WEBVTT - What Is Intersectionality? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:07.200 Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff, 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:12.880 Lauren Vogelbaum. Here Before, relatively few people had ever heard 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:16.079 the word intersectionality, even though it was first coined in 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:20.320 nine as a legal term to describe intersecting areas of discrimination. 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:26.600 But today it's neither obscure nor uncontroversial. In some circles, 0:00:26.600 --> 0:00:30.480 it's a politically polarizing buzzword. So how did this happen? 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:35.200 Let's start at the beginning. The term intersectionality was first 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:38.880 coined by Kimberly Crenshaw, a lawyer, law professor, and civil 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:42.839 rights activist. In nine she wrote an influential paper that 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:46.920 identified a glaring hole in anti discrimination law. The law 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:51.120 recognized categories such as racial discrimination and gender discrimination, but 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:53.840 was blind to the situations in which two or more 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:57.960 of those categories overlapped. Take the case of de graph 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:01.160 and Read versus General Motors, which Crenshaw cited in a 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:04.559 TED talk as an example of where the law fell 0:01:04.600 --> 0:01:08.440 short of delivering justice. In this case, a black woman 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:10.840 named Emma degraffin Reed was denied a job at a 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:14.240 local car manufacturing plant, and she sued on the basis 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:17.760 of discrimination. The judge throughout the case, citing that the 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:20.759 plant had a record of hiring both black people and women, 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:25.240 so she had no grounds to sue. But Crenshaw argues 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:28.919 the judge missed the point. Yes the plant hired black people, 0:01:29.040 --> 0:01:32.200 but those were all black men hired for industrial or 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:36.240 maintenance work. And yes the plant hired women, but those 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:40.039 were white women who worked as secretaries. But black women 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:43.800 didn't fit into either of those narrow hiring categories, so 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:48.520 they were effectively barred from employment at the plant. Since 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:51.680 there wasn't a word yet for this overlapping of identities 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:56.280 that combined to form new hybrid categories of discrimination, Crenshaw 0:01:56.320 --> 0:02:00.800 invented one, and she called it intersectionality. We spoke with 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:04.559 Crenshaw and she said intersectionality was a prism to bring 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:08.560 to light dynamics withindiscrimination law that weren't being appreciated by 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:12.120 the courts. In particular, courts seemed to think that race 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:15.359 discrimination was what happened to all black people across gender 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:18.799 and sex discrimination was what happened to all women. And 0:02:18.960 --> 0:02:21.440 if that is your framework, of course what happens to 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:23.960 black women and other women of color is going to 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:29.320 be difficult to see. So In its original sense, intersectionality 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:32.800 was a legal framework for seeing people whose identities and 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:37.000 lived experiences are more complex and who deserve equal treatment 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:41.600 under the law. Starting in the nineteen nineties, academics began 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:46.480 incorporating intersectionality theory into these social sciences. Up until that point, 0:02:46.680 --> 0:02:50.520 there was a tendency to study the experiences of different racial, ethnic, 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:55.120 or religious groups as homogeneous blocks. We also spoke with 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:58.320 Mary Romero, a professor of Justice studies and social inquiry 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:02.399 at Arizona State University. She said the essentialist approach said 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.680 that all Latinos are like this, without considering that there 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:09.919 are all of these intersections of age, citizenship, sexuality, and disability, 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:15.560 so there's not a monolithic experience. By examining the specific 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:20.359 experiences of Latin X people who are lgbt Q, undocumented, rich, 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:23.639 and poor, social scientists came up with data that could 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:27.639 be used to inform important public policy decisions like immigration. 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:31.560 Romero said, if we're going to look at immigration policy 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:33.720 and see the ways in which it needs to be changed, 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:37.120 we have to take into consideration all the various conditions. 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:40.160 The argument would be, if you want to be inclusive 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:42.960 and you want to be just the policy has to 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:47.680 exist without privileging one group over another. Crenshaw may not 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:51.360 have invented the word intersectionality as a call for social justice, 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:54.400 but even she has come to see it that way. 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:57.800 In her TED talk, Crenshaw spoke about violence perpetrated against 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:00.680 black women and how this violence is often invisible in 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:05.000 the national discussion about implicit racial bias and policing. She 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:08.440 asked why Michael Brown and Tamua Rice were household names 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:13.040 but not Michelle Qusseau or Tanisha Anderson, two unarmed black 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:18.760 women also killed by police. Again, Crenshaw explained how intersectionality 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:22.200 provides a prism or frame in which to see people 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:27.560 whose experiences are often overlooked. She said, without frames that 0:04:27.600 --> 0:04:30.839 allow us to see how social problems impact all the 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:33.440 members of a targeted group, many will fall through the 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:37.000 cracks of our movements, left to suffer in virtual isolation. 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:41.039 The idea of intersectionality has been taken up by a 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:45.480 lot of progressive organizations fighting for social equity and social justice. 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:48.520 There's a growing recognition that not all of the members 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:51.720 of an activist group fall into the same tidy categories 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:55.440 or share the same experiences in the world at y 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:58.400 W Boston, a community organization that grew out of one 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:00.880 of the nation's oldest chapters of y w c A, 0:05:01.600 --> 0:05:05.640 they say that intersectionality is crucial to social equity work. 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:10.239 One post on their blog explains quote without an intersectional lens, 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:13.440 events and movements that aim to address injustice towards one 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:17.279 group may end up perpetuating systems of inequities toward other groups. 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:21.920 As an example, it's cited the seventeen Women's March, which 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:24.839 caught flak from transgender members of the movement because of 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:28.839 its vagina centric messaging. Some slogans chanted or written on 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:33.279 signs or t shirts or online focused on the vagina. Further, 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:36.880 some people both inside and outside of the march interpreted 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:40.240 the pink hats that many protesters war as representing female 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:45.400 outer genitalia. Y W Boston wrote, assuming that all women 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.280 have vaginas or are defined by their bodies is an 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:52.320 oversimplification that erases the experience of those who exist beyond 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:55.960 the gender binary. By avoiding language that assumes our own 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:59.200 experiences are baseline, we can open ourselves up to listening 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:03.240 to others points of view. The embrace of intersectionality by 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:05.800 the left has led to a backlash on the right. 0:06:06.440 --> 0:06:08.800 Critics of intersectionality don't see it as a way of 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:13.440 including or seeing a broader diversity of experiences, but as 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:17.960 a type of political correctness on steroids. As conservative pundits 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:21.520 like Ben Shapiro see it, The goal of intersectionality is 0:06:21.560 --> 0:06:23.800 to pit people against each other in a kind of 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:28.720 oppression olympics. He said in a video. Intersectionality is a 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:31.440 form of identity politics in which the value of your 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:34.640 opinion depends on how many victim groups you belong to. 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:37.200 At the bottom of the totem pole is the person 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:40.680 everybody loves to hate, the straight white male. The more 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:43.960 memberships you can claim and oppressed groups, the more aggrieved 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:48.760 you are, and the higher you rank. Conservative writer Andrew 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:53.440 Sullivan called intersectionality a new religion imposed on liberal college campuses. 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:58.279 He wrote, intersectionalities version of original sin is the power 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:01.760 of some identity groups over others. To overcome this sin, 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:05.039 you first need to confess i e. Check your privilege, 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:07.760 and subsequently live your life and order your thoughts in 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:11.160 a way that keeps the sin at bay. He says 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:13.880 that the result of this is that anyone not sufficiently 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:20.680 quote woke is shunned and their voice silenced. Romero at 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:24.440 Arizona State says that both campus activists and their critics 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:28.080 often missed the point of intersectionality. Romero says that she's 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:31.200 definitely had students who misuse it as a way of 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:36.400 separating the oppressed from the oppressors. Romero said, I've always 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:39.360 corrected them by using myself as an example. There are 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:42.120 times when I'm disadvantaged and other times when i have 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:45.520 advantages over other people. It's very rare to find somebody 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:51.040 who has absolutely no advantages in any situation. Romero explains 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.640 that the target of intersectionality shouldn't be an individual person, 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:58.480 but the structure in which that individual lives, works, or studies. 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.000 Is the structure designed to allow only one type of 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:05.320 person to succeed or does it give everyone equal access? 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:09.760 Seen that way, even the straight white male, who Shapiro 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:13.600 says is vilified benefits from some of those intersectional policies. 0:08:14.200 --> 0:08:16.760 For example, a straight white male who comes from a 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:19.840 low income family, or one who has a learning disability 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:22.840 or a disorder like a d h D or PTSD. 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:29.000 Romero said, what's the white male's age, their class, their citizenship? 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:32.400 As we get older. For example, we have certain structural 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:37.160 disadvantages that we share with people who are disabled. In 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:40.360 the most just and equitable version of our world, we 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:43.080 all hope that there would be policies and institutions in 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:46.560 place that see us in the various circumstances of our 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:50.000 lives and give us all a fair crack at life, liberty, 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:57.960 and the pursuit of happiness. Today's episode was written by 0:08:58.000 --> 0:09:00.319 Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler klang Or. More on 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:02.240 this and lots of other topics, visit how stuff works 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:04.800 dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio. 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:07.760 For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:10.520 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.