The Women’s Marches around the country are expected to attract more than 700,000 people total. And the focus of many are the rights of marginalized groups, including women, people of color, immigrants, and those who identify as queer.
Today, we wrap up our series of conversations on issues that affect women in particular as the new Administration and Congress get to work.
A concept that is driving the Women’s March on Washington: intersectional feminism.
The concept of intersectional feminism is a pretty simple one, according to Nancy Whittier, professor of sociology at Smith College.
She gave a pretty basic example of this by saying that when you talk about reproductive rights, we often think of that as a women’s issue, but taking into account whether or not someone can afford birth control, that’s adding in class and one way of starting to think of it as intersectional.
And there’s been some conversation around this by people who don’t really see why this is important. People who say things like, “Why do we have to bring race into this? We’re all women — it detracts from the message.”
Whittier says these kinds of conversations are important, and many people would argue that having an intersectional message or engaging in conversations about intersectionality makes feminism much stronger and more inclusive, because it recognizes the experiences of all women.