Individuals Imprisoned: Intersectionality


http://radnichole.wordpress.com/2008/08/29/individuals-imprisoned-intersectionality/

Ideas are always communally wrought, not privately owned.

                                                                                   – Chandra Talpade Mohanty

For the past year I have been reading the work of a writer who I find literarily-talented, insightful, intelligent and concise. She blogs at The Bilerico Project and her name is Jessica Hoffman. Exactly a week ago she wrote this guest blog at Feministe: "Toward a Liberationist Feminism (Or, I Hope Pro-Capitalist Feminism Is an Oxymoron)".

Jessica queried the basis of a word we use a lot in feminist discussions, intersectionality. If you clicked that link you will have found this:

    Intersectionality is a theory which seeks to examine the ways in which various 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/ethnicity, gender, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, class, or disability do not act independently of one another; instead, these forms of oppression interrelate creating a system of oppression that reflects the "intersection" of multiple forms of discrimination.