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Crenshaw's Mapping The Margins Analysis

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Kareen Harboyan English 1C Professor Supekar March 15, 2018 Word Count: Crenshaw’s Mapping the Margins: The Marginalization of Women of Color Analyzed Through Generalization and A Feminist Lens Crenshaw's Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color expands on the multifaceted struggles of women of color and the generalizations ingrained in society that limit women of color and keep them in a box. In this text, Crenshaw builds on the concept of intersectionality which proposes that social categorizations such as gender and race are intertwined and have great influence on one another. She explains how the lack of awareness about intersectionality skews the data behind studies on controversial …show more content…

She uses data from a field study on a battered women’s shelter in Los Angeles to back up her claims on structural intersectionality, explaining how women of color often face many structural barriers that keep them stuck in abusive relationships. The field study examines how most women at the shelter were struggling with language and financial barriers and facing racism, Crenshaw uses this information to propose that the struggles women of color face are often left unconsidered in the subject of feminism. In the fourth page of her essay, Crenshaw says, "WOC are differently situated in the economic, social and political worlds" (1250) . In making this claim, Crenshaw makes a warrant that all women of color are facing these same struggles, which is most likely true, but she only refers to the field study to support her claim, which is a generalization strategy. Making a claim about all WOC (women of color) based on the data from a single field suggests to the reader that every woman of color can be compared to the women at this one shelter in Los Angeles and all women can be properly represented by one region. This generalization fails to consider the struggles of WOC from other regions with different factors. Crenshaw’s generalization of representing …show more content…

One huge impact in the present pop culture that has been influenced by intersectional feminism is the Me Too Movement which started in October 2017. This movement gives people the platform to stand up to their abusers and showcases the vast majority of people that have been affected by sexual assault. The movement started based on accusations of sexual assault made against Harvey Weinstein, later accusations against famous comedian Aziz Ansari were made which drove many other victims to come forward about their experiences with sexual assault. Intersectional feminism is represented here through the conflict of social and political power frequently shutting down the voices and justice for victims of sexual assault. In the Me Too movement, Marxism and feminist themes intersect in the subject of equality, it shows how justice and equality are being shut down because of Marxism i.e. financial and political power. All the victims speaking up for the movement indicates that they will no longer tolerate the silencing of their voices because of political and social power. The movement is a great example of how intersectionality is considered in modern day issues and is a very effective tool for creating consideration of all factors in

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Intersectionality illustrates how people face a multitude of experience based on their social identities. In Mapping the Margins, Crenshaw explores how race and gender detriments violence against women of color. She spoke about how spousal violence differ for women of color compared to white women. In 1990, Congress made the Immigration and Nationality Act to protect immigrant women who were abused by their American husbands. The act also stated an immigrant had to be married to a United States citizen for two years before gaining permanent resident status.

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It is impossible to discuss gender and the influences it has on one livelihood without acknowledging the other aspects of one’s identity. Other aspects such as race, class, and sexuality in combination with will always play a major role in one’s life choices and the way they are perceived by others. The term intersectionality as stated by Susanne Hochreiter offers a way to understand the multiple grounds of identity when considering how the social world is constructed. Intersectionality explains why gender cannot be in isolation from other inequalities in the social world. As a black Haitian woman raised in America, it is clear to see that my identity occupies several spheres.

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Intersectionality This reading is centered around Kimberle Crenshaw’s idea of intersectionality and how we often are a part of multiple social identities at one time. Her idea of these multiple identities contribute to her argument that society often treats people according to a specific social group versus all the groups in which they belong. Crenshaw gave the example of the Hispanic mother that was a victim of domestic violence and was not able to adequately convey her claims because of the language barrier between her and her crisis counselor. The son of the woman would have been able to translate but the counselor declined saying that would further disempower her.

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Furthermore in defining intersectionality, Hill Collins (1998: 27) argues: That scholarship in the 1980s and 1990s increasingly focused on uncovering connections amongst systems of oppression organised along axes of social class, gender, race and nationalism. Within the paradigms of intersectionality, any specific locations, social location where such systems meet or intersect generates a distinctive group history or experience Hill Collins(1998) further expatiates her argument by stating that, “ for example, intersectionality holds that knowing a woman lives in a sexist society is insufficient information to describe her experience; instead it is also necessary to know her race, sexual orientation, class, etc. , as well as her society’s attitude toward each of these.”

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(Weil & Ohmer, 2013, p. 131) outline the importance of intersectionality, writing, "It calls attention to the all-too-frequent identification of people only by race, or by race and gender, without acknowledging their multiple aspects of identity… intersectionality incorporates the whole person-not just a category. " Although the primary focus of the (Mirzrahi & Lombre, 2006) article is on intersectionality within the Women's Movement (or the lack thereof), the authors' research demonstrates the fundamental importance of addressing the "whole person" and not just their perceived identity (Weil & Ohmer, 2013, p.

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