'Intersectionaity' - gibberish or not?

MakeEmLaugh

The Sunday Independent published an article from Ruth Dudley Edwards this weekend in which she took to task the social and political ideology 'intersectionality'.

Edwards began her article by speaking about Charlotte Ezaz, a student at Oxford, who is campaigning for the statue of Cecil Rhodes in the university to be removed, on the grounds that Rhodes was a racist.

Edwards then wrote in her article:

The reason for such campaigns has its roots in 'Intersectionality', which Wikipedia says is "an important paradigm in academic scholarship and broader contexts such as social justice work or demography", though "difficulties arise due to the many complexities involved in making 'multidimensional conceptualisations' that explain the way in which socially constructed categories of differentiation interact to create a social hierarchy".

Let me try to explain this gibberish, which is having a frightful effect on the gullible young. The virus is not yet raging in Ireland, but it'll be odd if it's not with us soon.

The term "intersectionality theory" was coined by Professor Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, an academic lawyer specialising in gender and race issues, whose mastery (sorry for the sexism, Prof) of gobbledegook has won her widespread respect among stupid academics. More than that, she has given wings to the self-abasing "we-are-all-guilty" concept so beloved by the left, for intersectionality is big on the interrelation of "racism, sexism, classism, ableism, biphobia, homophobia, transphobia, belief-based bigotry", and whatever you're furious about yourself.

So, what do you think?

Is Edwards right in her assessment of 'intersectionality' as 'gibberish', or should it be treated with respect?

syklops

What?

It's gibberish.

It's essentially the makey uppy response if you bother to spend long enough arguing with someone about privilege (which is level 1 makey uppy gibberish obv)

CruelCoin

Gibberish.

JUst some more nonsense from the red-headed spit-flecking feminazis.

Peregrinus

I don;t know about the term, but Edward's attempted explanation is itself gibberish. Having told us that she will "try to explain" the term, all she does, according to the quote, is tell us who coined the term, and then make it clear that she, Edwards, has little respect for that person.

That's not an "explanation", Ruth.

For those interested, there's a Wikipedia article on intersectionality. I haven't read it myself, but it's probably a more promising starting-point than Ruth Dudley Edwards. If she doesn't know what the word "explain" means, I have little confidence in her ability to tell us what "intersectionality" is.

kneemos

Oh dear God in heaven.

SEPT 23 1989

The next generation are going to be more conservative than their parents

sad state of affairs

kettlehead

If anyone starts to or is already spreading this sort of bollix in Ireland then they deserve to be propelled towards their spiritual homeland, the US, via a rocket.

The_Valeyard

What happened to students just getting pissed or stoned instead of looking for outrage of the week.

Eugene Norman

I'd believe in American ideas of privilege and power a bit more if they ever included American privilege in their "intersections".

NiallBoo

In the five minutes I've been reading about it it seems to be a broadly interesting idea aimed at putting context to how society is structured the way it is. That said, some of the conclusions don't appear to follow the base logic - but some people will do that with anything and you shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Either way, although Cecil Rhodes was far from a nice person I think you lose something when you try to ignore the bad parts of your history. I think you gain something by knowing the society that yours grew out of (bigoted as it might have been). I would have thought that acknowledging and understanding this would have been part of intersectionality, no?

kneemos

Looks like a desperate attempt to be all inclusive at any cost.

Why do they tie themselves in knots with this stuff.

silverharp

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

The next generation are going to be more conservative than their parents

sad state of affairs

probably correct, the whole SJW/feminist/Progressive stack brigade will likely collapse in on itself. However it might get worse before it gets better. They really are cultural vandals of the highest order.

superelliptic

Peregrinus wrote: »

I don;t know about the term, but Edward's attempted explanation is itself gibberish. Having told us that she will "try to explain" the term, all she does, according to the quote, is tell us who coined the term, and then make it clear that she, Edwards, has little respect for that person.

That's not an "explanation", Ruth.

For those interested, there's a Wikipedia article on intersectionality. I haven't read it myself, but it's probably a more promising starting-point than Ruth Dudley Edwards. If she doesn't know what the word "explain" means, I have little confidence in her ability to tell us what "intersectionality" is.

In fairness, the OP only gave a quote from Edwards not her full article.

Hey OP, any chance of a source (cos Im too lazy to look it up ?

Eugene Norman

The Wikipedia article is still gibberish. You can't come away with a formula for intersectionality can you? It sounds like a Venn diagram but it's not something you can model.

If something like this held true and people were opressed equally by class and gender then Margaret Thatcher was as oppressed, or more oppressed as a woman, than the miners.

What's also appalling about it is it gives real power and privilege , the rich, the 1%, the American empire a pass.

Duck Soup

You'll find 'intersectionality' bandied about with gay abandon on the Comment Is Free section of the Guardian.

In plain terms, it's about how one type of discrimination interacts with others.

Is, for example, a white middle class woman, more or less discriminated against than a working class black male? For a long time on the Guardian's CIF section, there was a consensus that women faced particularly powerful types of oppression (it's the patriarchy, innit), but after a while people started suggesting that the likes of Polly Toynbee, Jackie Ashley, Laurie Penny, Bidisha etc had not had a particular hard path to tread and in many ways were very privileged and had enjoyed preferment.

Enter intersectionality, usually accompanied by some remark about "It's not an Oppression Olympics" - i.e. we're not competing to find the most oppressed group in society.

Personally, while I think it's not gibberish (it does actually mean something), it is the latest jargon-laden theory brought to you by identity politics. And all identity politics is empathy for people who look, talk and lead similar lives to ourselves.

speedboatchase

It's just a fancy term to pressure white people into apologising for whatever reasons you want to make up.

Medusa22

Ah God, this brings flashback memories of an easy elective I took in college called ''Inequality in Ireland''. I had to do an essay on my disadvantages and ''privileges'' and how they balance out overall to make me advantaged or disadvantaged. What a load of shyte, the course made me so, so enraged but I did get an A :P

So, I was considered disadvantaged in lots of areas even though I don't consider myself disadvantaged at all, my disadvantages included being female, being bi-sexual, having a disability and being on social welfare. My advantages or privileges, though (which ultimately ''balanced out my disadvantages'') were being white, middle class and having gone to a private school (which seems to be the school of the devil for these people).

RDM_83 again

Eugene Norman wrote: »

The Wikipedia article is still gibberish. You can't come away with a formula for intersectionality can you? It sounds like a Venn diagram but it's not something you can model.

If something like this held true and people were opressed equally by class and gender then Margaret Thatcher was as oppressed, or more oppressed as a woman, than the miners.

What's also appalling about it is it gives real power and privilege , the rich, the 1%, the American empire a pass.

Its a reaction against the above though. Personally I don't see anything wrong with the idea, its a useful model for examing something like the Irish in early colonial Caribbean-they were white but initially discriminated against.
The problem is its used by people who aren't interested in dialogue and debate but rather the primacy of their own experience and victimhood. A good example of this is the women from Black Lives matter yelling "my life matters" at a Bernie Sanders rally (in the hierarchy of victims of police violence it goes, Black Men >Hispanic Men >White men, women of any race are way down the list).

Bulbous Salutation

Most of the social sciences are studied and taught by spoofers, wafflers and self-regarding pseudointellectuals. It's the unwashed arsehole of any university.

RDM_83 again

..

jaykay74

MakeEmLaugh wrote: »

Is Edwards right in her assessment of 'intersectionality' as 'gibberish', or should it be treated with respect?

Contrafibularity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOSYiT2iG08

jimgoose

So... someone has devised what appears to be an entire branch of mathematics to deal with the notion that some people may feel, or actually be, discriminated against because of multiple factors? What does one actually do with a degree in this sort of thing??

speedboatchase

jimgoose wrote: »

So... someone has devised what appears to be an entire branch of mathematics to deal with the notion that some people may feel, or actually be, discriminated against because of multiple factors? What does one actually do with a degree in this sort of thing??

Join Tumblr.

Eugene Norman

Medusa22 wrote: »

Ah God, this brings flashback memories of an easy elective I took in college called ''Inequality in Ireland''. I had to do an essay on my disadvantages and ''privileges'' and how they balance out overall to make me advantaged or disadvantaged. What a load of shyte, the course made me so, so enraged but I did get an A :P

So, I was considered disadvantaged in lots of areas even though I don't consider myself disadvantaged at all, my disadvantages included being female, being bi-sexual, having a disability and being on social welfare. My advantages or privileges, though (which ultimately ''balanced out my disadvantages'') were being white, middle class and having gone to a private school (which seems to be the school of the devil for these people).

The problem for me is that I don't think your private school education just compensates for your female "non- privilege" but massively over compensates. I can see why this kind of thing is spreading through places like Oxford though.

Eugene Norman

jimgoose wrote: »

So... someone has devised what appears to be an entire branch of mathematics to deal with the notion that some people may feel, or actually be, discriminated against because of multiple factors? What does one actually do with a degree in this sort of thing??

There's no mathematics, trust me.

tritium

Its essentially gibberish, a way of creating a hierarchy of victimhood. There are a few regular posters on here who seem to heavily buy into it but to be honest its a concept that I find hard to take seriously given how its used.

orubiru

Peregrinus wrote: »

I don;t know about the term, but Edward's attempted explanation is itself gibberish. Having told us that she will "try to explain" the term, all she does, according to the quote, is tell us who coined the term, and then make it clear that she, Edwards, has little respect for that person.

That's not an "explanation", Ruth.

For those interested, there's a Wikipedia article on intersectionality. I haven't read it myself, but it's probably a more promising starting-point than Ruth Dudley Edwards. If she doesn't know what the word "explain" means, I have little confidence in her ability to tell us what "intersectionality" is.

I checked the Wikipedia.

I don't think it's fair to say that Intersectionality is "gibberish". The idea that the oppression of a particular Group A can overlap with the oppression of Group B and that someone who belongs to both Groups can find themselves being even more oppressed.

It's pretty interesting to discover that serious, educated, people actually think this way. Of course, they probably quite enjoy the idea of being a spokesperson for massive groups of individuals. "As a queer woman of colour, I can say that...". That's a kind of power in itself.

So we can say that the experience of a lesbian woman can only really be understood as the experience of being a lesbian PLUS the experience of being a woman. Though it seems obvious that this could be trumped by just saying "each individuals experience can only be understood from their own unique perspective". Intersectionality is only useful if you are going to insist on being a member of a group instead of a fully independent and unique individual.

I think that the failure of this kind of theory is that the general, or statistically more likely, experiences of a larger group will not necessarily map well to the experience of the individual.

I'd have a hard time acknowledging that a lesbian, university educated, woman of colour, living in a million euro house is somehow more oppressed than a straight, white, male, from a council estate, with no education.

The whole concept of determining who is privileged and who is subordinated could probably be more accurately achieved by simply asking "how much money do you have" and "what level of education do you have".

NiallBoo

Eugene Norman wrote: »

There's no mathematics, trust me.

Dunno...it looks like its vaguely based on set theory. No arithmetic mind.

tritium

NiallBoo wrote: »

Dunno...it looks like its vaguely based on set theory. No arithmetic mind.

In my humble opinion a great deal of what's produced in the social sciences attempts to give itself scientific validity by looking 'vaguely like' some well established scientific method or approach. Far too often a quick look under the hood reveals biases and flaws that strangely were missed during any peer reviews. Sometimes they're even missed years later when debunked analysis continues to be presented as fact.......

suicide_circus

Just because some shrill navel gazing academic somewhere has coined a phrase, does not mean you have to take it seriously or believe in it. You don't have to engage in the hierarchy of victimhood and self flagellation so beloved of "enlightened" academia, gender focus groups and whatever righteous oneupmanship campaign is currently in vogue. Live your life. Be kind to your neighbours. You didn't comit genocide and you didn't invent slavery, its OK.

KomradeBishop

It's gibberish when it's badly explained. The term itself has actual validity, and it's basically just about looking at how the ways discrimination against different groups in society, relate to each other.

It has its roots in Marxism though - so unfortunately there is a lot of bollock-speak/obfuscation behind the concept - but it's still valid and useful.

NiallBoo

suicide_circus wrote: »

Just because some shrill navel gazing academic somewhere has coined a phrase, does not mean you have to take it seriously or believe it.

No, but it doesn't mean they're wrong.

suicide_circus

KomradeBishop wrote: »

It has its roots in Marxism though - so unfortunately there is a lot of bollock-speak/obfuscation behind the concept - but it's still valid and useful.

Useful to whom?

NiallBoo wrote: »

No, but it doesn't mean they're wrong.

How many people did you oppress on your commute to work today?

jimgoose

suicide_circus wrote: »

Just because some shrill navel gazing academic somewhere has coined a phrase, does not mean you have to take it seriously or believe in it. You don't have to engage in the hierarchy of victimhood and self flagellation so beloved of "enlightened" academia, gender focus groups and whatever righteous oneupmanship campaign is currently in vogue. Live your life. Be kind to your neighbours. You didn't comit genocide and you didn't invent slavery, its OK.

No, but I am a direct bloodline descendant of Attila the Hun's accountant. If anyone is looking for me I shall be in the corner alternating between flagellating myself with a Cat o' The Nine Tails and eviscerating peasants with a hardcopy of last year's balance sheet.

NiallBoo

suicide_circus wrote: »

How many people did you oppress on your commute to work today?

Intersectionality speaking, all of them.
As they were also oppressive towards me. Heh.

Anyway, I was just saying that we shouldn't dismiss ideas because they come from people we don't like. Everyone's got at least one good idea in them.

KomradeBishop

suicide_circus wrote: »

Useful to whom?

People wishing to examine discrimination against and between different groups in society...

suicide_circus

KomradeBishop wrote: »

People wishing to examine discrimination against and between different groups in society...

Industry speak.

c_man

suicide_circus wrote: »

How many people did you oppress on your commute to work today?

First of all, the unemployed. That NiallBoo makes me sick. No better than George Osbourne :pac:

KomradeBishop

suicide_circus wrote: »

Industry speak.

Yea you're right - discrimination against anyone in society is just an academic theory and triviality, not a significant real world concern worth studying in any way...

That at least, is the sentiment that seems to come forward from a lot of threads like this in any case.

smoking_kills

Money is a privilege. In our society possible the only privilege that matters.

No surprise then that most academic Feminists, and popularizes of feminism have plenty of it, and never mention it.

Nodin

MakeEmLaugh wrote: »

The Sunday Independent published an article from Ruth Dudley Edwards this weekend in which she took to task the social and political ideology 'intersectionality'.

Edwards began her article by speaking about Charlotte Ezaz, a student at Oxford, who is campaigning for the statue of Cecil Rhodes in the university to be removed, on the grounds that Rhodes was a racist.

Racist, imperialist, slight nut. all round scumbag.

"I contend that we are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. Just fancy those parts that are at present inhabited by the most despicable specimens of human beings what an alteration there would be if they were brought under Anglo-Saxon influence,"

Nodin

KomradeBishop wrote: »

It's gibberish when it's badly explained. The term itself has actual validity, and it's basically just about looking at how the ways discrimination against different groups in society, relate to each other.

It has its roots in Marxism though - so unfortunately there is a lot of bollock-speak/obfuscation behind the concept - but it's still valid and useful.

But Ruth fails to understand it so we don't need to bother with what it means, we can just dismiss it.

Eugene Norman

NiallBoo wrote: »

Dunno...it looks like its vaguely based on set theory. No arithmetic mind.

It uses a word used in set theory.

Let me give you an example of why it isn't maths. These statements.

The rich earn more than the poor.
Men earn more than women.

Sound the same in English but represent very different sets. In the first the set of all rich people R contains members where each and every member is richer than each and every member of the poor set P.

In the second case the set M for males doesn't guarantee this. Just that the sum total of all income of the members of M divided by the total count of members (the average) is higher than the average income of set F (for females).

Intersecting set M and set R would show more intersection than intersecting set F and R (but not that much) but being part of set R means that you are definitely richer than set P even if you are also a female, but being a male doesn't guarantee membership of set R.

That's necessarily verbose but you get the idea. In terms of income the fact that you are a woman and women earn less than men on average tells us nothing about your personal wealth. Class trumps everything. Also the differences between the rich and poor are obviously greater than the 13% difference between men and women ( depending on how you measure the rich it's a difference of orders of magnitude).

Eugene Norman

smoking_kills wrote: »

Money is a privilege. In our society possible the only privilege that matters.

No surprise then that most academic Feminists, and popularizes of feminism have plenty of it, and never mention it.

Not anything much to do with class or Empire.

smoking_kills

Eugene Norman wrote: »

Not anything much to do with class or Empire.

The class and empire that modern feminism rose from?

Eugene Norman

KomradeBishop wrote: »

Yea you're right - discrimination against anyone in society is just an academic theory and triviality, not a significant real world concern worth studying in any way...

That at least, is the sentiment that seems to come forward from a lot of threads like this in any case.

No, we're dismissing the "intersectionality" theory.

Down with oppression though.

suicide_circus

KomradeBishop wrote: »

Yea you're right - discrimination against anyone in society is just an academic theory and triviality, not a significant real world concern worth studying in any way...

That at least, is the sentiment that seems to come forward from a lot of threads like this in any case.

I don't share your faith in their motivations in discussing these issues. This jargon is an attempt to sell a kind of masochistic group therapy based on an assumed collective guilt trip, peddled by people who by their own definition sit amongst the privileged 1%. I don't believe they have any desire to change the status quo and are happy to wallow in their cult of victimhood. I don't buy what they're selling.

Eugene Norman

smoking_kills wrote: »

The class and empire that modern feminism rose from?

No idea what that means. I wasn't talking about the now defunct British empire either. I'm saying that the upper middle class American academic is not really cognisant of their own imperial and class privilege and want to blame Albanian peasantry instead.

robindch

suicide_circus wrote: »

Useful to whom?

Quite useful to people who wish to shut down debate by claiming to be an outraged victim of some historical or social wrong, or claiming to stand in for some outraged victim of some historical or social wrong.

See also - SJW, 'victimhood culture', 'microaggression', 'trigger warnings', 'safe spaces' and related balls.

Austria!

orubiru wrote: »

1. I'd have a hard time acknowledging that a lesbian, university educated, woman of colour, living in a million euro house is somehow more oppressed than a straight, white, male, from a council estate, with no education.

2. The whole concept of determining who is privileged and who is subordinated could probably be more accurately achieved by simply asking "how much money do you have" and "what level of education do you have".

You're applying these things to individuals with very specific circumstances. We can say that lesbian women of colour are more oppressed than straight white males in general. In point 1, you're making an intersectional argument of your own, with your own conditions and disagreeing with anyone who thinks the woman is more oppressed than the man, despite the fact that you just made up that hypothetical comparison yourself and no one else got to take a position on it yet.

2. That is partly how me know discrimination exists. There's also lots of other evidence, like studies showing people favour identical CVs or work on based on certain lines (race, gender, height etc). But you're not disagreeing with contemporary social science thought here, just being a little simplistic.
I should add an oppressed individual can still get more education or money than the average. Your straight, white, male, from a council estate, with no education, can still become a crazy rich soccer player. A very smart person can get a achieve good grades, but if they more advantages they would have got excellent grades.