What Is the Value of Intersectionality to the Sociological Study of Gender?

Audre Lord summarises the critique intersectional feminists have of non-intersectional approaches; “what woman here is so enamoured of her own oppression that she cannot see her heelprint upon another woman’s face?”, encapsulating the belief that mechanisms of oppression cannot be challenged without a fundamental acknowledgement of the structural basis of dominion. Intersectionality, understood as a theoretical framework for conceptualising socio-political identities that combine to produce unique forms of discrimination, enables one to do so as the paradigm seeks to understand combinations of injustice. Complimentary to transnational feminism and queer theory, one would be right to assume intersectionality is invaluable for the sociological study of gender. However, the travelling of this theory from resistance movements to mainstream feminism compromises its value as the mutations engendered by its proliferation potentially “render the concept devoid of its original meanings”, suggesting value depends on whether the concept is performed as intended, or performed merely as a performance. This essay will analyse intersectionality’s value when situated within its conscious trajectory, as a concept co-opted by neo-liberal feminists and, on account of these analyses, conclude with recommendations as to how its intrinsic value can be restored.

Prior to its absorption into mainstream feminism, intersectionality developed in line with black feminist traditions and liberation movements of the Global South in response to the discipline’s delegation of women from ethnic minorities and working class backgrounds to its periphery. Seminal pieces that would influence the writings of queer theorists such as Judith Butler were of significant value, with Truth’s speech ‘Ain’t I A Woman?’ insisting her blackness, which prevented her performing conventional femininity as an enslaved African American, and womanhood, which facilitated a distinct mistreatment, were not separate entities. This was evidenced by the rape of enslaved women by plantation owners, not as a result of power imbalances often superimposed onto cases of sexual violence which presume white victims to be chaste, but as a result of antithetical, hypersexual characteristics being assigned to black women, rendering them undeserving of the protection afforded to their white counterparts. Intersectionality at its crudest form is thus of great value to gender studies as the drawbacks of single axis analyses of oppression are exposed, with the theory demonstrating how the liberatory potential of a coalition between race and gender is thwarted by the homogenisation of sexual violence. Anti-discrimination laws that operate non-intersectionally also prove deficient, as evidenced by DeGraffenreid v. General Motors (1976) which saw a group of African American women contest compound discrimination in the workplace. According to Kimberlé Crenshaw, the court’s dismissal of these allegations, citing black male workers as evidence of racial inclusivity and white female workers as evidence of gender inclusivity, encompasses beliefs that oppression is merely the sum of its parts, negating the requirement of a super-remedy that tackles hybrid claims of injustice. This notion is problematic as the boundaries of discrimination become articulated by black men and white women, omitting black women from feminist and antiracial discourse, and forcing them to ally with one minority group over the other. This example demonstrates intersectionality’s value as, when consciously integrated into issues of discrimination, concepts such as Lorde’s construct of dichotomous oppositional difference explain the alienation felt by black women as a result of identifying with two disparate minority groups, thus identifying with neither. The approach also illustrates exclusionary oppression faced by transwomen by trans-exclusionary radical feminists who have sought to reinforce gender binaries predicated on biological essentialism, rejecting the existence of social models of sex and cis-privilege. Subsequently, transmisogynist ‘RadFems’ have prohibited transwomen representing women’s struggles as a result of them not adhering to anatomy oriented interpretations of womanhood. Standpoint epistemology is valuable in this context in understanding the ‘TERF’, internally oppressive in their attempt to challenge patriarchal oppression, and transwomen, ‘the outsider within’ estranged from women-only spaces and confined to their common cultural world. This application of intersectionality is therefore of significant value to the sociological study of gender as the paradigm provides compelling arguments for a departure from dichotomously conceptualising oppression, advocating for a divergence from ‘top up’ activism from the singularly-disadvantaged towards ‘bottom up’, multiply-disadvantaged alliances.

However, this value cannot be taken from granted. Drawing on Sara Salem’s theory of a ‘travelling concept’ and Michael Foucault’s proposition that claims about beginnings are claims to power, it is evident intersectionality severed from its original location and discipline whitewashes original sentiments as mutations occur in line with “geographies of colonial modernity”. As a result, its application can facilitate the neglect of racialised oppression in one’s attempts to mitigate sexism, as the ‘authoritative universal voice’ of white male subjectivity is transferred to white women who share common socio-cultural characteristics, thus perpetuating the unbalanced power dynamics intersectionality seeks to redress. Value is therefore diminished synonymously with its deviation from radical ontology to Western academia, as dilution of the theory not only makes its functions ambiguous, but removes the act of critique from its intrinsically critical purpose. This is reflected in intersectional Marxist theory, which should develop on the work of formerly colonised women in the Global South through enriching understandings of the matrix of domination fundamental to systemic oppression. However, critics assert the superficial application of intersectionality in Marx feminism does little to racialise social reproduction theory or understand the interactions between capitalism and imperialism. Whilst intersectionality should be of great value in this instance, the theory merely functions as a ‘bourgeois ideology’ that fails to account for identity-based social relations that not only create oppression, but further constitute oppressive systems that exist amongst capitalist patriarchies. Likewise, corporate diversity tools leveraged by institutions in the place of revolutionary, identity-based politics indicate depoliticised intersectionality’s marketability. Despite Google championing diversity in the workplace and frequently ranking first place in employee inclusivity, Business Insider revealed only 1.2% of black women comprise their 30.9% female workforce, with half of this composition being made up of white women and 12.5% being of Asian descent. This supports Sirma Bilge’s argument that diversity serves as a feature of neoliberal management that incorporates struggles into a “market-driven and state-sanctioned governmentality”, with a purpose of making companies appear capable of “deploying multiple forms of difference simultaneously”. As a result, limited progress is made in facilitating an authentically intersectional workforce as companies prioritise projecting diversity externally as opposed to embedding it internally, as supported by the disproportionate rate black employees left Google in 2018. The convictions of early intersectionality are therefore undermined and its value nullified as the theory, appropriated by neoliberal institutions, exists more as an instrument of virtue signalling and less as a non-conformist critique consciously utilised by sociologists.

To conclude, diversity oriented intersectionality is of little value to the sociological study of gender, whereas intersectionality that is authentically intersectional holds boundless value. Pre-travelled intersectionality forces sociologists to assume multiple subjectivities by viewing oppressive systems as mutually creating and reinforcing, challenging misconceptions of oppression being a monolithic experience through detailing the unique ways institutionalised injustice is upheld. Conversely, neoliberal veins of travelled intersectionality provide little sociological merit for their disregard of early understandings of “heteropatriarchy, racial capitalism and colonialism”, as they inherently fuse multiple feminist ontologies under a pretence of diversity. To rectify mutations, recommendations can be made for a relocation of intersectionality to its radical political origins and returning of ownership to black and Global South feminists, predominantly acknowledging their experiences in the establishment of a coherent methodological basis. Prisms of domination should also be expanded to better understand systems that subjugate disabled and queer populations, forcing proponents to continue to recognise the objectivity of their social location and scrutinise their own privilege in doing so.