Feminism Vs Intersectional Feminism

“If you don’t know the difference between white feminism [versus] intersectional feminism [,] then you’re probably a white feminist” (qtd. in Dastagir, 2018). Everybody falls into certain groups that are related to each individual person – whether that is age, gender, sexual orientation, race, or any other characteristic. Each person therefore identifies in more than one subgroup. Intersectional feminism is the overlapping of these categories in the feminist movement. And as later generations became and are becoming contributors to the feminist movement, it is moving away from its roots as a movement of gender equality and toward a movement of acceptance and equality for all characteristics. Intersectional feminism is the understanding of how

It was a spinoff of the movements going on at the time such as the Abolition of Slavery movement. During this time of social unrest, women and men alike realized that in order to result in a change in society they must act; thus began feminism. At the time, feminist were campaigning for rights such as: “guardianship of infants, [voting], property rights, divorce, access to higher education and the medical professions, … equal pay and protective legislation for women workers” (“The Women's Movement - Our History”). Roughly seventy year later women finally were given the right to vote. Some thirty years after that, there was a large surge of women in employment. Twenty years following, the United States witnessed what is now called modern feminism. Modern feminism started in the 1960s as a result of the large employment surge for women. Feminists were now campaigning for the right of abortion, childcare, and equal pay – all topics that are bringing much controversy even today. In the 1990s, feminists began to realize that women are being treated differently within their own gender, thus the term intersectionality was coined. Intersectionality became –especially more recently – a vital role in the feminist movement, in what is now called the fourth wave of

In the 1970s, the wage gap decreased because “women’s progress in education and workforce participation” (Miller, 2018). However currently there is still a wage gap: for every dollar a man makes a woman makes eighty cents for same job – on average. What is being seen recently is that intersectionality plays a vital role in the wage gap as well; not only are women being paid less than men, but some races of women are being paid less than others. It was discovered that “among full-time workers in 2016, Hispanic or Latina, black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native (AIAN), and Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander (NHPI) women had lower median annual earnings compared with non-Hispanic white and Asian women” (Miller, 2018). It was also revealed that Asian women have the smallest wage gap when compared to men and that Hispanic women have the largest wage gap when compared to men. Intersectionality is an important aspect to feminism. Without intersectionality all that is to be said is that there is a wage gap. However intersectionality shows that while a majority of women are subject to the wage gap, some are affected more harshly due to their portions of their