Dr. Sara DiazWGST 202: Gender, Difference, and PowerGonzaga University

Feminism & Intersectionality

More on the 2nd Wave

•1st Wave movement focused on structural change (suffrage).

•2nd Wave included structural AND cultural change.

2nd Wave Agenda• Abortion/Birth Control• Women’s Health Movement

• Sexual Liberation• Professional Work• Equality in Education (Title IX)• Equal Rights Amendment (failed)• Egalitarian marriage • Wages for Housework

• Welfare Rights (originally intended for white middle class women)

• Other Movements: Peace Movement, Civil Rights, New Left, Black/Brown/Red Power movements.

Key Terms

•Patriarchy/misogyny (cultural and structural)•Consciousness raising (CR)• Separatism (Lesbian)• “Radical” feminism

“The Personal is Political”

• Second wave slogan• Connects what happens in our own lives to

larger political forces.• Conceptualizes politics as something that

effects us as individuals.

What is Feminism?

“Feminism is the political theory and practice to free all women: women of color,

working-class women, poor women, physically challenged women, lesbians, old

women, as well as white economically privileged heterosexual women. Anything

less is not feminism, but merely female self-aggrandizement.”

--Barbara Smith

Multi-racial Feminism

•What is “hegemonic feminism”?

•What is “multi-racial feminism?

Multi-racial Feminism

•What does Becky Thompson want us to understand about the history of the Second Wave?

•Why is it important that our feminist histories are accurate?

Daily Response Question

Why do the members of the Combahee River Collective argue that we must understand oppression as "interlocking"?

Intersectionality• Feminist framework• Oppressions,

institutions are mutually reinforcing• Racism is reinforced

by sexism which is reinforced by classism.

Privilege

The social positioning of one group over another group that leads to unearned,

systematic advantage for those who are privileged and unwarranted systematic

disadvantage for those who are subordinate.

Intersectionality

•We all occupy multiple social locations•Our identities cannot be reduced•Mix of privileged and subjugated

positions•Oppressions are not additive • a black woman is not simply twice as

oppressed as a white woman

Intersectionality

• System of Domination• Interlocking, mutually reinforcing• All the “isms” work together•Not all privileges and oppressions are

equivalent to each other• “There can be no single-issue politics”

– Audre Lorde

The problem with “Sisterhood”

“Even when there is evidence of female oppression among women of diverse

backgrounds, it is important to listen to the individual assessment which each woman makes of her own condition, rather than

assume that a synonymous experience of female oppression exists among all

women.”--Johnnetta B. Cole

Difference: A Tool for Liberation

“Certainly there are very real differences between us of race, age, and sex. But it is

not those differences between us that are separating us. It is rather our refusal to

recognize those differences and to examine the distortions which result from our

misnaming them and their effects upon human behavior and expectation.”

--Audre Lorde

Our Central Questions

•Which women, when, and where?• How do systems of oppression/privilege

intersect and what are their impacts?• How are our identities constructed by

interlocking systems of domination?• How can we work toward feminist social

justice?