Home » lyles » 1 Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics 23 Kimberle Williams Crenshaw
1 Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics 23 Kimberle Williams Crenshaw
Intellectually speaking, the introduction of intersectionality through this paper is a masterclass of case law being reinterpreted to include recognition for Black women- wherein three cases that all involve Black women display different interactions that the courts have used to stonewall against the recognition of this specific class. Afterall, these same tactics were what fueled how I’ve recently commented in class in focusing on both invisible and erased identities. A scholar, and especially more so a lawyer, who was taught only legal realist or even traditionalist views that use only single-axes frameworks has to recognize the undeniable power Crenshaw’s work has- for example, no longer is the Married Women’s Property Act seen as unilaterally a benefit for all women as it can be critiqued through Prigg v. Pennsylvania’s extension of property to include Black, female slaves. If anyone from lawyers, feminists, Black Liberation activists, to even more invisible identities such as trans rights or disabled activists wants to have a coalition, this is exactly the reading I would give them- alongside other works from Crenshaw regarding Anti-discrimination law and mapping intersectionality.
In reviewing this work now with the cases under 356 and 358, I’ve come to appreciate fully why Crenshaw’s intersectional framework is so powerful- and how it completely challenges the traditional feminist and civil rights frameworks to account for identities whose obstacles are not as well recognized nor observed by both our institutions and even well-meaning allies. It was about time I met with the paper that has inspired me to to become interdisciplinary in my approach to political science- I’ve taken on DisCrit and Queer Theory among my CRT and CRF repertoire since then, and with my comments and reactions to 356’s cases, I think it is clear how I’ve not only internalized these tenets, but was able to rewrite people back into the narrative that the courts have ignored. Whether from Miller v. Albright (1998) and how Filipino-Americans born to Filipino mothers and putative American fathers are denied birthright citizenship to the United States, to Buck v. Bell (1927) and how Carrie Buck’s intellectual disability was often downplayed and was deemed reasonable to justify the sterilization of disabled inmates in state institutions, I’ve come to the conclusion that I have a completely unorthodox view of due process and equal protection that could surely apply to intersectionality: equal protection and substantive due process are not readily available to invisible classes- identities the court either refuses to hear, or outright erase from their decisions. If that tells me anything, that tells me that we need a new strategy that does account for intersectionality: either making a judicial philosophy whose rights are actually universal to all identities, or by allowing for the creation of new classes that recognizes these intersecting burdens- I just need enough time.
Jericho Bernal. I’d like to do this reading if I may.
Intellectually speaking, the introduction of intersectionality through this paper is a masterclass of case law being reinterpreted to include recognition for Black women- wherein three cases that all involve Black women display different interactions that the courts have used to stonewall against the recognition of this specific class. Afterall, these same tactics were what fueled how I’ve recently commented in class in focusing on both invisible and erased identities. A scholar, and especially more so a lawyer, who was taught only legal realist or even traditionalist views that use only single-axes frameworks has to recognize the undeniable power Crenshaw’s work has- for example, no longer is the Married Women’s Property Act seen as unilaterally a benefit for all women as it can be critiqued through Prigg v. Pennsylvania’s extension of property to include Black, female slaves. If anyone from lawyers, feminists, Black Liberation activists, to even more invisible identities such as trans rights or disabled activists wants to have a coalition, this is exactly the reading I would give them- alongside other works from Crenshaw regarding Anti-discrimination law and mapping intersectionality.
In reviewing this work now with the cases under 356 and 358, I’ve come to appreciate fully why Crenshaw’s intersectional framework is so powerful- and how it completely challenges the traditional feminist and civil rights frameworks to account for identities whose obstacles are not as well recognized nor observed by both our institutions and even well-meaning allies. It was about time I met with the paper that has inspired me to to become interdisciplinary in my approach to political science- I’ve taken on DisCrit and Queer Theory among my CRT and CRF repertoire since then, and with my comments and reactions to 356’s cases, I think it is clear how I’ve not only internalized these tenets, but was able to rewrite people back into the narrative that the courts have ignored. Whether from Miller v. Albright (1998) and how Filipino-Americans born to Filipino mothers and putative American fathers are denied birthright citizenship to the United States, to Buck v. Bell (1927) and how Carrie Buck’s intellectual disability was often downplayed and was deemed reasonable to justify the sterilization of disabled inmates in state institutions, I’ve come to the conclusion that I have a completely unorthodox view of due process and equal protection that could surely apply to intersectionality: equal protection and substantive due process are not readily available to invisible classes- identities the court either refuses to hear, or outright erase from their decisions. If that tells me anything, that tells me that we need a new strategy that does account for intersectionality: either making a judicial philosophy whose rights are actually universal to all identities, or by allowing for the creation of new classes that recognizes these intersecting burdens- I just need enough time.
Here is my file for this chapter:
Jericho Bernal – POLS 356 CRF Essay_ A Critique on Crenshaw’s “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex” (1)
^the last file was missing the reference page
POLS356 Bokhari Critical Race Feminism Paper FINAL