Intersectionality

[TopCat]

Go on, tell me what the fuck this is all about then.

 

[Idris2002]

Identity politics' equivalent of the "epicycles" in late pre-copernican Ptolemaic models of the solar system.

 

[Pickman's model]

it's people dressing things up in long words again to make themselves look clever and to baffle the uninitiated.

 

[girasol]

Intersection with an 'ality' at the end to make it sound important? I want to see this BBC Reith lecture http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03969vt

Apparently Grayson Perry talks about how art critics/commentators put 'ality' at the end of words to make it more incomprehensible, and therefore elitist.

Perry examines the words and language that have developed around art critique, including what he sees as the growing tendency to over-intellectualise the response to art. He analyses the art market and quotes - with some irony - an insider who says that certain colours sell better than others. He queries whether familiarity makes us like certain artworks more, and encourages the public to learn to appreciate different forms of art through exploration and open-mindedness.

video highlights http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01js37w

Is that what this thread is about TopCat?

 

[treelover]

isn't the whole of academia like that, tbh, I found it all a bit of emperors new clothes, take away the obtuse language and much of it was just flannel the rest being just common sense.

 

[Idris2002]

it's people dressing things up in long words again to make themselves look clever and to baffle the uninitiated.

He says this as if it's a bad thing.

 

[TopCat]

I am still baffled. Can anyone put forward some examples of intersectionality in action or describe some of it's proponents?

 

[Pickman's model]

I am still baffled. Can anyone put forward some examples of intersectionality in action or describe some of it's proponents?

i think we can all describe some of its proponents, but i don't believe you want this thread to swiftly ascend to the gutter.

 

[JimW]

I've not really got my head round it either but AFAICT it was identity politics' response to early criticism that showed the various glaring holes in its model of oppression due to a lack of class analysis/structural understanding.

 

[Fez909]

Intersectionality in action consists solely of checking your privilege. There's a big thread on this in theory where I tried to find out how it could be used and there weren't very many suggestions.

It's a distraction.

 

[chilango]

It seems to be a mechanism where private school/Oxbridge educated social media "activists" can tell the oiks to shut up on twitter.

 

[TruXta]

http://www.intersektionalitet.org/en/what-is-intersectionality-3/
http://www.dailydot.com/society/helen-lewis-intersectionality-bullying-feminism/

 

[Belushi]

It's kind of like top trumps.

 

[Idris2002]

Also developed in an American context (where it didn't exactly achieve any stunning victories for progressive social forces) and therefore of questionable relevance to other contexts.

 

[Pickman's model]

It seems to a mechanism where private school/Oxbridge educated social media "activists" can tell the oiks to shut up on twitter.

^^ answer of the thread

 

[butchersapron]

I am still baffled. Can anyone put forward some examples of intersectionality in action or describe some of it's proponents?

It's not a thing to pout into action as such , it's a way of looking at the world and then deciding what needs doing. It effectively says that there are oppressed people ad power structures that oppress them. These various oppressions intersect and you score more points the more oppressions you have. It's essentially posh peoples way of saying i'm oppressed too! It undermines anti-racism and similar by making it into an individual power-play and tactic to shut up other people. Examples would be be laurie penny publicly accusing people here/the iwca of being racist for not buying her shit.

 

[TopCat]

i think we can all describe some of its proponents, but i don't believe you want this thread to swiftly ascend to the gutter.

Go on, what's the worst that could happen.

 

[butchersapron]

It seems to be a mechanism where private school/Oxbridge educated social media "activists" can tell the oiks to shut up on twitter.

Yep, it's the middle class taking ownership/enclosing of anti-racism and other such basic stuff.

 

[TopCat]

It's not a thing to pout into action as such , it's a way of looking at the world and then deciding what needs doing. It effectively says that there are oppressed people ad power structures that oppress them. These various oppressions intersect and you score more points the more oppressions you have. It's essentially posh peoples way of saying i'm oppressed too! It undermines anti-racism and similar by making it into an individual power-play and tactic to shut up other people. Examples would be be laurie penny publicly accusing people here/the iwca of being racist for not buying her shit.

You said "pout". was that deliberate?

 

[Pickman's model]

Go on, what's the worst that could happen.

 

[butchersapron]

You said "pout". was that deliberate?

I wish it was

 

[TopCat]

So the people who were chanting "kill all men" were quite posh?

 

[weepiper]

http://proletariandemocracy.wordpre...he-intersectionalising-new-card-game-from-pd/

 

[Pickman's model]

So the people who were chanting "kill all men" were quite posh?

without a doubt

 

[Wilf]

My understanding of it is as something that emrged primarily within feminist debates, with a bit of Foucault in there (matrix of oppression). Assuming this comes out of the bookfair thread (which I wasn't at), was it being specifically applied to anarchism in one of the meetings? Second cousin to Tod May?

 

[JimW]

So what "intersects" seems to be a series of sort of free-floating identities (going off one of Truxta's links) set up as simple dichotomies of "normal" and "other". That seems even more weak sauce than I thought it was and fits that Top Trumps model someone mentioned above. Or is there a body of turgid historical analysis explaining how all this came to pass?

 

[Pickman's model]

So what "intersects" seems to be a series of sort of free-floating identities (going off one of Truxta's links) set up as simple dichotomies of "normal" and "other". That seems even more weak sauce than I thought it was and fits that Top Trumps model someone mentioned above. Or is there a body of turgid historical analysis explaining how all this came to pass?

no

 

[Fozzie Bear]

This is what intersectionalists think they are trying to do:

 

[butchersapron]

So what "intersects" seems to be a series of sort of free-floating identities (going off one of Truxta's links) set up as simple dichotomies of "normal" and "other". That seems even more weak sauce than I thought it was and fits that Top Trumps model someone mentioned above. Or is there a body of turgid historical analysis explaining how all this came to pass?

Have a read of the book on the sojouner truth organisastion - it's interesting in how this came out of the marginalisation of working class women by feminism in the 70s (albeit mediated through university radicals having to explain it back to the women). It effectively steals these struggles and makes them into the property of uni-educated poshoes. It's pretty turgid going too.

 

[Pickman's model]

This is what intersectionalists think they are trying to do:

it's worse than comic sans