A very fair question. For that, you can look at my Google link in my first post in this thread for articles on the importance of intersectionality in feminism at TheMarySue, the same site that insisted that feminism is nothing more than believing that men and women are equal when Meryl Streep didn’t embrace the label. I don’t know if any of the conflicting posts were made by the same contributer, but the same web site part is locked down pat.
I think the podcast you’re talking about is this one, but it should be pointed out that the NRA initially supported the gun control measures that were a response to the existence of the Black Panthers. It took the NRA a while to decide that the “inalienable right to bear arms” overrode “keep guns away from the scary blacks”.
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The Mary Sue runs articles from a variety of (feminist) viewpoints. Not every writer agrees completely on every topic.
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The second article is part of a series on the history of feminism. How do you propose they cover that without talking about Third Wave feminism?
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Getting from “men and women are equal” to “third-wave intersectionalist gender feminism” is a pretty straight shot once you realize that feminism includes talking about issues relevant to LBGTQ women, non-white women, and how society represents gender as well as strictly “equal legal rights” topics.
Fine, fine, fine. Let us just imagine that it was the exact same person saying those two things. I wasn’t attempting to write a criticism of modern feminism, but to provide an example of what a Motte and Bailey argument looks like. So imagine for me that I made up a brilliant fictional example out of whole cloth and stop going on a wild red herring chase.
A less fictional example would be GamerGate, who spent most of their time ranting about SJWs but when criticized claimed they only cared about ethics in game journalism.
My problem with “vulgar” intersectionality derives from stuff like this.
I don’t know if you’ve seen anything about the last time Bret Weinstein was embroiled in a controversy, but I came across this article on an incident from 30 years ago which will make you love him even more
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The only problem/issue I have with intersectionality isn’t built into the concept of intersectionality itself, but it’s a phenomenon that, umm, well, intersects with it a lot in real life.
A lot of people among the marginalized activist left use a version of identity politics that results in a pompous behavior, a way of acting as if “We know all of the categories that matter. We carry the list right here in our left pockets. If you belong to one of these groups, you have been the victim of a single oppression. However, you must make yourself aware of the situations of all the other groups on this list and recognize the ways in which you oppress them”.
What (you might be wondering) is wrong with that?
It’s the invisible “list”. This behavior creates the impression that as long as you attend to considering the oppression of each of the categories on the list, you’re doing what you need to do as far as checking your privilege and being socially conscious. I’d prefer more of a pro-active conscious sense of “look around you, notice where categorical oppression takes place, and be aware of it”. More of a sense that the “list”, such as it is, is always incomplete, that there’s always additional outgroups that haven’t previously received much notice.
It also breeds a reprehensible hostility and intolerance towards anyone who doesn’t appear to belong to any of the listed categories. That’s arrogance. “You, by definition, are privileged and have not had a hard time of it. If you’d been oppressed you’d be in a category listed here but you aren’t”. In the past it’s been an attitude directed towards white male English-speaking hetero cis people with disabilities, towards white males who weren’t hetero or didn’t speak English, towards white people who weren’t male, at different times and in different contexts.
There’s an undercurrent there of wanting a culprit to blame. Personally I find the Culprit Theory of Oppression to be babytalk politics and rather stupid and mean-spirited babytalk at that. Even if the capitalist patriarchal enslavement colonial oppressor-state had been dreamed up in the paleolithic white boys’ bathroom 10,000+ years ago (which it wasn’t), laying that at the personal feet of any people alive today as if they had directly created it, while at the same time denying any consideration for anything that they might do or attempt to do at the individual level because their role as oppressor is aggregate, a class characteristic, is nothing but scapegoating.
I thought I would get this thread going cause I see a lot of people were interested in it.
Now the big thing with intersectionality is acting like the allies are there for everything. The dynamic fails big time when it actually fails to connect in a lot of cases.
From what I can say
The black community isn’t very pro-lgbt for example
And also feminism in the black community is more what I would call “whitewashing the black male” no literally I’ve seen YT comments saying the black feminists are literally the white supremacy of feminism. I don’t disagree, but it is a bit of a stretch.
I mean are the socially awkward or shy in the pyramid next? Basically introverts.
And before anyone responds seriously this is just a thought of theory.
YouTube comment sections are filled with people who make you look like an erudite genius. Stop slumming.