Intersectionalities

intersectionality: a theory that seeks to examine the ways in which socially and culturally constructed categories interact on multiple levels to manifest themselves as inequality in society. Intersectionality holds that the classical models of oppression within society, such as those based on race or ethnicity, gender, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, class, or disability do not act independently of one another.

• nuances and invisible complexities which blend into culture and life experience with identity
• both powers and privileges as well as oppression
• intersectionality is inescapable; we are all, as Lorde points out, influenced by a few different (and sometimes even oppositional) aspects of our identities—whether we are conscious of it or not.
• even geographical location factors into intersectionality

“Within the intersectional paradigm, a lesbian is never just a lesbian, a gay man is never just a gay man, and so forth.”

• compare inclusion theories (multiculturalism) to intersectional theory and postmodern strategic identity performance
• the very notion of LGBTQ community is problematic because every member of the groups represented by those letters has had experiences that might not be shared or experienced similarly by the others based on their complex and multiple identities — monolithicism

applications of intersectional theory

• down low: a supposed sexual phenomenon in which Black men form sexual groups (“on the down low”) which was connected to the spread of HIV/AIDS
  • Keith Boykin: “The down low fit perfectly into larger cultural dynamics because it confirmed stereotypical values that many of us already believed. For some whites, it confirmed their hypersexualized perception of Black people, and for some Black people it confirmed their hypersexualized perception of gay men. Given society’s stereotypical view of Black men combined with societal beliefs about same-sex attraction, the story became more believable because it vilified a group of people we did not understand and many of us did not want to know.”
  • “Many in the United States fear not only queer sexualities but also people of color; the combination of queerness and Blackness, coupled with basic assumptions of male aggressiveness, led to a scenario in which it was easy to imagine covert Black gay male predators infecting women at an alarming rate.”
    • panic defense
• women and intersectionality; transmisogyny, misogyny, transmisogynoir
  • “For [Carmen] Vazquez, political strategies that argue that gays and lesbians should be “mainstreamed” and given the same rights as heterosexuals fail to recognize the economic injustices that many women throughout the world already face. Put another way, she asks us to reconsider the “mainstream” and whether it is worth joining. Gays, for instance, may seek the right to marry, but if the right to marry occurs in a context in which women are at a persistent economic disadvantage to men, then how do lesbians materially benefit from the right to marry? Marriage, too, is a double-edged sword, because in many countries, it is the primary vehicle of women’s social and economic disempowerment.”
    • heteronormativity and normative society
    • structures and hierarchies brought up by society; debates over marriage
  • “Pisankaneva acknowledges that “young lesbians are more motivated than heterosexual women to leave their homes” but may be hampered in finding work if they appear too masculine. Thus, “[i]n long-term lesbian relationships it is usually the more feminine partner who becomes the breadwinner,” while “[m]asculine-looking women usually find low-paid jobs such as shop assistants, construction or service workers” (139). This pattern resembles some typical butch-femme relationships in the United States in the 1950s, where the femme (because she enacted gender-normative female behavior) often functioned as the primary family wage earner (Kennedy and Davis). In both cases, the “employable” woman was invisible as a lesbian and merely put up with the economic deprivations associated with femaleness in her culture.”
  • lesbianism and queer women, esp. intnl, must be viewed through a critical lens that encompasses culture and intersectionality
• culture and intersectionality
  • tongzhi: family and culture structure vs. individualism

intersectional analysis

• Relative Privilege and Oppression figure
• “[S]omeone who performs the intersectional identification female, lesbian, of color, and butch might find that the butch identification, when combined with other factors, does not necessarily translate into a greater degree of privilege than the femme, as the table indicates it should.”
• Gayle Rubin’s Charmed Circle
• connection to “ideologies of racism”; “sexual morality”
• “Rubin assumes that sexuality and class intersect to promote certain kinds of lives and intimacies and to disparage others.”