Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum. Here Before, relatively few people had ever heard
Speaker 1: the word intersectionality, even though it was first coined in
Speaker 1: nine as a legal term to describe intersecting areas of discrimination.
Speaker 1: But today it's neither obscure nor uncontroversial. In some circles,
Speaker 1: it's a politically polarizing buzzword. So how did this happen?
Speaker 1: Let's start at the beginning. The term intersectionality was first
Speaker 1: coined by Kimberly Crenshaw, a lawyer, law professor, and civil
Speaker 1: rights activist. In nine she wrote an influential paper that
Speaker 1: identified a glaring hole in anti discrimination law. The law
Speaker 1: recognized categories such as racial discrimination and gender discrimination, but
Speaker 1: was blind to the situations in which two or more
Speaker 1: of those categories overlapped. Take the case of de graph
Speaker 1: and Read versus General Motors, which Crenshaw cited in a
Speaker 1: TED talk as an example of where the law fell
Speaker 1: short of delivering justice. In this case, a black woman
Speaker 1: named Emma degraffin Reed was denied a job at a
Speaker 1: local car manufacturing plant, and she sued on the basis
Speaker 1: of discrimination. The judge throughout the case, citing that the
Speaker 1: plant had a record of hiring both black people and women,
Speaker 1: so she had no grounds to sue. But Crenshaw argues
Speaker 1: the judge missed the point. Yes the plant hired black people,
Speaker 1: but those were all black men hired for industrial or
Speaker 1: maintenance work. And yes the plant hired women, but those
Speaker 1: were white women who worked as secretaries. But black women
Speaker 1: didn't fit into either of those narrow hiring categories, so
Speaker 1: they were effectively barred from employment at the plant. Since
Speaker 1: there wasn't a word yet for this overlapping of identities
Speaker 1: that combined to form new hybrid categories of discrimination, Crenshaw
Speaker 1: invented one, and she called it intersectionality. We spoke with
Speaker 1: Crenshaw and she said intersectionality was a prism to bring
Speaker 1: to light dynamics withindiscrimination law that weren't being appreciated by
Speaker 1: the courts. In particular, courts seemed to think that race
Speaker 1: discrimination was what happened to all black people across gender
Speaker 1: and sex discrimination was what happened to all women. And
Speaker 1: if that is your framework, of course what happens to
Speaker 1: black women and other women of color is going to
Speaker 1: be difficult to see. So In its original sense, intersectionality
Speaker 1: was a legal framework for seeing people whose identities and
Speaker 1: lived experiences are more complex and who deserve equal treatment
Speaker 1: under the law. Starting in the nineteen nineties, academics began
Speaker 1: incorporating intersectionality theory into these social sciences. Up until that point,
Speaker 1: there was a tendency to study the experiences of different racial, ethnic,
Speaker 1: or religious groups as homogeneous blocks. We also spoke with
Speaker 1: Mary Romero, a professor of Justice studies and social inquiry
Speaker 1: at Arizona State University. She said the essentialist approach said
Speaker 1: that all Latinos are like this, without considering that there
Speaker 1: are all of these intersections of age, citizenship, sexuality, and disability,
Speaker 1: so there's not a monolithic experience. By examining the specific
Speaker 1: experiences of Latin X people who are lgbt Q, undocumented, rich,
Speaker 1: and poor, social scientists came up with data that could
Speaker 1: be used to inform important public policy decisions like immigration.
Speaker 1: Romero said, if we're going to look at immigration policy
Speaker 1: and see the ways in which it needs to be changed,
Speaker 1: we have to take into consideration all the various conditions.
Speaker 1: The argument would be, if you want to be inclusive
Speaker 1: and you want to be just the policy has to
Speaker 1: exist without privileging one group over another. Crenshaw may not
Speaker 1: have invented the word intersectionality as a call for social justice,
Speaker 1: but even she has come to see it that way.
Speaker 1: In her TED talk, Crenshaw spoke about violence perpetrated against
Speaker 1: black women and how this violence is often invisible in
Speaker 1: the national discussion about implicit racial bias and policing. She
Speaker 1: asked why Michael Brown and Tamua Rice were household names
Speaker 1: but not Michelle Qusseau or Tanisha Anderson, two unarmed black
Speaker 1: women also killed by police. Again, Crenshaw explained how intersectionality
Speaker 1: provides a prism or frame in which to see people
Speaker 1: whose experiences are often overlooked. She said, without frames that
Speaker 1: allow us to see how social problems impact all the
Speaker 1: members of a targeted group, many will fall through the
Speaker 1: cracks of our movements, left to suffer in virtual isolation.
Speaker 1: The idea of intersectionality has been taken up by a
Speaker 1: lot of progressive organizations fighting for social equity and social justice.
Speaker 1: There's a growing recognition that not all of the members
Speaker 1: of an activist group fall into the same tidy categories
Speaker 1: or share the same experiences in the world at y
Speaker 1: W Boston, a community organization that grew out of one
Speaker 1: of the nation's oldest chapters of y w c A,
Speaker 1: they say that intersectionality is crucial to social equity work.
Speaker 1: One post on their blog explains quote without an intersectional lens,
Speaker 1: events and movements that aim to address injustice towards one
Speaker 1: group may end up perpetuating systems of inequities toward other groups.
Speaker 1: As an example, it's cited the seventeen Women's March, which
Speaker 1: caught flak from transgender members of the movement because of
Speaker 1: its vagina centric messaging. Some slogans chanted or written on
Speaker 1: signs or t shirts or online focused on the vagina. Further,
Speaker 1: some people both inside and outside of the march interpreted
Speaker 1: the pink hats that many protesters war as representing female
Speaker 1: outer genitalia. Y W Boston wrote, assuming that all women
Speaker 1: have vaginas or are defined by their bodies is an
Speaker 1: oversimplification that erases the experience of those who exist beyond
Speaker 1: the gender binary. By avoiding language that assumes our own
Speaker 1: experiences are baseline, we can open ourselves up to listening
Speaker 1: to others points of view. The embrace of intersectionality by
Speaker 1: the left has led to a backlash on the right.
Speaker 1: Critics of intersectionality don't see it as a way of
Speaker 1: including or seeing a broader diversity of experiences, but as
Speaker 1: a type of political correctness on steroids. As conservative pundits
Speaker 1: like Ben Shapiro see it, The goal of intersectionality is
Speaker 1: to pit people against each other in a kind of
Speaker 1: oppression olympics. He said in a video. Intersectionality is a
Speaker 1: form of identity politics in which the value of your
Speaker 1: opinion depends on how many victim groups you belong to.
Speaker 1: At the bottom of the totem pole is the person
Speaker 1: everybody loves to hate, the straight white male. The more
Speaker 1: memberships you can claim and oppressed groups, the more aggrieved
Speaker 1: you are, and the higher you rank. Conservative writer Andrew
Speaker 1: Sullivan called intersectionality a new religion imposed on liberal college campuses.
Speaker 1: He wrote, intersectionalities version of original sin is the power
Speaker 1: of some identity groups over others. To overcome this sin,
Speaker 1: you first need to confess i e. Check your privilege,
Speaker 1: and subsequently live your life and order your thoughts in
Speaker 1: a way that keeps the sin at bay. He says
Speaker 1: that the result of this is that anyone not sufficiently
Speaker 1: quote woke is shunned and their voice silenced. Romero at
Speaker 1: Arizona State says that both campus activists and their critics
Speaker 1: often missed the point of intersectionality. Romero says that she's
Speaker 1: definitely had students who misuse it as a way of
Speaker 1: separating the oppressed from the oppressors. Romero said, I've always
Speaker 1: corrected them by using myself as an example. There are
Speaker 1: times when I'm disadvantaged and other times when i have
Speaker 1: advantages over other people. It's very rare to find somebody
Speaker 1: who has absolutely no advantages in any situation. Romero explains
Speaker 1: that the target of intersectionality shouldn't be an individual person,
Speaker 1: but the structure in which that individual lives, works, or studies.
Speaker 1: Is the structure designed to allow only one type of
Speaker 1: person to succeed or does it give everyone equal access?
Speaker 1: Seen that way, even the straight white male, who Shapiro
Speaker 1: says is vilified benefits from some of those intersectional policies.
Speaker 1: For example, a straight white male who comes from a
Speaker 1: low income family, or one who has a learning disability
Speaker 1: or a disorder like a d h D or PTSD.
Speaker 1: Romero said, what's the white male's age, their class, their citizenship?
Speaker 1: As we get older. For example, we have certain structural
Speaker 1: disadvantages that we share with people who are disabled. In
Speaker 1: the most just and equitable version of our world, we
Speaker 1: all hope that there would be policies and institutions in
Speaker 1: place that see us in the various circumstances of our
Speaker 1: lives and give us all a fair crack at life, liberty,
Speaker 1: and the pursuit of happiness. Today's episode was written by
Speaker 1: Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler klang Or. More on
Speaker 1: this and lots of other topics, visit how stuff works
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