Discussion: Intersectional Feminism

Our next reading group discussion will be Friday, November 8th, from 6 - 8pm at Page Against the Machine, 2714 E 4th St.

Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference—those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older—know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those others identified as outside the structures in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. — Audre Lord, The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House

This discussion will center two short texts:

• Audre Lorde's The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House (opens as PDF)

in which Lorde challenges radicals to reaffirm our commitment to dismantling not only the structures that incentivize oppression of those who are poor, queer, or POC, but also the expression of that oppression in our own behvior towards other radicals.

&

• The Combahee River Collective Statement (opens as PDF)

an expression of the political outlook of a feminist collective similarly committed to uprooting the social reproduction of oppressive behaviors in radical circles.

Both texts stand out as black feminist calls for the principled adoption of intersectional feminist theories and practices by the broader left, as well as nuanced views of identity politics.