intersectionality

scarletclarinet:

sometimes i cry about the level of diversity and intersectionality (gender, sexuality, race, physical ability, mental health…) in things like Agorresh ( @elfrightsactivist ) and Sansukh ( @determamfidd )

because it’s so fucking important

if u can see yourself in stories, u (ur identity, ur struggles, ur dreams, ur “tfw”) can exist and be shared and human and real

if u can see others in stories, u can see how they’re human and beautiful too

this is literally why i’m gonna get my master’s in library science: bc stories are powerful as hell, and everyone needs more diverse stories (but especially people who only appear in diverse stories)

*hugs* thank you, Stark. the world is forever better bc of amazing folks like you.

tropylium:

You’d think the first lesson of Intersectionality 101 should be “you cannot actually divide people into The Bad Privileged Oppressors versus The Good Marginalized Victims”, but too often people seem to instead end up at the failure mode “unless you’re marginalized in every possible way, you can always be recategorized on the fly as a member of The Bad Privileged Oppressors if it’s politically or rhetorically convenient”.

When people with privilege hear that they have privilege, what they hear is not, “Our society is structured so that your life is more valued than others.” They hear, “Everything, no matter what, will be handed to you. You have done nothing to achieve what you have.” That’s not strictly true, and hardly anyone who points out another’s privilege is making that accusation. There are privileged people who work very hard. The privilege they experience is the absence of barriers that exist for other people.

No One Cares If You Never Apologize for Your White Male Privilege
(via deliciouskaek)

We have learned from intersectionality that people can be oppressed along more than one axis, such as women of color or trans people of color. But intersectionality also means that people can be both oppressed and oppressors at the same time, along different axes. For example, a white woman has white privilege but may be disadvantaged by her gender. A poor white man may be white and male, but he may be disadvantaged by his class status. An overweight middle class white man may face fat phobia. The word cannot neatly be divided into oppressors and the oppressed.
If we want to dismantle certain structures of oppression (say, gender), we need to not reinforce other structures of oppression in the process (say, appearance, or class). We need to take down all the structures of oppression, whether based on gender, race, class, sexual orientation, gender preference, or appearance.

Reinforcing Other Axes of Oppression Isn’t “Punching Up” (via socio-logic)