Woman and privileged: white feminists confront their own advantages
Intersectionality has become a weapon of white feminism to perpetuate its privileges. Criticisms and contradictions of a concept drained of meaning.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
Drawing-room intersectionality: how white feminism appropriates other people's oppression
The concept of intersectionality, coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw to highlight the multiple oppressions suffered by Black women, has been emptied of content. A recent article denounces it: hegemonic feminism has turned it into a tool for maintaining its own class and race privileges, reducing it to an institutional catchphrase rolled out every International Women's Day. The uncomfortable question is whether white feminists are really willing to give up space or only to manage diversity as an ornament.
The hijacking of a revolutionary concept
Intersectionality was born to point out that Black women are not just women nor just Black: they suffer a specific oppression that neither feminism nor anti-racism addressed. But in recent decades the term has been stripped of its origins. It now appears in institutional manifestos, marketing campaigns and speeches by white leaders who have never set foot in a working-class neighbourhood. The problem is not the word but its use: it is invoked to confer legitimacy without bearing any cost. Part of the analysis argues that white feminism has turned intersectionality into a badge of sarracena status, while racialised women continue to be used as window dressing.
Identity fragmentation: the monster devouring itself
The backlash was not long in coming. From other trenches, white feminism is accused of hypocrisy: they defend the theoretical Black woman but ignore the immigrant who cleans their homes. And at the same time, the dynamics of fragmentation advance: first women, then Black women, then disabled Black women… a trail of acronyms that ends up diluting any solidarity. The criticism points out that this game of identities only benefits an activist bureaucracy that lives off the management of oppression, while the material conditions of the most vulnerable do not improve. The debate gets stuck on whether we should abolish categories or multiply them.
The underlying question remains open: can white feminism shed its privilege without a real renunciation of power? Meanwhile, the word intersectionality keeps echoing on our screens, increasingly empty, increasingly far from Kimberlé Crenshaw.
Related discussions in the forum
The concept of intersectionality, coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw to highlight the multiple oppressions suffered by Black women, has been emptied of content. A recent article denounces it: hegemonic feminism has turned it into a tool for maintaining its own class and race privileges, reducing it to an institutional catchphrase rolled out every International Women's Day. The uncomfortable question is whether white feminists are really willing to give up space or only to manage diversity as an ornament.
The hijacking of a revolutionary concept
Intersectionality was born to point out that Black women are not just women nor just Black: they suffer a specific oppression that neither feminism nor anti-racism addressed. But in recent decades the term has been stripped of its origins. It now appears in institutional manifestos, marketing campaigns and speeches by white leaders who have never set foot in a working-class neighbourhood. The problem is not the word but its use: it is invoked to confer legitimacy without bearing any cost. Part of the analysis argues that white feminism has turned intersectionality into a badge of sarracena status, while racialised women continue to be used as window dressing.
Identity fragmentation: the monster devouring itself
The backlash was not long in coming. From other trenches, white feminism is accused of hypocrisy: they defend the theoretical Black woman but ignore the immigrant who cleans their homes. And at the same time, the dynamics of fragmentation advance: first women, then Black women, then disabled Black women… a trail of acronyms that ends up diluting any solidarity. The criticism points out that this game of identities only benefits an activist bureaucracy that lives off the management of oppression, while the material conditions of the most vulnerable do not improve. The debate gets stuck on whether we should abolish categories or multiply them.
The underlying question remains open: can white feminism shed its privilege without a real renunciation of power? Meanwhile, the word intersectionality keeps echoing on our screens, increasingly empty, increasingly far from Kimberlé Crenshaw.
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Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (9 replies).
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