Intersectionality: Introduction
The term intersectionality first appeared in 1989 by Professor Kimberly Crenshaw. She used the term in an effort to describe the effect of belonging in two separate protected classes which often meant that this could create a unique disadvantage. This was unearthed during two cases where black women were unable to claim race and sex discrimination as they could not prove sex discrimination, as other white females were not discriminated against, nor could they prove race discrimination, as black males were not discriminated against (Crenshaw, 1989). Leslie McCall defines intersectionality as ‘the relationships among multiple dimensions and modalities of social relations and subject formations,’ (McCall, 2005).
Lived Experiences of intersectionality
Ade Adepitan, a paralympian, shared how the Paralympics were a strong reminder that when marginalised communities are given access to resources and space to thrive, they do. Christine Sun Kim, a member of the deaf community, talked about her life in Berlin, where she had access to space, childcare and these helped provide for as an artist. Chay Brown spoke as a trans male on his experiences of being neurodivergent and how important it was that his organization, Transactual worked for Trans people with disability – recognizing these individuals were all part of the trans community.
Recurring Themes: Visibility
With all three interviews, visibility was a common thread. Christine spoke powerfully about being visible and using the visual scale of her artworks to force wider – in this case hearing – society to recognize the community exists and give an insight into what their world looks like. Ade also spoke about visibility in terms of discrimination in the workplace, stating that perhaps overt discrimination had become less apparent, but people with are still being discriminated against in the workplaces. It really highlighted how disabled athletes are welcomed within a specific space that has being created for them, and this contrasts with their inclusion in wider society. Chay Brown spoke about visibility within a marginalized community and spoke of the need for events to take accessibility into account so that disabled trans people were visible at events.
Disability considerations with my own context at UAL
The three interviews have really highlighted that I really need to think about accessibility to events within the guest lectures and the studio visits I arrange. I tend to assume that as public buildings they are accessible, but I myself worked at a studio that was based on five floors and no lift, which would have been completely inaccessible to most people with a physical mobility disability. With students’ hidden disabilities, I do not have access to all the ISA information on students doing DPS. We do a lot of online tutorials and workshops sessions, which could be seen as being more accessible. Students have flagged to me that they feel that some pre interview tasks from large organisations that advertise internships feel as if they are designed to screen out neurodivergent talent, which is concerning. I certainly signpost students to organisations that help with disability in the workplace.
Within my own research context, my PhD revealed a significant lack of on and off screen representation of disability within pre-school animation, and television itself. I strongly believe that Children’s programming should include positive representations of disabled characters to counter stereotypes and negative perceptions of disability. Beckett pointed to the power of television to form opinions and noted that ‘importantly, children’s discussions about their television viewing formed part of their wider discussions about ‘normality’ and ‘abnormality’ and demonstrated the hegemony of the normal/abnormal binary,’ (Beckett, 2010, p.870).
Beckett, A.E. (2013). Non-disabled children’s ideas about disability and disabled people. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 35(6), pp.856–875. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2013.800444.
Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: a Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, [online] 1989(1), pp.139–167. Available at: https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=uclf.
McCall, L. (2005) ‘The complexity of Intersectionality’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 30(3), pp. 1771–1800. doi:10.1086/426800.
Leave a Reply