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Eva L. Roux

Bahl

SOC&254

March 7th 2020

Intersectionality

Starting off with Kimblere Crenshaw’s view of intersectionality and what is her

definition of intersectionality. According to Crenshaw, her definition of intersectionality is where

power comes, collides, and intersects and she often relates this to the oppression of women of

color. The three types of intersectionality that Kimblere Crenshaw describes in her article,

Mapping the Margins, are structural intersectionality, political intersectionality, and

representational intersectionality. Starting off with structural intersectionality, in which she

describes it as, “the ways in which the location of women of color at the intersection of race and

gender makes our actual experience of domestic violence, rape and remedial reform qualitatively

different than that of white women.” (Crenshaw, 6). Crenshaw then describes examples of

structural intersectionality by expressing the actions of women in shelters in Los Angeles as one

of the examples. She describes that women often go to shelters as a way of protection from

domestic violence but women who often go to these shelters are poor and unemployed. This

definitely plays a huge role in women of color as well and that “these burdens, largely the

consequence of gender and class oppression, are then compounded by the racially discriminatory

employment and housing practices women of color often face” (Crenshaw, 7), which still

happens today. Political intersectionality is Crenshaw’s views on “feminist and antiracist

politics” and how they see the issue of violence of women of color. She views that most of

political intersectionality are split with two different political agendas, for example, men of color
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and white women. An example that demonstrates political intersectionality that she talks about

was when she asked for a release of statistics at the police department of Los Angeles but soon

got rejected as they felt like releasing statistics “would unfairly represent Black and Brown

communities as unusually violent, potentially reinforcing stereotypes that might be used in

attempts to justify oppressive police tactics and other discriminatory practices” (Crenshaw, 14).

She then justifies that this fear does not do that but steer away women of color who are affected

by domestic violence and “how women of color can be erased by the strategic silences of

antiracism and feminism” (Crenshaw, 14), which both equally represent the political priorities of

women of color and men. The last one, representational intersectionality, is what Crenshaw

expresses as the cultural construction of women of color and controversies within the colored

communities. In the article, Crenshaw explains the problems linked to representational

intersectionality, including the racism and sexism that women of color have-to-face. Crenshaw

then introduces the 2 Live Crew Controversy where 2 Live Crew members were arrested at an

adult club due to have lyrics that objectified black women to “suitable targets for sexual

violence” (Crenshaw, 45). Crenshaw then expressed her opinion about this song being upright

misogynistic and as many people listen to this song, they don’t realize that this song is just

derogatory towards black women. She also expresses that, “young black women who, like young

men, are learning that their value lies between their legs. But the sexual value of women, unlike

that of men, is a depletable commodity; boys become men by expending theirs, while girls

become whores” (Crenshaw, 46), which does show the controversies in the colored communities

and how women of color are treated.

In the article, News Statesman, the author states that Crenshaw explains that the

intersectionality theory came out to address the applicability of black feminism and anti-
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discrimination law and used the Degraffenreid v General Motors case to help support that

evidence. Upon researching on other sources, Degraffenreid v General Motors started with five

black women from Missouri that filed a case stating that the company was discriminating against

black women and did not want to hire black women. They brought this to the Supreme Court and

the plaintiffs argued that they have discriminated against black women, but the court stated that

they could not combine sex and racial discrimination because that would go beyond their case

action, which was Title VII. The Supreme Court justified that Black women could not be

justified as one and it has to be sex or race discrimination. In Crenshaw’s TED talk, she explains

the personal experience of Emma Degraffenreid which was likewise with the case I explained

above. But one thing I did not see on other sources that Crenshaw explained in her TED talk was

that they would hire black people and women separately but not together. She also said that all

the African Americans that were hired were all men and that all the women they hired were only

white. All these factors struck Crenshaw which led to her intersectionality theory.

The importance of intersectionality in the case with Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas was

that she is a black woman that was sexually assaulted by a black male. Back in the past, black

women were often targeted for many cases of abuse, especially sexual abuse. It was often even

taught by their mothers to defend themselves at work as they will most likely experience some

sort of sexual assault and it was often “normalized” by how often it happened in the past. With

Hill’s case towards Thomas, intersectionality was recognized as people did not view that black

women were harmed and vulnerable as no one did not believe them during that time. Other

people who were involved in the hearing was Joseph R. Biden Jr who questioned Hill about her

experiences with Thomas, former Utah Senator Orrin Hatch who made connections that Hill has

copied her experiences with books and other court cases, former Senator Alan K. Simpson and
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John Doggett who stated that Hill could be delusional, mentally unstable, and have sexual

fantasies about Thomas and Angela Wright who wanted to speak about her own sexual

harassment experience with Thomas but was not called to testify. In the end, the ruling was 52 to

48 with 41 Republicans and 11 Democrats and Thomas won to be an associate justice of the

Supreme Court. This sparked in the MeToo movement with Hill’s testimony and has encouraged

other women who have got through the same experience to come forward as well.

In my personal experience, being an Asian American and a woman can often come across

many incidents of discrimination that involved the intersectionality theory. One of the most thing

looked at is working and receiving an education as an Asian American woman. Though I do not

live in Southeast Asia where it is even harder for Asian women to receive a job or education, I

still face some challenges in the U.S. One of them is that our racial group often scores higher on

academics than other racial groups by statistics. Because of this, many universities are often

declining Asians as they want “more diversity” even if they already have perfect scores already.

This makes that Asians have to worker harder than they already do. Even being an Asian

American woman, it is a lot harder to get accepted as most universities still choose men over

women. This is not only in universities, but Asian women who want to be part of the STEM

field. It is still very difficult for Asian women to be in the STEM field as individuals still believe

that the stereotype that women should not receive an education or job and only should help care

for the family or that Asian women are “too weak” or “too dumb” to handle STEM field jobs or

normal jobs in general. I often see that and have people I know personally (ex: My older Asian

relatives) go up to me and say that I should be a housewife instead. Those are some of the

experiences I face as being an Asian American woman.

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In the video, Black, Gay, Albino, Shaun Ross expresses the challenges of being black,

gay, and albino and what it is like to have these three components. In this case, being black, gay,

and albino counts as for the intersectionality theory. For example, Ross explains that at school he

was the only “white kid” in the school and the rest of the students were African American. His

peers will often go up to him and make fun of his skin color and call him white when Ross stated

that he was not white, but he was black and albino. They will even call him “chameleon” and ask

why he was so white. His peers did not care and continued to make remarks about him and

would physically harass him for his skin. Many of these incidents happen till’ this day to albino

people. He also claims that, “I was black, I had albinism, I was gay, I was open … I don’t lose

myself ever” which also applies to all the power he has and how he uses those powers of race,

sexuality, and gender to make him feel himself. As for the article, Yoni ki Raat, Nadia who is a

Pakistani American woman faces many incidents with discrimination. She relates to the

intersectionality theory because she has the power of race (being Pakistani-American) and

gender (being a woman) overlapping. One incident that supports the intersectionality theory,

“The Pakistani-Punjabi American woman, wearing a bright red dress and black tights, recounted

her childhood at Yoni ki Raat (Night of the Vagina) on Friday with a large grin. The endless

tribulations of body hair drew knowing laughs from the audience – the double-edged sword of

white beauty standards and South Asian gender norms” (Kumar, 1) where they interlocked

white, South Asian, and gender standards which supports Crenshaw’s intersectionality theory.