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Third Wave Feminism: Intersectionality

Memoir of a Race Traitor, by Mab Segrest (1994).

1. Mab is a white, educated, middle-class lesbian from the South. Considering these identities, why do you think she made anti-racism the center of her activism?

2. Mab writes about loneliness, self-hatred, and fear associated with her coming to terms with her lesbian identity. What was the process of confronting and overcoming (or at least managing) these feelings? How did Mab channel these feelings into her activism. (p 40).

3. Once Mab embraces her lesbian identity, she became active in lesbian-feminist movement, which embraced separatism (see photo). However, other issues of identity began to emerge and, by the 1980s, she rejected the lesbian-feminist ideology that taught her that she could not work with men or straight women. Why does she do this...and what alternative ideology do you think she embraces (p. 47-ish).

4. Mab is an educated, middle class white woman, which means she has a lot of privilege. However, she still fears for her life. What are the "multiple burdens" Mab faces in society (one is obvious, but there are others)?

Feminary collective (left to right, top to bottom row): Helen Langa, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Eleanor Holland, Cris South, and Mab Segrest. (1982).

FEMINIST WAVES

Scholars conventionally divide American feminism into three waves (not without criticism)

First Wave: 19th-early 20th century

Second Wave: 1960s-1990s

PRIMARY CONCERNS: Legal Rights

  • Sexuality - reproductive rights
  • Economic - equal pay, economic oppt., work place rights
  • Education & Sports - equal access

WHO: Middle class, educated white women

  • Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Jo Freeman

PRIMARY CONCERNS: Political Rights

  • Suffrage
  • Inheritance & property rights
  • Asserting women's moral superiority.

WHO: Upper-middle class women and male allies. By turn of the century working-class, educated immigrant women began pushing movement in a new direction.

  • Alice Paul, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells, Lucretia Mott, and others.

Third Wave Actions

Third Wave: 1990s-present

The Undoing Project:

3rd Wave Feminism

Third Wave Feminism: Intersectionality

Slut Walk

  • Intersectionality analyzes discrimination and oppression along several categorical axis.

  • It asserts that people, esp. women of color, sexual and gender nonconforming people, immigrants, and working-class people are "multiply burdened," which means their subordination results from multiple and simultaneous sources of discrimination (race, sex, gender identity, sexual desire, socioeconomic status, age, religion, physical and mental ability, immigrant status, etc.), rather than from discrete sources.

  • Intersectionality addresses the tendency to define sex and race discrimination in terms of the experiences of those who are privileged BUT FOR their racial or sexual characteristics.

PRIMARY CONCERNS: Deconstruct social norms, stereotypes, and

categorical thinking (like gender, race, sexuality, & femininity).

  • Gender violence & rape,
  • Reproductive justice,
  • Slut shaming and unhealthy beauty standards
  • Anti-racism and anti-colonialism
  • Queer theory & LGBTQ rights

WHO: Black feminists, LGBTQ activists, Chicana Women, college-

aged women and male allies

DeGraffenreid v. General Motors (1976)

  • In 1976, Black women sued General Motors claiming their seniority-based layoff program discriminated against Black Women.
  • Court rejected the suit because Black women weren't a protected class under Title 7. Black yes, women yes, but not a combination of both.

Third Wave Feminism: The Origins, 1991-92

"I argue that Black women [today we'd expand this to 'women of color'] are sometimes excluded from feminist theory and anti-racist policy. ...Because the intersectional experience [of women of color] is greater than the sum of racism and sexism, any analysis that does not take intersectionality into account cannot sufficiently address the particular manner in which Black women are subordinated."

--Kimberle Crenshaw,

"Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex:

A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine,

Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics." (1989).

White, heterosexual, middle-class, cis-gender, able-bodied, 35 year old, Protestant, native-born, college-educated male.

White, heterosexual, middle-class, cis-gender, able-bodied, 30-year old, Protestant, native-born, college-educated female.

White, middle-class homosexual male

White, middle-class, able-bodied woman

Black, able-bodied, poor male

Hispanic, poor, homosexual, male

Black, able-bodied, middle-class woman

Middle-eastern, middle-class,

Transgender male

Hispanic, poor, disabled woman

Black, poor, homosexual, disabled,

7o yr old, Atheist male

Black, disabled, full-bodied, poor, lesbian, single-mother.

Middle-eastern, poor, disabled,

Transgender male, 65 year old immigrant male

"The night after Thomas’s confirmation I ask the man I am intimate with what he thinks of the whole mess. His concern is primarily with Thomas’ propensity to demolish civil rights and opportunities for people of color. I launch into a tirade. 'When will progressive black men prioritize my rights and well-being? When will they stop talking so damn much about ‘the race’ as if it revolved exclusively around them?' He tells me I wear my emotions on my sleeve. I scream 'I need to know, are you with me or are you going to help them try to destroy me?'"

--Rebecca Walker,

"Becoming the Third Wave," Ms. (1992)

Anita Hill testifying at Justice Clarence Thomas’s 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

3rd Wave Feminist: Rebecca Walker, daughter of Alice Walker

"Can a woman’s experience undermine a man’s career? Can a woman’s voice, a woman’s sense of self-worth and injustice, challenge a structure predicated upon the subjugation of our gender? Anita Hill’s testimony threatened to do that and more. If Thomas had not been confirmed, every man in the United States would be at risk. For how many senators never told a sexist joke–How many men have not used their protected male privilege to thwart in some way the influence or ideas of a woman colleague, friend, or relative? For those whose sense of power is so obviously connected to the health and vigor of the penis. it would have been a metaphoric castration. Of course this is too great a threat."

--Rebecca Walker,

"Becoming the Third Wave," Ms. (1992)

"Third Wave feminism focuses on changing social norms and stereotypes. These norms while individually appearing harmless work together to form a foundation of attitudes that make existing inequalities appear normal and inevitable, which is why when we talk about third wave feminism you hear things like breaking down essentialism, which refers to the idea that a person's biology means they have certain characteristics, i.e. women are nurturing and men are aggressive, and breaking down binaries, i.e. men-women, black-white, [heterosexual-homosexual]."

--Kylie, The Undoing Project, YouTube Channel

FINAL EXAM: Due via Canvas, Thur. Dec 8 at 4:00pm

GENERAL REQUIREMENTS:

  • Your final exam must be uploaded via canvas by Thursday, Dec. 8th at 4:00pm. No exceptions or extensions will be given.
  • The exam will consist of three parts with five essay question and one short answer, You will be required to answer THREE of the essays and ONE short answer. Your essay should be 2-3 pgs, and your short answer 1-2 paragraphs (total of 7-10 pages), double spaced, 12 pt. Times News Roman, 1" margin.
  • Your exam should be uploaded as one document, rather than three separate.
  • The strength of your essays will be based on your ability to stay on topic, connect various themes from class, and most importantly, your use of readings and primary source quotes from lecture slides to support your claims.
  • Do NOT use outside sources including Wikipedia, readings from other courses, or your own research.
  • LIMIT PERSONAL OPINIONS IN YOUR ANSWER. Instead make arguments you can support with the class material

PART ONE: SECONDARY SOURCE READING (30 pts)

  • You will be given a prompt and required to write an essay on Storming Caesars Palace.
  • Your essay should not summarize the book, instead, you will utilize the book as evidence to support your arguments in the essay.
  • You will also be expected to use other sources from class related to the welfare rights movement (several themes could fit here: reproductive rights, welfare rights, third wave feminism, etc.

PART TWO: THEMATIC: Four essay questions, you must answer two (30 pts each)

  • The questions will address one of the broad themes we discussed in class (sexuality, reproduction, marriage and family, feminism, intersectionality, work and economics, race, etc) and will require you to incorporate several of the week's material.
  • You should use material from lecture AND assigned readings to support your answers.
  • Note: If your answer does little more than lift text from lecture slides you will not receive a good grade (This doesn't apply to quotes in my lecture slides as those can be used as primary sources).

PART THREE: PRIMARY SOURCE READINGS (10 pts)

  • You will be given one short answer addressing the three primary sources you read (Incidents, Dear Lizzie, Memoir of Race Traitor). Your answer should be 1-2 paragraphs.

Lecture 10.2

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