CHAPTER 5Inclusion at the Intersections
A colleague of mine named Diya was being interviewed about a network she had founded that supports women of color.1 “Why is it important for women of color to have a community just for themselves?” the interviewer asked. “Are your experiences that different?”
In response, she shared an incident that had happened while picking up her mother from the airport. Diya had met her mother at baggage claim to help with her luggage. As they were crossing the garage to Diya's car, a white woman tapped her on the shoulder, stopped them, and asked what their daily rate was. Diya and her mom stared back, not sure what she was asking.
“For cleaning. Do you do house cleaning?”
Diya asked the woman what made her think they cleaned houses. The woman stammered and walked away.
It wasn't the first time this had happened to her.
Diya doesn't experience life only as a woman or only as an Indian. She lives at the intersection of those two identities. In addition to facing the barriers of her gender and the barriers of her race, she faces barriers that only surface when these two intersect. As a white woman, I will never be mistaken for a house cleaner. I'm fairly sure Indian men are not often mistaken for house cleaners, either.
Frameless
Intersectionality has made its linguistic way out of academia and into the mainstream. When Columbia Law School Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term 30 years ago, it was within an obscure legal context. Now, her TED ...
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