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Gender, Sex and Politics – Assessed Essay
“Intersectionalism is too fragmented. It ends up being just stories about particular
people’s lives. There’s no theoretical and political use in that.” Discuss.
Word Count: 2827
The theory of intersectionality has profoundly reshaped analyses of gendered
oppression. Since its apparition, it has been taken up and applied in different ways by an
impressive array of theorists, writers and activists. Nevertheless, debates surrounding its
adequacy in accounting for the complexities of sexism as well as its ability to lead to substantial
social change remain. This is heightened by the fact that intersectional theory has been claimed
by many, thus applications of it may stray away from the ideas of hallmark intersectional
theorists - or even lead to conflicting conclusions and activism. In this essay, I will try to argue
that criticisms of intersectionality accusing it of leading to fragmentation and individualisation
are often based on erroneous uses of intersectional theory as well as a misinterpretation of the
work of foundational intersectional feminists. In doing so, I will start by offering an overview
of the main aspects of intersectional theory including its history and origin in the black feminist
critique of the women’s movement. I will then explore criticisms made by some feminists and
leftist thinkers accusing intersectionality of being unable to lead to any mass social movement
or useful theory of oppression. I chose to explore such concerns primarily through the lens of
Marxist feminism – a choice that was made out of interest in these specific criticisms, but also
in sight of the fact that Marxist feminists (due to the universalising nature of Marxist theory)
have been especially critical of these very aspects of intersectional theory. Finally, I will try to
respond to these criticisms by looking at both the nuances present in the works of hallmark
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intersectional theorists and that of Marxist feminists striving to bridge the apparent gap between
both theories.
The term “intersectionality” was originally coined by lawyer, philosopher and activist
Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, in a text exploring the specific type of workplace discrimination
that black women faced in the United States (Yuval-Davis, 2006). Its core ideas however, stem
from the works of black and women of colour feminists in the preceding decades, sometimes
reaching as far back as Sojourner Truth’s famous speech known as “Ain’t I A Woman?”,
spoken in the nineteenth century (Bohrer, 2018). Intersectionality, as explained by Crenshaw
and her predecessors, thus holds that when looking at the experiences of black women, it
appears that race, gender and class cannot be adequately analysed if taken as separate entities
(Crenshaw, 1991). For intersectional thinkers, these three axes of oppression mutually
construct one another and interact to shape the lived experiences and social positioning of black
women. In order to account for these experiences, it is thus necessary not to think of black
women as being “black men plus gender” or “white women plus race” (Wing, 2000), but to
engage with the ways in which racism, sexism and capitalism all interact as structures shaping
black women’s lives and producing a marginalised social position greater than the sum of its
parts. A very adequate example given by Crenshaw herself is that of the situation migrant
women face when they are victims of spousal abuse. Migrant women in the United States (often
women of colour from impoverished countries) tended to stay in abusive marriages out of fear
of being deported, as immigration policy required that a union last a minimum of two years
before the person having married a United States citizen could apply for permanent resident
status (Crenshaw, 1991). This, argues Crenshaw, would not happen to women who are
American nationals, or migrant men. Thus, structures of racism, capitalism and sexism interact
together to create specific experiences for migrant women. In short, it is crucial to stress that
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intersectionality is not additive nature and investigates structures of oppression rather than the
ways individuals navigate complex social identities (Yuval-Davis, 2006). This however is
commonly misunderstood in certain applications of intersectionality.
Intersectional theory has been a major tool in producing social theory that is both more
complex and complete, accounting for realities often ignored by previous feminist and
antiracist insights. It disrupts homogenised notions blackness and womanhood by clearly
showing that not all black people or women face the same set of challenges. In this, it becomes
clear that that intersectionality follows a long tradition of black feminist thought and black
feminist critiques of the women’s movement, and that a short overview of such work is
necessary to understand the implications of intersectional theory.
The black feminist critique of white feminism was concerned with the fact that white feminist
theorists and activists essentialised womanhood through an ethnocentric lens by building their
analysis of gendered oppression on the experiences of white, middle class women (Bohrer,
2018), thus universalising white experiences of womanhood and ignoring the realities of black
women (hooks, 1982). This white feminist analysis of sexism misrepresent several areas of
black women’s lives. Firstly, white feminists analysed the heterosexual family as a site of
oppression and a structure maintaining a patriarchal division of labour wherein men earned
money while women were supposed to perform unwaged, domestic labour. This was shown in
the 1970s Marxist feminist “Wages for Housework Campaign”, which assumed most women
to be housewives (Bohrer, 2018). However, black women view the black family as a site of
resistance against racism and were often themselves workers outside of the home due to high
rates of poverty amongst black men (Anthias and Yuval-Davis, 1993). White understandings
of the patriarchy as the overall dominance of men over women also failed to account for the
specific positioning of black men as marginalised in gender regimes and the solidarity black
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women needed to show with them in the struggle against racism. Moreover, issues of sexism
in communities of colour or criticisms of “patriarchal cultures” are also leveraged by white
society to pathologize black communities and justify imperialism, subsequently oppressing
women of colour (Lorde, 1992; Brah and Phoenix, 2004). This brief overview thus shows that
black and women of colour feminisms have been concerned with the differences in experiences
of sexism between women in the very same way that intersectional theorists describe.
Another issue taken up by black feminist and intersectional thinkers is that of the
suppression of black feminist thought and the specific epistemological standpoint of black
women. They argue that black feminist thought has been suppressed via different means by a
racist, sexist, capitalist society and that white feminists (sometimes inadvertently) reproduced
those power dynamics in their way of theorising sexism (Lugones and Spelman, 1983; Hill
Collins, 1999). As well as ignoring the experiences of black women, white feminists tend to
contribute to the reification of a certain traditional type of academic writing heralded as “real
theory” while theories by women from less formally educated backgrounds or cultures with an
important oral tradition are delegitimised (Hill Collins, 1999). It is then primordial, in order to
successfully organise as women, to challenge notions of intellectualism and recognise that
black women are in a privileged position for talking about race, gender and class due to their
experiences (hooks, 1991). Black feminist and intersectionalists thus argue that “re-grounding”
theory in the lived experiences of the most marginalised as well as challenging the hegemony
of (often inaccessible) academic writing is necessary in order to speak to a large number of
people, subsequently raising consciousness and opening possibilities for a mass movement
(hooks, 1991; Hill Collins, 1999).
Intersectionality and the black feminist tradition it is grounded in thus oppose mainstream
feminist theory both in its content and its form. It reclaims delegitimised ways of theorising
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and disrupts feminist ideas of global sisterhood by highlighting different experiences of
womanhood. This may be considered problematic by some feminists, afraid that a focus on
race and class may derail discussions specifically aimed at addressing women’s oppression, or
that as focus on intra-group differences forecloses possibilities of solidarity and organising.
Feminist and leftist criticisms of intersectionality then tend to focus on the two issues
outlined above. Some argue that as intersectional feminists recognise that race, gender and
class are but three possible examples of mutually constituted axes of oppression, the
possibilities for axes of analysis are limitless and could (or should) also address issues of
nationality, age, sexuality, ability, etc (Wing, 2000). This in turn would lead to a fragmentation
of social analysis, in which no generalisation is ever possible as some aspect of oppression can
always be forgotten. In this context, it is difficult to imagine how a general theory addressing
sexism could come to be, and organising for substantive social change through mass movement
seems even less likely. Intersectionality is thus seen as undermining solidarity across and
within marginalised groups, and an inadequate tool both for theorising and organising
politically. In effect, intersectionality would end up over-complexifying social analysis to the
point where only individuals are able to testify of their social location and represent their
interests (McKenna, 2019). This concern with intersectionality’s potentially individualising
effect is particularly present in Marxist and Marxist feminist critiques of the theory, as Marxists
are committed to global, universal change in relations of production and power. Marxist
feminists believe that modern gendered oppression is born out of capitalism’s need for
women’s unwaged labour, and that only an adequate analysis of patriarchal and capitalist
power can prove to be liberating (Bohrer, 2018). It may seem paradoxical that Marxist
feminists, who criticised mainstream Marxism for overlooking women’s struggle, would be
ambivalent about intersectional critiques of mainstream feminism. However, Marxists argue
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that intersectionality fundamentally misunderstands the nature of class by treating it as another
identity equivalent to race and gender rather than a more universal structure of relations of
production concerning the overwhelming majority of the world’s population (Bohrer, 2018;
McKenna, 2019). In this way, intersectionality depoliticises the nature of class and fragments
movements by focusing on individual “privileges”, thus presenting the interests of white
workers or white women as fundamentally at odds with those of black workers or black women
(McKenna, 2019), rendering them unable to work together at liberating themselves from the
capitalist patriarchy oppressing them all. Furthermore, Marxist feminist Eve Mitchell accuses
intersectionality of upholding bourgeois ideas of individuality by grounding its analysis in a
multiplicity of identities taken out of their context as categories constructed through historical
and material processes within capitalism (Mitchell, 2013). Intersectionality thus seem
problematic in its inability to mass mobilise through solidarity within and across groups as well
as in its misinterpretation of class and undeveloped analysis of capitalism.
While the crux of these concerns with intersectional theory seems intuitive, and while
it is true that many applications of intersectionality do not develop understandings of class
beyond a factor structuring marginalised people’s lives alongside race and gender, the
argument that an intersectional analysis forecloses all possibility for social change is misled.
Firstly, many intersectional thinkers, while stating the importance of addressing differences
within groups, also recognise that strategic essentialism is at times necessary for theorising and
most importantly for building movements (Wing, 2000). Moreover, that some women have
different experiences and subsequently different insights regarding their oppression does not
necessarily imply that empathising with groups one is not a part of is impossible. Women of
colour in western countries are for example able to relate to third world women through a
shared experience of racism and sexism (Wing, 2000). Understandings and solidarity between
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women of colour and white women is also argued by some to be possible. Given that women
of colour have had to learn the ways of white society in order to survive in it, white women
should be able to get to know the communities of women of colour and understand their needs
and experiences (Lugones and Spelman, 1983). While this is difficult, demanding work, it is
nonetheless possible if approached in a mindset of friendship and solidarity in order to open a
real dialogue between women which would result in liberating social theory for all. Addressing
issues of racism and sexism within social movements and social theory, far from undermining
solidarity, can help build movements that attract more important numbers. Many black women
did not join the first two waves of the women’s movement because it failed to address them in
their social realities for example, and many more female workers would be powerful members
of unions if they did not fear sexual harassment by male counterparts in the very same
organisations supposed to liberate them.
Furthermore, intersectional analysis and black feminism are powerful tools for social change
as they are devoted to praxis, challenging the dichotomy between theory and activism (hooks,
1991). Many black feminist academics have personal experience with marginalisation and
exploitation, and thus refuse to distance themselves from grassroots communities and activism
(Wing, 2000). Black feminists’ reclamation of non-traditionally academic ways of writing and
theorising is also a useful means to reach larger numbers of people and raise consciousness in
communities less familiar with academic speech, who also often happen to be the ones most
marginalised (hooks, 1991). In this way, black feminist tradition is an important new tool for a
feminist and/or Marxist movement striving to mobilises en masse.
Marxist feminists, while possibly correct in demanding a more substantial
understanding of the specific nature of class from intersectional theory, also omit that many
hallmark theorists of intersectionality aligned themselves with Marxism (Bohrer, 2018).
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Marxist stances such as Eve Mitchell’s criticising intersectionality as individualising and
taking identities outside of their historical and material contexts fundamentally misunderstand
how intersectional feminists approach identities. Among others, Crenshaw herself stresses that
identities are important for mobilisation as groups rather than individuals; and recognises that
those identities are born out of a context of shared history and struggle, thus becoming valuable
tools for organising (Crenshaw, 1991; Bohrer, 2018). She even calls identities “coalitions
waiting to be formed” (Crenshaw, 1991) against the structures of domination oppressing the
groups these identities are born out of. The idea of coalition is an interesting one for social
movements, as looking at the needs of the most marginalised often leads to more radical
solutions able to help a wide array of people. For example, looking at the experiences of black
trans women and their specific struggles with the violently racist, sexist, capitalist and
transphobic prison industrial complex in the United States would lead to an understanding that
prisons need to be abolished in order to respond to their needs (Davis, 2003; Bassichis et al.,
2011). This would advance the interests of all transgender people, black people, working class
people and women concerned with imprisonment and prison violence, and would be a powerful
vector of solidarity across all these groups.
When looking at the ideas of hallmark intersectional theorists, it is thus clear that criticisms of
intersectionality as being too fragmented are not justified. However, some of these concerns
are rightfully aimed at some more recent applications of intersectionality. The past decade has
seen a rising interest in intersectionality, and from online communities to advertisement
campaigns using intersectional ideas, it has become increasingly bastardised (McKenna, 2018).
More often than not, these erroneous applications of intersectionality lack an actually
substantive analysis of marginalised groups’ material conditions as well as a necessary
approach to identities not as individualised, but rather as shared within a group and based on
aforementioned material conditions. Given this worrying trend, it seems valuable to strive for
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a more heavily Marxist insight into intersectional theories. An understanding of class
oppression, white supremacy, imperialism and patriarchal power as all equally constitutive of
capitalism, as proposed by Ashley Bohrer in a 2018 article, may be an interesting starting point.
Additionally, it is also vital to re-ground intersectional theory in the tradition of black feminist
thought that birthed it.
In conclusion, criticisms of intersectionality as fragmented and unable to lead to
generalised theory or substantial social change are misled and based on a misunderstanding of
the ideas of foundational intersectional theorists. While they indeed reclaim identity politics,
they are concerned with the historically and politically situated identities of groups as a basis
for theorising oppression and forming coalitions, with a central focus on the ways in which
different systems of domination are mutually constitutive. This mode of analysis, while born
out of a black feminist critique of mainstream women’s movements, is not at odds with feminist
aims and organising, and rather seeks to enrich the feminist movement with a powerful tool for
more complete, rich theories and avenues to bridge intra-group differences in power and
experiences. Focusing on the lived experiences and needs of the most marginalised as well as
producing theory in non-traditionally academic ways are also useful strategies to build mass
movements and solidarity across marginalised groups. Some criticisms do however hold
weight, such as the fact that intersectional writing often lacks a specific understanding of the
nature of class oppression within capitalism, as well as the fact that some of its core ideas are
easily misunderstood and applied erroneously. This however does not mean that intersectional
theory is to be discarded, rather that it should be expanded upon with insights from different
theories such as Marxism, and re-grounded in black feminist thought.
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