Guys, I found a thing!

Yeah, I know, OMG, a real thing.

Basically, you know how I’m always going on about how just because different people experience inequality differently around the world, it doesn’t make that inequality any better?*

*No.

Yeah, I know I don’t always phrase it like that but that’s essentially what I was getting at. Anyway, I found a thing that describes that thing!

It’s called….dun dun DUNNNNN…..

Intersectional feminism!!!!

Okay, yeah I know it doesn’t sound quite as exciting as I made it out to be, but it is, trust me.*

*Or don’t, considering the only stuff most of you know about me is from this blog, which I edit and edit and edit and edit.

This term isn’t in the dictionary (yet) so I had to trawl for ages online (3 minutes tops) to find this definition.

intersectionality: the view that women experience oppression in varying configurations and in varying degrees of intensity. cultural patterns of oppression are not only interrelated, but are bound together and influenced by the intersectional systems of society. examples of this include race, gender, class, ability, and ethnicity.

*Click the link ’cause it’s a really good article and explains this WAY better than I can.*

 I guess the first thing we need to clarify is privilege.*

*Scary sounding parent-word.

If you are male, you have privilege.

If you are white, you have privilege.

If you are cis-gender, you have privilege.

If you are heterosexual, you have privilege.

There are a million more but I think you get it, right?

This doesn’t mean that it’s better, or that all the people who don’t fit into those categories spend their entire lives wishing they were different (hey, I like being female!) but just that you happen to not be in that particular social group of people who have been historically oppressed.

Okay, so I have strayed pretty far from the original topic of this post which was -intersect intersexual intra interact section feminine feminism- intersectional feminism!

I am a woman, which is a historically oppressed group of people. However, I am also white, cis-gender and heterosexual.*

*Not that any of that stuff should matter but I needed to relay it all, to make this clearer.

Because of this, I will never be the victim of racism, transphobia or homophobia. And also because of this, I will never truly understand what it is like to be a victim of racism, transphobia or homophobia.

However, what I can understand is that different people have different issues, and different scary sounding ‘-isms’ they have to deal with. What I can understand is that while I will never be a victim of racism (unless I pull a reverse Michael Jackson), a victim of homophobia or a victim of transphobia, I am allowed, and invited, to fight against those injustices.

Yes, some of the injustices I experience personally may be different to the injustices a Woman Of Colour experiences, but we will both be fighting for feminism.

The best analogy I can think of is that there are loads of flavours, and colours, of feminism (like fizzy drinks) that we all need to embrace. For example, cream soda.*

*THE DRINK OF GODDESSES.

I like cream soda for the flavour. Someone else might like it for the flavour and the fizziness. Someone else might like it not for the flavour or the fizziness, but just for the can. If the main manufacturer of cream soda decided to just stop making it for some reason (this is starting to sound like an Economics lesson), those two other people and I would all be angry. Let’s say we decide to start a campaign to get this drink back on sale (with pink glittery placards and all). We would all be fighting the same cause, but from slightly different perspectives, and maybe some with slightly more to fight for.*

*I mean, a girl can get pretty attached to the aesthetic of a can.

I feel like I just demonstrated how not to explain intersectional feminism. 

If you guys are now just really confused, you have two options.

a) Read the article I linked above!!!
b) Read this all over again, slowly.
c) Close my blog, listen to a yoga class playlist on Spotify and drink some cream soda.