Feminism & Politics

I am always pleasantly surprised when scholars (particularly those I admire) are interviewed by, provide analysis for, or otherwise find exposure outside of academia in the mainstream news media. Such is the case with this recent editorial written by Kimberle Crenshaw and Eve Ensler for the Huffington Post. (OK, OK. So the HuffPo isn't exactly mainstream media -- NPR it ain't -- but you get my point.)

I have mentioned before how influential Kimberle Crenshaw's work has been in shaping both my feminism and my research on violence against women. (I've read her 1991 Stanford Law Review article, "Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color," probably a dozen times.) Thus, I was pleased to read the essay she wrote with Eve Ensler (whose work with V-Day I've also blogged about) criticizing the stance taken by some contemporary feminists that support for Hillary Clinton is the only authentically feminist political position:

Drawing their feminist boundaries in the sand, they interrogate, chastise, second-guess and even denounce those who escape their encampment and find themselves on Obama terrain. In their hands feminism, like patriotism, is the all-encompassing prism that eliminates discussion, doubt and difference about whom to vote for and why. Armed with indignant exasperation, this "either/or" camp converts the undeniable misogyny of the media into an imperative to vote for Clinton. The balanced reflections and gentle warnings that were voiced months ago have been jettisoned for a one-sided brief about why voting for Clinton is the only sensible thing for women to do.

I was especially excited to see that themes expressed in Crenshaw's academic work -- about the intersections of race- and gender-based oppression, for example -- are echoed in the editorial:

For many of us, feminism is not separate from the struggle against violence, war, racism and economic injustice. Gender hierarchy and race hierarchy are not separate and parallel dynamics.

Indeed, the relentless pitting of RACE (Obama) vs. GENDER (Clinton) in mainstream political coverage has made me wish many times over that I was teaching a course on feminism or race, class, and gender this semester. Though feminists of color have been writing for decades about the fundamental unfairness of being asked to declare allegiance to either their race or their gender (e.g., "Do you identify more as an African American or as a woman?" "Are you a woman or an Asian American first?" "Which is more important to you, your gender or your race?"), rarely has this discourse occurred beyond academic circles. Suddenly, though, with the Democratic presidential race serving as a literal manifestation of the "race-vs.-gender" dichotomy, this discourse has been thrust center stage in a national (and international) forum. As a feminist scholar, I view this as an exciting development as it offers a rare opportunity to discuss feminism using everyday examples with which most people are readily familiar.

P.S. Mary Poppins has been playing quite regularly at our house since the girls received it as a Christmas gift, which made me wonder: perhaps it was inevitable that I would become a feminist, given how many times I watched that movie as a child and that I was especially fond of the "Sister Suffragette" scene. (Choice lyric: Though we adore men individually/we agree that as a group they're rather stupid. Ha ha!)