Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex

Summary, part 3

The Significance of Doctrinal Treatment of Intersectionality

Black women are pushed to the margins...

Crenshaw makes several points about how intersectionality is treated within antidiscrimination doctrine. 

…in (anti)discrimination doctrine… 

First, she argues that Black women have been marginalized in antidiscrimination doctrine, which was established with the three court cases. Such marginalization reflects an “uncritical and disturbing acceptance” of the dominant conception of discrimination (pg. 150). The current doctrine does not allow for classes to be combined. Instead, discrimination can only be classified as such if the discriminator identifies their act of harm as discrimination, or the harm perpetrated treats all people within the class in question similarly. 

Additionally, the dominant conception of discrimination argues that antidiscrimination practices can only be applied if the harmed person(s) would have been treated fairly or neutrally had it not been for one characteristic or class. Thinking about discrimination in this way centers sex discrimination around the experiences of white women and race discrimination around the experiences of Black men. Crenshaw describes the single-axis framework as one that does not improve the conditions of those disadvantaged in multiple ways. 

Crenshaw shows how the single-axis framework does not help multiply disadvantaged groups using an analogy: Imagine all the disadvantaged people are trapped in a basement with no way out. All the advantaged people are on the floor above. All the disadvantaged people stack on top of each other – from most to least disadvantaged with the least disadvantaged people at the top – and try to get to the top floor. Suddenly, a hatch in the ceiling opens to let some of the disadvantaged in. The first (and usually only) people to get to the advantaged floor are those who were the least disadvantaged to begin with. Crenshaw's translation of this analogy is that Black women can only be represented in and uplifted by antidiscrimination doctrine if their experiences fall within singular classified identities.

…in the feminist movement… 

The second way Crenshaw highlights how intersectionality is treated within antidiscrimination doctrine is by showing how Black women's experiences are undermined in the feminist movement. She first uses Sojourner Truth as an example of this. In an 1851 Women's Rights Conference in Ohio, Truth had challenged men's claims that women were weak and frail by outlining the horrors of slavery she lived through. Truth's experience – like that of many Black women – does two things: (1) counter the dominant understanding of womanhood that considers women as weak, and (2) highlight how the dominant understanding of women is centered on white womanhood. Truth was also discouraged from speaking by white feminists, who believed that Truth’s speech would shift the focus away from feminism and onto slavery. Thus, the experience of a Black woman was undermined in the feminist movement. 

Crenshaw's second example of how Black women are undermined in the feminist movement is through the dominant discourse around rape. Crenshaw argues that feminist discussions around rape focus on the norms that regulate female sexuality and chastity. While feminists are right to criticize this, but Crenshaw points out that Black women's chastity had never been institutionally regulated. In fact, courts have told jurors that "unlike white women, Black women were not presumed to be chaste" (pg. 157). Additionally, Crenshaw states that even if white women's sexualities were more regulated, "racism restored a fallen white woman's chastity where the alleged assailant was a Black man" (pg. 158). 

Crenshaw does not mean to minimize rape for Black women. Instead, she points out that rape is used as a weapon of racial terror on Black women and that when Black women are raped, they are not raped as women, but as Black women specifically. Crenshaw then points out that as a consequence of this complex reality around rape, "Black women are caught between a Black community that ... views with suspicion attempts to litigate questions of sexual violence, and a feminist community that reinforces those suspicions by focusing on white female sexuality" (pg. 159).

… and in the fight for Black liberation. 

The third way Crenshaw highlights how intersectionality is treated within antidiscrimination doctrine is by providing examples of how Black women's issues are sidelined in the fight for Black liberation. Her first example is of Anna Julia Cooper, a 19th-century Black feminist who coined a phrase that helped people begin to understand the patriarchy in conjunction with racism. Cooper said that "Only the Black Woman can say, when and where I enter ... the whole N—— race enters with me" (pg. 160).

Cooper's phrase reminded Crenshaw of one of her own personal experiences with race and sexism. As a student at Harvard University, she had a Black male friend who was one of the first members of an exclusive men's club at the school. The club was hosting an event and inviting its first Black guests – Crenshaw and another male friend of the Black club member. Upon arrival, they feared they might not be allowed entry. Much to their surprise, the Black men were allowed in, but Crenshaw had to enter through the back door instead of the front door. Crenshaw says her personal example illustrates how Black women may not stand up to challenging gender barriers when doing so may conflict with the antiracist agenda. Thus, Black women silence themselves in the fight for Black liberation.

Crenshaw further supports the argument that Black women are sidelined in antiracist efforts using three examples of media. First, she discusses Daniel Moynihan's report, which stated that the Black family was deteriorating because of the Black man. The Black family allegedly needs a Black matriarch to thrive. Crenshaw states that Moynihan's argument is racist because it wrongfully applies white patriarchal norms about family on Black families. Second, she discusses Bill Moyer’s report The Vanishing Black Family, which identified Black women’s so-called sexual irresponsibility as the cause of so-called deteriorating Black families. He states that this is a product of a welfare state which has allegedly encouraged Black men to leave the mothers of their children, since the role of Black men as a provider is no longer necessary. In the many criticisms of Moyer’s report, Crenshaw states that none – not even feminists and white women – criticized Moyer’s patriarchal assumptions. 

The third piece of media Crenshaw employs is William Julis Wilson’s The Truly Disadvantaged, where Wilson argues that the decline in Black marriages is caused by structural economic forces that kicked Black unskilled workers out of the workforce. Wilson then says the solution is to give jobs to Black men. While this may appear as a victory for Black men, Crenshaw points out that Wilson’s analysis contained nothing about Black women workers, let alone Black childbearing women workers. If we imagine Wilson's solutions, Crenshaw asks, why can they not include Black women?