Intersectionality Research Paper

“Don’t separate us, we are all equal” minority feminists often hear that sentence from white feminists, but are we equal? Can we compare a black feminist who works two jobs to support her family, to a financially stable white feminist? Is feminism one size fits all? In a perfect world, it is. However, our world is far from perfect, and this is where the term intersectionality emerges.
Intersectionality is a term that was first founded by American professor Kimbrle Creshnaw in 1989. According to Oxford Dictionaries, intersectionality is “The interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination
or disadvantage”. Intersectionality recognizes that a black feminist can experience racism, and sexism thus making her experience tremendously different from a white feminist who experience sexism, but not racism. Intersectional feminism allows a Muslim feminist to support a hijab without being called oppressed by her fellow feminists. Intersectionality also gives queer feminists a voice. Julia Serano shed light on the umbrella term in her book “Excluded” by saying “I will use the word feminism to describe various movements that work to challenge and eliminate sexism.
Thus, feminists who are coming from an intersectional perspective (such as myself) believe that feminism should be concerned not only with all forms of sexism, but with all forms of marginalization as well”. White feminism rejects the issues nonwhite feminists face and thus turning the oppressed into the oppressor. Yes, feminism have accomplished success, however, we can’t celebrate our success without solving our issues. Intersectionality is a core of feminism itself since the goal of feminism is to move towards equality for all genders. So, what happens if we ignore intersectionality? Problems that minority women and non-binary people face gets left unaddressed. According to the economic justice, the percentage of black woman who are full time minimum wage workers is higher than that of any other racial group. Many people would assume that a lack of education is the cause, while it’s true in some cases- it’s not always the case. the American Association of University Women (AAUW) says that “many women of color tend to be paid less than their white peers even when they have the same
educational background,”. Transgender people of color have been dying silently as 21 transgender men and women, 19 of them are people of color have been killed in 2015, according to MSNBC. White feminism is selfish in the sense that it focuses on unoppressed privileged white women. When the first wave of feminism occurred, privileged white women had the right to vote excluding every other feminist. Intersectional feminism gives us intersectional feminists a voice. It secures our justice and equality.
Ever since I was a child in Saudi Arabia, I knew I was a feminist. I often asked myself and society, why can’t we do what is considered acceptable for men to do? What makes men so special? Why are looked at as less? As I grew older, and started to read more about the feminist movement, I realized that there was a pattern with white feminists saying women from my background are oppressed because they are forced to wear a head scarf. While it’s true that some women are forced, many aren’t. It was odd for me to read feminists celebrating nudity and disowning the head scarf, now I’m not against nudity, however I am against the assumption white feminist make about my cultural background, and the effort to push their culture into a culture they don’t understand. I also knew that sexism was everywhere, and it isn’t just a third world country issue. I face sexism in the information systems club I’m part of, it’s a male dominated club, therefore, the men feel comfortable throwing jokes about women. Intersectional feminism serves as a protection, it also can enable feminists to stand together and realize we are all different, and that’s okay.