Quote:
Originally Posted by Jack_
I completely recognise my privilege as a white, (temporarily) able-bodied male, and agree with the importance of acknowledging one's social standing before passing judgement on issues of social exclusion and discrimination. I do however find it a bit rich and amusing that a few of the people who have been asking for such in both this and other threads over the last few days, are routinely those who freely pass judgement, denigrate or indeed minimise issues that affect other marginalised groups they are not a part of, like Muslims, BME people or members of the LGBT+ community. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.
That brings me on nicely to my answer to the thread title, however. I think feminism (and, actually, many other social causes) should be intersectional. Women are not one universalised, homogeneous group who are marginalised in all the same way. It is important to recognise how the many other axes of identity that make up a person will position them very differently to others. Rather than seeing the plight of women and black people as fundamentally different, we should instead use intersectionality as a frame of reference to position individuals as marginalised under several different strands of social identity. To put it another way, the issues facing a white, heterosexual, middle class, (temporarily) able-bodied woman are never going to be the same as those facing a black, homosexual, working class, disabled woman. The former, while still a woman, is privileged in multiple ways that the latter is not. Issues of social injustice transgress many different social axes, and to truly understand (and resolve) the marginalisation that a person may face, we must first use intersectionality as an analytical tool.
Here's a great TED Talk from the woman who coined the term back in 1989, Kimberlé Crenshaw:
https://www.ted.com/talks/kimberle_c...ersectionality
Now, the history of and different strands of feminism are far beyond the scope of a post on a Big Brother forum, and indeed any one piece of literature - but for anyone interested here's a useful starting point for an overview of the equality-difference debate integral to a lot of feminist scholarship:
https://www.mheducation.co.uk/openup...0335204155.pdf
(The chapter entitled Equal or Different? The Perennial Feminist Problematic, pp. 8-24) |
As regards the first paragraph we would all undoubtedly be or feel marginalised if we went to live in a different country especially one with a very different culture and if we made little effort to assimilate. Hardly that surprising.
But to make a comparison with women born and raised here with a history going back centuries in exactly the same way as their male counterparts and who make up an equal percentage of the population and yet are still made to feel marginalized and second-class is not the same. It is not a credible comparison. To suggest so is a bit rich to say the least, although actually not so amusing. So get of your high horse.