Mapping the Margins | Age/Race/Class&Sex: Women Redefining Difference

Today I am looking at two works. Mapping the Margins by Kimberle Crenshaw and Age,Race, Class & Sex by Audre Lorde. Both of these works focus on the concept of intersectionality. Intersectionality is the recognition of the many strands that make up identity like how sexism and racism are interwined in the identities of women of color.

In Mapping the Margins it starts out by giving a little insight on how things have changed throughout the years. It starts by saying that politicization has transformed the way we understand certain things. For example battering of women used to be a quiet thing, and now we see it as a widespread problem that affects women as a class. It then proceeds to begin its discussion on identity politics. It starts off by saying that a problem with identity politics is that it ignores intragroup differences. I think this is very true. We learned earlier in this semester that intragroup differences exceed the differences between groups. This is hard for some of us to understand because it seems like the only things we see in mainstream media is the differences between groups; Americans vs. the world, Muslims vs. Christians, black vs. whites, women vs. men. Very rarely do we hear about black women vs. white women at least in mainstream media. This ignoring of differences within groups contributes to the tension among groups as stated by Crenshaw. This brings us back to the idea of intersectionality. Women are all fighting for women's rights, however there are black women fighting, and white women fighting and this struggle to get intragroup differences out of the way prevents the solidarity between women as a whole. Our country is so obsessed with becoming one at times that we need to actually figure out what "one" is. It seems that if we want to become one, then we need to become the norm which society makes out to be white, middle class, rich, skinny, etc. Why is this the norm. What ever happened to accepting our differences and living as one that way instead. Many people believe that we need to have separation and if we didn't what would be fighting for in the end.

The two selections then goes on to discuss the violence that covers women of color and immigrant women. This is a tricky topic to overcome because immigrant women are alot of times dependent on their male husbands for economic situation and legal status. This can make things difficult since the women could at times not be able to come for help because of fear. There are many other barriers including the language barrier that makes it difficult for women of immigrant color to get help or to advance.

The next selection states alot of the same points of intersectionality. She starts off by saying she is a black, lesbian, mother, socialist, in a interracial relationship. Her primary goal is to state why their are unacknowledged class differences and how they rob women of energy and creative insight. I will discuss this selection in more detail in the next writing, but for now it is important for us to grasp the intersectionality in the realm of multiculturalism and how to overcome it.