In 2016, American civil rights advocate and leading scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw spoke about “intersectionality’ at a special TEDWomen Conference. While this was not the first time that she was publicly explaining the topic, her impactful video proved to be one of the most successful mediums for breaking down this complex idea for the masses and instigating a cultural phenomenon towards equity.
Across India, while all women and girls face sexual violence, there is enough evidence to suggest that justice is served differently for women across caste, religion, and economic backgrounds. Similarly (As Prof. Crenshaw explains) in USA, patterns of injustice manifest very differently for Black women, as compared to Black men or White women. The failure to serve adequate justice worsens due to the singularity of the law, which she describes as being ‘like an ambulance- prepared to save you if you are injured on the lane of sexism, or on the lane of racism, but not at the intersection of both’ (Crenshaw, 2016). Legal Cases like ‘DeGraffenreid v. General Motors’ which have informed her own study, are further evidence that Black women in America are not only discriminated against in the workplace, but the inadequate framing of these issues leads to them being ‘legally inconsequential’. Issues are further exacerbated at the intersections of heterosexism, transphobia, xenophobia, ableism, and more.

Commentaires