August 23, 2017 • 54 mins
The term "intersectionality" is pretty popular these days. Emilie & Bridget unpack the origin of this term, why it's so important, and how we all can bring a more intersectional lens to our feminism.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is Emily and this is Bridget and you're listening
to stuff Mom never told you. Today, we're tackling a
topic by popular demand that B and I were mentioning
on a couple episodes in the past, and which we said, Hey,
(00:29):
let us know if y'all would appreciate an episode solely
dedicated to intersectional feminism, and Twitter was kind enough to
let us know that the answer was a resounding yes.
So thank you to everybody on Instagram and on the
Twitter sphere who makes their voice heard, We hear you.
(00:49):
And as much as I think I don't know about
you be, but I think we try to bring an
intersectional feminist approach to basically every topic we tackle. I mean,
I think I try to bring one to my life.
I live life exactly and that does not stop when
we walk into the studio here. Um. But it's so
this is almost like a meta episode in terms of
(01:13):
naming and claiming and making clear not just how we
try to live true to that framework, but also the
history of why that's so important. Um. Anything you want
to add as we set this conversation up, Yeah, I
mean I think that these are tough topics that will
tackle further along in today's episode, But just to make
(01:33):
it clear, I think that a lot of times people
assume that when we talk about living intersectional living our
values as intersectional people, that we're talking about how to
be nice on Twitter or I do not you know,
be a jerk, and that is part of it. But
these issues are are people's livelihoods, you know. Um, I
really have no choice to not live an intersectional life
(01:54):
because I'm an intersectional person. Um. And I think living
at those intersections can be thorny and difficult, and recognizing
them can be thorny and difficult. And I just think
it's very important. It's important that we challenge ourselves to
get it right. It's important that we understand how to
get better and all of that. Yeah, And I feel
like it's one of those buzzwords in the political world
(02:16):
and in the feminist space and just in I think
social media in general. Definitely. You know, the term intersectional
or intersectionality has been tossed around so much, and yet
it's very hard to understand. Like a lot of um,
woke news oriented people that I know are like, what
is that? What is the intersectional feminism? So should we
(02:37):
just define our terms like a good breakdown cool. So
this is so. Intersectionality is a term that was coined
by American professor Kimberly Crenshaw in nine, but the concept
existed far far longer than um. Crenshaw gave us a
good word intersectionality to describe the textbook definition here, which
(03:03):
is the view that women experience oppression in varying configurations
and in varying degrees of intensity. Cultural patterns of oppression
are not only inter related, but are bound together and
influenced by the intersectional systems of society. Examples of this
include race, gender, class ability, and ethnicity. And that list
(03:26):
goes on much longer, and on and on. There's a
mean think about the intersections that we occupy in our lives,
and you know, there's so many of them. So that
list is and you said, you sort of identified at
the top, I'm an intersectional person. What are the intersections
that you sort of identify as living as So I
would say some of my the intersections that are the
(03:48):
most prominent in my life or being a black queer woman. Um,
there's a really great book on feminism called All the
Women Are White, All the Men Are Black, and that
that title just really umbed up how I lived a
lot of my life thinking that I have to either
be one or the other. If we're talking about black folks,
I'm in that bucket, but it's not black women. If
we're talking about women, we're talking about white women, and
(04:09):
I'm in that bucket. But kind of and so not really,
not really being able to occupy my actual intersections has
been difficult in my life. It's like living on the
periphery exactly on both those categories. Well, first of all,
thank you for sharing that. I kind of pre share
on the spot there. Um, and I feel like we
haven't we haven't heard from you on the identity around
(04:30):
identifying as a queer woman. What is that, mabe. I mean,
just if you want to share, I'm like curious, Like, yeah,
it's not something I thought. I mean, I'm I'm not,
It's not something I'm purposely hiding. It's just not something
I talk about often. Um. I think it's complicated, and
I think that this is something that we should talk
about on the show. But I think that when you
are a woman who does not identify as heterosexual, it
(04:53):
can be tough to know how much space to occupy
because I have been in relationships with men, and I
know the that gives you a kind of privilege, and
I don't want to be the person that's like raw
ra queer identity when there are people who don't have
the level of privilege that I have, as as being
someone who has been in relationships with when women, men
and non binary folks makes sense, Yeah, awesome, Damn, we're
(05:16):
gonna have to do a whole up. I love it, um.
And I think sexual fluidity too, I mean, the fluidity
of around sexuality and general identity right now is so
wild and like in I say that in the best
possible way. Um, Like those walls are just crashing down
in a cool way. They are, and it's it's weird. Um.
(05:37):
I know that people talk a lot about things like
by erasure, where yes, bisexual women feel as though they
really can't lift their issues and I definitely have felt that. Um.
And it's it's complicated, it's a complex issue. Um. Yeah,
I don't have the answer. Well, I think it's a
perfect illustration of what it feels like to not identify
(06:00):
fire or not not be represented. I think that's really
why intersectionality is so important. It's making the intent right,
making the effort to be radically inclusive, and by radically
I mean consistently across the board, acknowledging that we have
different privileges, that we all have different experiences, and that
(06:23):
that difference doesn't threaten our unity right exactly, um I,
I mean this doesn't make me sound like a very
good feminist, but I had to learn that. Um. I
was sending a conversation with my cousin over the weekend
where we were talking about trans women, and there was
a there's been a you know, a whole thing about this,
and I realized within myself something kind of bad, which
(06:45):
is that I, in my mind, I know what it
looks like. We've had a girlhood, right. A girlhood is
what it feels like to get your first period. A
girlhood is when you get cat called for the first time.
I understood what that meant, and I was very if
someone threatened what that meant to me. I felt that
to be very threatening, and it took me a long
time to realize trans women their girlhood is just as
(07:07):
valid as what I understood my own girlhood to be.
So I really took me a while to get that
where I realized, oh, the kind of girlhood that you know,
a woman who is not like myself, whether they're a
trans woman, whether they're a poor woman, whether they're uh
differently abled woman. Just because our girlhoods were not the
same doesn't make mind valid and there's not valid. And
(07:28):
I had to learn that I was. I was a
bad feminist and I didn't acknowledge. I disagree because I
think we all had to learn this. Who's born being
a perfect intersectional feminist? Not me, zero, people like zero.
Maybe really I don't think so, even I feel like
we we should acknowledge that there's a spectrum of learning
(07:50):
and bring a bring what is really called a growth
mindset to this, which is everyone can get better at this.
No one is born with or without the skill to
be intersection all and it is a learned habit, a
learned sort of perspective. So we should have well, I
have compassion for you, and we should all have compassion
with ourselves because we're ever evolving, and the minute you
(08:11):
think you're perfectly evolved, someone on Twitter will remind you
you're not. The universe has ways of knocking you down.
I definitely have I mean polish polishing you. Yes, I
got to a place where I thought I was a
little miswoke, right, Like people were people in the progressive
space were coming to me, like important people to ask
me my opinions around diversity and inclusion, the blah blah blah,
(08:34):
and I was feeling really good about it. And then
those are the moments where you say something or do
something or forget something or and then it's like the
universe is reminding you, hey, we're ever evolving, stay humble,
don't think that you're you know yeah. And so that's
been really helpful for me. I I take pride in
owning that I am, you know, imperfect, and owning that
(08:56):
I that, like everyone else, I have waste took row
and I appreciate and people call me out on it
and or call me in on it. Really can you know,
it's hard, it's hard, but it's so important. It's so important.
I totally agree. And I think all people want is
to know that you're being real with them. I've been
on the stage of a you know, opening keynote for
(09:18):
a conference on gender inclusivity, and and I have to
own my white privilege, like pretty vocally. I think that's
the best way to do is check your privilege in
a very public way and say, listen, I know I'm
like this white woman up here talking about race and
gender and intersection and you know, I'm asking you the
audience to be participatory and hold me accountable, and that
(09:40):
has invited, you know, some very welcome critique. In real
time as I'm delivering, are people screaming from the stage like, hey,
remember you forgot about I know, I like rolled out
the red carpet for a cat for a nut, cat
calling for for calling out. Well, I just remember being
corrected or pushed by an audience member more than once,
(10:02):
but one in particular on how racial battle fatigue impacts
burnout just something to talk about a lot. And I
said to her, that was such a good point. I
don't have a good answer for you right now. Thank
you so much for making me think about this. I'm
going to integrate this into all my keynotes moving forward,
and I have so you know, see the episode called
work Fails for more insights on how to stumble gracefully
(10:25):
and wokefully. I don't know how else to describe it,
but part of intersectionality is acknowledging that we're all on
a progression here and the importance to me, at least,
I think is intent. The intent to be inclusive can
go a very long way in a movement like feminism
that is rooted historically in injustice and and I think
(10:48):
it's fair to say you just flat out racism, um,
but really not acknowledging or or what is it called
not not taking seriously the critiques of women who live
at those intersections of every single day. Definitely. I remember
when I was organizing trainings for the progressive community, again
thinking I was little miswoke doing everything right. I think
(11:09):
there should be a sash that says likes and that
should be a pageant. And I wouldn't totally go to that.
That's a good idea, um. But yeah, I was organizing
a training and I thought, you know, we had this
great inclusive space blah blah blah, and we had a
happy hour. Afterward, someone pulled me aside and said, I
can't get into this. It's at a bar. I am,
(11:31):
I'm documented, I don't have I D so I have
to go home. And I thought, crap, I didn't even
that didn't occur to me, you know, I'm it was
just a complete blind spot. Um. And had this person
I said something, it would it would have continued to
be a blind spot. So I'm so thankful that that
person felt, you know, I felt that they could come
(11:51):
talk to me about it. I think the same thing
we said for many events held by the most woke
of people that are not accessible for those who are
differently abled to I actually give a little holler out
on social media this morning before we came into the
recording studio to ask folks who already fans of the show,
(12:12):
what do what does this word mean to you? What
does intersectionality mean to you? And one woman wrote us saying, listen,
you know the thing that I find is so often
forgotten is how differing abilities right, being differently abled or
able bodied UM, is so often ignored as this silent
privilege that many of us currently have. Definitely UM. Honestly,
(12:35):
on the show, we did an episode around we talk
a lot about protests and things like that, and in
an episode we talked about how folks should be going
to protest and all of that right, and I totally
neglected to And this is completely on me, and I
work in this sphere, so I can't believe I forgot it,
But I didn't even acknowledge that folks can't always physically
go or they have they have a challenge or a
(12:57):
you know, a need where they can't. It makes it
difficult to go to these things. And I didn't even
occur to me to say, you know, you can still
take action in other ways. You can make calls from
your house, you can, you know, write an LTE, you
can letter to the editor, thank you, you can, you know,
there are plenty of things you can organize a phone
book or a digital phone bank, all of those things.
(13:17):
And so I didn't even shout out to that listener
for bringing that up because I didn't even think to
mention that. And these are things that I basically traffic
in professionally. So well, I think that's such a good
example of including everyone in every single sentence of your
speech throughout life is impossible. It's impossible. And it's not
(13:38):
saying that you shouldn't try, but it is. I mean,
we will stumble, and this will be challenging for for
our listeners and for us to to live true to
every single day of our lives. The important thing is
how we react to being called out. And I have
seen many of my fellow white folks who present white Um,
really freak out on that, really stumble of that part,
(14:01):
and Miley is a perfect episode, Oh Miley Oley That
episodes a perfect example of listen. It's it's one thing
to screw up and like culturally appropriate time and time
and time and time and time and time again, but
it's a wholly different problem. Two gaslight people and make
them feel crazy for critiquing you. Yeah, And I also
(14:22):
think um, having been on both sides, having called people
in and then called in it said, it's such a
nice way of saying it. Can you explain with you?
And so I so I don't like it when people
say called out because that makes it seem like something
that is inherently aggressive and bad and you've done something
wrong and we're all gonna get you in a circle
and point at you and point at this thing that
you've done wrong. And I think it triggers this reaction
(14:45):
on the person who has done the thing that I
think is not productive. And so I prefer to think
of it as being called in, where like the person
who in the story I just told about, the you know,
undocumented person that was, I thought of that as a
loving gesture. I'm sure that was not different easy for
that person to do. And so I think of calling
people in, you know, in a way that's it's not
calling them out, it's being like, hey, come back, let's
(15:08):
let's talk about this, Let's talk through what has happened there,
in a way that doesn't have to be heavy or
you know, you know, it doesn't at the end of
the world, right, and like we all make mistakes, it
doesn't have to be this earth chattering thing. It can
be sort of you can think of it. You can
choose to think of it as a as a as
a less negative thing. You just blew my mind. Yeah,
I have a lot to learn from you on that.
(15:29):
In culture and I call out cultures, I do get
very defensive. And I feel like this this experience, y'all,
as as becoming someone behind the mic, has been really
challenging for me, and in that regard because I pour
so much of myself into this work that getting called
in feels like it definitely triggers some defensiveness from me.
(15:53):
Um in that my intentions are more often than not
very good that when I get critique, it's it's just
like it triggers some shame or something or something. It's
it triggers some defensiveness in me that I've seen in
other people. That's quite ugly, and I'm sure it's not
any prettier when I experienced that emotion either. That does
(16:13):
make me on defend myself. It's natural, and I think
it took me a long time and being called out
for some stuff I frankly should have known better, um on.
But learning how to fight through that feeling, it takes learning.
It's very uncomfortable. It's very uncomfortable, and learning how to
not make it about yourself and you're the way that
(16:34):
you feel and you're in like saying things like oh
I why didn't mean it? You know, things like that.
It took me a really long time to understand why
that kind of isn't the best or the most productive
way to respond. And it took me being called out
on a lot of stuff, But stuff I'm not bad of.
You are like champion level empathic, Like you should get
(16:55):
an empathy award. I feel like they're so good at
taking other people's perspectives in this amazing way that it's
quite it's I think it comes from a lot, Yeah,
it's it's it's therapy. It's listening, it's all of that. Well,
I think you're awesome, thanks girl. So a great transition
is sort of talking through this idea of what it
feels like when someone wants to hold you accountable. And
(17:16):
I think you mentioned seeing that in a lot of
your sisters, and I hate to say those ladies, but
I think we have an issue with that in feminist spaces,
and I think you know we saw that with the
Women's March. You see it in a lot of feminist
spaces where sometimes those spaces can be aggressively white. And
I think a lot of women of color and a
lot of women who live at intersections have not historically
(17:39):
felt like feminist movements have equally lifted us up. For sure.
So let's let's talk about the history and then let's
bring it back to the march, because I know you've
got some awesome experiences to share their Uh. Because Bridget
was a big part of the march, the Women's March,
We're not a big part was the central factor that
made the march possible. That's that's my opinon y'all, just
(18:02):
kidding that might be not as grounded in research effect
as the best podcast. We'll tell you all about it.
I'm in I'm in love with bridget right now. In
case it's not glaringly obvious. Um like slack jot over here,
and ah, so I think we should maybe take a
quick break. We'll be right back. Let's go back. Let's
(18:29):
go back to the beginning. And there is no true beginning.
I think we can point to you for the women's movement.
But anybody who's seen that movie Suffragette, did you see that?
I did not see that. What's her name, Harry something
I want to say, Carrie Mulligan um in Suffragette, which
was a really interesting historical depiction of early industrial era,
(18:53):
depiction of the feminist uprising in the UK in England
and the really brutal response from the state, from the government.
And in that movie, it became very obvious to me
just how um erased black women were from the suffragette movement.
And the same could be true in the United States
right when there were marches of suffragists, and we could
(19:16):
do a whole episode on this, y'all. So I'm paraphrasing, okay,
but in these feminist marches, black feminists, if there were
any brave women who were not exactly felt like not
exactly welcomed into those marches, were told to march in
the back. Yeah. I mean there are stories like that
around major historical feminist movements all throughout history. You know that,
(19:39):
like lavender Menace. You know, gay women were not exactly
welcomed into the feminist movement. Like this has been a
challenge forever, and I think I'm happy that people are
willing to have these conversations today. But I think it's
no wonder that folks, you know, I had I had
a friend who when white women, in order to you know,
show up at the Women's March, were dressed as as suffragettes.
(20:01):
I had friends who were saying things who are like
making fun of that. They thought it was really insensitive.
It was making a show of how they were leaving
folks out. Yeah, and I feel that way, but I
could understand how folks would feel that way. And I mean,
this is this These sort of divides in the feminist
movement have been, like you said, throughout history, have come
up time and time again around single issues. As NPR
(20:23):
wrote following the Women's March of seventeen, Uh, listen, it
was that way in the eighteen fifties when some feminists
split over whether to champion abolition or women's rights. So
it was a choice between the abolition of slavery or
women's rights. We couldn't tackle both at one time. And
that's when sojourn Our Truth gave her famous an I
(20:44):
a Woman speech at a women's rights conference in Ohio,
and and pr goes on to elaborate that. Listen, those
divides still existed in the late sixties and early seventies,
when quote sisterhood is powerful end quote became a rallying ry,
but with very few exceptions flow Kennedy, Shirley Chisholm, Eleanor
(21:05):
Holmes Norton. Here, black and brown sisters were very much
on the sidelines. So other than those few famous, notable,
wonderful exceptions, you know, African American women were not always
welcome into that feminist movement, and writers like Alice Walker
and Bell Hooks chose instead to refer to themselves as womanist,
(21:29):
not feminist. They refused to divorce their race from their gender,
so they were intersectional before intersectionality was a term coined
by Crenshaw in the eighties. Yeah, I think that's so important,
um shout out to all of those women because they've
been so foundational in my understanding of my own feminism
or slash womanism. Um. And yet you you can't ask
(21:51):
people to divorce, you know, your gender from your race,
or your class from your gender, or things like that.
It doesn't work that way. We are complex packages. When
I experienced sexism, I'm experienced as a black woman, not
to se a woman. And also, like what you were
saying before about black women being at the sidelines, that
is so true. If so many movements that you would
hope would be more progressive. You know, black women are
(22:13):
the backbone, for instance, of the Democratic Party, and yet
we have struggled to be taken seriously in within the
party despite the fact that time and time again, Like
make no mistake, black women are at the backbone of
the party see Maxine Waters. See the episode on Maxine
Waters for more on that too. Yeah, it's absolutely true
see Maxine Water. See Jessica Bird's work trying to make
(22:35):
the party more inclusive. See folks like Stacy Abrams. Black
women are are doing the work, they're doing the organizing,
they're running for office, they're doing all of this, and
yet we still struggle to be heard well on the
priority list. Right struggled to be on the priority list.
And I think that's true for so many women who
live at intersections of race, class, gender, identity, sexual orientation, ability, nationality,
(22:58):
you name it, right. When it comes to politics, there's
a priority list, and rarely throughout history have women who
live at those intersections have their sort of complaints or
desires or needs met at the top of that list.
And frankly, I understand the misguided intent there, because some
(23:21):
people have seen this as uh, you know, women of color,
wanting them to not rock the boat, right, so that
we could pass a wide ranging platform of policies that
really had the unity of the lowest common denominator, in
this case, gender right. I can't tell you how many
(23:42):
times I've heard that, Honestly, probably the time and this
was like a peak white feminist moment for me. The
time that I think illustrates that so perfectly was I
think it was the Academy Awards where Patricia Arcadics want
an Academy Award Boyhood, and she's brilliant in it. She
deserved that award. She was great, um and she a
great speech about women and equal pay and it was
(24:03):
time has come and we all I remember watching that
on TV and thinking, yes, girl say it, and then
I was on this high. I'm feeling so good about
that moment. They cut to her backstage interview and it
was some nonsense. It fell apart, it fell apart. Her
point basically was that white women have fought for equal
rights for blacks, and now it's time for everyone else
(24:27):
to get on board and fight for equal rights for them.
She talked about Obama like we all got behind a
black man, we all got behind marriage equality. Now it's
time for all you people. And I think she said
something really impensive, like a few people to get behind women.
And that's the thing is, like I understand the rationale,
(24:48):
I actually understand the thought process that would lead someone
to saying something like that, but the result is us
versus them. The result is drawing a division, a line
of division, saying my needs are more important than your needs,
and your unique experience somehow threatens our own, it threatens
(25:08):
our our other shared experience. And that's that's what's so
troubling to me about this, is like some women's unique
experiences that we don't share, do not threaten the experiences
of sexism that we do share. Right, it's not an equal,
it's not an and or thing, right, and it totally
erases people who live at intersections, like saying that women
(25:33):
have fought for gay rights, now it's time for gays
to fight for women. What about gay women? It just
doesn't make their existence. Yes, it's totally totally erasism, and
I think, um, I was so sad. It's like when
someone gets it so close to being right and then
it's not. It's a lesson in quitting while you're ahead.
It's really what it is, like, maybe don't keep talking
(25:56):
behind the scenes once you've had such a speech that
probably have like a like a couple of million tweets
within the seconds that she went from the stage to backstage.
She was like already making headlines for the next day's newspapers.
And then she she kind of tanked it. And then
what happened on the internet immediately was, come on, guys,
(26:17):
just don't pick on Patricia Arquette. Angry black women said
a bunch of ignorant white women like, don't don't make
this into a race thing. Don't make this into a
gay thing. Which that's that's tail as old as time.
That's how it always happens that when something like that happens,
there is a rush to I don't want to say excuse,
but kind of wash away the intent and wash away
(26:42):
the impact in a kind of way. And instead of saying,
let's have a conversation about what just happened, there was
a lot of voices that did not want to have
that conversation. It is uncomfortable. I can't understand. And part
of me almost identifies with in that moment because I'm
I I could see myself doing something very similar saying
(27:02):
getting it kind of right, and then because keep going,
and then really again like extreme empathy right now, like
this is an amazing skilly you have you know you
know that. My My guiding expression is what is it? Um?
They're for the there but for the grace of God.
Go I When you look at someone having a hard
time or like doing it so wrong or really messing up,
(27:25):
that could be any one of us. And I really
that is something that guides me in the way that
I think about a lot of issues. Wow, well I
love that, and I think this would be a good
time for us all to ponder that further. And we
are excited to dive into how this sort of historical
lack of intersectionality is still on display today. And and
(27:47):
y'all just know that we're going to leave you with
some sort of strategies and core values to keep in
mind as you move forward from this week and avoid
making these mistakes. We're not trying to harp on anybody here,
We're not trying to tear anybody down. We're just trying
to illustrate what it looks like to be an open,
intersectional feminist, and what it looks like and how common
(28:07):
it is to forget about that and and how destructive
truly that can be. So I wanted to talk a
little bit bit about the Women's March here in d C.
The Women's March occurred a day after Donald Trump took office,
and it was important to acknowledge the fact here that
(28:28):
Donald Trump was put in the White House in large
part because fifty three, I believe, is that right three
of white women voted him in, and that runs contrary
to women who live at the intersection of blackness and
uh womanhood. I believe black women voted h we as
(28:53):
always we knew what was up like. Nobody voted for
him less than black women. Black women right pretty pretty
roundly were like nah, and then I'm gonna groundly were
like nah, I like that. And similarly, seventy of Hispanic
women voted for Clinton. I guess I've got the number
here in front of me now of Black women voted
(29:15):
for Hillary Clinton and women who identify as non white,
so that I know that's a sort of catch all category,
shout out to Asian women and Native Native peoples and
et cetera, and onward. Um of those non white women
voted for Trump. So the only subset of the women
population that voted overwhelmingly for Trump was white women. And
(29:37):
so the Women's March was on the heels of that
harsh reality to which I love Tina Phays commentary, who said, listen,
a lot of this election was turned by white college
educated women who now would like to forget about this
election and go back to watching HDTV. And then she
(29:58):
continued to say, you can't look away because it doesn't
affect you right this minute. It's going to affect you eventually.
And so there were some seriously harsh and um he
did commentary leading up to this Women's March. Definitely, I
think for me. I was in a real weird place
(30:18):
after the election. UM. I worked on the campaign for
a while, and we could do a whole episode around
election night for folks on the campaign because it was
seems he did before they left. Their last episode was
very sort of dramatic. I mean it was very traumatized.
You know. It was an intense time. And so I
(30:40):
remember after the election going I was in Brooklyn working
from the headquarters, and I came back to d C
and I just wasn't ready. I wasn't ready for any
of this. I wasn't ready for the march. I was
seeing things on social media that kind of turned my
stomach a little bit. I was seeing my white friends
from from different paces in America talking about my white
(31:02):
female friends talking about um, you know, coming to the march,
and kind of talking about it as if it was
a party that they were excited to see their friends
and excited to wear pink cats and excited for all
of that. And there's like no shame. I don't want
to write on anyone's parade, but that felt so alienating
to me, and I think part of it is living
in d C. I felt so personally wronged and impacted
(31:29):
that I just wasn't ready to get up with my
white sisters and march in the streets. I wasn't ready,
and so I wrote a blog post about how I
was feeling, which was just that, like I, I wanted
to remind white women that for folks at different intersections,
if you're disabled, if you're black, if you're an immigrant,
if you are you know, if you live at certain intersections,
(31:52):
if you're an indigenous woman, your life is about to
get harder. And it's not funny and it's not cute,
and it's not an excuse for a party. It's real
and it's scary and it's tough. And I, I mean,
I'm remembering how I felt back then. I'm on the
verge of tears. I felt so alienated at my what
with my white friends who seemed to think this was
(32:14):
an excuse to like get a good picture on social media.
Then protesting, and I'm all of a protest, but I
just I wasn't there yet. I felt so I wasn't there.
And UM, a good friend of mine, Angela, People's shout
out to Angela, UM, I think, formerly of the organization
Get Equal. UM. She kind of had a had a
breakthrough moment um. If you saw this viral picture, it's
(32:37):
her sucking a lollipop at the Women's March in front
of a group of women, white women who were taking
selfies in their pink hats, and she's holding a sign
that says, don't forget white women voted for Trump. And
that image broke through in a way that I thought
was really powerful. It went super super megawatt viral, and
it's now hanging in the National Smithsonian Museum of African
(32:59):
American History. I think I'm saying that wrong, but in culture, no,
you got it. Yeah, just and I think it really
illustrates how a lot of folks at intersections were feeling.
I think it was. It totally encapsulated the very complex
feelings that especially women of color had around the Women's March.
And you were involved with the march. Correct, Yeah, so
(33:20):
I went on. I don't. I'm it's surprising to me
that I was hired to do this after I wrote
this very salty blog post. I tell that we were
talking about this before the show. I was saying, I
have would not be surprised if you were brought on
because you wrote that very compelling and totally justified on
point blog post which can be read where oh, medium
dot com um. But yeah, and so I was. I
(33:42):
worked on the team that was doing social media on
the day of, and to be honest, it ended up
being a very, very fulfilling and positive experience for me,
and I I was happy that I was part of
the I mean I felt like I was being part
of history in a kind of way. Um being on
the ground march, and it was so great seeing all
(34:03):
the different kinds of folks who showed up, and it
was I haven't fully processed how powerful it was for me.
I think being part of it well. I think it
also was an example of intersectionality in action because you
really look at the tough conversations that were had on
that day and beyond. That's part of what getting woke
(34:26):
is all about. It's part of having angela people's hold
that sign go viral and have conversations around you know,
whiteness and feminism and that historical exclusion of women of
all different backgrounds. And I saw the march organizers go
to great lengths to not just include women of color,
(34:46):
but that march was led by women of color, It
was organized by women of color, by Muslim women like
Linda Stars, or by women who come from vastly different
economic backgrounds, class um, gender identity, and um sexual orientation,
and the the the extent to which those who are
(35:08):
differently abled were made welcome, and to the extent to
which accommodations were provided to really make sure that even
if you couldn't physically be there, you could be there,
you know what I mean. I think that that that
was a good example of what it looks like to
practice intersectionality. Yeah, and just sort of off that, Um, Linda,
who is If you don't know Linda, she's an amazing
organizer who I could talk about how powerful she is
(35:31):
all day. But after the march, folks came for her
and attacked her on the basis of her religion. And
so it's very interesting to me, um, how folks who
wanted to make the Women's March look bad used Linda's
religion sort have used her intersection to try to attack her.
And I thought it was very interesting that of all
of that that happened, and I was proud to see
(35:52):
so many folks stand stand with her and say, no,
we're not gonna let you attack our sister. On the
basis of her religion. That's not gonna happen, um, But
it's interesting how it just goes to show how those
intersections are so important and can sort of be used
against us by people who would want to, you know,
hurt our movement and hurt us. I think that's a
(36:13):
great point. It plays on the fear of unity versus diversity,
and I think that's that the core foundation of intersectional
feminism is to acknowledge that what makes us different does
not threaten our unity exactly just like I was saying
before earlier about trans women, understanding that a trans woman's girlhood,
(36:34):
even though it's different, might be different than my own,
understanding that we are not in conflict, and that their
girlhood being valid does not challenge mind being valid. Understanding
that was huge for me, and I didn't see that
for a long time. I think that's such a good example.
I UM. I've been encouraged since the Women's March to
see more white women who have large platforms, uh make
(36:55):
intersectionality a priority and come sort of out for and
center about how important it is to check your privilege,
whether it's white privilege or whatever kinds of privilege and
Glennon Doyle Melton, who is an author and speaker and
you know has experienced the OPRAH bump at Super Soul Sunday.
(37:18):
Whatever Oprah's doing to sort of choose the next big
speakers and pick them uh of a personal development space.
Glennan was on stage at one of Oprah's events and
said very bluntly and directly and clearly and so eloquently. Uh.
You know, in the middle of her speech, she said, listen,
I have to talk to white women in the audience.
(37:39):
For a second, everyone was like, oh boy. There was
an audible, uncomfortable amount of laughter there for a second,
and we were all crossing our fingers, like, come on, Glennon,
don't be another white woman putting your foot in the
mouth like on stage saying something like Patricia Arquette style.
And so what she said was, and I know I've
mentioned briefly in another episode, but I just think it's
(38:02):
really prutinent right now, is quote. I know that many
of us are feeling alone and ignored and threatened and abused,
and we're feeling like our bodies are being threatened and
our children's educations at risk, that we can be grabbed
at any minute, and that our degradation and our objectification
and our discrimination has become normalized and accepted in ways
(38:23):
that are chilling, and that is painful. But what we
need to remember is that this is just a touch
of the pain that so many marginalized people in this
country have been feeling for ages, for black people and
brown people, and trans people and gay people and muslim
people and Native Americans and poor people. And she goes
(38:43):
on to say what sucks is that it took us,
being personally affected to finally show up. And so she
basically goes on and says, you can't show up to
the movement late and decide to make your own organizations
and lead them, join them, follow women of color, Listen
to marginalized women. Don't come in here like you've you're
reinventing the wheel. Don't come into the social justice movement
(39:06):
as a white woman who's newly woke, ready to you know,
grab your make your own flag and run with it.
I get the intent, I get the desire, but we
have to listen and we have to be historically ah
know the historical context that we're walking into totally. And
I think that is that is the key for me
(39:28):
listening everything that I've ever, everything that I know about
feminism and intersectional feminism and all of this I've learned
from listening to other folks who I didn't have any
of this information myself. And I think listening to the
stories of folks at these intersections, whether it's you know,
folks who and and really being clear about, you know,
the intersections that you're thinking of and the ones that
(39:49):
you might not be thinking of, and let people tell
you the ones that you that you might be missing.
And that has been key for me. And I think
I love that quote so much because it's just about, yeah,
don't try to lead if you're not listen, don't try
to join the party late, and you know, don't Kendall
jennerary your way into a protest on hand. Everybody pepsi.
But that's how protests worked, that you just bring your
(40:11):
pepsi in, yeah, with the fresh iced you know, the
all the ice and the coolers at every protest. All right,
shall we take a quick break. It's a quick break.
I mean, when we come back, we want to talk
through some quick tips and takeaways for how to proceed
with an interceptional feminist framework in your life. We'll be
right back, and we are back. Thank you for hanging
(40:37):
in there with us with this kind of a tough conversation.
It's a burly one. It's a big, burly topic, but
it's kind of indicative of the feminist movement, right. Um,
So what we wanted to wrap up with y'all is
some quick tips that we've learned along the way. And
I'm sure you could add to this list listeners, so
(40:59):
feel free to add to this conversation on social media please.
We love hearing from you. But are sort of top
tips for how to be more intersectional in your approach
to feminism or in your life and work in general. Um,
do you want to start it off with that first one? Yeah?
I think the first one for me is just what
I was starting to say before we went to break
(41:20):
was listening. Um, everything I know about how to live
an intersectional life I learned from someone else, and so
I think it's so important to listen to people at intersections,
whether that intersection is rural versus city, whether that intersection
is you know, college educated versus not, whether that intersection
is ability. Just listening to the folks at those intersections
(41:41):
and understanding their experiences and what they're about, and listening
in terms of what it takes to make them feel included. Right.
And I think for those of you like me who
have trouble with interrupting, as we discussed a great length
in another episode, keep in mind that all that evidence
shows that women are more likely to be interrupted. We
(42:02):
can disagree on whether we think it's by women or
by men, but knowing that women's lives are already full
of interruptions and not always given the space to be heard,
I think it's especially important to work on that. Like
I am so, I hope, I hope you'll join me
in that because I think it's a huge area of
(42:23):
growth for me. And it's not just about being polite.
It's not just about being seen as not a jerk.
It's really truly about making sure that other voices are
hurt and that makes you a better leader. By the way,
I also read an approach to this in academia. This
actually came out of Intersectionality, a Tool for Gender and
Economic Justice from the Women's Rights and Economic Change publication
(42:46):
straight out of u n C. What is the un
dot EU University of North Carolina, Yes, that's the one,
uh and in this phenomenal tool that was downloadable on
the internet for free, which I highly recommend checking out.
They all so discussed it. From a research perspective, listening
means your evidence has to be grassroots based. This is
not about top down me as an organizer tell you
(43:08):
what to do. It's like, we need to listen to
our listeners, We need to listen to our fans, We
need to listen to the populations for whom we want
to pursue social justice. And you have to take an
organizer's approach to that, which is like starts with all
listening tour. You know, I could talk about that all day,
and that's being an organizer. That's been key. So many
(43:31):
times you see folks who want to be activists or
organizers UM building for not with they're not listening to
the communities that they want to um work with and
they're thinking of them as you know, communities that they
are going to be working for and working with is
so important and it starts with listening. Awesome. The other
things we want to say here are kind of go
(43:51):
hand in hand. Welcome difference and know your privilege, And
I think that boils down to really acknowledging where you're
priv vileedge comes from. For me, I present this white
So even though I have Latin heritage doesn't always matter.
That doesn't necessarily hold me back in the same way
that other Latinas can be discriminated against the fact that
(44:13):
I don't have kids. As we discussed in the Mommy tax,
is a huge privilege from an employment perspective, I'm college educated.
Like owning your privileges, privileges doesn't mean apologizing for them.
It means being cognizant of the invisible ways in which
you have been given a leg up that not everybody has.
Completely this has been That's that's been huge for me. Um.
(44:36):
You know, even as a as a black woman, I
have tons of privilege. I went to college, my parents
went to college, my parents are still married. You know. Um,
I don't have children, I'm able bodied, I'm sis gendered,
being someone who's who's thin. All of these things are
a kind of privilege. And I think it's really about
welcoming in folks who don't necessarily share those same privileges
(44:58):
and making them feel included. Yeah, and sometimes that means
being willing to be called in, to call in others
and be willing to be called in because it's hard
to be aware of all of your privileges. So when
someone else helps, you become more aware of some privileges
that you might not even think to add to the list.
I'm sure we're forgetting some from saying, try your best
(45:19):
to not succumb to that very natural human instinct to
jump into the defensiveness mode, to get really uh, you know,
stressed out about proving yourself as you know, I'm not
a racist, or I'm not you know, I'm not anti
LGBT folks, and here's why, and overly correcting or attempting
to by getting really defensive and offended. It's easy to
(45:43):
feel offended, but we have to keep in mind that
when we're being called in, it's an opportunity for learning
and growth. I say that knowing it's not as easy
as that said. It's not, and we've I've been on
all sides of it. It's so not easy, but again,
you know, growing it's hard. And I also just like
to tell people or remind folks that it doesn't have
(46:03):
to be some big trip where if you say the
wrong thing, everyone is calling you a racist and you're
a Nazi and you're so awful and terrible and you
should go away, and we're gonna throw you away. We
don't need you. It doesn't have to be. It can
feel like that, yes, I mean, honestly, sometimes that's what
the internet can be like. Yes, oh, this is why
this could be a whole other episode of why you
probably do an episode on safe spaces, um. But it
(46:25):
doesn't have to be that way. Someone calling you in
can just be. It doesn't. It doesn't. We don't have
to go into defensive mode. And going in a defensive
mode is not productive. Taking a breath, taking a beat,
and hearing what they're saying, internalizing it, working through that
natural defensiveness and you know, sitting with that and having
that be okay and then going from there. Some of
(46:47):
my therapist friends have said that mirroring can be a
really helpful exercise for those of us who struggle with
empathizing with our critics like myself sometimes. Um, and so
what that I think it's called mirroring if I'm getting
this right. My friend who's a therapist here has told
me it it's part of the Amago therapy practice, which
(47:12):
is perspective taking and then echoing back what your partner
is saying. So say you're in therapy with your mother
or your in therapy with your partner and you have
a fundamental disagreement about their perspective. Your job when you're
mirroring someone is to echo back to them what they
are saying and make sense of it. You don't need
to agree with them, but to make sense of it
(47:34):
and say something like, Okay, so you're you're saying to
me that I am a racist, and I can understand
where you are coming from because this is your experience
and what I said here made you feel like that,
you know my intent was one that is racist. I mean,
(47:57):
that's a really hard thing to do. But to actually
echo back and articulate to that person what it is
that they're trying to say can be a good independent exercise.
So you don't need to actually go ahead and say
that to folks who are giving a grief, but just
acknowledging I understand where you're coming from, UM can help us.
I think work on the very vulnerable and courageous act
(48:19):
that is empathizing with someone who's totally disagreeing with you
or trying or basically tearing it down Yeah, I'm glad
that you brought up empathy, because I think that's what
it's really all about, is being willing to empathize with
our critics, with folks who have different who have very
different lived experiences than we do, and even if you
don't agree with them, just being willing to hear them
and understand and process what they're saying and empathize with them. Yeah.
(48:43):
You know, it's a good example of that. Re member
on the Migtoo episode, Oh yes, I always feel like
we overly empathy. I was like, we ended that by saying,
like we really care about these people. I mean, that's
fine because you were talking about your friends. But I
almost love that thinking like we can all disagree to you.
There's a part of me that wants to say argue, disagree.
(49:03):
I know I'm not saying agree, I'm saying I understand
where they're coming from. That's true, and I think, yeah,
that's something that has been helpful in my life, and
particularly like being from the South when people, I mean,
I I got someone note with all these think pieces
after the election that we're like, think about the racists, um,
all of those kinds of things, but understand I understand
(49:25):
things like fear, things like shame, things like not understanding,
feeling like you live in a world that you no
longer recognize or understand. I can understand how those feelings
can bring out some qualities and people that I might
not agree with. So I don't agree with the outcomes,
but I can understand how they get to them, right, Okay,
(49:47):
I think that's a really important differentiation. And I think
I think the idea of an intersectional framework for feminism
is one in which you know, we're not just talking
about being PC here, We're not just talking about being pulled. Correct,
Although that's not a bad place to start. I think
whether or not we bring an intersectional approach has very
(50:08):
real and costly outcomes for the people in our country,
for our fellow Americans who live every single day at
those intersections, or even non Americans, right, for those who
we share this world with. And one example that Crenshaw
really highlights a lot in her ted X talk, which
(50:28):
you have to see, it's called the urgency of intersectional feminism.
She points out an early legal case that really came
to her attention because she comes at this from a
legal scholars perspective, which is the case of de graph
and Read versus General Motors, in which five black women
sued GM on the grounds of race and gender discrimination. Quote.
(50:50):
The particular challenge in the law was one that was
grounded in the fact that anti discrimination law looks at
race and gender separately, as though black women in or
women of color don't exist, an example of a total
lack of an intersectional framework. And she goes on to say,
the consequence of that is when African American women or
any other women of color experience either compound or overlapping discrimination,
(51:15):
the law initially just was not there to come to
their defense, and GM got off with without consequence. So
I'm glad to hear that initially it was not there
because things have changed. But that just goes to show
you how important intersectional framework can be in making sure
that issues as serious as police brutality, for instance, are
(51:39):
not solely focused on Black men whose names are much
more have much more um namework, cognition in and much
more ink in the mainstream media than. As Crenshaw points out,
black women who are brutalized by police every day, it
feels like in this country totally and don't get the
same attention yeah, think I think you see that in
(52:01):
so many different ways. I remember when I was working
at a news outlet, there was a young black woman
in Philadelphia who have been um who had been kidnapped,
and you know, obviously that has its own kind of
like um things where we think about white women as
being these kidnapping victims and black women would have don't
get any kind of recognition. And I was wanted to
put her name in the and the social media copy
(52:24):
because I thought this woman could still be found and
all of that. And my boss said, oh, well, she's
no Natalie Holloway, thinking you know, she's not you know,
we don't mean she doesn't have the name recognition of
a white girl who's gone missing. There's no need to
like say her name. And yeah, that that moment taught
(52:46):
me the urgency of intersectionality, the urgency that we understand
and and really it can be it can be people's lives,
it can be life or death. I think it's a
great point, and that's where the hashtag campaign say her
name comes to. Wow, well, thank you so much. I
feel like I learned so much from this conversation. And
(53:07):
we went in really already, you know, feeling like we've
known a lot. This applies so much to all the
work that we do here. I hope that you learned
with us listeners, and I hope that you'll courageously continue
this conversation with us online. We really try to stay
true to our our philosophy that we can learn and
(53:27):
grow together at stuff I've never told you, and we
rely on your calling us in. We hope that you'll
call us in with some empathy. I get so like
this has been such a growth experience for me to
not be defensive and not get triggered, and I can
really I want to appreciate those of you who write
in and do so with um with the intention to
(53:52):
truly help and not you know, and not make us
feel bad. I appreciate that I have a little empathy
for people who don't know about sports. Y'all. Oh my up, No,
I'm just kidding. Oh god, we will never talk about
hockey again. Let me just make I'm loving that you
just went there. Um, Okay, so anything else, I think
I think that's it. Give us a holler on Twitter
(54:13):
at Mom's Stuff podcast. Make sure you tag us on
those hot instas that stuff Mom never told you and uh,
you can always shoot us an email at mom stuff
at how stuff works dot com.
This is Emily and this is Bridget and you're listening
to stuff Mom never told you. Today, we're tackling a
topic by popular demand that B and I were mentioning
on a couple episodes in the past, and which we said, Hey,
(00:29):
let us know if y'all would appreciate an episode solely
dedicated to intersectional feminism, and Twitter was kind enough to
let us know that the answer was a resounding yes.
So thank you to everybody on Instagram and on the
Twitter sphere who makes their voice heard, We hear you.
(00:49):
And as much as I think I don't know about
you be, but I think we try to bring an
intersectional feminist approach to basically every topic we tackle. I mean,
I think I try to bring one to my life.
I live life exactly and that does not stop when
we walk into the studio here. Um. But it's so
this is almost like a meta episode in terms of
(01:13):
naming and claiming and making clear not just how we
try to live true to that framework, but also the
history of why that's so important. Um. Anything you want
to add as we set this conversation up, Yeah, I
mean I think that these are tough topics that will
tackle further along in today's episode, But just to make
(01:33):
it clear, I think that a lot of times people
assume that when we talk about living intersectional living our
values as intersectional people, that we're talking about how to
be nice on Twitter or I do not you know,
be a jerk, and that is part of it. But
these issues are are people's livelihoods, you know. Um, I
really have no choice to not live an intersectional life
(01:54):
because I'm an intersectional person. Um. And I think living
at those intersections can be thorny and difficult, and recognizing
them can be thorny and difficult. And I just think
it's very important. It's important that we challenge ourselves to
get it right. It's important that we understand how to
get better and all of that. Yeah, And I feel
like it's one of those buzzwords in the political world
(02:16):
and in the feminist space and just in I think
social media in general. Definitely. You know, the term intersectional
or intersectionality has been tossed around so much, and yet
it's very hard to understand. Like a lot of um,
woke news oriented people that I know are like, what
is that? What is the intersectional feminism? So should we
(02:37):
just define our terms like a good breakdown cool. So
this is so. Intersectionality is a term that was coined
by American professor Kimberly Crenshaw in nine, but the concept
existed far far longer than um. Crenshaw gave us a
good word intersectionality to describe the textbook definition here, which
(03:03):
is the view that women experience oppression in varying configurations
and in varying degrees of intensity. Cultural patterns of oppression
are not only inter related, but are bound together and
influenced by the intersectional systems of society. Examples of this
include race, gender, class ability, and ethnicity. And that list
(03:26):
goes on much longer, and on and on. There's a
mean think about the intersections that we occupy in our lives,
and you know, there's so many of them. So that
list is and you said, you sort of identified at
the top, I'm an intersectional person. What are the intersections
that you sort of identify as living as So I
would say some of my the intersections that are the
(03:48):
most prominent in my life or being a black queer woman. Um,
there's a really great book on feminism called All the
Women Are White, All the Men Are Black, and that
that title just really umbed up how I lived a
lot of my life thinking that I have to either
be one or the other. If we're talking about black folks,
I'm in that bucket, but it's not black women. If
we're talking about women, we're talking about white women, and
(04:09):
I'm in that bucket. But kind of and so not really,
not really being able to occupy my actual intersections has
been difficult in my life. It's like living on the
periphery exactly on both those categories. Well, first of all,
thank you for sharing that. I kind of pre share
on the spot there. Um, and I feel like we
haven't we haven't heard from you on the identity around
(04:30):
identifying as a queer woman. What is that, mabe. I mean,
just if you want to share, I'm like curious, Like, yeah,
it's not something I thought. I mean, I'm I'm not,
It's not something I'm purposely hiding. It's just not something
I talk about often. Um. I think it's complicated, and
I think that this is something that we should talk
about on the show. But I think that when you
are a woman who does not identify as heterosexual, it
(04:53):
can be tough to know how much space to occupy
because I have been in relationships with men, and I
know the that gives you a kind of privilege, and
I don't want to be the person that's like raw
ra queer identity when there are people who don't have
the level of privilege that I have, as as being
someone who has been in relationships with when women, men
and non binary folks makes sense, Yeah, awesome, Damn, we're
(05:16):
gonna have to do a whole up. I love it, um.
And I think sexual fluidity too, I mean, the fluidity
of around sexuality and general identity right now is so
wild and like in I say that in the best
possible way. Um, Like those walls are just crashing down
in a cool way. They are, and it's it's weird. Um.
(05:37):
I know that people talk a lot about things like
by erasure, where yes, bisexual women feel as though they
really can't lift their issues and I definitely have felt that. Um.
And it's it's complicated, it's a complex issue. Um. Yeah,
I don't have the answer. Well, I think it's a
perfect illustration of what it feels like to not identify
(06:00):
fire or not not be represented. I think that's really
why intersectionality is so important. It's making the intent right,
making the effort to be radically inclusive, and by radically
I mean consistently across the board, acknowledging that we have
different privileges, that we all have different experiences, and that
(06:23):
that difference doesn't threaten our unity right exactly, um I,
I mean this doesn't make me sound like a very
good feminist, but I had to learn that. Um. I
was sending a conversation with my cousin over the weekend
where we were talking about trans women, and there was
a there's been a you know, a whole thing about this,
and I realized within myself something kind of bad, which
(06:45):
is that I, in my mind, I know what it
looks like. We've had a girlhood, right. A girlhood is
what it feels like to get your first period. A
girlhood is when you get cat called for the first time.
I understood what that meant, and I was very if
someone threatened what that meant to me. I felt that
to be very threatening, and it took me a long
time to realize trans women their girlhood is just as
(07:07):
valid as what I understood my own girlhood to be.
So I really took me a while to get that
where I realized, oh, the kind of girlhood that you know,
a woman who is not like myself, whether they're a
trans woman, whether they're a poor woman, whether they're uh
differently abled woman. Just because our girlhoods were not the
same doesn't make mind valid and there's not valid. And
(07:28):
I had to learn that I was. I was a
bad feminist and I didn't acknowledge. I disagree because I
think we all had to learn this. Who's born being
a perfect intersectional feminist? Not me, zero, people like zero.
Maybe really I don't think so, even I feel like
we we should acknowledge that there's a spectrum of learning
(07:50):
and bring a bring what is really called a growth
mindset to this, which is everyone can get better at this.
No one is born with or without the skill to
be intersection all and it is a learned habit, a
learned sort of perspective. So we should have well, I
have compassion for you, and we should all have compassion
with ourselves because we're ever evolving, and the minute you
(08:11):
think you're perfectly evolved, someone on Twitter will remind you
you're not. The universe has ways of knocking you down.
I definitely have I mean polish polishing you. Yes, I
got to a place where I thought I was a
little miswoke, right, Like people were people in the progressive
space were coming to me, like important people to ask
me my opinions around diversity and inclusion, the blah blah blah,
(08:34):
and I was feeling really good about it. And then
those are the moments where you say something or do
something or forget something or and then it's like the
universe is reminding you, hey, we're ever evolving, stay humble,
don't think that you're you know yeah. And so that's
been really helpful for me. I I take pride in
owning that I am, you know, imperfect, and owning that
(08:56):
I that, like everyone else, I have waste took row
and I appreciate and people call me out on it
and or call me in on it. Really can you know,
it's hard, it's hard, but it's so important. It's so important.
I totally agree. And I think all people want is
to know that you're being real with them. I've been
on the stage of a you know, opening keynote for
(09:18):
a conference on gender inclusivity, and and I have to
own my white privilege, like pretty vocally. I think that's
the best way to do is check your privilege in
a very public way and say, listen, I know I'm
like this white woman up here talking about race and
gender and intersection and you know, I'm asking you the
audience to be participatory and hold me accountable, and that
(09:40):
has invited, you know, some very welcome critique. In real
time as I'm delivering, are people screaming from the stage like, hey,
remember you forgot about I know, I like rolled out
the red carpet for a cat for a nut, cat
calling for for calling out. Well, I just remember being
corrected or pushed by an audience member more than once,
(10:02):
but one in particular on how racial battle fatigue impacts
burnout just something to talk about a lot. And I
said to her, that was such a good point. I
don't have a good answer for you right now. Thank
you so much for making me think about this. I'm
going to integrate this into all my keynotes moving forward,
and I have so you know, see the episode called
work Fails for more insights on how to stumble gracefully
(10:25):
and wokefully. I don't know how else to describe it,
but part of intersectionality is acknowledging that we're all on
a progression here and the importance to me, at least,
I think is intent. The intent to be inclusive can
go a very long way in a movement like feminism
that is rooted historically in injustice and and I think
(10:48):
it's fair to say you just flat out racism, um,
but really not acknowledging or or what is it called
not not taking seriously the critiques of women who live
at those intersections of every single day. Definitely. I remember
when I was organizing trainings for the progressive community, again
thinking I was little miswoke doing everything right. I think
(11:09):
there should be a sash that says likes and that
should be a pageant. And I wouldn't totally go to that.
That's a good idea, um. But yeah, I was organizing
a training and I thought, you know, we had this
great inclusive space blah blah blah, and we had a
happy hour. Afterward, someone pulled me aside and said, I
can't get into this. It's at a bar. I am,
(11:31):
I'm documented, I don't have I D so I have
to go home. And I thought, crap, I didn't even
that didn't occur to me, you know, I'm it was
just a complete blind spot. Um. And had this person
I said something, it would it would have continued to
be a blind spot. So I'm so thankful that that
person felt, you know, I felt that they could come
(11:51):
talk to me about it. I think the same thing
we said for many events held by the most woke
of people that are not accessible for those who are
differently abled to I actually give a little holler out
on social media this morning before we came into the
recording studio to ask folks who already fans of the show,
(12:12):
what do what does this word mean to you? What
does intersectionality mean to you? And one woman wrote us saying, listen,
you know the thing that I find is so often
forgotten is how differing abilities right, being differently abled or
able bodied UM, is so often ignored as this silent
privilege that many of us currently have. Definitely UM. Honestly,
(12:35):
on the show, we did an episode around we talk
a lot about protests and things like that, and in
an episode we talked about how folks should be going
to protest and all of that right, and I totally
neglected to And this is completely on me, and I
work in this sphere, so I can't believe I forgot it,
But I didn't even acknowledge that folks can't always physically
go or they have they have a challenge or a
(12:57):
you know, a need where they can't. It makes it
difficult to go to these things. And I didn't even
occur to me to say, you know, you can still
take action in other ways. You can make calls from
your house, you can, you know, write an LTE, you
can letter to the editor, thank you, you can, you know,
there are plenty of things you can organize a phone
book or a digital phone bank, all of those things.
(13:17):
And so I didn't even shout out to that listener
for bringing that up because I didn't even think to
mention that. And these are things that I basically traffic
in professionally. So well, I think that's such a good
example of including everyone in every single sentence of your
speech throughout life is impossible. It's impossible. And it's not
(13:38):
saying that you shouldn't try, but it is. I mean,
we will stumble, and this will be challenging for for
our listeners and for us to to live true to
every single day of our lives. The important thing is
how we react to being called out. And I have
seen many of my fellow white folks who present white Um,
really freak out on that, really stumble of that part,
(14:01):
and Miley is a perfect episode, Oh Miley Oley That
episodes a perfect example of listen. It's it's one thing
to screw up and like culturally appropriate time and time
and time and time and time and time again, but
it's a wholly different problem. Two gaslight people and make
them feel crazy for critiquing you. Yeah, And I also
(14:22):
think um, having been on both sides, having called people
in and then called in it said, it's such a
nice way of saying it. Can you explain with you?
And so I so I don't like it when people
say called out because that makes it seem like something
that is inherently aggressive and bad and you've done something
wrong and we're all gonna get you in a circle
and point at you and point at this thing that
you've done wrong. And I think it triggers this reaction
(14:45):
on the person who has done the thing that I
think is not productive. And so I prefer to think
of it as being called in, where like the person
who in the story I just told about, the you know,
undocumented person that was, I thought of that as a
loving gesture. I'm sure that was not different easy for
that person to do. And so I think of calling
people in, you know, in a way that's it's not
calling them out, it's being like, hey, come back, let's
(15:08):
let's talk about this, Let's talk through what has happened there,
in a way that doesn't have to be heavy or
you know, you know, it doesn't at the end of
the world, right, and like we all make mistakes, it
doesn't have to be this earth chattering thing. It can
be sort of you can think of it. You can
choose to think of it as a as a as
a less negative thing. You just blew my mind. Yeah,
I have a lot to learn from you on that.
(15:29):
In culture and I call out cultures, I do get
very defensive. And I feel like this this experience, y'all,
as as becoming someone behind the mic, has been really
challenging for me, and in that regard because I pour
so much of myself into this work that getting called
in feels like it definitely triggers some defensiveness from me.
(15:53):
Um in that my intentions are more often than not
very good that when I get critique, it's it's just
like it triggers some shame or something or something. It's
it triggers some defensiveness in me that I've seen in
other people. That's quite ugly, and I'm sure it's not
any prettier when I experienced that emotion either. That does
(16:13):
make me on defend myself. It's natural, and I think
it took me a long time and being called out
for some stuff I frankly should have known better, um on.
But learning how to fight through that feeling, it takes learning.
It's very uncomfortable. It's very uncomfortable, and learning how to
not make it about yourself and you're the way that
(16:34):
you feel and you're in like saying things like oh
I why didn't mean it? You know, things like that.
It took me a really long time to understand why
that kind of isn't the best or the most productive
way to respond. And it took me being called out
on a lot of stuff, But stuff I'm not bad of.
You are like champion level empathic, Like you should get
(16:55):
an empathy award. I feel like they're so good at
taking other people's perspectives in this amazing way that it's
quite it's I think it comes from a lot, Yeah,
it's it's it's therapy. It's listening, it's all of that. Well,
I think you're awesome, thanks girl. So a great transition
is sort of talking through this idea of what it
feels like when someone wants to hold you accountable. And
(17:16):
I think you mentioned seeing that in a lot of
your sisters, and I hate to say those ladies, but
I think we have an issue with that in feminist spaces,
and I think you know we saw that with the
Women's March. You see it in a lot of feminist
spaces where sometimes those spaces can be aggressively white. And
I think a lot of women of color and a
lot of women who live at intersections have not historically
(17:39):
felt like feminist movements have equally lifted us up. For sure.
So let's let's talk about the history and then let's
bring it back to the march, because I know you've
got some awesome experiences to share their Uh. Because Bridget
was a big part of the march, the Women's March,
We're not a big part was the central factor that
made the march possible. That's that's my opinon y'all, just
(18:02):
kidding that might be not as grounded in research effect
as the best podcast. We'll tell you all about it.
I'm in I'm in love with bridget right now. In
case it's not glaringly obvious. Um like slack jot over here,
and ah, so I think we should maybe take a
quick break. We'll be right back. Let's go back. Let's
(18:29):
go back to the beginning. And there is no true beginning.
I think we can point to you for the women's movement.
But anybody who's seen that movie Suffragette, did you see that?
I did not see that. What's her name, Harry something
I want to say, Carrie Mulligan um in Suffragette, which
was a really interesting historical depiction of early industrial era,
(18:53):
depiction of the feminist uprising in the UK in England
and the really brutal response from the state, from the government.
And in that movie, it became very obvious to me
just how um erased black women were from the suffragette movement.
And the same could be true in the United States
right when there were marches of suffragists, and we could
(19:16):
do a whole episode on this, y'all. So I'm paraphrasing, okay,
but in these feminist marches, black feminists, if there were
any brave women who were not exactly felt like not
exactly welcomed into those marches, were told to march in
the back. Yeah. I mean there are stories like that
around major historical feminist movements all throughout history. You know that,
(19:39):
like lavender Menace. You know, gay women were not exactly
welcomed into the feminist movement. Like this has been a
challenge forever, and I think I'm happy that people are
willing to have these conversations today. But I think it's
no wonder that folks, you know, I had I had
a friend who when white women, in order to you know,
show up at the Women's March, were dressed as as suffragettes.
(20:01):
I had friends who were saying things who are like
making fun of that. They thought it was really insensitive.
It was making a show of how they were leaving
folks out. Yeah, and I feel that way, but I
could understand how folks would feel that way. And I mean,
this is this These sort of divides in the feminist
movement have been, like you said, throughout history, have come
up time and time again around single issues. As NPR
(20:23):
wrote following the Women's March of seventeen, Uh, listen, it
was that way in the eighteen fifties when some feminists
split over whether to champion abolition or women's rights. So
it was a choice between the abolition of slavery or
women's rights. We couldn't tackle both at one time. And
that's when sojourn Our Truth gave her famous an I
(20:44):
a Woman speech at a women's rights conference in Ohio,
and and pr goes on to elaborate that. Listen, those
divides still existed in the late sixties and early seventies,
when quote sisterhood is powerful end quote became a rallying ry,
but with very few exceptions flow Kennedy, Shirley Chisholm, Eleanor
(21:05):
Holmes Norton. Here, black and brown sisters were very much
on the sidelines. So other than those few famous, notable,
wonderful exceptions, you know, African American women were not always
welcome into that feminist movement, and writers like Alice Walker
and Bell Hooks chose instead to refer to themselves as womanist,
(21:29):
not feminist. They refused to divorce their race from their gender,
so they were intersectional before intersectionality was a term coined
by Crenshaw in the eighties. Yeah, I think that's so important,
um shout out to all of those women because they've
been so foundational in my understanding of my own feminism
or slash womanism. Um. And yet you you can't ask
(21:51):
people to divorce, you know, your gender from your race,
or your class from your gender, or things like that.
It doesn't work that way. We are complex packages. When
I experienced sexism, I'm experienced as a black woman, not
to se a woman. And also, like what you were
saying before about black women being at the sidelines, that
is so true. If so many movements that you would
hope would be more progressive. You know, black women are
(22:13):
the backbone, for instance, of the Democratic Party, and yet
we have struggled to be taken seriously in within the
party despite the fact that time and time again, Like
make no mistake, black women are at the backbone of
the party see Maxine Waters. See the episode on Maxine
Waters for more on that too. Yeah, it's absolutely true
see Maxine Water. See Jessica Bird's work trying to make
(22:35):
the party more inclusive. See folks like Stacy Abrams. Black
women are are doing the work, they're doing the organizing,
they're running for office, they're doing all of this, and
yet we still struggle to be heard well on the
priority list. Right struggled to be on the priority list.
And I think that's true for so many women who
live at intersections of race, class, gender, identity, sexual orientation, ability, nationality,
(22:58):
you name it, right. When it comes to politics, there's
a priority list, and rarely throughout history have women who
live at those intersections have their sort of complaints or
desires or needs met at the top of that list.
And frankly, I understand the misguided intent there, because some
(23:21):
people have seen this as uh, you know, women of color,
wanting them to not rock the boat, right, so that
we could pass a wide ranging platform of policies that
really had the unity of the lowest common denominator, in
this case, gender right. I can't tell you how many
(23:42):
times I've heard that, Honestly, probably the time and this
was like a peak white feminist moment for me. The
time that I think illustrates that so perfectly was I
think it was the Academy Awards where Patricia Arcadics want
an Academy Award Boyhood, and she's brilliant in it. She
deserved that award. She was great, um and she a
great speech about women and equal pay and it was
(24:03):
time has come and we all I remember watching that
on TV and thinking, yes, girl say it, and then
I was on this high. I'm feeling so good about
that moment. They cut to her backstage interview and it
was some nonsense. It fell apart, it fell apart. Her
point basically was that white women have fought for equal
rights for blacks, and now it's time for everyone else
(24:27):
to get on board and fight for equal rights for them.
She talked about Obama like we all got behind a
black man, we all got behind marriage equality. Now it's
time for all you people. And I think she said
something really impensive, like a few people to get behind women.
And that's the thing is, like I understand the rationale,
(24:48):
I actually understand the thought process that would lead someone
to saying something like that, but the result is us
versus them. The result is drawing a division, a line
of division, saying my needs are more important than your needs,
and your unique experience somehow threatens our own, it threatens
(25:08):
our our other shared experience. And that's that's what's so
troubling to me about this, is like some women's unique
experiences that we don't share, do not threaten the experiences
of sexism that we do share. Right, it's not an equal,
it's not an and or thing, right, and it totally
erases people who live at intersections, like saying that women
(25:33):
have fought for gay rights, now it's time for gays
to fight for women. What about gay women? It just
doesn't make their existence. Yes, it's totally totally erasism, and
I think, um, I was so sad. It's like when
someone gets it so close to being right and then
it's not. It's a lesson in quitting while you're ahead.
It's really what it is, like, maybe don't keep talking
(25:56):
behind the scenes once you've had such a speech that
probably have like a like a couple of million tweets
within the seconds that she went from the stage to backstage.
She was like already making headlines for the next day's newspapers.
And then she she kind of tanked it. And then
what happened on the internet immediately was, come on, guys,
(26:17):
just don't pick on Patricia Arquette. Angry black women said
a bunch of ignorant white women like, don't don't make
this into a race thing. Don't make this into a
gay thing. Which that's that's tail as old as time.
That's how it always happens that when something like that happens,
there is a rush to I don't want to say excuse,
but kind of wash away the intent and wash away
(26:42):
the impact in a kind of way. And instead of saying,
let's have a conversation about what just happened, there was
a lot of voices that did not want to have
that conversation. It is uncomfortable. I can't understand. And part
of me almost identifies with in that moment because I'm
I I could see myself doing something very similar saying
(27:02):
getting it kind of right, and then because keep going,
and then really again like extreme empathy right now, like
this is an amazing skilly you have you know you
know that. My My guiding expression is what is it? Um?
They're for the there but for the grace of God.
Go I When you look at someone having a hard
time or like doing it so wrong or really messing up,
(27:25):
that could be any one of us. And I really
that is something that guides me in the way that
I think about a lot of issues. Wow, well I
love that, and I think this would be a good
time for us all to ponder that further. And we
are excited to dive into how this sort of historical
lack of intersectionality is still on display today. And and
(27:47):
y'all just know that we're going to leave you with
some sort of strategies and core values to keep in
mind as you move forward from this week and avoid
making these mistakes. We're not trying to harp on anybody here,
We're not trying to tear anybody down. We're just trying
to illustrate what it looks like to be an open,
intersectional feminist, and what it looks like and how common
(28:07):
it is to forget about that and and how destructive
truly that can be. So I wanted to talk a
little bit bit about the Women's March here in d C.
The Women's March occurred a day after Donald Trump took office,
and it was important to acknowledge the fact here that
(28:28):
Donald Trump was put in the White House in large
part because fifty three, I believe, is that right three
of white women voted him in, and that runs contrary
to women who live at the intersection of blackness and
uh womanhood. I believe black women voted h we as
(28:53):
always we knew what was up like. Nobody voted for
him less than black women. Black women right pretty pretty
roundly were like nah, and then I'm gonna groundly were
like nah, I like that. And similarly, seventy of Hispanic
women voted for Clinton. I guess I've got the number
here in front of me now of Black women voted
(29:15):
for Hillary Clinton and women who identify as non white,
so that I know that's a sort of catch all category,
shout out to Asian women and Native Native peoples and
et cetera, and onward. Um of those non white women
voted for Trump. So the only subset of the women
population that voted overwhelmingly for Trump was white women. And
(29:37):
so the Women's March was on the heels of that
harsh reality to which I love Tina Phays commentary, who said, listen,
a lot of this election was turned by white college
educated women who now would like to forget about this
election and go back to watching HDTV. And then she
(29:58):
continued to say, you can't look away because it doesn't
affect you right this minute. It's going to affect you eventually.
And so there were some seriously harsh and um he
did commentary leading up to this Women's March. Definitely, I
think for me. I was in a real weird place
(30:18):
after the election. UM. I worked on the campaign for
a while, and we could do a whole episode around
election night for folks on the campaign because it was
seems he did before they left. Their last episode was
very sort of dramatic. I mean it was very traumatized.
You know. It was an intense time. And so I
(30:40):
remember after the election going I was in Brooklyn working
from the headquarters, and I came back to d C
and I just wasn't ready. I wasn't ready for any
of this. I wasn't ready for the march. I was
seeing things on social media that kind of turned my
stomach a little bit. I was seeing my white friends
from from different paces in America talking about my white
(31:02):
female friends talking about um, you know, coming to the march,
and kind of talking about it as if it was
a party that they were excited to see their friends
and excited to wear pink cats and excited for all
of that. And there's like no shame. I don't want
to write on anyone's parade, but that felt so alienating
to me, and I think part of it is living
in d C. I felt so personally wronged and impacted
(31:29):
that I just wasn't ready to get up with my
white sisters and march in the streets. I wasn't ready,
and so I wrote a blog post about how I
was feeling, which was just that, like I, I wanted
to remind white women that for folks at different intersections,
if you're disabled, if you're black, if you're an immigrant,
if you are you know, if you live at certain intersections,
(31:52):
if you're an indigenous woman, your life is about to
get harder. And it's not funny and it's not cute,
and it's not an excuse for a party. It's real
and it's scary and it's tough. And I, I mean,
I'm remembering how I felt back then. I'm on the
verge of tears. I felt so alienated at my what
with my white friends who seemed to think this was
(32:14):
an excuse to like get a good picture on social media.
Then protesting, and I'm all of a protest, but I
just I wasn't there yet. I felt so I wasn't there.
And UM, a good friend of mine, Angela, People's shout
out to Angela, UM, I think, formerly of the organization
Get Equal. UM. She kind of had a had a
breakthrough moment um. If you saw this viral picture, it's
(32:37):
her sucking a lollipop at the Women's March in front
of a group of women, white women who were taking
selfies in their pink hats, and she's holding a sign
that says, don't forget white women voted for Trump. And
that image broke through in a way that I thought
was really powerful. It went super super megawatt viral, and
it's now hanging in the National Smithsonian Museum of African
(32:59):
American History. I think I'm saying that wrong, but in culture, no,
you got it. Yeah, just and I think it really
illustrates how a lot of folks at intersections were feeling.
I think it was. It totally encapsulated the very complex
feelings that especially women of color had around the Women's March.
And you were involved with the march. Correct, Yeah, so
(33:20):
I went on. I don't. I'm it's surprising to me
that I was hired to do this after I wrote
this very salty blog post. I tell that we were
talking about this before the show. I was saying, I
have would not be surprised if you were brought on
because you wrote that very compelling and totally justified on
point blog post which can be read where oh, medium
dot com um. But yeah, and so I was. I
(33:42):
worked on the team that was doing social media on
the day of, and to be honest, it ended up
being a very, very fulfilling and positive experience for me,
and I I was happy that I was part of
the I mean I felt like I was being part
of history in a kind of way. Um being on
the ground march, and it was so great seeing all
(34:03):
the different kinds of folks who showed up, and it
was I haven't fully processed how powerful it was for me.
I think being part of it well. I think it
also was an example of intersectionality in action because you
really look at the tough conversations that were had on
that day and beyond. That's part of what getting woke
(34:26):
is all about. It's part of having angela people's hold
that sign go viral and have conversations around you know,
whiteness and feminism and that historical exclusion of women of
all different backgrounds. And I saw the march organizers go
to great lengths to not just include women of color,
(34:46):
but that march was led by women of color, It
was organized by women of color, by Muslim women like
Linda Stars, or by women who come from vastly different
economic backgrounds, class um, gender identity, and um sexual orientation,
and the the the extent to which those who are
(35:08):
differently abled were made welcome, and to the extent to
which accommodations were provided to really make sure that even
if you couldn't physically be there, you could be there,
you know what I mean. I think that that that
was a good example of what it looks like to
practice intersectionality. Yeah, and just sort of off that, Um, Linda,
who is If you don't know Linda, she's an amazing
organizer who I could talk about how powerful she is
(35:31):
all day. But after the march, folks came for her
and attacked her on the basis of her religion. And
so it's very interesting to me, um, how folks who
wanted to make the Women's March look bad used Linda's
religion sort have used her intersection to try to attack her.
And I thought it was very interesting that of all
of that that happened, and I was proud to see
(35:52):
so many folks stand stand with her and say, no,
we're not gonna let you attack our sister. On the
basis of her religion. That's not gonna happen, um, But
it's interesting how it just goes to show how those
intersections are so important and can sort of be used
against us by people who would want to, you know,
hurt our movement and hurt us. I think that's a
(36:13):
great point. It plays on the fear of unity versus diversity,
and I think that's that the core foundation of intersectional
feminism is to acknowledge that what makes us different does
not threaten our unity exactly just like I was saying
before earlier about trans women, understanding that a trans woman's girlhood,
(36:34):
even though it's different, might be different than my own,
understanding that we are not in conflict, and that their
girlhood being valid does not challenge mind being valid. Understanding
that was huge for me, and I didn't see that
for a long time. I think that's such a good example.
I UM. I've been encouraged since the Women's March to
see more white women who have large platforms, uh make
(36:55):
intersectionality a priority and come sort of out for and
center about how important it is to check your privilege,
whether it's white privilege or whatever kinds of privilege and
Glennon Doyle Melton, who is an author and speaker and
you know has experienced the OPRAH bump at Super Soul Sunday.
(37:18):
Whatever Oprah's doing to sort of choose the next big
speakers and pick them uh of a personal development space.
Glennan was on stage at one of Oprah's events and
said very bluntly and directly and clearly and so eloquently. Uh.
You know, in the middle of her speech, she said, listen,
I have to talk to white women in the audience.
(37:39):
For a second, everyone was like, oh boy. There was
an audible, uncomfortable amount of laughter there for a second,
and we were all crossing our fingers, like, come on, Glennon,
don't be another white woman putting your foot in the
mouth like on stage saying something like Patricia Arquette style.
And so what she said was, and I know I've
mentioned briefly in another episode, but I just think it's
(38:02):
really prutinent right now, is quote. I know that many
of us are feeling alone and ignored and threatened and abused,
and we're feeling like our bodies are being threatened and
our children's educations at risk, that we can be grabbed
at any minute, and that our degradation and our objectification
and our discrimination has become normalized and accepted in ways
(38:23):
that are chilling, and that is painful. But what we
need to remember is that this is just a touch
of the pain that so many marginalized people in this
country have been feeling for ages, for black people and
brown people, and trans people and gay people and muslim
people and Native Americans and poor people. And she goes
(38:43):
on to say what sucks is that it took us,
being personally affected to finally show up. And so she
basically goes on and says, you can't show up to
the movement late and decide to make your own organizations
and lead them, join them, follow women of color, Listen
to marginalized women. Don't come in here like you've you're
reinventing the wheel. Don't come into the social justice movement
(39:06):
as a white woman who's newly woke, ready to you know,
grab your make your own flag and run with it.
I get the intent, I get the desire, but we
have to listen and we have to be historically ah
know the historical context that we're walking into totally. And
I think that is that is the key for me
(39:28):
listening everything that I've ever, everything that I know about
feminism and intersectional feminism and all of this I've learned
from listening to other folks who I didn't have any
of this information myself. And I think listening to the
stories of folks at these intersections, whether it's you know,
folks who and and really being clear about, you know,
the intersections that you're thinking of and the ones that
(39:49):
you might not be thinking of, and let people tell
you the ones that you that you might be missing.
And that has been key for me. And I think
I love that quote so much because it's just about, yeah,
don't try to lead if you're not listen, don't try
to join the party late, and you know, don't Kendall
jennerary your way into a protest on hand. Everybody pepsi.
But that's how protests worked, that you just bring your
(40:11):
pepsi in, yeah, with the fresh iced you know, the
all the ice and the coolers at every protest. All right,
shall we take a quick break. It's a quick break.
I mean, when we come back, we want to talk
through some quick tips and takeaways for how to proceed
with an interceptional feminist framework in your life. We'll be
right back, and we are back. Thank you for hanging
(40:37):
in there with us with this kind of a tough conversation.
It's a burly one. It's a big, burly topic, but
it's kind of indicative of the feminist movement, right. Um,
So what we wanted to wrap up with y'all is
some quick tips that we've learned along the way. And
I'm sure you could add to this list listeners, so
(40:59):
feel free to add to this conversation on social media please.
We love hearing from you. But are sort of top
tips for how to be more intersectional in your approach
to feminism or in your life and work in general. Um,
do you want to start it off with that first one? Yeah?
I think the first one for me is just what
I was starting to say before we went to break
(41:20):
was listening. Um, everything I know about how to live
an intersectional life I learned from someone else, and so
I think it's so important to listen to people at intersections,
whether that intersection is rural versus city, whether that intersection
is you know, college educated versus not, whether that intersection
is ability. Just listening to the folks at those intersections
(41:41):
and understanding their experiences and what they're about, and listening
in terms of what it takes to make them feel included. Right.
And I think for those of you like me who
have trouble with interrupting, as we discussed a great length
in another episode, keep in mind that all that evidence
shows that women are more likely to be interrupted. We
(42:02):
can disagree on whether we think it's by women or
by men, but knowing that women's lives are already full
of interruptions and not always given the space to be heard,
I think it's especially important to work on that. Like
I am so, I hope, I hope you'll join me
in that because I think it's a huge area of
(42:23):
growth for me. And it's not just about being polite.
It's not just about being seen as not a jerk.
It's really truly about making sure that other voices are
hurt and that makes you a better leader. By the way,
I also read an approach to this in academia. This
actually came out of Intersectionality, a Tool for Gender and
Economic Justice from the Women's Rights and Economic Change publication
(42:46):
straight out of u n C. What is the un
dot EU University of North Carolina, Yes, that's the one,
uh and in this phenomenal tool that was downloadable on
the internet for free, which I highly recommend checking out.
They all so discussed it. From a research perspective, listening
means your evidence has to be grassroots based. This is
not about top down me as an organizer tell you
(43:08):
what to do. It's like, we need to listen to
our listeners, We need to listen to our fans, We
need to listen to the populations for whom we want
to pursue social justice. And you have to take an
organizer's approach to that, which is like starts with all
listening tour. You know, I could talk about that all day,
and that's being an organizer. That's been key. So many
(43:31):
times you see folks who want to be activists or
organizers UM building for not with they're not listening to
the communities that they want to um work with and
they're thinking of them as you know, communities that they
are going to be working for and working with is
so important and it starts with listening. Awesome. The other
things we want to say here are kind of go
(43:51):
hand in hand. Welcome difference and know your privilege, And
I think that boils down to really acknowledging where you're
priv vileedge comes from. For me, I present this white
So even though I have Latin heritage doesn't always matter.
That doesn't necessarily hold me back in the same way
that other Latinas can be discriminated against the fact that
(44:13):
I don't have kids. As we discussed in the Mommy tax,
is a huge privilege from an employment perspective, I'm college educated.
Like owning your privileges, privileges doesn't mean apologizing for them.
It means being cognizant of the invisible ways in which
you have been given a leg up that not everybody has.
Completely this has been That's that's been huge for me. Um.
(44:36):
You know, even as a as a black woman, I
have tons of privilege. I went to college, my parents
went to college, my parents are still married. You know. Um,
I don't have children, I'm able bodied, I'm sis gendered,
being someone who's who's thin. All of these things are
a kind of privilege. And I think it's really about
welcoming in folks who don't necessarily share those same privileges
(44:58):
and making them feel included. Yeah, and sometimes that means
being willing to be called in, to call in others
and be willing to be called in because it's hard
to be aware of all of your privileges. So when
someone else helps, you become more aware of some privileges
that you might not even think to add to the list.
I'm sure we're forgetting some from saying, try your best
(45:19):
to not succumb to that very natural human instinct to
jump into the defensiveness mode, to get really uh, you know,
stressed out about proving yourself as you know, I'm not
a racist, or I'm not you know, I'm not anti
LGBT folks, and here's why, and overly correcting or attempting
to by getting really defensive and offended. It's easy to
(45:43):
feel offended, but we have to keep in mind that
when we're being called in, it's an opportunity for learning
and growth. I say that knowing it's not as easy
as that said. It's not, and we've I've been on
all sides of it. It's so not easy, but again,
you know, growing it's hard. And I also just like
to tell people or remind folks that it doesn't have
(46:03):
to be some big trip where if you say the
wrong thing, everyone is calling you a racist and you're
a Nazi and you're so awful and terrible and you
should go away, and we're gonna throw you away. We
don't need you. It doesn't have to be. It can
feel like that, yes, I mean, honestly, sometimes that's what
the internet can be like. Yes, oh, this is why
this could be a whole other episode of why you
probably do an episode on safe spaces, um. But it
(46:25):
doesn't have to be that way. Someone calling you in
can just be. It doesn't. It doesn't. We don't have
to go into defensive mode. And going in a defensive
mode is not productive. Taking a breath, taking a beat,
and hearing what they're saying, internalizing it, working through that
natural defensiveness and you know, sitting with that and having
that be okay and then going from there. Some of
(46:47):
my therapist friends have said that mirroring can be a
really helpful exercise for those of us who struggle with
empathizing with our critics like myself sometimes. Um, and so
what that I think it's called mirroring if I'm getting
this right. My friend who's a therapist here has told
me it it's part of the Amago therapy practice, which
(47:12):
is perspective taking and then echoing back what your partner
is saying. So say you're in therapy with your mother
or your in therapy with your partner and you have
a fundamental disagreement about their perspective. Your job when you're
mirroring someone is to echo back to them what they
are saying and make sense of it. You don't need
to agree with them, but to make sense of it
(47:34):
and say something like, Okay, so you're you're saying to
me that I am a racist, and I can understand
where you are coming from because this is your experience
and what I said here made you feel like that,
you know my intent was one that is racist. I mean,
(47:57):
that's a really hard thing to do. But to actually
echo back and articulate to that person what it is
that they're trying to say can be a good independent exercise.
So you don't need to actually go ahead and say
that to folks who are giving a grief, but just
acknowledging I understand where you're coming from, UM can help us.
I think work on the very vulnerable and courageous act
(48:19):
that is empathizing with someone who's totally disagreeing with you
or trying or basically tearing it down Yeah, I'm glad
that you brought up empathy, because I think that's what
it's really all about, is being willing to empathize with
our critics, with folks who have different who have very
different lived experiences than we do, and even if you
don't agree with them, just being willing to hear them
and understand and process what they're saying and empathize with them. Yeah.
(48:43):
You know, it's a good example of that. Re member
on the Migtoo episode, Oh yes, I always feel like
we overly empathy. I was like, we ended that by saying,
like we really care about these people. I mean, that's
fine because you were talking about your friends. But I
almost love that thinking like we can all disagree to you.
There's a part of me that wants to say argue, disagree.
(49:03):
I know I'm not saying agree, I'm saying I understand
where they're coming from. That's true, and I think, yeah,
that's something that has been helpful in my life, and
particularly like being from the South when people, I mean,
I I got someone note with all these think pieces
after the election that we're like, think about the racists, um,
all of those kinds of things, but understand I understand
(49:25):
things like fear, things like shame, things like not understanding,
feeling like you live in a world that you no
longer recognize or understand. I can understand how those feelings
can bring out some qualities and people that I might
not agree with. So I don't agree with the outcomes,
but I can understand how they get to them, right, Okay,
(49:47):
I think that's a really important differentiation. And I think
I think the idea of an intersectional framework for feminism
is one in which you know, we're not just talking
about being PC here, We're not just talking about being pulled. Correct,
Although that's not a bad place to start. I think
whether or not we bring an intersectional approach has very
(50:08):
real and costly outcomes for the people in our country,
for our fellow Americans who live every single day at
those intersections, or even non Americans, right, for those who
we share this world with. And one example that Crenshaw
really highlights a lot in her ted X talk, which
(50:28):
you have to see, it's called the urgency of intersectional feminism.
She points out an early legal case that really came
to her attention because she comes at this from a
legal scholars perspective, which is the case of de graph
and Read versus General Motors, in which five black women
sued GM on the grounds of race and gender discrimination. Quote.
(50:50):
The particular challenge in the law was one that was
grounded in the fact that anti discrimination law looks at
race and gender separately, as though black women in or
women of color don't exist, an example of a total
lack of an intersectional framework. And she goes on to say,
the consequence of that is when African American women or
any other women of color experience either compound or overlapping discrimination,
(51:15):
the law initially just was not there to come to
their defense, and GM got off with without consequence. So
I'm glad to hear that initially it was not there
because things have changed. But that just goes to show
you how important intersectional framework can be in making sure
that issues as serious as police brutality, for instance, are
(51:39):
not solely focused on Black men whose names are much
more have much more um namework, cognition in and much
more ink in the mainstream media than. As Crenshaw points out,
black women who are brutalized by police every day, it
feels like in this country totally and don't get the
same attention yeah, think I think you see that in
(52:01):
so many different ways. I remember when I was working
at a news outlet, there was a young black woman
in Philadelphia who have been um who had been kidnapped,
and you know, obviously that has its own kind of
like um things where we think about white women as
being these kidnapping victims and black women would have don't
get any kind of recognition. And I was wanted to
put her name in the and the social media copy
(52:24):
because I thought this woman could still be found and
all of that. And my boss said, oh, well, she's
no Natalie Holloway, thinking you know, she's not you know,
we don't mean she doesn't have the name recognition of
a white girl who's gone missing. There's no need to
like say her name. And yeah, that that moment taught
(52:46):
me the urgency of intersectionality, the urgency that we understand
and and really it can be it can be people's lives,
it can be life or death. I think it's a
great point, and that's where the hashtag campaign say her
name comes to. Wow, well, thank you so much. I
feel like I learned so much from this conversation. And
(53:07):
we went in really already, you know, feeling like we've
known a lot. This applies so much to all the
work that we do here. I hope that you learned
with us listeners, and I hope that you'll courageously continue
this conversation with us online. We really try to stay
true to our our philosophy that we can learn and
(53:27):
grow together at stuff I've never told you, and we
rely on your calling us in. We hope that you'll
call us in with some empathy. I get so like
this has been such a growth experience for me to
not be defensive and not get triggered, and I can
really I want to appreciate those of you who write
in and do so with um with the intention to
(53:52):
truly help and not you know, and not make us
feel bad. I appreciate that I have a little empathy
for people who don't know about sports. Y'all. Oh my up, No,
I'm just kidding. Oh god, we will never talk about
hockey again. Let me just make I'm loving that you
just went there. Um, Okay, so anything else, I think
I think that's it. Give us a holler on Twitter
(54:13):
at Mom's Stuff podcast. Make sure you tag us on
those hot instas that stuff Mom never told you and uh,
you can always shoot us an email at mom stuff
at how stuff works dot com.
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