Intersectionality

"Feminism is the political theory and practice to free all women: women of color, working-class women, poor women, physically challenged women, lesbians, old women- as well as white economically privileged heterosexual women. Anything less then this is not feminism, but merely female self-aggrandizement" (117). How does intersectionality connect to feminism? Intersectionality can be seen as part of the feminist thinking and action. But what is intersectionality? Intersectionality is when social categories such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, intersects at the micro level of individual experience to reflect how privilege and oppression intertwine together at the macro, social structure level (racism, sexism, heterosexism, etc).

In 2012, fifteen year old tennis player Taylor Townsend (an African American female) won the Australia Open junior title and was the top ranked junior player in the world.  The same year, she was discouraged by the U.S. Tennis Association to compete in the U.S. Open Junior Tennis Tournament because they were concerned about her lack of physical conditioning. Townsend's experience reveals that regardless of how good of a player you are or how high you're ranked, if you are female and African American, people will always try to find reasons to make sure you don't succeed. Not only that, I'm sure they felt threatened that she was so young and already such a good player. She was oppressed because she wasn't up to the U.S. Tennis Association's standard of what fit was, or at least that was the reason they gave. In one of the readings about Bodies, it mentions that "many African American women's concerns had different emphases then women." In other words, if you are female and not caucasian, you have different things or obstacles to worry about. Just fighting different battles.