Intersectionallities RG&S
The Five Sexes (Fausto-Sterling, 1993)
- Male
- Female
- Herms
- Merms
- Ferms
Intersex
Term used for a variation of situations in which a person, does not fit within the bindary of 'male' and 'female'
The life of the gay gene
No biological proof of a "gay gene", but it became reality through social construct
Born this way argument
Provided by gay gene; no conversion therapy
Postcolonial theory
How the social world is shaped by centuries of colonialism
Decolonial approach
Knowledges and perspectives that break with colonial premisis
White innocence
Not knowing/not wanting to know (collective action problem)
(I)rellavence of race (M'chareck)
DNA can not say anything about race
Marxist approach
Socio-economic and political approach.
Explains existing order and possible change.
Struggle between classes
Bonilla-Silva (R), Bhattachayra (G), D'Emilio (S)
Symbolic interactionist approach
Attached to human interaction
Reproduced in social interaction
Essed (R), West&Zimmerman (G), Simon&Cagnon (S)
Poststructualist approach
Critical engagement with structualist theories
Static meaning
Meaning is always partial and provisional
Linguistic and discursive
Hall (R) & Butler (G)
Postcolonial approach
Shaped by centuries of colonialism
Power relations and the power of colonialism
Go (R), Oyêwùmí (G), Wekker (S)
Social class
Distribution of capital
Gender
Regulation of reproduction
Race
Regulation of humanity
Sexuality
Regulation of sex
Humanisation/De-humanisation
Granting or denial of full humanity in others
Power according to Marx
Ownership of the means of production
Power according to Weber
The ability to exercise one's will over others'
Power according to Foucalt
Power is everywhere and comes from everywhere
Power according to Quijano
Coloniality of power
Different power levels:
- Cultural
- Structural
- Disciplinairy
- Personal & interpersonal
Sociological imagination
Understanding the connections between the different levels of power
Positioning of R,G&S
- Strong biological basis -> no biological determination
- Class is seen to be about material realities
Epistemological ground of intersectionality
Tapping into the standpoint of Afro-American women to produce a dsitinctive analysis of race, class and gender. "Outsider within".
Intersectionalities contribution to social scientific knowledge
Bringing 'this' group as well as others who share an outsider status, into the center of analysis may reveal aspacts of reality obscured by more orthodox approaches
Interlocking nature of oppression
one of the crucial contributions of black feminism to sociology
Intersectionality
A methodology that will disrupt the tendencies to see race and gender as exclusive or separable
Intersectionality as theory
Minorities are not additive
Interaction effects; joined effects of two variables
Intersectionality as a method
Ask the other question
Nash' 4 paradoxes of intersectionality
- Lack of clearly defined methodology
- The reliance on black women as prototypical intersectional subject
- Ambiguity inherent to the definition of intersectionality
- The tension of intersectionality with identity
Critiques on intersectionality
- Risk of leveling out different power relations
- How many categories of analysis should be included?
- Risk of biases towards how power relations shape the individual instead of the systematic nature
- 'Striking' to black womens bodies and experiences
- Depoliticising/ Whitening
- Reification of the categories
Sex
- Biological
- Male/female
Gender
- Social differences
- Masculine/feminine
Reproductive labour
Producing and reproducing people (domestic labour)
Two counter-intuituve 'reversals' (gender)
- Gender is primordial to sex
- Heteronormativity is primordial to sex
performative speech
Things said that make a new reality (It's a boy!)
Gender performance
Taking on a role, acting
Gender performativity
Producing a series of effects
3 dimensions of sexual scripts
- Cultural and historical (traditional)
- Social/interpersonal (adapting script to social scenario)
- Personal/interpsychic (desires, fantasies, etc.)