So you wanna be an intersectional feminist?
Maybe you're not an intersectional feminist but that doesn't mean you can't believe in it.
When searching for an image for this post, all I could find associated with the word “feminism” were images of white women on their periods, white women saying “girl power,” white women protesting patriarchy, and white women…sitting still. Just existing. In many people’s minds, the word “feminism” is only associated with the words “white” and “women”. Because of all the years of mainstream white feminist narratives about girls having a right to grow leg and armpit hair, play “like the boys,” and “fight the man,” very few people have ever considered that other women, nonbinary people, and expansive genders might also have deep intimacy and life experiences with feminism. Myself, a genderflux Black androgynous polyamorous lesbian, included.
Like many things, feminism has become a popular term that has just as many definitions as there are people using the word. For me, I refer to feminism as the notion that women and gender expansive people are human beings. In this way, my feminism is not just about the fact that I identify with the term “woman.” It is also entangled with my experiences at the margins of gender expression and identity. These gendered experiences often fall under the umbrella of another term, “intersectionality.” A word coined by legal scholar, critical race theorist, and Black Feminist Kimberlé Crenshaw in a sequence of articles between 1989 and 1991. This term was previously articulated by members of the Combahee River Collective in 1977 when they wrote of the “interlocking oppressions” experienced by Black lesbian women confronting the state.
“Intersectionality,” as Brittney Cooper writes in The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory, “is not an account of personal identity but one of power” (1). Rather than a focus on personal identity, Cooper reminds us that intersectionality focuses on structural identity which is determined by laws and institutions. Cooper explains that, “These kinds of identities are different from personal identities of the sort that refer to personal taste, personality traits, gender performativity, or intimate and filial relationships” (4).
As such, we should understand that intersectionality is a lens through which we can analyze systemic oppression and violence. It is an analytical framework for diagnosing the structural gaps that too often result in disproportionate harms against Black, Brown, queer and trans, disabled, and immigrant people in the United States. It is not a status we embody or an identity we hold. Intersectionality is not about people and the interpersonal. It is about power. While we each may find ourselves in a space that intersectionality, as a theoretical framework illuminates, we may also find ourselves in spaces where we simultaneously benefit from the oppression of others.
This is why I like the term “intersectionally marginalized” as a framework for understanding the epistemological orientation of intersectionality. People who are intersectionally marginalized are directly impacted by the structural and systemic gaps which intentionally overlook the needs and humanity of Black, Brown, queer and trans, disabled, and immigrant people.
A few weeks ago, on Threads, I wrote the words, “White women CANNOT be intersectional feminists.” As one can imagine, this did not go over well with the white ladies. Here are some of the responses I got:
“But, what if I’m a lesbian?”
“Dude, I’m trans, poor, and disabled. I count.”
“This is intellectual gatekeeping and elitism!”
“This is obviously just clickbait.”
“Just say you hate white women.”
In reading the responses, it struck me that a) many of these women had never been told that they could not simply become something because they said so, and b) they didn’t know the origins or meaning of the word “intersectionality.” Often, they thought the word “intersectionality” was synonymous with “intersecting.” It’s not. Intersecting identities are what we all have. Intersectionally marginalized identities are things we only have if we are members of intersectionally marginalized groups.
As an example, I have never once called myself an “intersectional feminist” because my feminism must automatically be intersectional due to my orientation to power. My feminism is rooted in the dismantling of white cisgender heteropatriarchal capitalism. Systems in which I work daily to disinvest myself of while I simultaneously build frameworks and new models in community with those who are impacted by them. At this point, intersectional feminism as a concept seems like another white-coded term meant as a corrective to white feminisms that usually reproduce oppressions against vulnerable people. So, it’s really a term made for white women by other white women, a self-congratulatory badge, like the safety pins, blue bracelets, and every other symbolic gesture that preceded them.
Here’s the gag though: Whiteness itself is a form of institutional power. Whiteness is an organizing container for all other forms of identity and for the ways that systems intuit how marginalized people should be valued. For example, white trans people have better life outcomes than Black trans people. White birthing people have better experiences in labor at hospitals than Black birthing people. White disabled folks are treated with more care in media and mass society than Black disabled folks. This is what Cheryl I. Harris means when she says that “whiteness is a form of property.”
Being an intersectional feminist requires an ethical and philosophical divestment from the very institutions that make whiteness a form of capital. It also requires a reparative and communal relationship with oppressed communities. It is praxis (theory and practice). It's not just a label.
You don't have to become a thing to support and advocate for it. White women don't need to create another term to beknight themselves. White women don't even have the expertise or experience to recognize intersectionality given their own investments in whiteness as an institution. So, how can they even do this work really?
It's become a meaningless phrase. And, what I want, more than white women calling themselves radical feminists, intersectional feminists, or whatever kind of feminists that help them to distance themselves from the whiteness that guides, shapes, and contours their entire lives, is for white women to do good work. I want them to stop voting for violent, sexual predators to run the country. I want them to stop relying on police officers (carceral feminism) as the only solutions for punishment and protection. I want them to stop aligning with the government (state feminism) for every policy recommendation and agenda item addressing the issues facing marginalized people.
I just want white women to stop making up terms and do the work.