Our society lives in an age of heightened interconnectedness, which has brought many social issues under a greater lens of scrutiny and ultimately led to greater efforts of advocacy for progress. In the case of gender equality, the feminist movement has emerged to promote the progress of women. However, feminism has often been subject to criticism regarding its exclusivity to minority groups, which is a legitimate concern.
History has evidenced many “progressive” feminist figures as being exclusive in their work for gender equality. Susan B. Anthony for instance was a racist suffragette who opposed voting rights being administered to black men, having stated that, “I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman.” Anthony believed that women’s progress was ultimately pitted against another group’s progress; she embodied the “it’s me or it’s nobody” mentality that has been evidenced in the distinct separation of social movements believing that they are advocating simply for a single issue—and, moreover, the belief that their issue is entirely distinct from any other issue.
This first wave of the feminist movement was rooted in the historical dominance of women of various majority identities (i.e.: white, straight, protestant Christian, able-bodied, cisgender, etc.). These women developed the movement based upon their identity, in which they saw their fight as simply for the progress of women—because the gender aspect of their identity was the only aspect that was marginalized. This essentially led to the feminist movement being crafted over time to cater to “majority” women’s issues, which included advocacy for abortion and contraceptive rights and women’s rights in the workplace.
As a result of this historical development, many feminists today argue that gender equality is a focus for women’s rights and that, therefore, other marginalized groups in society need not be addressed specifically as part of the movement. This is a highly problematic belief though since millions of women have multiple marginalized identities that intersect to form who they are as individuals. We must fully recognize that a woman’s identity can be more complex than simply “being a woman”; a woman can also be gay, a person of color, Muslim, disabled and more.
Moreover, minority women experience issues that are unique to their identities as women and that the “majority” woman does not have to face. For example, many Muslim women who choose to wear hijab are criticized for wearing their headscarves due to the Western notion that it signifies oppression of women. Women of color are still being denied jobs due to wearing protective hairstyles, and these companies’ decisions are even being upheld in court.
Feminists cannot ignore or advocate for these concepts of oppression. According to Catherine Harnois, an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Wake Forest University, when majority-identity feminists do not account for minority women’s issues in the feminist movement, minority women are likely to feel excluded and to decide (rightfully) not to take part in a movement that doesn’t represent them. We need all women though in order to achieve progress in gender equality—and real progress cannot be achieved until all women’s issues are fought against. Instead, in order to achieve true gender equality for all women, we must espouse the ideals of intersectional feminism: the belief that the progress of women moves in conjunction to the progress of other marginalized groups.
Intersectionality is the concept that, according to Liam Kofi Bright, Daniel Malinsky, and Morgan Thompson, who are philosophy and history department researchers of Carnegie Mellon University and Pittsburgh University, “systems of power… cannot be understood in isolation from one another; instead, systems of power intersect and coproduce one another to result in unequal material realities and the distinctive social experiences that characterize them.” In other words, those involved in the fight against the oppression of one group must not only acknowledge other groups’ struggles but also partake in their activism in order to achieve progress for their own social justice movement.
If majority-identity women want to achieve true gender equality, they must recognize that minority women face unique issues that must specifically be acknowledged and addressed by the feminist movement. We can’t decry minority women for not being feminists since the movement has for so long ignored their own personal struggles, and we can’t expect them to be feminists until the movement accounts for the issues tied to the other aspects of their identity as women.
For feminists who want true progress, this means it’s time for you to step up and take a broader look at the world around you. Don’t just brush off the news stories about black girls going missing in D.C. or about trans* women around the country who are still being denied access to the pronouns and bathrooms with which they identify—and are even being killed for their gender identity. Intersectional feminism doesn’t just mean equality for women; it means equality for everyone. If you’re a feminist, you must also be a racial justice advocate, a supporter of the LGBTQ+ community, someone who embraces people of all religions—or, in other words, a person who is open to being an ally for other social justice causes.
Until we fully acknowledge the complexity of women’s identities and account for them in an intersectional feminist movement, we will continue to be stuck in a counteractive cycle of misguided feminist activism that is exclusive to the millions of minority women who deserve justice just as much as any other woman.
