The Unknowing Intersectional Feminist

I was really lucky to have my good (and insanely talented) friend Mary Fagot, share some of her latest work for Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture with me, where I was introduced to the true meaning of intersectional feminism (watch video now, please).

In it’s simplest form, it is the intersection of overlapping identities (race, class, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation) that one can experience oppression and discrimination in different forms.

I wanted to tell the story from the vantage point of my intersection, because I don’t think enough understand it enough to truly own up to it — I certainly did not. To preface, I BY NO MEANS put myself in even a close quadrant to the women in this video — Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Angela Davis, Anna Julia Cooper— these are TRULY women who fought oppression and discrimination in its most unwaveringly blatant and hurtful forms. And rose up and fought, so women like myself, could have the opportunity to be successful, and more importantly, continue to speak out.

I’m a female, woman of color, with a Muslim last name, first generation immigrant AND Canadian/American. A few intersections all made painfully clear with this presidency. The rub is, I’ve got a relative degree of success, pay a fair amount of taxes and I stand in leadership in my organization and I hope, industry at large. This role means I have privilege on my side on many fronts (I was certainly not born into privilege, so I know what I’ve got…) but do I still feel the effects of institutional racism, sexism and anti-immigrant sentiment? Oh hell yes. Do I actually have the fortune to be able to fight against it? Best believe it.

Then there’s the job I do — as an advertising / creative-ish person. People would expect me to be a lawyer, engineer or doctor before Chief Strategy Officer at a creative agency (just ask my parents). I speak the language of pop culture and I’m very comfortable in the language of business and corporate America. My job itself is a strange intersection of opposing factors as well. Maybe I just relish in dichotomy? Probably.

Now, how do these intersections manifest in daily living and interactions. Well, every single day I put my big girl underpants on and need to prove myself all over again. Prove why I’ve been put in charge of things. Prove why I know my job inside and out (I certainly don’t know everything, but I know a few things quite well). Prove my work ethic, my education, my experience, ultimately myself as a effing human being. It’s constantly needing to earn respect, get people to look me in the eye when they speak to me, get them to fight the temptation to look at their phones when I’m presenting, and for me to have the gumption to tell the guy in the room to get his goddamn feet off the table when others are speaking. If my short little legs were just a tad bit longer, maybe they’d be on the bloody table too.

It’s hard because I can never quite pinpoint where the discrimination is coming from. The number of times I see people look around for the “one in charge” when I walk in to run a meeting is comical. But why is it?

A) is it the color of my skin?

B) is it the fact I’m female and own my femininity (I wear whatever the hell I feel like it — sequined combat boots to gold pants to kimonos)

C) is it that my name is hard to pronounce and therefore an indicator that I’m NOT FROM HERE and maybe from one of those “scary” countries?

D) is it that I’m Canadian?!?! (you can only really tell when I’m either forced to be incredibly nice or say the word “house”)

So far, D seems the least likely (we’re so nice, who doesn’t like Canadians? Justin Trudeau!)

But I feel it more pronounced today than I ever have. When people are being openly hated on and discriminated against in pretty public quarters and feel emboldened to be whoever they want to be — racist / sexist / agist / ALL the awful things- as they want. I find myself asking which part of my identity do I have to fight for most today? My race? My gender? My status as an immigrant? My religious background? Today, it can easily be all of the above. Obviously I’m not the only one, but speaking from this perspective, we’re constantly being pulled apart on which axis of“different” is most oppressed on any given day. What a terrible thing to have to think about. MILLIONS of women are dealing with this every day.

There are EXTRAORDINARY women sitting in the role of the strong intersectional feminist — activists, politicians and yes, even celebrities. But how do we start to engage a conversation around this? Feminism has been hotly debated in the past 6 months — the argument being feminism in its classic form is in fact, a practice primarily rooted in the experience of Caucasian women. Hence the value of a term / understanding like intersectional feminism. But rather than pull apart, how do we push together? How can we harness the energies of the “people of the intersection” to actually make change in our society / government and culture at large?

Acknowledging the existence is the first, powerful step, but what happens next? Do we take back the POWER in the intersection? Because I firmly believe that there is power in the intersection of different. If there is a way for us to use what we learn in our various intersections to turn society on it’s head, maybe real change could happen.