Lately there has been a surge in the number of people who proclaim to be feminists, but many of these people don’t know where the feminist movement had its start, the premise of that movement or its implications on a nationwide scale.
According to Phia Salter, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Texas A&M University, feminism is “a belief in equality of the sexes.” This is a noble enough goal until you take into consideration factors such as racism and classism that create an unequal playing field among women. That is why with the emergence of classical feminism, working class women and women who were racial minorities leaned toward alternatives such as equalism and Africana womanism. These alternatives resonate more with “other-ized” groups because they are much more inclusive than traditional feminism, which was originally intended for one specific sector of all women. In short, intersectionality matters. The more allies a movement has, the more powerful it can become.
While there are feminists today who acknowledge how feminism in the past was strictly non-intersectional, there are still some issues within the movement. One problem, according to Dr. Salter is that “celebrity spokespersons still don’t seem to get it.” When feminists of color come out and say that there is insufficient representation, such as what is happening with the Oscars, people who claim to be feminists can sometimes downplay the struggles of minority sectors.
“I sometimes wish I were African-American because people don’t bash them afterward. It’s the hardest to be a woman. Feminists [are] something people hate above all. Nothing worse than being a woman in this business,” said actress Julie Delpy at Sundance this year.
Statements like this can set the feminist movement back by decades, but fret not young feminists. You have more power than you realize, and taking a stand for equality doesn’t have to be this impossible theory. “This university is very service oriented, leadership oriented and organization oriented. I would be surprised if there wasn’t a club or organization that didn’t already exist, and if it didn’t, I think it would be fairly easy for someone to start,” said Dr. Salter. Other ways for your voices to be heard are participating in public conversation, sometimes in the classroom and if there are important issues to you, that could be a space to organize for intersectionality in feminism.
Now that you know a little bit more about the huge role intersectionality plays in feminism, may you find great strength and numbers and happiness in equality.