Feminism Needs to be Intersectional: Essence of Feminism (Term Paper Sample)

Intersectional Feminism
Name
Institution
Introduction
Though conceptually existent earlier, from around 1851, intersectional feminism, as a term was coined in 1989 by legal scholar and critical race theorist Kimberle Crenshaw (Piepmeier, 2009). It focuses on overlapping societal identities and associated structures of domination, oppression and discrimination. As thus, this feminist sociological theory aims to evaluate and analyze extents to which oppression overlaps to create unique and varied experiences of discrimination against women while taking into context simultaneous and multipronged discrimination based on social, biological and cultural predispositions like race, gender, ability and lack thereof, sexual orientation, age, nationality, class among others.
The concept of intersecting feminism, therefore, seeks to highlight and focus attention onto each and every aspect of the identifiable traits of women in order to fully encompass and conceptualize the systemic and social injustices and inequalities experienced by women in a way that is more than the sum of commonplace oppression against women. Instead, this approach confronts the forces of oppression against women like sexism, classism, albeism, racism, xenophobia, transphobia among others while cautiously identifying the fact that these are not similar for all women and therefore experienced differently by women mostly independently but concurrently (Anon, 2016). Intersectional feminism is a wide and intricate concept in light of the wider political discourse on not just women issues but also in the socio-political scope. To this end, this paper seeks to delve into an analytical review to understand intersectional feminism into context and highlight how its conceptual and practical tenets can lead to a radical agenda.
Intersectional Feminism
In order to understand the potential of intersectional feminism, it is important to first understand the fact that feminism alone as a concept is rather shallow and only highlights the plight of women as a homogenous group with vast but almost similar problems of marginalization and oppression (Black et al., 2014). This is however not the case and many aspects of the discrimination and marginalization don’t come to the fore. For instance, certain subsets of women remain excluded from mainstream feminism and these include the issues of lower class lesbians and no-n binary people of color. As thus, a woman can be discriminated first as a woman and that is a big problem to begin with. This however gets compounded in no less bigger ways if this particular woman is additionally sidelined on basis of her disability, her religion, her sexual orientation, her race, her personal life choices like whether or not to have an abortion or what she wears among others. These aspects of her being are not and cannot be encapsulated in one big voice of the mere conventional feminism. Such a woman, while able to engage in debate under the umbrella of feminism and discrimination against women would unconsciously remain silent on important areas of her life ad identity that are similarly basis for discrimination. A situation like this puts such a woman at a disadvantage of having to address her situation in an inconclusive manner that would not result in meaningful and wholesome change upon her situation if change were to occur as the focus is only made partly onto her plight. Intersectional feminism as an approach would be pivotal for the woman to be expressive of her problem and highlight her marginalization in a more wholesome way (Brigden, 2006). This would be necessary in spearheading the voice of feminism in a far reaching way in the political arena as it addresses the whole problem, resulting into formulation of solutions that a more widely encompassing and revolutionary for the betterment of women in all segment through a concerted voice that points to all levels of discrimination.
Intersectional feminism is potent in creating a radical political agenda as it creates enlightenment amongst women themselves. This is in light of the many hurdles that stand in the way of equality among all groups in society. This is made worse by the fact that these hurdles are entrenched and systemic that they are sometimes harder to identify even among women themselves. Consequently, some women are so unaware of the oppressive elements that they have to contend with in life that they are unconsciously made to conform to these unjust realities and settle for them as normal. These come in different forms and are projected in popular media with a sense of normalcy that would appear real and right for an unenlightened woman. Additionally, social stereotypes and entrench these oppressive forces in ways that routine day to day interactions creates a notion of conventionality that not only make women top to question certain facets of their discrimination but also blur the lines in term of the scope and intersectional nature of these elements of injustices (Bronstein, 2008). As thus, some women are left unaware of unworried about the multipronged nature of discrimination and their own inherent traits that are separately but simultaneously source for discrimination.
Intersectional feminism is remedy for this as it creates specificity and defragments the whole concept of discrimination against women to primary levels upon which such injustices arise. This creates awareness as more and more women begin to evaluate the true nature of their situation with regards to systemic and social discrimination. It opens up particular angles to discrimination that women can evaluate and begin to understand about themselves in a way that opens up the wider conversation about discrimination and injustices against women. Consequently, women begin to put much needed perspective into the conversation and political agenda as a result of an awakening crated through awareness and identification with the intricate and complex faces of discrimination against them. As thus, more women begin to express themselves and address the problem from within these small subsets of discrimination that would result into a much wider and more specific conversation about discrimination and oppression against women (Taylor, 2011).
Intersectional feminism is necessary to unmask the halfhearted and incomplete solutions to women issues. These have over the years kept certain segments of women out of affirmative action initiatives in contrast to the prevailing political sense of achievement. Take for instance the right to vote for women in America. While the political guise was that American women had finally secured the right to vote, this was not the case for African American women. As thus, while white women enjoyed the civil right to vote, their black counterparts were left out in this important political process to determine their future and make their own political choices. It was not until decades later that the black segment of American women was brought to the fore to legally vote.
Privilege naturally conceals itself from those who have it as was the case with white women not doing much to help deliberate the black women to equal status and this raises the need to have segments in the feminist movement to project their issues independently as they understand better. This exemplifies the risky and shallow nature of mainstream feminism- some segments of women get left behind while the general conversation is misrepresentative of this fact (Kitzinger, 1991). As a result, intersectional feminism becomes indispensable by having each sector of the women highlight their own differences and focus attention on their specific special need and have it particularly addressed as an integral part of the larger movement for equality for women. In this sense, the intersectional approach ensures that the veil of haphazard efforts made without conviction when addressing women issues is exposed to show the actual state of situations for all segments before victory is declared on any given women issue. This safeguards women interests against any unfortunate event where political discourse is moved forward from a given issue when there are intrinsic unresolved concerns.
Justice and equality within the feminist movement itself is imperative for any substantive achievement of equality and justice for women. In light of the multifaceted nature and cause of women oppression, domination and discrimination, the center cannot hold when some segments of the movement feels left out of the main procession. A thus, an intersectional approach is necessary to guarantee that all aspects of injustices are in the represented. For instance, there is proof of discrimination against non –Muslims in Saudi Arabia (Fadaak, 2010). This however comes at the backlog of heavy random discrimination against women to the extent of them almost certainly coming across as second class citizens of the conservative kingdom.
It is natural that there is a thriving feminist movement that is making little meaningful progress in the kingdom despite harsh consequences and reprimand as a result. The most recent of these progresses for women are the achievement of right to vote in local elections and the proposed absorption of more women into the labor market in the fourteen year plan economic reform aimed at diversifying the kingdom’s oil reliant economy (Financial Times, 2016). Concerns have however been voiced by non -Muslim women who have raised the red flag as to their exclusion from the proposed benefits for women. Additionally, such concerns have been raised by women in the downtrodden Shia sect of Islam I the kingdom as well as women who are not citizens of the kingdom who continue to suffer arbitrary abuse to the surprising silence of the wider women population. On their part, the Saudi women accuse their western counterparts of not doing eno...