If it’s Not Intersectional, it’s Not Feminism
Note:
Since the following covers Intersectionality and the 2016 election, Race obviously will be addressed. I am aware that there are Elite Black Feminists, but as a white woman I don’t have the proper experience to dig into that analysis and have no doubt that many will be addressing the issue for years to come.
The 2016 election summed up in one word would be division. The primaries had divided both parties and within the democratic party, different demographics were also divided. The members of the Progressive Left repeatedly found themselves in shock as their community leaders and long time icons seemed to abandon truth and logic. While the left raised questions of Hillary’s foreign policy practices, ties to wall street, pro-fracking stances, and support of her husband’s mass incarceration nightmare, we were met with accusations of sexism, naivete, and white entitlement with the assumption that Hillary was the only one who could prevent a Trump presidency.
We were the Bernie-Bros. We were described to be millennial white men, while in reality we were not all white, not all young, and not all men. There were many things we did have in common that nobody wanted to talk about. We wanted policies that would curtail the massive income inequality that exists. We wanted to start the shift to renewable energy now. We wanted justice and safety for the communities tormented by police brutality. We wanted to end mass incarceration. We wanted to stop bombing people.
The battles began in online platforms. Bernie feminists watched as any men who questioned Hillary’s positions were immediately labeled as “sexist” or “mansplaining”. It was now sexist to be anti-war and sexist to defend the environment. Intersectional feminists who defended the Berniebros by pointing out that War is not a feminist or progressive trait, were just “naive” and didn’t understand “how the world worked”. We demanded to know that if the democrats were not fighting for peace, environment, economic stability, and justice, what were they fighting for?
The answer was so clear they even put it on signs. They were “Fighting for Her”. When Gloria Stienem, a woman who has claimed to understand Intersectional politics, attempted to de-legitimize a whole generation of smart forward thinking women, our hearts broke. We knew that when it came down to the good fight, Class was king.
Luckily for the sanity of all intersectional feminists, Bell Hooks stated that she couldn’t support Clinton. It was around this time that the Clinton campaign acknowledged the concept of Intersectionality. The Correct The Record Twitter and Reddit trolls would casually use the word as if it were a secret code to prove they were reputable. A simple dictionary definition of Intersectionality is as follows:
“the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage”
The campaign depended on race and gender in a huge way. They assumed that women would be a slam dunk for Clinton, but one of the most important things to notice in the 2016 election primary was the narrative. Here is a super short summary of how I saw it:
- Trump is racist.
- Hillary has the Obama coalition “firewall” (aka “the black vote”).
- BernieBros are white and sexist.
- Pay no attention to the pictures of Bernie being arrested during the civil rights movement.
- Also pay no attention to Hillary campaigning for Goldwater during that time.
- Trump is so racist it’s scary and Bernie supporters are entitled brats who don’t care what happens to communities of color if he wins.
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The theme was that Hillary was the only candidate that could rally “The black vote”. The campaign attempted to use “intersectionality” in terms of race and gender but they neglected to address Class. The thing about intersectionality is that you can’t just ignore an inconvenient aspect of it. Race, Class, Gender, Religion, Ableness, and Sexual Orientation are intertwined and in a country with such staggering income inequality, Class cannot be ignored.
While Hillary still got a majority of the voters earning under $50k, she lost 16 percentage points compared to 2012. To understand how large this demographic shift is, consider that she only did 1 percentage point worse than Obama among women voters and 2 percentage points worse among white voters.
Despite this shift, which should sound like an alarm in the ears of the DNC, we are still seeing many Hillary supporters in complete denial. The assumption that Hillary lost due to sexism has no bearing. The voter turnout was lower than the past 2 elections and less women voted for her than they did for Obama. The assumption that Trump won due to racism and sexism is the bow that the elite would like us to wrap this whole mess up with, but ignoring the class factor could usher in an 8-year-term for Trump not to mention continue to neglect the working class people.
Elite White “Feminists” with the ability to amplify their ideas such as Lena Dunham, Jill Filipovic, and Amanda Marcotte had a really hard day November 8th. For whatever reason they didn’t realize that the country was racist. They must’ve been distracted the past few years as police were getting paid leave after killing people in the streets. Apparently all it takes to get an elite white woman “woke” is have her wait in line to put a sticker on a known racist’s grave and then have all of her hopes and dreams depleted when her favorite candidate (the one who helped usher in mass incarceration and then expected the black community to propel her into the white house) loses to a loudmouth racist.
Now that they seem to be aware of Racism, they really need to take the next step and acknowledge Classism. Jill Filipovic had tweeted that “The problem isn't that liberal elites are in a bubble; the problem is that rural white America is”. It did not go unnoticed that she tweeted this a few days after sharing a picture of herself on a sailboat drinking rose all day, because Hillary lost and woe is her.
Lena Dunham had shared her story of election night in which she was at the Javits Center. There is an obscene level of unawareness that while she was rubbing elbows with Lady Gaga under the glass ceiling, The Working Class was throwing a hail mary of the most desperate kind and her conclusion is that womanhood (herself) was the victim. Throughout the post, there were quotes from famous black feminist leaders. The piece was a rally for all of us to work together against the injustices as if to say that Hillary’s loss had opened her eyes to how unjust the world really is. While Lena can pull quotes to appear that she is an intersectional feminist, her blatant ignorance of the Class issues in this country proves that she has no clue what it means to be an intersectional feminist.
Had the Elite White Feminists really had an understanding of intersectionality they would have seen that their “black friend” likely has very different day to day concerns than a person of color making less than 50k a year. They may have seen that America is bombing 7 countries. They may have known that America ranks 4th in income inequality and that adjusted for inflation and bench marked to personal income growth, minimum wage should be over $20 per hour right now! They may have also considered that climate change is already affecting people’s daily lives in substantial ways and that climate refugees exist today.
We had a candidate who with the help of his surrogates addressed all of these issues repeatedly. I see that Lena Dunham would like to rally all the feminists together to overcome Trump, but she missed her shot. While she was a walking billboard for the first female president at all costs, Bernie Sanders, Nina Turner, Tulsi Gabbard, Killer Mike, Rosario Dawson, Shailene Woodley, Susan Sarandon, Mark Ruffalo and many more were not only leading the intersectional feminists, they were recruiting in mass numbers. Oh the irony that BernieBro’s are actually intersectional feminists! With A Trump in the White House there will be a lot of work to do and Bernie’s Supporters have been leading the way. Anyone who didn’t join us before must make the decision to either do their homework and join us now or step aside and let us get to work.