Intersectionality in Third-wave Feminism

Intersectionality in Third-wave feminismIntersectionality as the Main Concept of Third-wave feminist movementThird-wave feminism which follows Second-wave of Feminist apparent motion began in the 1990s with the mixture of disgruntled, and shy womens rightists, and feminists born into the human being where feminism had already existed. The movement of third-wave feminism has a little focus on laws or political processes, further more on a persons identity. This wave of feminism is the most diverse and individualistic feminist wave society have ever seen. It is considered to be a worldwide feminist wave because its main idea is to show the world that women are of umteen colors, religions, ethnicities, and cultural backgrounds. First two waves of feminism have do so many changes in distinct aspects of our life. Besides the right to vote, the right to get an education, and the right to work, women, who lived during third wave of feminist, required to change the stereotypes and la nguage that was utilise to describe a woman. Third-wave feminists had a desire to challenge or avoid the assumption that there is a universal female identity and everywhere-emphasizing of the experience of the upper-middle word form dust coat women. What is most important is that the roots of Intersectional Feminism were born together with third-wave feminism. Intersectional feminism is much more than the Feminism itself because it is an understanding of how womens overlapping identities- including race, sort ethnicity, and sexual orientation- impact the way they experience oppression and discrimination. (Dastagir)Rebecca Solnit is an author of the book Men explain things to me who touches the conundrum of marginalizing women by silencing them and talks ab step up consequences that can communicate female because of this tailor. She ends on a serious note- because the ultimate problem is the silencing of women who have something to say, including those saying things like, Hes trying to kill me (Solnit) Rebecca Solnit states that men explain things to me, and incompatible women, whether or not they know what theyre talking about. It is a presumption that leases it hard, at times, for any woman in any field that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation vindicatory as it exercises mens unsupported overconfidence. (Solnit) Violence is one way to silence pot, to deny their voice and their credibility, to assert womens right to control over their right to exist. Rebecca Solnit says that things gotten better today compared to what was happening 30 years ago. This war wont end in my lifetime. I am still struggle it, for myself certainly, notwithstanding also for all those younger women who have something to say, in the hope that they forget get to say it. (Solnit) Third Wave feminism is a feminist wave that attends todeal with race, racism, and the experience of nonwhite women who do not freeequal in our society. Intersectionality, therefore, has an intense focus onidentity and particularly on racial and ethnic identity. The common positionsare We are here for women of color, trans people, lesbian, gay and bi peopleand the differently abled and Listen to women, listen to people of color. (Pluckrose)A big issue is that intersectionalitybecomes unreachable to even more people. As Mariana Ortega mentions in herarticle White Feminism and Women of Color the list of respected women ofcolor is so short. In her evidence, she tries to figure out the reason ofintersectionality, asking so many questions, such as Why is it that feministsstill scramble to fill out the spot for the respected, well-knownwoman-of-color, speaker that will bring in a crowd? Why is it that there is merely a small percentage of books and articles written by women of color in t he increase lists of feminist publications? Why is it that I or any of the few womenof color who are involved in feminist work could write lists of all theexperiences that make us invisible, misunderstood, homogenized, and victimizedwhile dealing with white feminists. (Ortega) Women of color are marginalizedin many ways and different aspects. Tobe intersectional is to focus on many different categories of marginalizedidentity at once, be convinced that they are marginalized and be concernedabout them all. To expand this statement more, marginalize means to pushpeople to the edge of the society not allowing them a place within it. Asociety that labels an outside the norm- weird, scary, hateful, or useless-marginalize those people, edging them out. Women of color are corking example ofmarginalized people who are pushed away from the rest of society, are oppressed,and discriminated just because of their color, race, religion, and differentfactors. White Feminism is usedto describe th e feminist movement that only focuses on white and straightwomen. Usually, their fight focuses on rape culture, equal pay, and diminishingpatriarchy. White feminists have reached success in different aspects for whitewomen, but what about women of color? It is still problematic because whitefeminists refuse to accept women of color, women with disabilities, and womenwho are not in a good body form. As a matter of fact, they used to ignore theirissues and their identities as well. Although they are trying to close the wagegap between men and women, they do not recognize that Latina and nigrify womenearn even less than white women do. Gloria Steinem is a famous AmericanFeminist, who became nationally recognized as a leader and a spokeswoman forthe feminist movement in the late 1960s. Steinem does not recognize such thingas White Feminism. She was adamant about the fact that white feminism as aterm has no discourse about grammatical gender inequality. (Zarya) As Steinem mentioned inon e of her interviews, there is no such thing as white feminism. If you callit white, its not feminism. It either includes all women, or its notfeminism, she said. (Zarya) We are not allowed to forget that basically blackwomen were the major force of the feminist movement, particularly during the1970s. For this reason, and many others, white feminism has no place in currentsociety and should be eliminated as soon as possible. In the face of callsfor a more intersectional feminism, there are even White feminists who claimthe whole concept of intersectionality is just academic jargon that doesntconnect with the real world. Many people do not really understand what isWhite Feminism. Everyday feminism Magazine defines White Feminism as a set ofbeliefs that allows for the exclusion of issues that specifically affect womenof color. It is one size-fits all feminism, where middle class White womenare the mold that others must fit. It is a method of practicing feminism, notan indictment of ev ery individual White feminism, everywhere, always.(Uwujaren) White Feminism marginalize women of color that causes them tovariety of negative effects. For example, White Feminism refuses to digfeminists of color an ability to discuss their biggest issue, such as racialinequality which relates to gender inequality. It keeps reminding society thatbeauty standard in our culture is to be thin, blonde, and white. In addition ofexcluding women of color, it excludes women who are not straight or well-builtas well. White Feminists are also knownas women of privilege in our society. Big issue is that sometimes they donteven realize that they are excluding other marginalized groups. This is not anexcuse for their behavior. Everyone should agree that it is a chance for womenof color to honestly pick out feminists of privilege how their lack of self-awarenessaffects other women, such as Black or Latin women. Existing problem could bechanged by helping each other to recognize that women of dif ferent races,sexual orientations, and economic class experience gender inequalitydifferently. People should be recognized and acknowledged correspond to theirskills, knowledges, contributions, and talents, not according to their sex,skin color, or appearance. Everyone can become a better feminist if he willchange this point in his head and mind. Maria Lugones is anArgentine feminist philosopher, also an author of Peregrinajes/Pilgrimages Theorizing Coalition Against MultipleOppressions book where she is taking readers through her understanding ofwhite/Angla feminist theories, and is trying to answer the question What isthe problem of difference between white women and women of color, and howdoes the problem of difference affect non-white female? Lugones states that womenof color always knew that white women and women of color were different white womenall knew that they were different from women of color. White women neverconsidered the difference important, because they did not re ally notice us.(Lugones) White women used to simple and straightforwardly ignore thedifference. But U.S. women of color heard and verbalized an attack on whiteracism. Racist feminism does not see the violence done to women of color bydenying that they are women. In her essay, Lugones compares women of color tothe beings with a peculiar lack of substance or lack of credibility, or toofrightening and intimidating, too dramatic, with too much or too little position all out of proportion, not fully real. (Lungones)Third wave feminism respects not only differences between women based on race, color, religion, and economic standing, but also makes allowance for different identities within a single person. Third-wave feminism responds to the category of women debates of the late 1980s and early 1990s that began with a critique of the game wave contention that women share something in common as women a common gender identity and set of experiences. The concept of woman and experiences are intimately connected within the second and, along with personal politics, form the three core concepts of that movement. Third-wave feminists rightly reject the universalist claim that all women share a set of common experiences, but they do not discard the concept of experience altogether. Women still look to personal experiences to provide knowledge about how the world operates and trouble dominant narratives about how things should be. Many third-wave stories strive to demonstrate the gaps between dominant discourses and the reality of womens lives. Some third-wavers use their own experiences growing up in interracial or multicultural families to illustrate how the politics of race, class, and gender play out in peoples lives. For example, Cristina Tzintzun writes, I solicitude about dating whites, especially white menI see what a white man did to my beautiful, brown, Mexican mother. He colonized her. (Snyder) What Snyder states in his essay has direct connection with Rebecca Solnits book which also raises the problem of marginalized women and mens unfair attitude to women.Both first and second-wave feminists have made bulky contributions to the history of feminist movement but for third-wavers there were still lots of things to do and improve. Even though many laws were designed to protect women from rape, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, wage disparity, domestic violence, and other atrocities, women were still marginalized in the way of silencing. The ultimate problem that was present during third-wave feminism is silencing of women who have something to say. Womens voices are as nonuple and diverse as our cultural and personal histories, the meaning of silence- being unwilling or uneffective to speak- can be seen as the complex of issues for women that results in different negative concepts. Anthropologist Susan Gal points out that womens historians, similarly, have justified their work on the basis of recapturing the silence past In this writing, silence is generally deplored as a symbol of passivity and powerlessness those who are denied speech cannot make their experience known and thus cannot influence the course of their lives or history. (Mahoney) Feeling unable or unwilling to speak, and feeling bad about it, conveys the expectation that silence is the sign of inauthenticity, of failure to be a real.Work Cited Dastagir, Alai E. What Is Intersectional Feminism? ground forces Today19 Jan. 2017 n. pag. Web. 26 Apr. 2017.Lugones,Maria. On the Logic of Pluralist Feminism.Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes Theorizing Coalition Against Multiple Oppressions.Maryland Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. 65-75. Print.Mahoney,Maureen A. The worry of Silence in Feminist Psychology. The Problem of Silence in FeministPsychology 22 (1996) 603-625. Feminist Studies, Inc., 1996. Web. 15 Apr.2017.Otrega,Mariana. Being Lovingly, Knowingly Ignorant White Feminism and Women ofColor. Project Muse (2006) 56-74.Indiana University Press, 2006. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.Pluckrose,Helen. The Problem with Intersectional Feminism. Areo Magazine. N.p., 15 Feb. 2017. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.Snyder,R. Claire. What Is Third-Wave Feminism. ChicagoJournal 31 (n.d.) 175-196. The University of Chicago Press, 2008. Web 15Apr. 2017.Solnit,Rebecca. Men Explain Things to Me. Men Explain Things to Me.Canada Publishers Group, 2014. 1-14. PrintUwujaren,Jarune. Why Our Feminism Must Be Intersectional. Everyday Feminism. N.p., 11 Jan. 2015. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.Zarya, Valentina. Most Powerful Women. Fortune. Valentina Zarya, 10 Mar. 2017. Web. 26 Apr. 2017.