I was recently introduced to YES! Magazine during a Women’s Studies class. I was given a list of articles to choose from and came across a piece titled, “This ‘New’ Feminism Has Been Here All Along,” by Dani McClain. I recommend giving it a read if you have a few extra minutes, click here, but to summarize, McClain discusses the idea of intersectional feminism.
Or the idea of understanding feminism and living feminism through personal life experiences and other aspects of personal identity, like race, sexuality, spirituality, etc.
She stressed how it’s important for the younger generation to carry this “new” feminism forward. ‘New’ is in quotes because as McClain explains in the article, this type of feminism has always been around. The name is fairly new, but the idea to take into account a person’s identity and experience in order to understand how they are affected by society and policy was certainly around when white feminists of the second wave movement brushed black, lesbian, and others who had different experiences to the side. The definition of feminism is a person who believes in the societal, political, economic equality of the sexes, McClain says, “yet many are turned off by the word when it stands on its own because of the exclusive ways it’s been applied throughout history “Feminism” can serve shorthand for a political project that, in practice, elevated a particular slice of womanhood.”
We need intersectional feminism because not only is it about equality for the sexes, but it encompasses racial justice, immigrant rights, the eradication of poverty, and centering of Queers and Trans people issues.