Intersectionality does need better rationalism. I’d add that some intersectioanlity has the drawback of fighting a War On Keeping Your Identity Small, and in many cases, when activist groups dedicated to a single purpose absorb the idea of intersectionality, they rapidly assimilate into the the greater Social Justice Bloc, with all the positives and all the negatives that entails. Furthermore, intersectionality sometimes appears to stand against utilitarian strict optimization.
Yes, one thing that bothers me about social justice folks is that they sometimes sound very essentialist (“they assume a homeless white man is more privileged than Oprah Winfrey”, as I’ve seen someone put it).
They do have their explanation there. The essentialim I have noticed usually comes from radical feminism (which is often taken to mean ‘extremist feminism’ but while nearly all radical feminists are extremist, the term when used by radical feminists actually refers to a specific and rather essentialist + one sided view of gender relations).
They have a tendancy to conceptualize patriarchy as a diffuse property of society that colors everything that even slightly involves gender, and tend to be unwilling to slice it up into its component parts. They also tend to ignore how immense the possible gender-relations-space is outside patriarchy/!patriarchy.
The thing I find most frustrating is how learning about intersectionality leads to groups being assimilated by the Equality Borg. It’s almost like an infohazard for progressives.
Mostly agreed.
Intersectionality does need better rationalism. I’d add that some intersectioanlity has the drawback of fighting a War On Keeping Your Identity Small, and in many cases, when activist groups dedicated to a single purpose absorb the idea of intersectionality, they rapidly assimilate into the the greater Social Justice Bloc, with all the positives and all the negatives that entails. Furthermore, intersectionality sometimes appears to stand against utilitarian strict optimization.
Yes, one thing that bothers me about social justice folks is that they sometimes sound very essentialist (“they assume a homeless white man is more privileged than Oprah Winfrey”, as I’ve seen someone put it).
They do have their explanation there. The essentialim I have noticed usually comes from radical feminism (which is often taken to mean ‘extremist feminism’ but while nearly all radical feminists are extremist, the term when used by radical feminists actually refers to a specific and rather essentialist + one sided view of gender relations).
They have a tendancy to conceptualize patriarchy as a diffuse property of society that colors everything that even slightly involves gender, and tend to be unwilling to slice it up into its component parts. They also tend to ignore how immense the possible gender-relations-space is outside patriarchy/!patriarchy.
The thing I find most frustrating is how learning about intersectionality leads to groups being assimilated by the Equality Borg. It’s almost like an infohazard for progressives.