women's studies: week 5

I think that my infatuation with my women's studies class wore off around the third week of the quarter. Some of the readings are okay, but it's heavy, dense, and very theoretically oriented. Here's my post from this week's readings:

One of the themes of this week’s readings is the critique of intersectionality and its limitations. The jumping off point for these readings is the theory that there are multiple axes of oppression. Categories of race, class, and gender all intersect to create sites of subordination. These categories are not universal, and because of our multiple identities and experiences, we experience different oppressions. As I read, it seemed that these readings were arguing that intersectionality as a category of analysis is inadequate.

Sandoval and Glenn discuss how women of color have been overlooked in previous discourses. Sandoval points out how women of color were marginalized in the women’s movement and how their concerns were not addressed. Glenn discusses how models of oppression, the patriarchy model and the colonial labor system, do not account for women of color. Glenn corrects this oversight in her article and shows how race, class, and gender have intersected to oppress women of color.

Crenshaw discusses how discourses of race and feminism have marginalized women of color. Women of color are situated in 2 subordinated positions that frequently have conflicting agendas and are seen as mutually exclusive. The fight against racism focuses on the experiences of black men, while the fight against sexism focuses on the experiences of white women. Crenshaw analyzes the cases of domestic violence and rape to illustrate how the law and institutional efforts to rectify both actually fail women of color. By failing to consider how minority women are affected by intersecting oppressions of race, class, and gender, we can see how the law and institutional practices leave women of color vulnerable and without meaningful remedies.

Crenshaw’s discussion of the political intersectionalities of rape illustrates the tensions surrounding race and gender discourses. Rape is socially constructed to reinforce racist and sexist themes, and by doing so, it marginalizes women of color. Rape has been used to control and discipline both black men and white women by constructing black men as potential rapists and threats to white women’s purity. Efforts to dispel these rape myths and reform rape laws have primarily benefited white women, and antiracist efforts to dispel these myths have primarily benefited black men. This is evident in the Mike Tyson rape trial, in which the black community rallied around Tyson and not Desiree Washington, his black accuser. Implicit in this is the message that the black community is more concerned with a rape accusation against a black man than the rape of a black woman. This rape case shows that when the antiracist and feminist agendas are seen as conflicting, both uphold racist and sexist ideologies.

Finally, McCall discusses how intersectionality has emerged as a category of analysis, but we don’t know how to study it. Though intersectionality recognizes that we are situated in multiple subordinate positions, there are limitations to the concept due to the complexities of life experiences. Therefore, how we are situated is only a partial perspective and we need an analysis that takes into account the complexity of experiences, identities, and the intersection of multiple oppressions.

Though I found the arguments in this week’s readings valid, they were equally frustrating. In discussing the problems with intersectionality and its inadequacies as a category of analysis, it seemed as though these authors want us to further deconstruct identities to account for the multiple facets of our experiences, positions, and how we are situated in society. At some point, I wonder if this is useful and if we are simply arguing over semantics. How far can we deconstruct our identities while still maintaining them? Crenshaw points out that categories of race, class, and gender reflect bias and domination, so it is important to define these categories so they become a source of empowerment. I am reminded of Riley’s argument that also called for abolishing the categories of “woman” and “man.” Is the eradication of these categories the key to recognizing and eradicating sites of oppression?