Feminism and Intersectionality
In collaboration with Community Contributor SG
If your feminism isn’t intersectional, it’s not Feminism!
If this statement pulls at your gut a little bit, keep reading. As a contrarian, anti-authoritative feminist I had to take a breath when I first read this claim. I don’t like binary ideas, and nobody can tell me what to think. I consider myself to be educated on current feminist issues and feminist history. I have done feminist advocacy work, I appreciate the sacrifices made by other women so that I am free to make so many more choices than they did, and most importantly, I am a woman. As long as I ask for men and women to have equal rights, I am defaulted to this position of feminist. The assertion that my feminism might be lacking didn’t sit comfortably with me.
First, Some History
However, I am open to learning and I understand that paradigms shift over time. I started thinking about the transformation of feminism as a starting point, and where I might need to do some work. The historical imagery is at once powerfully meaningful - and a bit silly. Imagine if today’s feminists still refused to kiss men who imbibed? Or if feminists still needed to burn bras and forgo lipstick and heels, or worse - wear the shoulder pads of the 80s? What if Taylor Swift wore “whore” and “slut” on her arms in lipstick while she walked the red carpet? What I quickly realized is that 2020s feminism is not 90s, 60s, or early 1900s feminism - and for good reason. To get noticed in order to get progress, those women had to do things that we don’t need or want to do today, and if we did them, we simply wouldn’t be keeping current. We would be practicing obsolete feminist techniques, even if they were extremely effective at the time. Check out this timeline (Government of Canada: Women in Feminism Timeline) of feminism in Canada.
Okay, wait. Before you continue, did you have a look at that timeline? What did you see in the photos? Lots of women, right? Did you happen to notice the glaring omission? Uhm, women of colour, where are you in Canadian feminist history? The timeline does recognize the first black woman voted into the House of Commons (1993) as a progressive achievement the same way history recognizes the first white woman for doing literally anything. That same year, albeit briefly, a white woman even headed our country. Nice job, ladies, that is some serious progress. However, from this timeline alone we can see that recognizing and celebrating women’s progress has been largely for white women, and this is well documented (or not, if you were a BIPOC woman). If you disagree, consider why hardly any black women are included in dominant narratives such as the above timeline. In this current wave of liberal wokeism, you’d think the timeline would be filled with recognition for women of colour, but it’s not. Is it because in our generalized nod to women’s history, the makers of this timeline defaulted to white women? In my Google search that was “feminism timeline Canada”, I was brought to the list I linked above. In order to find a ‘black-specific list’ (YWCA Vancouver: Black Canadian Feminists and Trailblazers you Should Know About), I had to change my Google search term.
So, we know white women have historically been first to receive rights and recognitions because racism in the 1900s was status quo - it took 40 more years after white women for black and Indigenous women to get voting rights in Canada. Do you think after white women got the vote, some of them continued to overlook black and Indigenous women, or even advocated against them? Like the US, Canada was still practicing segregation (BC Reads: The Story of Viola Davis), and at least according to photographs, all Suffragettes were white, many even holding the belief (Famous 5: Flawed Beliefs) that eugenics were a good way to control the appearance of Canada’s population. No matter the stance of Suffragettes at the time, the initial outcome of women’s suffrage was clear: voting was for white women (Matador Network: The Year Women Became Eligible to Vote in Each Country).
What is intersectionality?
Intersectionality (Vox: The Intersectionality Wars) recognizes how race, gender, ability, class systems and other markers of privilege, or a lack of, are interconnected and influence each other, and how they often compound oppressive circumstances. Back in the day, wealthier white women clearly had more legal and social licenses to move through the western world than their more melanized, less wealthy counterparts. Suffragettes (ACLU: Celebrate Women’s Suffrage, but Don’t Whitewash the Movement’s Racism) also had some issues with women who did not align with their ideals. So, if you were a white feminist who included women of all colour and heritages in your advocacy, you were a bit of an intersectionalist. Some of those women must have realized the value of practicing feminism in that way, because eventually the feminist paradigm shifted to include all women, not just the white women of means.
We could consider the end of segregation as a starting point of current feminist intersectionality, when white women literally had to start including BIPOC women into the feminist narrative. The result of this is, as a middle class white woman, I don’t just advocate for the rights and needs of other middle class white women. I recognize the diversity of hardships, needs and experiences specific to people who are unlike myself. Without intersectionality, my feminism might seek out women who match all my markers of privilege while being inclusive of only racial differences, or I might possess a singular view of BIPOC women’s challenges, where socioeconomics and other markers of privilege remain unseen. Lack of intersectionality breeds invisibility and feminism cannot only address the issue of being a woman if being a woman is also compounded by proximity to privilege and power. My updated feminism includes learning about and taking account of the intersectionality of gendered, racialized, socioeconomic experiences and beyond while also considering all of this in the context of my advocacy.
Intersectionality and Gender
Today, I think almost everyone can agree that if a white woman did not include BIPOC women in her feminism, we would consider her to be a racist dinosaur - she would be canceled, or maybe considered an oddity who needs to be platformed (Forbes: JK Rowling Comes Out as a TERF). Today, very few white women, for example, are entering public change rooms and wishing it was only white women in the change room. Almost all women recognize that women, regardless of race, or especially because of race, have the shared experience of being harmed by men, and that a change room without men is for women’s safety. Without intersectionality, I might only want to share the changeroom with other white women who are just like me, and BIPOC women who are in every other way just like me. This, unfortunately, would leave every other woman outside the safety of the changeroom. Thankfully, because my feminism is now current and keeping progressive by being intersectional, by default I am also including, recognizing and making space for EVERY woman regardless of race, class, gender assigned at birth, ability, etc. Intersectional feminism does not discriminate, and while it may seem paradoxical, it also does not tolerate discrimination. Safe spaces are both inclusive and specific to needs. Those who might experience ostracization, oppression, discrimination and other forms of gender-based violence should be welcomed into a space that is free from these harms.
If we can understand that we no longer need to segregate by race, revoke kisses, burn our bras, or draw on our bodies with lipstick in order to advance feminism, then we can also understand that we no longer have to exclude self-identifying women from the feminist, or trans-feminist, narrative. Current, progressive feminism recognizes that self-identifying women have both shared and different oppressive experiences and circumstances (regardless of the identity they were assigned at birth) and advocates for all self-identifying women to enjoy the rights and liberties that are afforded to them. Understanding the racism of white feminists of the past means understanding the bigotry being exercised by some cis feminists today. Constantly centering cis women in the feminist narrative while advocating against trans women is just another way to claim power at the expense of all women. This is exactly the same discriminatory attitude that white women have historically held over BIPOC women.
Within social justice circles, intersectionality is meant to destroy the potential divisiveness of the differences found within them. For example, trans-exclusive feminists like Germaine Greer and J.K. Rowling infamously insist that trans women cannot be “real” women in the absence of female reproductive organs and their accompanying experiences, but what about cis women whose bodies and experiences have never or no longer conform to the gender status quo? Should women who have never had a period (primary amenorrhea), who were born without a vagina (vaginal agenesis), or have never experienced sexual harassment also be excluded from the feminist narrative? When we quibble over a couple of body parts in the name of “safety” from trans women, even when data proves trans women are four times more at risk of experiencing violence (Williams Institute: Transgender people over 4 times more likely than cisgender people to be victims of violent crime) than are cisgender people, we miss opportunities to move forward, build community, and strengthen our resolve as feminists.
How Feminism’s Small Differences are Hurting Cowichan Communities
The claim that allowing trans women into ladies’ spaces opens the door to violence is rooted in unproven fears - for cis women. Unfounded claims regarding threats to women and children’s safety uses feminism in a way that emboldens bigotry and violence and is a demonstration of gender privilege, not gender oppression. In fact, a 2019 study (CNN: Transgender Teens in schools with bathroom restrictions at higher risk of sexual assault) in the US found that 36% of non-binary and trans teens who were denied access to the bathroom at school that matched their gender identity reported being sexually assaulted in the past year. The rate for teen cis girls was 15%, and 4% for cis boys. With all our developed feminist understanding of the patriarchy, toxic masculinity, rape culture, objectification, queer phobia, gender oppression, and misogyny, do we honestly think a trans woman is somehow safer in this world, or in a changeroom, than a cis woman?
Recently, there was an unfortunate event at the Cowichan Aquatic Center (Chek News: ‘Misunderstanding’ sparked fight, Viral video at Cowichan Aquatic Centre) between two families that led to an alleged violent interaction. A cis man entered the women’s change room with his family, and when he was told to leave he responded by claiming he could just say he’s a ‘lady with a beard’ therefore he couldn’t be kicked out. There is no doubt that this man should not have been in the women’s change room and the ensuing harm that was caused, both to the families involved and to the transgender community, was unconscionable.
This event resulted in a not so ‘safe spaces’ rally (Chek News: Rally held after altercation at North Cowichan pool changeroom) in the Cowichan Valley that facilitated many homophobic and conspiracy-minded claims. While the organizers professed that the rally was NOT about the transgender community, the impassioned speeches and hoisted signs were very much anti-trans. Placards spouted some of the following messages:
“Leave our kids alone! Exposing SOGI123”
“If kids genitals don’t define gender how the hell does removing them affirm it?”
“stop transing the gay away”
“stop sexualizing the children”
“no biological males in women’s changerooms”
Many of the speakers raged about keeping ‘penises out of women’s changerooms’ and barring transgender women not only from bathrooms (ie: women’s spaces) but from sports as well. Aside from the archaic homophobic sentiments that are essentially the same bigotry society has been tirelessly subjected to for decades, a more curiously problematic claim was the argument that charter-defined gender rights somehow create a legal or social “loophole” that accommodates predators. Given the current statistics (WHO: Devastatingly pervasive: 1 in 3 women globally experience violence) that 1 in 4 women will be sexually assaulted by the age of 24 - we know that predators do not need a ‘loophole’ to engage in acts of sexual violence.
Despite the continued assertions that this rally was not meant to disparage trans women, the signage and speeches clearly revealed that, for many who attended, this event was connected to the anti-trans movement that has swept our nation in recent years. From the ‘1 Million March 4 Children’ (AntiHate Network: Important Context about the 1 Million March 4 Children) and anti-SOGI 123 protests (Tyee: BE’s Increasingly Bizarre Anti-SOGI Bandwagon) at schools and school board offices (Vancouver Sun: Anti-SOGI protests on BC school grounds banned under new legislation) to misguided and misinformed public events (The Discourse: Island Community Centre faces backlash for booking controversial events) about so-called ‘gender ideology, women’s spaces, parental rights and protecting kids’ - there is a perception that the mere existence and recognition of transgender people is leading to the grooming of children into being sexually abused and “brainwashed” out of their gender identity. The impact (York U: Queerphobic hate is on the rise and LGBTQ+ communities need more support) of these events is also seen across the nation with a rise (CTV News: Facing calls to act, Canadian lawmakers note rising tide in hate and violence against LGBTQ2S+ community) in homophobia, transphobia and biphobia increasing levels of violence and discrimination against the Queer community.
We all play a part in creating ‘safe spaces’ for civic and social participation, but holding a ‘safe spaces’ rally for women that does not include ALL women is no longer about safe spaces. We would never allow the feminist uprisings of today to exclude, or worse, berate women of colour. So why, then, are we platforming co-opted ‘safe space’ rallies and protests that seek to ‘other’ transgender women?
Updating your feminism: A quick guide
Familiarize yourself with the teachings of Kimberlé Crenshaw.
Use the term “trans-feminism” to signal that you include trans women.
Be intentional with your rebuttals in debate or discussion, and be intentional with your vocabulary. Who are you leaving out? Are you hurting anyone?
Follow woke influencers online who can provide bite-sized take-always (like the White Woman Whisperer)
Role-play taking the moral position you disagree with. Can you empathize with a different perspective?
Intersectional Feminism Will Liberate Us All!