"Intersectionality," Socialist Feminism, and Contemporary Activism

“Intersectionality,” Socialist Feminism, and Contemporary Activism

The “intersectionality” concept was introduced by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, as an intervention aimed at bringing feminism into critical race theory.  It derived from her activism, and that of other black feminist legal scholars, as a critique of the limitations of a legal regime that considered sex discrimination and race discrimination as two separate wrongs.  No one could have predicted how widespread and prevalent the slogan has become since then.  This paper will examine two aspects of the concept’s origin and deployment in the US:  First, how it compares with the premises of socialist feminism of the late 1960s and 1970s.  This stream of the women's liberation movement rejected both liberal feminism, which at the time focused on ending gender/sex discrimination in law and policies, particularly as they pertained to the public sphere; and also radical feminism, which viewed the oppression of women as the root of all forms of domination.  Second, the paper will examine how widely intersectionality—as both concept and word--has been adopted and utilized by contemporary anti-racist activists, notably in the Black Lives Matter movement.  Their adoption of the concept, now used as a slogan, signals a significant change in previous civil-rights activism, namely the prominent leadership of “queer” and feminist women.  At the same time it signals the continued marginalization of class analysis.