This post is part of my 3DR newsletter where I share what I’m (un)learning to build just futures. It centres around my 3DR approach to equity: Decolonize. Disrupt. Dismantle. Rebuild. If you approach the world with curiosity and you’re looking for courageous and compassionate conversations around social justice and collective liberation, subscribe to my newsletter.
Earlier this week, I had the honour of delivering my first keynote speech virtually at the Gap Year Association’s annual conference where I focused on this concept of intersectionality.
And I thought, wouldn’t that be a great place to start this brand spankin’ new newsletter? After all, where better to begin than to look at the first D of our 3DR approach? To decolonize and do the internal work of looking inwards into ourselves.
Because ultimately, intersectionality is about ourselves, our identities. It’s fundamentally about all the multiple and complex layers of identities that each and every single one of us holds.
If you already find yourself in progressive social justice circles, you’ll be familiar, if not well-versed, with this framework. But if you’re not, you’re probably hearing the term a lot more frequently these days. Either way, let’s peel back the layers of this complex web!
Refering back to the general categories on this wheel, I want you now to think about and reflect on these questions:
Which of these categories/identities do you think about the most often and why?
Which of these categories/identities do you think about the least often and why?
What categories/identities have the strongest effect on how you perceive yourself?
What categories/identities have the strongest effect on how others perceive you?
If we were all in the same room together and not in an email newsletter, I’d break all of us up into small groups and discuss these questions together. In doing so, we would (hopefully!) reveal the critical differences in our identities and, most importantly, our experiences of these identities.
I would tell you that I think very often about being a woman, and more specifically an Asian woman. These two identities – my race and gender – are always top of mind when I’m walking down the street alone (especially at night, especially during this time of pandemic) and when I’m traveling. I think about it often because I know how I am perceived by the world around me – quiet, weak, submissive – and I know how that can impact how I am approached or treated.
I would tell you that I don’t think much about being able-bodied, middle-class, or straight. I have not had to think about the physical barriers to how I go about my day-to-day life because there are none for me. I also don’t think too much about getting that Americano from the new café down the street or treating myself to a nice lunch or getting that cute sweater because I have enough money to afford those little luxuries. I have never thought about my sexuality because…well, it’s the default in our world. What’s there to think about?
I would tell you that my being Filipina strongly impacts the way that I perceive myself. That I hold a lot of pride in my roots, my culture, and my heritage. That I know my culture is critical to shaping my outlook on the world, my relationship to my family and my community, the power I know I hold. But I would also tell you that I know my being Filipina strongly impacts the way others perceive me too – but not necessarily in the positive way that I see myself.
What would you tell me about yourself?
Noticing, acknowledging, and holding these differences in our experiences of our identities is critical in understanding power and oppression.
According to Kimberlé Crenshaw, intersectionality is “a lens, a prism, for seeing the way in which different forms of inequality often operate together and exacerbate each other.”
Here’s a graphic from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research that I find helpful in understanding this concept:
In the centre of this wheel, we see some of the specific identities that Western society confers more advantages to. Put simply, these are the identities that hold the most power in our society. As we move outwards, we begin to see the identities that are more disadvantaged, more marginalized, more oppressed. At the edge of these categories, you then see the systems of oppression that affect how we move through the world when we hold certain identities.
This is, of course, a simplified expression of these identities and the power that each holds. There should actually be far more rings around this circle as we know that, for example, not all “racialized people” can be clumped into one simple category. There are many gradients to the lived experiences of people who hail from a multitude of ethnic backgrounds, religions, and Indigenous nations. But I hope you get the point!
What does it mean to locate ourselves in the spectrum of power? Why does it matter?
"Gender reaches into disability; disability wraps around class; class right strains against abuse; abuse snarls into sexuality; sexuality falls on top of race… Everything finally piling into a single human body. To write about any aspect of identity, any aspect of the body, means writing about this entire maze. This I know, and yet the question remains: where to start?… There are one million ways to start, but how do I reach beneath the skin?” – Eli Clare, Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation
To wade through this entire complicated, messy, and seemingly inextricable maze is to locate ourselves in the spectrum of power.
To locate ourselves in the spectrum of power is to understand the ways in which we are advantaged and disadvantaged, the ways in which we are in power and oppressed. All at once. All the time. It is to sit with the discomfort that may come from this knowledge of ourselves.
But it is also about bearing witness to the experiences of others and where they are situated on this spectrum of power, where their intersections of identity lie.
The reflection prompts I shared above are especially impactful when debriefed and shared aloud with others precisely for this reason. Because we have the opportunity to listen and learn about the critical differences in our identities and, most importantly, the differences in how we experience these identities.
Because the differences between us are essential.
And while we may want to shield ourselves from the discomfort of difference, the truth is that there is crucial information that lies there. There are lessons – entire generations of lessons! – that lie in that discomfort.
So I encourage you to understand your position in this spectrum of power, notice our differences, push for these conversations in your intimate circles, and lean into the discomfort that may come from all that.
“For it is only when we acknowledge that there are some chasms we cannot easily span, and yet continue in the effort to do so, that we achieve the true sense of understanding what it means to coexist in a world of disparate others.”
Additional Resources on Intersectionality:
The social identity wheel exercise I used above is an activity I learned about from the University of Michigan’s Inclusive Teaching department. It’s actually just one small part of a broader activity meant to engage students in understanding identity. Learn more here.
Check out Kimberlé Crenshaw’s podcast called Intersectionality Matters!
Dr. Anu Taranath’s book, Beyond Guilt Trips: Mindful Travel in an Unequal World, has been highly influential in shaping how I talk about and teach intersectionality. I had the privilege of co-teaching a course with her at the Rise Travel Institute this past summer on this very subject, but specifically as it relates to how we travel. Check out the course here.