6.1.3: Feminist Movements

Intersectionality in Feminism

  • Feminism is broadly defined as “the advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of equality for the sexes”.
  • However, a meaningful concept supposedly based on hope and equality has turned into a movement which 45% of Americans believe is polarizing, and 30% view as outdated, according to a Pew Research study conducted last year.
  • Exclusion is inherently prevalent in the modern-day feminist movement as these problems are deeply rooted in the way we perceive it.
    • Whether it be transgender-exclusionary radical feminists, or TERFs, such as JK Rowling, or white women who refuse to acknowledge the unique challenges faced by women of color, intersectionality is an issue of great concern within the larger push for gender equality.

Women’s Suffrage

  • Prominent leaders of historical feminist movements, such as Susan B. Anthony, gate-kept black women from their activism. Anthony did incredible work towards getting white women the right to vote, but her exclusion of women of color in her advocacy set their suffrage back decades.
  • Elizabeth Cady Stanton opposed supporting the 15th amendment, because she believed that people of color should not be enfranchised while she could not vote. According to a 2021 History.com article, even after black activists such as Frederick Douglass repeatedly stood up for Stanton’s own rights, she refused to reciprocate these acts of basic empathy. This sentiment was echoed by many other suffragettes who dropped women’s rights to work on abolition, but turned their backs on the issue when they could not benefit.

Modern Examples

  • Questions on defining womanhood - and who should be allowed to keep these gates - are hardly restricted to a single issue, or even to a single time period. 
  • Aforementioned author JK Rowling repeatedly used intricate phrasing to mask her true transphobic tendencies. Rather than addressing her transphobia, she chose to mischaracterize the arguments of her critics and claim, using big words, that she was only being attacked for believing that biological sex was real, rather than her blatantly hateful remarks towards members of the trans community.
  • Other modern figures such as Phyllis Schlafly actively opposed policies such as the Equal Rights Amendment because they wanted to retain the perceived privileges held by women who didn’t have to work. 
    • Schlafly was opposed to my own rights to equal treatment and pay because these issues didn’t affect her directly.
  • Paradoxically, a movement built to create solidarity among members of a historically margnialized group falls victim to questions of who gets to be allowed in. 

Second-Wave Feminism and its Impacts (1970’s)

  • This has also prompted the formation of movements intended to parallel white feminism while ensuring that everyone can be included in this type of advocacy.
    • Womanism, also known as intersectional feminism, is a social theory created by Kimberlé Crenshaw during the 1960s in an attempt to make gender-based advocacy efforts accessible to all women, specifically women of color and LGBTQ+ women.
    • As referenced by UN Women, this form of advocacy also places more emphasis on how women as a whole can contribute to the betterment of society through things like environmental advocacy, rather than focusing on each woman as an individual.
    • Womanism also aims to include people facing issues such as poverty and homelessness as a result of their gender identity. This is because Crenshaw realized that one of the fundamental flaws of feminism, along with little intersectionality, was a lack of dedication to women as a collective rather than as individuals. 
    • Fellow womanist Alice Walker remarked that womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender, essentially meaning that womanism is a less-whitewashed alternative to feminism. Similarly, Crenshaw recognized that, in order to combat systemic issues, we would have to fight them together, rather than on a case-by-case basis.
  • By turning our attention to larger, underlying issues that negatively impact hundreds, thousands, or even millions, of women, we can have a much larger impact on women as a whole, rather than aiming to empower each and every woman on their own.

Conclusion

  • For centuries, women ourselves have been a marginalized group - but within this community intended to create unity and solidarity, gates have arisen.
  • There’s no way to erase the damage that has already been done by proponents of white feminism’s darker aspects, but through collective effort towards intersectionality and acceptance, we can look to open gates for future generations, rather than slamming them in the faces of trans women and women of color.
  • By adopting what is currently perceived as feminism to more “womanist” ideals, we may very well be able to create more impactful advocacy work for all women.