Intersectional Feminist Frameworks

Intersectionality is a feminist framework that strives to illuminate the relevance of social location in relation with practices of discrimination and inequality. Basu states the roots of intersectionality originate from the issues of non-inclusive feminism—the beginning of women’s rights in the Western world only included white, middle class women while continuing to oppress these marginalized groups (Basu, 1995). Through systems of discrimination such as racism and colonialism, certain people face different sets of prejudices. To counter these social injustices, the Intersectional Feminist Frameworks stresses the importance of women’s varying histories create multiple identities that allow them to achieve different, unequal hierarchal power.
Firstly, the issue of women of marginalized groups facing violence is often not viewed as a product of discriminatory systems such as racism. In particular, the missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada illustrates this matter. From over 20 years ago and still ongoing today, Indigenous women in Canada have been killed in irregularly high numbers (Carter, 2005). Law enforcement does not even take them seriously—911 purposely ignores their calls (Reece, 2010). Thus, is an issue of intersectionality because the Harper government refuses to make this a national inquiry, stating these crimes were a result of individual crimes (Larkin 2016). Furthermore, within the issue of poverty, it is evident that there are clear, distinct patterns that impose this social stratification upon certain marginalized groups such as disabled and racialized people. Disabled Canadians are at much higher risk or poverty compared to their abled-bodied counterparts. The Canadian unemployment rate is 9.7% for able-bodied adults, in comparison to 14.4 % for disabled people despite their higher costs of living from disability. In regards to this, through institutions, there is often little done to prevent the overrepresentation of marginalized groups by social institutions. People of these marginalized groups are often seen as inferior to the majority who have desired traits (Kimmel & Holler,
There are two types of eugenics--positive which encourages certain groups to mate like white, able-bodied individuals, and negative eugenics that tends to prevent racialized, lower class, disabled people from reproducing (Larkin, 2016). Subsequently, throughout history, eugenics has operated as a platform to perpetuate racist and classist ideologies. For instance, Sanger argues that sterilization is necessary for working-class individuals because they cannot keep pace with a larger family and sustain their needs. Basically, this means if people are poor, they should not have children—the idea that letting the lower class die off is an effecting strategy at ending poverty (Sanger, 1919). Evidently, eugenics is utilized to further establish white supremacy and the extinction of