Patricia Hill Collins in her piece "Toward A New Vision: Race, Class, and Gender As Categories of Analysis and Connection" relays a very important message that I think youtube user 'Marinashutup' illustrates perfectly in the video above. Collins points out that people often look at the oppression most serious to them and ignore all the others they are experiencing or that exist in the world, (Collins, 1). As we talked about in class, this has led to an either/or approach to viewing people's identities. You are either a man or a woman. White or a person of color. Gay or straight. This type of mentality denies the fact that there are many people out there facing intersecting oppressions due to multiple parts of their identity. It also has prevented unity in the women's movement. As Marinashutup points out, historically mainstream feminism has taken a 'one size fits all approach' to viewing women's issues. This has resulted in a clash between white women and women of color, disabled women, LBTQ+ women, etc because white women do not face the added oppressions that those other subgroups experience and often fail to acknowledge that privilege. When mainstream feminism does not acknowledge these subgroups experiences in the movement this results in these other subgroups finding feminism inaccessible. It slows progression for the movement as a whole.
I think it's important to acknowledge that there has been an increase in sensitivity towards this problem in the women's movement, but as Marinashutup points out, there is a lot of room to improve. Her critique of Patricia Arquette and Emma Watson's acceptance speeches have caused people to be angry. Many people feel that any attempt to bring feminist issues into the light of mainstream media, even if they fail to acknowledge the issues of women of color, should be applauded; that any attention is good attention. This type of mentality as Marinashutup points out, basically tells women of color, like herself, to sit down and shut up and take what you can get. It marginalizes an already marginalized group. It also reaffirms the either/or mentality: that women's issues and racial issues are entirely separate.
One of my favorite points that this vlogger points out is how tied separate oppressions can be. Her example of Kimberly Crenshaw, the originator of the term 'intersectionality,' perfectly highlights the nuanced struggle of belonging to multiple oppressed groups at the same time. According to Marinashutup, Kimberly Crenshaw has spoken out about being a black women and states she often felt that she had to pick one part of her identity over the other at a time. She was either a person of color or a woman. As Marinashutup states, "This ignores the reality that the sexism that women of color face are often racialized and the racism they often face is often sexualized." People often ignore the fact that other forms of oppression come into play when experiencing sexism and vice versa. As the video points out, we all often like to focus on our commonalities but its obviously important to recognize our differences, too, when trying to understand each other. Mainstream feminism needs to be more encompassing of our differences to see greater unity among us.
