Part V: Intersections between Class, Race, and Gender (Intersectionality)

Question 1

What is intersectionality?

Answer 1

-The characterization of individuals who are simultaneously oppressed on the basis of gender, race and class.

Question 2

What are the other factors of intersectionality?

Answer 2

Gender, race and class as interlocking categories of experience (Kimberly Crenshaw) 
-Inequalities are never the result of single, distinct factors; rather they are the outcome of the intersections of different social locations, power relations and experiences.

Question 3

What is fenstermaker’s intersectional approach?

Answer 3

a) Gives voice to the oppressed
b) Assumes interactional effects
c) Contexts matters in shaping how race, class, and gender are accomplished.
d) Similar situations may be experienced differently .

Question 4

What is meant by intersectionality as a way of seeing?

Answer 4

For example,

Swirls of a marble cake, Interlocking mechanisms like colourful minerals in rocks and a traffic intersection.

Question 5

How does intersectionality show up in social interactions?

Answer 5

-Code switching

Question 6

What is code switching?

Answer 6

-Code-switching means being able to switch between dialects (and cultural expression, behaviours, and mannerisms) based on ones surroundings.
-In terms of PRIVILEGE, employing the prestigious dialect of the society when necessary, for example, in professional and academic settings.
(We hopscotch between different parts of our identity) Ex the video on the American promise, shows the importance of code switching.

Question 7

How does intersectionality get used as a research tool?

Answer 7

it focuses on gender and race within a class to determine views of inequality

Question 8

What are the benefits of an intersectional approach in research?

Answer 8

1. Moves beyond single identities or group-specific concerns.
2. Explore new research and policy approaches to understand the connections between structures that shape diverse populations.
3. Generate new and more complete information to better understand the origins, root causes and characteristics of social issues.
4. Enable more effective and efficient responses than a “one size fits all” approach for solving persistent and growing inequalities.

Question 9

How does intersectionality compare to the “Indian Act” ?

Answer 9

Class (Marxist perspective) – Potlach ban
Race/Ethnicity – Status inidian (Social control through identification of who is white and who was First Nation).
Gender – Discrimination against aboriginal women.(Ex if an aboriginal woman married a white man she would lose her status. BUT an aboriginal man would hold his status and pass it to his white wife).