Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence Against Women of Color

7 Mapping the margins Intersectionality, Identity Politics and Violence Against Women of Color AF KIMBERLÉ WILLIAMS CRENSHAW Over the last two decades, Intersectionality offers a way of me - women have organized against the almost diating the tension between asserti - routine violence that shapes their lives. ons of multiple identities and the Drawing from the strength of shared expe - ongoing necessity of group politics. rience, women have recognized that the political demands of millions speak more While the descriptive project of post - powerfully than the pleas of a few isolated modernism of questioning the ways voices. This process of recognizing as social in which meaning is socially con - and systemic what was formerly perceived structed is generally sound, this cri - as isolated and individual has also charac - terized the identity politics of people of tique sometimes misreads the mea - color and gays and lesbians, among others. ning of social construction and di - For all these groups, identity-based politics storts its political relevance. To say has been a source of strength, community, and intellectual development. that a category such as race or gen - The embrace of identity politics, howev - der is socially constructed is not to er, has been in tension with dominant con - say that that category has no signifi - ceptions of social justice. Race, gender, and cance in our world, on the contrary. other identity categories are most often treated in mainstream liberal discourse as vestiges of bias or domination – that is, as intrinsically negative frameworks in which social power works to exclude or marginal - ize those who are different. 8 KVINDER, KØN & FORSKNING NR. 2-3 2006 The problem with identity politics is not In an earlier article, I used the concept that it fails to transcend difference, as some of intersectionality to denote the various critics charge, but rather the opposite – that ways in which race and gender interact to it frequently conflates or ignores intra shape the multiple dimensions of Black 1 group differences. In the context of vio - women’s employment experiences (Cren - lence against women, this elision of differ - shaw 1989, 139). My objective there was ence is problematic, fundamentally because to illustrate that many of the experiences the violence that many women experience Black women face are not subsumed within is often shaped by other dimensions of the traditional boundaries of race or gender their identities, such as race and class. discrimination as these boundaries are cur - Moreover, ignoring differences within rently understood, and that the intersection groups frequently contributes to tension of racism and sexism factors into Black among groups, another problem of identity women’s lives in ways that cannot be cap - politics that frustrates efforts to politicize tured wholly by looking at the women, race violence against women. Feminist efforts to or gender dimensions of those experiences politicize experiences of women and an - separately. I build on those observations tiracist efforts to politicize experiences of here by exploring the various ways in which people of color’ have frequently proceeded race and gender intersect in shaping struc - as though the issues and experiences they tural and political aspects of violence each detail occur on mutually exclusive ter - against women of color. 2 rains. Although racism and sexism readily I should say at the outset that intersec - intersect in the lives of real people, they sel - tionality is not being offered here as some dom do in feminist and antiracist practices. new, totalizing theory of identity. My focus And so, when the practices expound identi - on the intersections of race and gender on - ty as ‘woman’ or ‘person of color’ as an ei - ly highlights the need to account for multi - ther/or proposition, they relegate the iden - ple grounds of identity when considering tity of women of color to a location that re - how the social world is constructed. I have sists telling. divided the issues presented in this chapter My objective here is to advance the into two categories. In the first part, I dis - telling of that location by exploring the cuss structural intersectionality , the ways in race and gender dimensions of violence which the location of women of color at against women of color. Contemporary the intersection of race and gender makes feminist and antiracist discourses have failed our actual experience of domestic violence, to consider the intersections of racism and rape, and remedial reform qualitatively dif - patriarchy. Focusing on two dimensions of ferent from that of white women. I shift male violence against women – battering the focus in the second part to political in - and rape – I consider how the experiences tersectionality , where I analyze how both of women of color are frequently the pro- feminist and antiracist politics have func - duct of intersecting patterns of racism and tioned in tandem to marginalize the issue sexism, and how these experiences tend not of violence against women of color. Finally, to be represented within the discourse of I address the implications of the intersec - either feminism or antiracism. Because of tional approach within the broader scope of their intersectional identity as both women contemporary identity politics. and people of color within discourses that are shaped to respond to one or the other, the interests and experiences of women of STRUCTURAL INTERSECTIONALITY color are frequently marginalized within Structural Intersectionality and Battering both. I observed the dynamics of structural inter - MAPPING THE MARGINS sectionality during a brief field study of bat - tion, and thus overlooks the socioeconomic tered women’s shelters located in minority factors that often disempower women of communities in Los Angeles. 3 In most cas - color. 4 Because the disempowerment of es, the physical assault that leads women to many battered women of color is arguably these shelters is merely the most immediate less a function of what is in their minds and manifestation of the subordination they ex - more a reflection of the obstacles that exist perience. Many women who seek protec - in their lives, these interventions are likely tion are unemployed or underemployed, to reproduce rather than effectively chal - and a good number of them are poor. Shel - lenge their domination. ters serving these women cannot afford to While the intersection of race, gender, address only the violence inflicted by the and class constitute the primary structural batterer; they must also confront the other elements of the experience of many Black multilayered and routinized forms of domi - and Latina women in battering shelters, it nation that often converge in these is important to understand that there are women’s lives, hindering their ability to other sites where structures of power inter - create alternatives to the abusive relation- sect. For immigrant women, for example, ships that brought them to shelters in the their status as immigrants can render them first place. Women of color are burdened as vulnerable in ways that are similarly coer - well by the disproportionately high unem - cive, yet not easily reducible to economic ployment among people of color that make class. For example, take the Marriage battered women of color less able to de - Fraud Amendments to the 1986 Immigra - pend on the support of friends and relatives tion Act. Under the marriage fraud provi - for temporary shelter. sions of the Act, a person who immigrated These observations reveal how intersec - to the United States to marry a United tionality shapes the experiences of many States citizen or permanent resident had to women of color. Economic considerations remain ‘properly’ married for two years be - – access to employment, housing, and fore applying for permanent resident sta - wealth – confirm that class structures play tus, at which time applications for the im - an important part in defining the experi - migrant’s permanent status were required ence of women of color vis-à-vis battering. by both spouses. 5 Predictably, under these But it would be a mistake to conclude from circumstances, many immigrant women these observations that it is simply the fact were reluctant to leave even the most abu - of poverty that is at issue here. Rather, their sive of partners for fear of being deported. experiences reveal how diverse structures When faced with the choice between pro - intersect, since even the class dimension is tection from their batterers and protection not independent from race and gender. against deportation, many immigrant These converging systems structure the women chose the latter (Walt 1990, 8). experiences of battered women of color in Reports of the tragic consequences of this ways that require intervention strategies to double subordination put pressure on be responsive to these intersections. Strate - Congress to include in the Immigration gies based solely on the experiences of Act of 1990 a Provision amending the women who do not share the same class or marriage fraud rules to allow for an explicit race backgrounds will be of limited utility waiver for hardship caused by domestic vi - for those whose lives are shaped by a differ - olence. ent set of obstacles. For example, shelter Yet many immigrant women, particularly policies are often shaped by an image that women of color, have remained vulnerable locates women’s subordination primarily in to battering because they are unable to the psychological effects of male domina - meet the conditions established for a waiv - 10 KVINDER, KØN & FORSKNING NR. 2-3 2006 er. The evidence required to support a (or who are themselves undocumented) waiver “can include, but is not limited to, who suffer in silence for fear that the secu - reports and affidavits from police, medical rity of their entire families will be jeopar - personnel, psychologists, school officials, dized should they seek help or otherwise and social service agencies.” For many im - call attention to themselves.

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