Intersectionality is terrible in practice, but the theory its based on isnt bad

Askefyr · 2024-03-06T23:43:10+00:00

I don't think anyone earnestly disagrees with the concept of intersectionality as just that - the idea that you can be marginalised in different ways, and that you may be in multiple different ways. Being a black gay man and being a white gay man is different, so you can't chalk it all up to being gay.

The way I see it, there are two main problems:

1) a lot of spaces, especially more left leaning ones unfortunately, use it as a kind of scoreboard where the person who's the most oppressed is the person who is the most "right." In an attempt to equalise, you end up just inverting the same power structure - but powerlessness is power here, so everyone's fighting to be at the bottom. It's a strange kind of overt, leaned helplessness.

2) "Privilege" discourse needs to start being better at divorcing individual conditions with systemic ones. For some reason, it's a hot take to say that two things can be true - men have, on average, a higher income, but that does not mean that a single given man has a high income. All tuna can be fish without every fish being tuna.

When we tell people who feel disenfranchised that actually they're the lucky ones and they have it easy, it comes off as disingenuous.

StandardFaire · 2024-03-07T03:22:59+00:00

Doesn’t matter to me how technically sound the theory is; in practice it usually ends up as a “point system” that ironically turns people into objects and commodities, and gives some people more “value” than others. Ask five different people who practice intersectionality whether a black man has it worse than a white woman, and you’ll get eight different answers.

Karl_Dell · 2024-03-07T00:04:04+00:00

The theory of intersectionality makes a hell of a lot more sense than the practice because the theory takes economic class into consideration. But when people put it into practice, they completely ignore economics. People who ‘practice’ intersectionality operate under the insane assumption that material conditions have nothing to do with social standing.

According to how intersectionality is practiced, a poor unemployed veteran with PTSD is seen as the oppressor if it’s he’s a straight white male. At the same time, a wealthy tenured professor can own a million dollar house and write articles claiming to be oppressed because she’s a black lesbian, and nobody bats an eye. That’s intersectionality in practice.

ApplePudding1972 · 2024-03-07T01:59:38+00:00

The problem with intersectionality is that it pretends that oppression is a one way street and that so called "majority" groups can't be oppressed due to their majority group status. Even going beyond just sex, there are ways that being seen as part of the White race or being straight can cause oppression. As an example, during WW1 and WW2 White American men were more likely to be forced into combat roles due to fears of arming the black population and because black men were seen as being less effective fighters.

Leinadro · 2024-03-07T01:56:55+00:00

I agree. Intersectionality is a tool meant to get people to look at the fact that different identities can affect someone's experiences. However most people use it to establish a hierarchy of Who Has It Worse.

LuciferLondonderry · 2024-03-06T23:26:02+00:00

The theory 'intersectionality' is based on is a terrible theory because it is such an oversimplification that it bears no useful relation to reality.

The idea that all members of a group always oppress all other members of another group is ludicrous. The idea that this simple power dynamic is the most important aspect of interpersonal relationships is even more ludicrous.

Being a gay man is a great example. 'Intersectionality' postulates that as a gay person you are always oppressed by straight people. But come and visit Oxford Street in Sydney during the Gay Mardigras. You won't be oppressed at all. Visit on another night and you may or may not be oppressed . Travel 50 kilometres (that's 3 cigarettes and a squirrel for US readers) to the West and you may well get oppressed. Travel to Iran and the dynamics change again. So date and location can dramatically change whether a straight person will oppress you or not. The individual straight person makes a difference too. Some individuals can support or oppress gay people depending what mood they are in . The reality of power dynamics is vastly, vastly more complicated than the crayons-on-a-napkin theory of 'intersectionality' allows. And that is just for 'gay'. Now do 'men' .

And to further complicate matters, non-sociopaths understand that power relationships are only a small part of life. If a straight person loves you, they are unlikely to want to oppress you. As a straight man, it is entirely possible for me to be oppressed by my gay or straight boss. A gay man could also be oppressed by another gay man. You might go into a shop and buy a coffee and neither oppress or be oppressed by the barista.

'Intersectionality' is not a bad theory because our identities have nothing to do with how we are treated. It is a bad theory because our identities are only one of millions of factors that affect how we are treated.

GodlessPerson · 2024-03-07T02:57:55+00:00

Isn't intersectionality based on standpoint theory? It's a pretty dumb theory. I do think the common oversimplification of intersectionality (ie: people are not one sided) is fine but I don't see how we need feminism for that.

AskingToFeminists · 2024-03-07T07:10:16+00:00

This was discussed about 2 years ago, and here was my answer

JJnanajuana · 2024-03-07T22:39:58+00:00

I feel like intersectionality (the functional bit with a point) is a wordy way of describing ven diagrams, while the discourse around it is using it to describe pyramids/hierarchies.

AskingToFeminists · 2024-03-07T08:02:47+00:00

The thing that annoys me with this kind of remarks is... if you go simplistic and nuanceless enough, pretty much everything can be made to sound like a good idea at the basis.

Homeopathy is just using something that triggers the symptoms in a small dosage to train the organism to fight back. That seems like a good idea, it just was taken wrong. Realistically there is merit.

Nazism is just the idea that similar people have it easier working together. That seems like a good idea, it was just taken wrong. Realistically there is merit.

Islam is just the idea that there are things we don't understand and can't control, and we should be umble before that. That seems like a good idea, it was just taken wrong. Realistically there is merit.

Communism is just the idea that sharing and cooperating is beneficial. That seems like a good idea, it was just never tried. Realistically there is merit.

You see. Strip.something of its essence and nuances enough, you can make anything sounds as if it is a good idea at the basis.

That is also how you let trajan horses in.

No. At the basis, intersectionality is a terrible idea. To.the extent that it is true, it is trivial and unnecessary, to the extent that it is not trivial, it is crap pseudoscience based in bigotry seeking to spread all.over society to take control as the new cult.

We have no need to let that in, in the slightest. Intersectionality can go fuck off all the way.

griii2 · 2024-03-07T06:14:07+00:00

For intersectionality to be meaningful, it would have to include ALL dimensions of disadvantage that a person faces in modern society. That DEI Officer position at Google is closed to 90% of people not because of their gender or race, but because of their innate mental abilities (IQ, ability to speak and write, and all the other things that make people successful in their careers). As the importance of physical strength declines, the importance of physical attractiveness increases. The average male is on average what, 25% less attractive than the average female?

Maffioze · 2024-03-07T07:25:27+00:00

The problem is not with intersectionality as a concept, the problem is that there is something awfully wrong in how most people understand privileges related to gender.

Most people who use the term "intersectionality" believe that women have it worse than men, that men are privileged relative to women and that women are a minority similar to black people. The problem with this is very simple, its empirically untrue. I don't think there is much discussion to be had about this, the problem is simply that people hold inaccurate beliefs regarding gendered privileges because they have a strong empathy bias, which they then feed into the concept of intersectionality.

The result is a corrupted version of intersectionality, which comes accross as condescending and patronizing towards men, as they are told they can only suffer because of being black, gay, ... and not because they are male. What I find especially annoying is that most of these intersectional people then act self-rightious about it and blame men for not "accepting their help" not realizing they are being extremely prejudiced.

YetAgain67 · 2024-03-07T15:36:27+00:00

Yea, that's basically the long and short of it. I don't disagree with the core concept of intersectionality at all. But the way it's been co-opted by the online left makes it an all-purpose weapon and shield for any conversation you don't want to have and any opinion you don't like.

In a turn of events surprising no one, a concept meant to explore the nuanced dynamics of how different groups of people in society overlap and differ in terms of discrimination is used to just otherize and invalidate people you don't feel have the right to speak up.

As others have already said here, people use it a scorecard, checking off boxes based off characteristics you have or don't have and invalidating you based off of that scorecard.

"You may check this box, but you don't check these ones here...so therefore like, shut up?" is basically how the online left engages in intersectionality.

They don't just use it against men. But men of color. Gay men. White women. Straight women, etc. Some demographics largely seem ignored in the wider discourse altogether, like Asian men.

"You may be a gay black man but you're not a gay black woman so therefore you intrinsically have more privilege" is literally how deep many leftists engage with this concept.

headphone-candy · 2024-03-07T21:40:39+00:00

People put identity politics ahead of class and income, and that is absurd.

Low_Rich_5436 · 2024-03-08T16:51:14+00:00

Intersectionalism is a branch of radical feminism. It can never be anything else than what it was created as. A tool for feminists to take over other social movements, black and gay especially.

Sure it is based on a hypothesis that might have merit, the idea that two reason for being marginalized might potentialize, making each other worse. That, however, has yet to be proven.

For all we know it might be the other way around and two marginalizations can partially cancel each other. They could give a person access to two specialized support networks for example. Or give them a way out of one group to the other. I could see gay immigrants having an easier time to integrate in their new country for example, provided it is gay-friendly.

Like everything from radical feminism, there never was and never will be an earnest effort to factually consider the question. It's an ideological construct, never meant to be honestly researched nor used in good faith.

BloomingBrains · 2024-03-17T08:31:32+00:00

The truth is that intersectionality does exist, but it applies more to men than women. Intersectionality could very well be a useful concept when talking about black men, for example. But the feminist lie that women have it worse than men prevents that from ever being brought up because they will always focus on black women instead .Which means black men, the group that intersectionality could actually help shine some light on, will be ignored.

Its ironic really. In jumping to claim oppression points for being women, feminists actually downplay a lot of the racial issues they claim to stand in solidarity with.

SvitlanaLeo · 2024-03-07T02:14:39+00:00

Personally, Crenshaw does not seem to deny the existence of discrimination against men. However, on the Internet, her concept has been taken to extremes by cultural feminists.

Double however, it should be remembered that when if say that men have been generally privileged in relation to women, we mean that not serving in the army is not such an important right, that the right to express femininity is not such an important right, that not being the most frequently killed in war is not such an important right, that not receiving more serious punishments for the same crimes is not such an important right.

We do not have to fall into feminist-humanist essentialism in this issue. They may be wrong about which rights are most important and which are not.

Yes, masculism looks and should look critically at the views of Eleanor Roosevelt, John Peters Humphrey and Peng Chun Chang on which human rights are primary and which are secondary.

BDT81 · 2024-03-07T03:30:45+00:00

The problem is all the things that are ignored when this comes up.

A black woman faces oppression as both an African-American and a woman but we just ignore her privilege as a straight Christian.

Blauwpetje · 2024-03-08T18:22:59+00:00

The theory as a wider concept is a truism; when narrowing it down it becomes nonsense. Either way it’s not very fruitful.

yuendeming1994 · 2024-04-08T03:51:45+00:00

I guess it is important to accept that some identities (supposed to be disadvantaged groups under contemporary PC) are underprivileged. But it turns out that they have already defined and classified each group into a ruling class and a ruled class. So intersectionality will only be used to reinforce the claim that the ruled classes are being heavily oppressed, especially if you have more than one underprivileged identity.

Foreign-League-6032 · 2025-12-25T12:02:49+00:00

If we stare too long into the darkness, it will speak into our souls.

This is what is happening with intersectionality -- those of us who have become so obsessed with how we have been oppressed or victimised are perpetual victims, doomed to never escape the darkness of our victimhood, and determined to drag others into it.

Instead, we could say:

"I have been victimised. Here is how. But I refuse to stay a victim. So show me what I need to do to escape."

Title	Intersectionality is terrible in practice, but the theory its based on isnt bad
Author	Thal-creates
Upvotes	54
Comments	47
Date	March 6, 2024 7:43 AM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/1b7u1tx/intersectionality_is_terrible_in_practice_but_the/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/intersectionality-is-terrible-in-practice-but-the.1427095 https://theredarchive.com/post/1427095

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