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The Invisibility of Privilege: a Critique of Intersectional Models of Identity

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The Invisibility of Privilege: a Critique of Intersectional Models of Identity 7 7 9 9 - 8 1 7 1 N S S I LES ATELIERS DE L’ÉTHIQUE VOLUME 3 NUMÉRO 2 AUTOMNE/AUTUMN 2008 LA REVUE DU CREUM COMITÉ ÉDITORIAL/EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Direction : Daniel Marc Weinstock Coordination : Martin Blanchard, CRÉUM ([email protected]) Charles Blattberg, CRÉUM Mira Johri, CRÉUM Rabah Bousbaci, CRÉUM Julie Lavigne, Université du Québec à Montréal Ryoa Chung, CRÉUM Robert Leckey, Université McGill Peter Dietsch, CRÉUM Christian Nadeau, CRÉUM Francis Dupuis-Déri, Université du Québec à Montréal Wayne Norman, CRÉUM UNE REVUE MULTI- Geneviève Fuji Johnson, CRÉUM Christine Tappolet, CRÉUM DISCIPLINAIRE SUR LES Axel Gosseries, Université de Louvain-la-Neuve Luc Tremblay, CRÉUM ENJEUX NORMATIFS DES Béatrice Godard, CRÉUM Daniel Marc Weinstock, CRÉUM POLITIQUES PUBLIQUES ET Joseph Heath, Université de Toronto Bryn Williams-Jones, CRÉUM DES PRATIQUES SOCIALES. NOTE AUX AUTEURS GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS Un article doit compter de 10 à 20 pages environ, simple Papers should be between 10 and 20 pages, single spa - interligne (Times New Roman 12). Les notes doivent être ced (Times New Roman 12). Notes should be placed at the 2 placées en fin de texte. L'article doit inclure un résumé end of the text. An abstract in English and French of no d'au plus 200 mots en français et en anglais. Les articles more than 200 words must be inserted at the beginning seront évalués de manière anonyme par deux pairs du of the text. Articles are anonymously peer-reviewed by comité éditorial. members of the editorial committee. Les consignes aux auteurs se retrouvent sur le site de la Instructions to authors are available on the journal web - revue (www.creum.umontreal.ca/ateliers). Tout article ne site (www.creum.umontreal.ca/ateliers). Papers not follo - VOLUME 3 NUMÉRO 2 s’y conformant pas sera automatiquement refusé. wing these will be automatically rejected. AUTOMNE/AUTUMN 2008 A MULTIDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL ON THE NORMATIVE CHALLENGES Vous êtes libres de reproduire, distribuer et communiquer les You are free to copy and distribute all texts of this journal under OF PUBLIC POLICIES textes de cette revue au public selon les conditions suivantes : the following conditions: AND SOCIAL PRACTICES. • Vous devez citer le nom de l'auteur et de la revue • You must cite the author of the text and the name of the journal • Vous ne pouvez pas utiliser les textes à des fins commerciales • You may not use this work for commercial purposes • Vous ne pouvez pas modifier, transformer ou adapter les textes • You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work Pour tous les détails, veuillez vous référer à l’adresse suivante : For all details please refer to the following address: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/legalcode http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/legalcode ISSN 1718-9977 LE FÉMINISME N’INTÉRESSERAIT-IL QUE LES FÉMINISTES ? IS FEMINISM JUST FOR FEMINISTS? 4-7 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... Marguerite Deslauriers et Monique Lanoix TABLE DES MATIÈRES 8-22 A CLASSIFICATION OF FEMINIST THEORIES ................................................................................... Karen Wendling 23-38 THE INVISIBILITY OF PRIVILEGE: A CRITIQUE OF INTERSECTIONAL 3 MODELS OF IDENTITY ............................................................................................................................. Anna Carastathis 39-55 VOILES RACIALISÉS : LA FEMME MUSULMANE DANS LES IMAGINAIRES OCCIDENTAUX ............................................................................................................................ Alia Al-Saji 55-71 SOLLICITUDE, DÉPENDANCE ET LIEN SOCIAL ................................................................................ Monique Lanoix VOLUME 3 NUMÉRO 2 72-87 THE TROUBLE WITH INVERSION: AN EXAMINATION OF SCIENCE AUTOMNE/AUTUMN 2008 AND SEXUAL ORIENTATION .................................................................................................................... Rebekah Johnston 88-103 THE POWER AND PROMISE OF DEVELOPMENTAL SYSTEMS THEORY ................................... Letitia Meynell TABLE OF CONTENTS 104 -117 PERSPECTIVES FÉMINISTES EN ÉTHIQUE DES RELATIONS INTERNATIONALES ............................ Ryoa Chung Article: 23 31 Notes: 32 36 Bibliography: 37 38 RÉSUMÉ Dans cet article, je soutiens que « l’intersectionalité », la conception la plus fréquemment accep - 23 tée du rapport entre les axes ou entre les systèmes d’oppression (la race, la classe sociale et le genre), s’appuie clandestinement sur le modèle qu’elle prétend surmonter : c’est-à-dire, le modèle unitaire de l’identité. En premier lieu, je présente la définition «d’intersectionalité», et je diffé - rencie trois interprétations de ce concept qui sont souvent confondues. Ensuite, je propose une lecture analytique du modèle qui a pour but de révéler des présuppositions qui fondent les notions d’identité. En conclusion, si la norme d’intégration de la «différence» est le fondement de dis - cours intersectionels, je suggère que la solidarité serait préférable à celle-ci pour la pratique fémi - VOLUME 3 NUMÉRO 2 niste. AUTOMNE/AUTUMN 2008 ARTICLES : ABSTRACT THE INVISIBILITY OF PRIVILEGE: IIn this paper, I argue that intersectionality, the prevailing way of conceptualizing the relation A CRITIQUE OF INTERSECTIONAL between axes or systems of oppression (race, class, gender), illicitly imports the very model it 1 purports to overcome: that is, the unitary model of identity. I first define “intersectionality” and MODELS OF IDENTITY distinguish between three senses that are frequently conflated. Then I subject the model to an analytic critique, revealing its hidden presuppositions about identity. Finally, I suggest that soli - ANNA CARASTATHIS darity serves as a better norm for feminist practice than inclusion of “difference,” which seems CRÉUM AND SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR INSTITUTE to be the norm underlying many intersectional accounts. The problem of conceptualizing political subjectivity, in an ethical ond, to supplant the normative, race- and class-privileged subject of and politically productive way, is an old and abiding one. It is a task feminist theory and politics. 11 that seems particularly urgent for oppositional politics, which, in one Exponents of the intersectional model claim that it is particular - way or another, seek to transform subjectivity-in-itself into subjectiv - ly apt in capturing the experience of hyper-oppressed people, para - ity-for-itself as a means to social emancipation. It is the broad claim digmatically racialized women, in ways that its predecessors, name - of this paper that feminist theory and politics has failed to decisive - ly the unitary conception of “woman” and “additive” models of iden - ly address itself to this task, to constitute the subject of feminism in tity, have failed to. It is maintained that, as a heuristic device, inter - a truly “universal” way, 2 with the result that the emancipatory proj - sectionality enables a nuanced view of the ways in which axes of ect of feminism remains – both in practice and in theory – glaring - privilege and oppression inflect and mutually construct each other. 12 ly incomplete. This is not for lack of trying: antiracist feminists – Its proponents claim that the intersectional model of identity there - majoratively racialized women – have exposed this lacuna since the fore successfully guards against a politically problematic reduction of earliest enunciations of falsely universal feminist politics. They have racialized women’s social experience to that of racialized men, or to expended an unreciprocated amount of intellectual and psychic effort that of race-privileged women; consequently, the intersectional model articulating to race-privileged feminists what it means to be confront - enables the representation (in both the descriptive and political sens - ed, as Anna Julia Cooper put it in 1892, by both “a woman ques - es) of subjects oppressed on “multiple” axes. Upon giving a brief tion” and a “race problem”; 3 that is, in a more contemporary politi - exposition of the model of intersectional identity as it manifests itself cal idiom, what it means to be subject to “double jeopardy,” 4 “mul - in the analyses of Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw (1991), Patricia Hill tiple jeopardy,” 5 “multiple oppressions” 6 or “interlocking oppressions.” 7 Collins (2003), and Diana Tietjens Meyers (2000) (§1), I argue that The most recent metaphor for the problem Cooper spoke of in 1892 this model inadvertently reproduces the very assumptions it claims to is that of “intersectionality.” Intersectionality “is currently the reign - be redressing (§2). In particular, I advance the claim that the inter - ing…metaphor for complex identities insofar as they are constituted sectional model fails to make necessary substantive revisions in how 8 ARTICLES by race, ethnicity, class, and sexual orientation together with gender.” we conceive the relation between oppressions, and as such fails to In this paper, I discuss this currently prevalent way for conceptualiz - deliver on its promise of overcoming the conceptual errors of past ing the political subjectivity of the hyper-oppressed. Notably, post- models of identity. In the final section of the paper (§3), I raise one identitarian feminists as well as identitarians 9 deploy the language of implication of my discussion: namely, that feminist subjectivity – the 24 intersectionality, and in feminist circles the term “intersectionality” ground of solidarity
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