Intersectionality

The case of gender and sexuality

Lorraine Nencel
  What is Intersectionality?
 Gender and sexuality
 The theoretical development of gender and sexuality in order to
Lecture today understand their significance for doing research on gender and
sexuality.
 Heteronormativity
Intersectionality:
Theory Method
Debate in two areas:

Is it a theory or a  Debate:
method?  Structural inequality and  Lutz: Particularly helpful in
oppression of Black women detection the overlapping of
Is it about  Crenshaw: showed visible, at first sight, invisible
oppression and limitations of one- strands of inequality
inequality or dimensional identity espedcially when it includes
 Experienced oppressions different levels.
oppression of black women
inequality and  Or  Takes into account variety of
power context.
privilege  Recognize both oppression
and privilege
  Shift from how structures of racism, class and sexism determine
From theory to individuals and practices to how individuals ongoingly and flexibly
Method negotiate their multiple and converging identities in the context
of everyday life.
  A way to study and understand processes of exclusion and
inclusion and identity construction.
 Broadens our understanding of processes of injustice and
What is oppression which in turns gives insight into what is necessary to
intersectionality ? create inclusion therefore contributing to diversity.

Characteristics  Axes of differences, axes of structural oppresion, identity markers

 Lutz’s uses Matsuda’s “the other question” to facilitate and
complicate an intersectional analysis
  You cannot assume beforehand what axes of difference is the most
significant.
 Impact on social positioning can be extremely dissimilar
 Individuals are not in all situations multiply vulnerable.
 They can resist,
 They can be privileged
 Some situations from some axes of difference
Intersectionality  Categories are not homogenous, differences can exists within
assumes .... categories
 Gender becomes differentiated when studied in relation to class or
race.

 Reject the naturalization of any construction of social divisions and

challenge prioritization of any of them such as class and gender.
 The importance of context and situationality (must be discovered
cannot be assumed)
What does an
intersectional  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxuyfWoVV98
analysis tell us
about artificial
intelligence?
Gender and Sexuality
Guess who’s
coming to
dinner
• 1967 movie (some states
interracial marriage still illegal)

• Broke open the discussion

concerning interracial marriage

• Different actors in the movie

were against it.
Sex education
• Sex positive
• Interracial relations not an issue
• Homosexuality accepted by some and not by others.
  Issues have changed regarding who can do it with whom.
 Shifts regarding relationships and race and ethnicity and sexuality.
 What is considered acceptable sex has shifted.
What does this
 Have we become more inclusive?
suggest about
 Brings other questions to the fore:
changes in  How are race and sexuality co-constituted contemporarily? (for
gender/sexuality? whom, where, when)
 Gender Sexuality

The happy
marriage: Gender
and sexuality as
an extension of
each other
• One’s gender conformed to their
sexuality and one’s sexuality
conformed to their gender.
• You can imagine that the
conceptulisation of difference was
limited.
• Eventually difference recognized as
an important analytical tool however
• Gay and Lesbian studies rooted in the
mid-late eighties.
• little connection between hetero
studies and gay and lesbian studies
Divorcing on
good terms:  Gender and sexuality become two different analytical constructs
autonomous  Two different developments contributed to the recognition:
separation of  The recognition of the third gender
 The upcome of HIV/AIDS
gender and
sexuality
 Gender / Sexuality Third Gender /Non-
binary

Divorce on good
terms: Gender
and sexuality
• Non-binary individuals in different
societies:
• Hijra (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh)
• Muxa (Mexico)
• Two spirited people (Native American)
• Sworn Virgins (Balkans, Albania)
• Indonesia, Thailand, Samoa, Hawaii, etc.

• Could no longer assume that gender and

sexuality conformed to each other
• Research what they mean autnomously
and how they inform each other.
Introduction to  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZsBei4nCkU
gender labels
  The discovery of HIV/AIDS as a pandemic disease
 Need to know more about sexual behavior
The upcome of  More funds for sex studies
HIV/AIDS :  Quickly apparent that studying knowledge, attitudes was not
1980’s enough
 Sex was embedded in culture and to study sex necessary to study
sexual culture
  Gender is a social construct
 There exist in each and every society hegemonic notions of gender
roles, yet each of these is adaptable and open to adaptation.
In short:  Women in the main have lesser power than men, and some men
have less power than others.
(in J.Marchank  Hegemonic masculinity

etal 2007 , p.  Gender is not expressed, experienced or performed separately

from other social identities such as ethnicity, nationality, sexuality
19) amongst others.
 Intersectionality
 Implies that gender is only one of the demarcation of difference
  Has its own internal politics, inequities and modes of oppression.
 The concrete institutional forms of sexuality at any given time and
Sexuality: place are products of human activity.
 A radical theory of sex must identify, describe explain and
Gayle Rubin denounce erotic injustice and sexual oppression.
(1982, p.267)  The sex hierarchy: the charmed circle vs. the outer limits.
The charmed
circle vs. The
outer limits
  A multi-layered concept includes space for the analysis
of:
 Sexual ideologies, discourses and imageries.
 Sexual meanings produced by different actors such as
religious or state institutions.
 Study interactions between individuals in different positions
of power in in different locations: men and women in the
workplace, at home, in recreation.
Sexuality is .....  The sexual meanings in a diversity of relationships such as
flirting, sexual harassment, abuse or violence and pleasure
 Dynamics of sexual practices and attitudes.
 Subjective layer in which men an women are conceptualized
as sexual subject, have sexual preferences
 Sexual identities
 Pleasure
  The divorce of gender from sexuality :
 No longer can assume what gender and sexuality means
 Must research how these two stand in relation to each other
 The “discovery” by academics of the third gender:
 No longer can assume that gender and sexuality conform to each
other
In sum  Open to the study of gender and sexuality as non-binary
 Not just sexuality that is non-binary but gender too.

 The possibility for gender and sexuality studies to be more

inclusive
 Genders and sexualities are both relations of power
  Just like hegemonic masculinities, heteronormativity
problematizes the dominant position of heterosexuality in society.
 “Heteronormativity points at the everyday and mundane ways in
which heterosexuality is privileged and taken for granted, that is,
normalized and naturalized” (Herz and Johannesen 2015).
 Relation with Rubin’s sexual hierarchy
 Heterosexual identity as naturalized.
 Phd on Heterosexuality
Heteronormativity  “Everyday heterosexuality is not simply about sex, but is
perpetuated by the regulation of marriage and family life,
divisions of waged and domestic labour, patterns of economic
support and dependency.” (Jackson, S. 1999, p.26).
 Heternormativity is institutionalized.
 For example, Divorce became legal in Chile in 2004 and in 2015
Philippines was the last country in the work where divorce is illegal
 Legislation can regulate sexuality: abortion, homosexuality (Kenya and
Ethiopia) sex work criminalized
  Heteronormativity is not just about heterosexuality but it is also
about gender.
 What is appropriate behavior, identity, appearance, attitude,
lifestyle
Heteronormativity  Privileges and sanctions and can condemn people based on the
continued presumed binaries of gender and sexuality
 Marginalization of different groups: sex workers, LGBTQI+,
 Individuals who do not fit in or uphold the binary
 Transgression cross the boundaries of what is good, what is proper, what is
expected.
The  Importance of study the unmarked: whiteness, heterosexuality
and masculinity
importance of  Dean says: through studying the dominant, we are able to both
studying understand and give accounts of how normative identities are
socially constructed processes situation within a socio-historical
heterosexuality context. … one is not only able to give an account of their
privileges, structural advantages and discursive location, but also
from a use the focus on the majority and dominant to understand their
relationship to the minority and subordinate. By studying
intersectional heterosexualities, we are better able to understand the processes
of forming homosexuals identities, communities and politics of
perspective homosexual resistance and accommodation. (p.119)
  https://www.facebook.com/degenderkwiebuspodcast
 (dutch podcast on trans issues/education with different speakers
by Nanoah, a trans non-binary person (also the second adult to
get an X in their passport!)
A different  

story of doing  https://www.dailydot.com/irl/guide-to-covering-transgender-peo

ple/
transgender:  (an article on how to discuss trans issues and some basic
'etiquette')
 
 https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2021/01/01/how-to-be-a-better-trans
-ally-transgender-non-binary/
 (some different viewpoints from trans people on how they think
cis people can help the community)