Ein sehr interessante Studie stellt dar, was ich hier schon lange vertrete: Der intersektionale Feminismus führt zu einem Wettbewerb um die bessere Unterdrückung, die größere Benachteiligung und damit ein „Race to the Bottom“, ein Rennen in den Abgrund.
Highlights
• Young feminists of majority groups aim for inclusivity in their feminist practices.
• Young feminists of minority groups aim for exclusivity in their feminist practices.
• Mismatching strategies hinder cooperation between groups.
• Failure of inclusivity leads to individualized feminist practices.
Abstract
Using qualitative data from interviews with young New Zealand feminists, this article shows that these women incorporate their understandings of intersectionality theory into their feminist ideology and strive for overcoming challenges of women’s diversity and relative privilege within their feminist practices. However, mismatching strategies of inclusivity and exclusivity among majority and minority groups of feminists hinder their success of cooperation. Such failure creates anxieties among feminists – particularly among those belonging to relatively privileged groups – who feel they do not live up to “intersectional expectations”. This article argues that increasing individualization of young feminists‘ identities, ideologies and practices is, partly, a result of such difficulties to deal with women’s diversity because it is used as a strategy that focuses on the individual rather than on the collective.
Quelle: Intersectional expectations: Young feminists‘ perceived failure at dealing with differences and their retreat to individualism (Volltext via Scihub)
Da hat sich der Feminismus auf die Fahne geschrieben, dass sie Normativitäten und Hierarchien bekämpfen und merken gar nicht, dass sie neue eingeführt haben, die sich genauso auswirken.
Der intersektionale Feminismus ähnelt da behinderten Bettlern, die am gleichen Platz um Spenden kämpfen und der eine den anderen um seine größere Behinderung beneidet, weil sie ihm mehr Spenden bringt. Es ist eine Wertung, die nur in dieser Welt funktioniert.
Aus der Schlußfolgerung in der Studie:
Using the case study of New Zealand, this article demonstrated that young feminists were aware of the importance to acknowledge women as a heterogeneous group and thus supported a feminism that addresses diverse perspectives. Moreover, intersectional expectations were high among their feminist circles and created anxieties to comply with them in the “right” way and to address differences among women “appropriately”. Yet, what this “right” way should look like and how to achieve it was uncertain. One of the participants‘ attempted strategies to address diversity was to strive for inclusiveness within feminist collectives.
However, this goal was more commonly expressed among relatively privileged women (e.g. European) than among others. Marginalized women tended to look for support networks that reflected their own experiences. As these two approaches contradicted each other, the creation of spaces that were actively used by diverse groups of women was not exceedingly successful. Being confronted with their failure, many (mainly European) women interviewed embraced an individualized understanding of feminism that influenced both, feminist engagement of individual women and the way some collectives were organized.
I argue that, especially for relatively privileged women, this strategy can be interpreted as a way to avoid finding alternative strategies to constructively negotiate differences among women. Individualization of feminism might not necessarily be harmful to the feminist project in all circumstances and there is reason to argue that understandings of collectivity are shifting within contemporary activism (Dolata & Schrape, 2015). Yet, I suggest that individualization is
not a good replacement for a constructive strategy in the context of turning intersectionality into practice because it does not address the challenge but rather avoids it. As Oleksy (2011) pointed out, the young feminists‘ individualized use of intersectionality concepts trivializes and appropriates the theory’s initial purpose. Evans (2015a: 52) agreed by stating that “[i]nclusivity is not however a proxy for intersectionality”. However, I do not think it is the responsibility of young feminist women to implement academic theory in the “right” way but conversely, that academia needs to provide activists with theoretic tools that can be implemented in their realities and include an understanding of practicability. While insights of intersectionality theory can help to shape feminist practices constructively, they need to be adapted critically and carefully. For instance, intersectionality should not be fetishized to such an extent that young feminists become too afraid to act collectively.
I do not claim that there is an imperative causation between feminists‘ failure to meet intersectional expectations and their retreat to individualized feminism. The development of feminist strategies is a complex matter and influenced by a multitude of factors (e.g. the goals and aims of feminist campaigns, the infrastructure available to feminist collectives and networks, etc.). Moreover, since this article focused on young feminists, further analyses might investigate if perspectives and strategies of older generations are significantly different. Falcón and Nash (2015), for instances, have already advocated for a dialogue between intersectional and transnational feminism in order to overcome neoliberal side-effects — such as individualization — that erode and disable intersectionality theory.
I expect young women like my participants to happily engage in collective forms of mobilization given that intersectional expectations abate to induce anxieties and fear of failure. That is not to say young women should be relieved from their responsibility to address women’s differences and I do not advocate for waiving discussions of relative privilege. But, possibly, white women’s ideals of inclusivity may need to be questioned and adjusted by strategies of mutual support that do not insist on diverse collectives and groups. Also, new narratives about solidarity and collectivity among women need to leave more room for failure in the way forward.
Also: Die auf der Unterdrückungsskala mehr privilegierten Feministinnen haben den in dieser Hinsicht weniger privilegierten Feministinnen wenig Raum gegeben und diese haben das Gefühl gehabt, nicht mehr dazu zu gehören und haben eher ihre eigene Sicht entwickelt.
Wie so etwas aussieht war ja neulich schon einmal in der Besprechung eines Artikels einer Feministin deutlich geworden:
Das Kommentariat auf Rebellmarkt und auch eine Diskussion von zwei Netzfeministinnen* über die Hierarchie von Opfern gesellschaftlicher Unterdrückung (die ich zufällig mitbekam) haben mich an unangenehme Zeiten erinnert. Zeiten, in denen ich einmal einer schwarzen, dicken, lesbischen, behinderten** Frau entnervt schrieb: „Wenn Du jetzt auch noch jüdisch wärest, hättest Du die Oppression-Olympics endlich gewonnen.“
Das ist wohl genau das Gefühl der Studie.
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