtle comments like “Why do you have to divide us by bringing up race?” or “Are trans women really women?” Obviously, you can say that these are just words, and that they don’t mean anything. However, facts speak for themselves. About 32.1% of women are estimated to have experienced some type of noncontact unwanted sexual experience during their lifetime. Broken down by race, an estimated 64.1% of multiracial women, 55% of Native American/Alaska Native women, 38.2% of black women, and 35.6% of Hispanic women have experienced sexual violence other than rape during their