Why You Should Incorporate Intersectional Feminism Into Your Toolkit

“If you see a whole thing - it seems that it's always beautiful. Planets, lives... But up close a world's all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life's a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern.”

― Ursula K. Le Guin

Intersectional Feminism is likely a term you may have heard come up from time to time. What exactly is it?  According to Encyclopedia Britannica:

Intersectionality is a term coined by professor Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 to describe how different social categories interact, sometimes resulting in compounding effects and tensions. Her paper on the subject argued that discrimination specifically against Black women is different from general anti-woman discrimination or anti-Black racism. Instead, it involves the unique compound experience of both sexism and racism. Initially used in the context of discrimination law, the concept saw a resurgence in the 21st century among left-wing activists who broadened intersectionality to include categories such as class and sexual orientation. 

In other words, intersectional feminism is the kind of feminism that doesn’t just look at women, it looks at social class, race, culture, geography, history, economics, politics, and more in order to fully understand complexities that people don’t realize exist when having an extra X-chromosome. 

Explaining the importance of having intersectionality is the default issue of white feminism, which is characterized in this article from Everyday Feminism, quoting BattyMamzelle: 

“White feminism is a set of beliefs that allows for the exclusion of issues that specifically affect women of color. It is ‘one size-fits all’ feminism, where middle class White women are the mold that others must fit. It is a method of practicing feminism, not an indictment of every individual White feminist, everywhere, always.”

What does this mean for anyone, especially the social entrepreneur or anyone interested in making a difference? It means you should always strive to understand the many different things affecting an individual or group rather than oversimplifying it. It is the difference between looking through a microscope and standing atop a mountain to look at the world around you: there are many details you can see from close scrutiny in the things you’re focused on, and there are many things you miss when you forget the bigger picture. 

When you have the lens of intersectionality, you are constantly reminding yourself to seek to understand more, and by having a greater understanding, you are better able to serve others and come up with better solutions for your advocacies and projects. 

An example of intersectionality comes from a conversation explaining the difference between simply paying someone minimum wage versus giving them a living wage and teaching them skills. How often have you met people who say that you just need to get a job, save money, and then your problems will be solved, only to feel frustrated when they think you’re lazy because you don’t earn enough no matter what you do and you feel stuck? Those are the kinds of people who have absolutely no understanding of intersectionality and that the only solution is to throw money at problems, without realizing that they still aren’t even paying enough. This is the attitude of an owner or manager of a sweatshop, paying laborers far below what it costs to support themselves as they break their backs for 18 hours a day in dangerous conditions such as heat and filth while making your Air Jordans, while the managers and corporations are making a killing in earnings for themselves. 

Now compare this attitude to that of the social entrepreneur who is using intersectionality: he recognizes that there is a pool of labor because there is a large community of women in a rural area in the Philippines, for example, who do not have an education or vocational training, but need to earn money to support themselves and their families as single mothers. They do not qualify for even work at McDonald’s and doing things from street sweeping to collecting garbage to sort and recycle is what they would otherwise do for some income, and in the worst case scenario, may turn to prostitution or are vulnerable to being exploited by sweatshop managers and traffickers or to be used as drug mules. 

The social entrepreneur recognizes the unique situation of this community in the Philippines (geography), particularly women (gender) who are in abject poverty (social class), who are in turn vulnerable to exploitation in drug trade or sex work (socio-economic consequences) because they have no other means due to a lack of education and thus no opportunities, which is also because their land was seized and husbands and other family killed under the historical dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos (historical context). and through understanding even just this little (yes, there’s more), the social entrepreneur takes a more nuanced approach to working with the community and other partners to find solutions that would best help these women. 

An example is a program that not only pays a fair living wage so that these women in this community can afford to feed and house themselves and their families, but that they are treated respectfully, have reasonable hours for work, and in addition to being paid well, are also given skills training for things such as personal finance management and budgeting, how to use a computer, English language, skilled labor such as sewing and weaving, and other basic life skills, while also guaranteeing a hygienic and private bathroom that locks properly and providing sanitary napkins for them. 

See how focused the right amount of understanding can do for your constituents? By having greater understanding of them, you have greater empathy for them, and work with them together to come up with the best solutions and practices. 

The best part about intersectionality is that you do not need to become a feminist or identify as one to practice it, as it is a universal tool that the intersectional feminist would be very happy if everyone were to adopt it as the default method of analysis and advocacy. But you just may very well fall in love with feminism when you practice intersectionality!