Rethinking Intersectionality

It came about by just giving the Wikipedia page on Intersectionality a quick squizz. Often these pages have some illustrative image in the upper right hand corner, and Intersectionality has this:

By RupertMillard - Own work by uploader - "I made this in Inkscape from my own recollection of Venn's construction, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6034493"

And it was clarifying: Add more ellipses and the center will approach the individual. Maths is not my forte, and last time I wrote about Intersectionality I was trying to write it into nested logic statements. 

First of all, I've always liked intersectionality as a legal argument. Nothing changes there. But looking at this elliptical Venn diagram crushed my mind grapes into inspirational wine. 

It reminds me of antidifferentiation, or differentiation (Maths, again - is not my forte) where you get some linear curve, and you pick a point and draw a tangent and then calculate the rise-over-run of that tangent, then you pick another point and repeat. Again and again and again and then you fit those data points to a new equation (or something). But then your teacher just teaches you the mechanical trick of differentiation - take the power and multiply the coefficient by that while subtracting one power, such that x^2 + 2x - 7 can be differentiated into 2x + 2, and likewise for antidifferentiation where for reasons I forget you might want to know the area under a graph so you'd draw a bunch of bar graphs in smaller and smaller x-axis increments so as to approach a more accurate survey of the area below a curve until you do away with the mechanical method and just learn that that anti-differential of 2x + 2 will become x^2 + 2x + c the unknowable constant.

Intersectionality I thought, could be thought of as an incremental mechanical approach at moving from a group identity to an individual identity. Intersectionality can occupy any level of resolution between some all encompassing group identity and an individual. 

Like (anti)differentiation, the smaller the increments you can break down group identities into more specific/complex identities - one could simply skip this mechanical manual breakdown and skip to what intersectionality ultimately approaches - individuals.

But by my guesstimate, at the level of individuals the intuition is that discrimination is fine - who to be friends with, lovers, which of your kids is your favorite... 

It may be controversial, I don't know, but my presumption is that when it comes to a domain like dating, someone can be, not as prejudiced as they may like - like broadcasting their prejudices - but basically if somebody doesn't want to date someone on the basis of their membership to a group identity or any combination thereof, then fine. 

Ostensibly, in a world of infinite resource, I would philosophically have no problem with an employer, a capitalist doing a Ken Hamm and making all employees sign some 'statement of faith' for the Ark Encounter should they wish, same for some preppy douche who just wants to work with preppy douches etc. Alas, the world has finite resources and practically speaking monopolies exist, and competition tends toward monopolistic* with the 'first, second or exit' rule being generally applicable. If employers discriminate we may all have the means to set up our own lemonade stand, but not observatory, archeology museum, international airport, university, casino, club, bar, pharmaceutical manufacturer, logistical company, warehouse, open cut mining site etc. In which case, people presiding over monopolies need to have their prejudices regulated, through equal opportunity employer type codes or possibly even affirmative action, maybe even quotas if the advertised position requires no competencies for predictable reliable performance.

*(facebook has roughly 1.8 Billion daily users as at writing, twitter reports 187 million 'monetizable daily users' but used to report 330 million, flavor of the bi-annum tiktok has 12.6 million daily users, indicating in the market of social media platforms, few consumers are demanding new platforms to jump onto. People in general appear to be piranha plants, not Mario bros.) 

My first post on intersectionality was primarily concerned with it as a strategy for bringing about change, this sentence in particular, sums up my reservations:

this felt like standing on the ramparts looking at an army charging my gates with a battering ram, only to see another army, or another unit of the same army come and attack the troops carrying the battering ram.

And... I still feel ultimately that I have that reservation. What I don't have, as I tried to make clear, is skin in the game. 

I would say I am only affected by class issues: job security, wealth inequality, rentiers, immigration, monopolistic competition, social security, automation, climate change, education, cancel culture etc.

Of course, I will have multiple group identities outside of the class I belong in. I just don't believe any of the others to be an 'oppressed group' so presumably where my other identities intersect with my class, it makes my class struggle easier. I haven't investigated.

As I've seen Chomsky describe capitalism and I'll have to paraphrase here from memory 'Capitalism is good at giving you a choice between a Ford and a GM, what it isn't good at is giving you a choice between a car and a train.' [paraphrased]

I like this quote, because it gives market based examples of times when I want to be treated as an individual - (personal transportation, albeit for me, having a choice between bicycle manufacturers, shoes) - and times where I want to be treated as a group - (public transport).

Now, allow me to present an argument from incredulity - I can think of cases where political action can be taken by many people on behalf of the individuals - Universal declaration of human rights, Constitutional protections, Presumption of Innocence, Burden of Proof, Due Process, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Association, Freedom of Expression, Voting Rights etc. 

I can also  think of cases where political action can be taken by many people on behalf of a group - Abolition, Unionization, collective bargaining, women's suffrage, equal opportunity employment, affirmative action, universal suffrage, civil rights, native title, marriage equality, bodily autonomy, disability access etc.

And there are strange departures in group action as well, for example - with collective bargaining, and perhaps minimum wage, the point is not to be treated as an individual because that dumps me as an individual into a massive prisoners dilemma so I wish to be deindividuated such that a willing to bid down the price of my own labor (wages) is a dimension of competition for a job position. 

By contrast, with issues around racism (redlining, employment discrimination etc.) the action is that I as an individual be treated as an individual rather than presumed to be a negative stereotype of my group identity. 

Anyway, where the incredulity comes in, is trying to think of an example where one can neither have a problem addressed as an individual nor as a group, but some mid-resolution needs to be built in:

In her work, Crenshaw discusses Black feminism, arguing that the experience of being a black woman cannot be understood in terms independent of either being black or a woman. Rather, it must include interactions between the two identities, which, she adds, should frequently reinforce one another.[35]

For example, the original example I derived from Crenshaw's TED talk was a legal case where black women applied for a job at a firm that employed black men, and white women, and the judge found that the employer did not discriminate against them because they employed across race lines, and across gender lines, and the argument that carried the day was that these women were at the intersection of race & gender discrimination.

Crenshaw often refers to the case DeGraffenreid v. General Motors as an inspiration in writing, interviews, and lectures. In DeGraffenreid v. General Motors, Emma Degraffenreid and four other African-American women argued they were receiving compound discrimination excluding them from employment opportunities. They contended that although women were eligible for office and secretarial jobs, in practice such positions only were offered to white women, barring African-American women from seeking employment in the company. The courts weighed the allegations of race and gender discrimination separately, finding that the employment of African-American male factory workers disproved racial discrimination, and the employment of white female office workers disproved gender discrimination. The court declined to consider compound discrimination, and dismissed the case.[3]

 The metaphor is an intersection, but is it necessary to jump down a level from group advocacy, towards individual advocacy?

Internal to the firm there was clearly racial and gender segregation - one race (or more) couldn't work in the front of house, and one gender couldn't work in the back of house. 

Thinking on my feet, and out-loud, I can imagine an issue such as representation on Fortune 500 Boards or C-suite positions where if we assume women are statistically under-represented (less than 50%, say 30%) and an ethnic minority is also statistically under-represented, say Slavs make up 20% of the population but only 6% of board positions. Therefore, Slavic woman should be making up 10% of board membership in a representative world, but don't *even* constitute 2% of board positions in the actual present.

Even so, the two broadest group identities - the Slavic identity and the Gender identity - don't appear to combine into something 'independent of either' unless the implication is that the Slavic group is more sexist than the baseline - there is an ethnic difference in sexism - or a gender difference in racism... i.e. if the discrimination compounds rather than merely sums as you add group identities to the intersection... it suggests that the dominant class is 'most benevolent' in terms of their tolerance of diversity... and I don't like the conclusions where that leads because it's either a racist or sexist conclusion (minority x is even more sexist than the majority, women are even more racist than men), it's not intuitive and I have only seen prose from Crenshaw, not data and statistics. (please note, I've read none of her papers just her quotations pages) However since 2015 the Washington Post has been tracking statistics on Police Violence and there's a write up here.

It's hard to parse for a number of reasons, but in the case of police shootings, it is hard to blame the victims (ie. intragroup discrimination) since the police have to do the shooting. In which case, back to the General Motors example - it appears upon my reading that one can use 'compounding' or 'intersecting' discrimination, however it would appear equally valid that General Motors had internal segregations going on - for example - if Black men won the right to hold office careers and get off the factory floor, or Women won the right to work on the factory floor, there would perhaps not be grounds to refuse to hire black women. 

The court published its opinions in 1976, thus it strains my credulity that GM was neither racist nor sexist but only intersectionally racist and sexist. The court too for that matter.

And if the high level group identity of race or sex are not the appropriate prism, why not the individual? As in moving to a position where nothing about the individual is relevant except their qualifications. Like when orchestras audition new musicians blind, judging purely by the sound, unable to ascertain the gender, ethnicity or any other irrelevant factor to the production of sound about the person of the musician.

Recruiting is fascinating, and frankly in my opinion, too broken (resume scanning software, unadvertised hires, nepotism, cronyism, misleading job descriptions, misleading applicants, misleading referees, certifying and qualifying mills etc) or too much of a market failure (I would feel confident that less than 5% of organizations have employees that can understand and accept the good reasons why all employees were hired, promoted and hold their positions).

Police shootings, given that nobody is arguing the police are sexist when it comes to fatal shootings, and women are massively under-represented (1.5 per million since 2015 vs 33 per million for men for roughly 50/50 population split) we can presume that what drives up Black women's representation in police shootings may be a statistical proximity to Black men. 

Again I find it hard to imagine an intersectional course of action, rather than a group course of action - lowest hanging fruit would be individual action - which is to say with a view to protect individuals from police incompetence/corruption/abuse etc. are the across the board police reforms - outlawing no-knock warrants, stop hiring military vets (apparently there's a high correlation between officers who generate complaints and officers who formally patrolled active warzones), police training in grappling etc. and group identity based solutions - ending redlining, economic disparities, affirmative action, tax reform, desegregating suburbs, electoral reforms etc.  

The intersectional response is... unintelligible to me. Beyond 'raising awareness' of the intersectional category The action items are vague:

 "If you say the name, you’re prompted to learn the story, and if you know the story, then you have a broader sense of all the ways Black bodies are made vulnerable to police violence.”

and:

"#SayHerName stems from the idea that having individuals and the media say the names of Black women who have been victims of police violence will make people ask the necessary questions"

But, losing somewhat, my temper what are those necessary questions? Is the suggestion that the issue of police violence - namely excessive force, lethal force etc. with cases involving mistaken identities, unarmed civilians, mistaken addresses etc. why are the mid-resolutions necessary?

Individualist frameworks are universal, they protect the rights of all individuals eg. not to be 'collateral'...

I feel I am beginning to just circle. In light of my arguments from incredulity, I would then make the second underhanded move of shifting the burden of proof. 

that the experience of being a [intersectional identity AB] cannot be understood in terms independent of either being [A] or a [B]. Rather, it must include interactions between the two identities.

Treating the above as an affirmative claim, for which I can't prove a negative, I would say that this isn't an argument but an assertion, and specifically that intersectional frameworks being useful is not enough for example I understand only anecdotally, that Aboriginal men were able to own real property in Australia, but not Aboriginal women until the 1970s sometime such that widows often faced eviction; and I can think of analogies within universal suffrage where the vote was increasingly extended to groups with some groups occupying intersections being excluded - a strong argument for intersectionality except - these civil rights campaigns can at all times be recalibrated to be universal such that whatever legislative or policy change don't extend rights to a group, or compound group but everyone. 

Furthermore if anecdotes have any value above the statistics, then any anecdote of police failure etc. can indicate opportunities for the systems in place to break down and what then presents an opportunity for remedy regardless of the identity of the victim of police failure.

Crenshaw's papers from what I have seen appear to be speculative, (this is possibly a feature of Critical Theory) reminding me again to write something about epistemic exclusion. I know in at least one case Crenshaw published a 2006 paper that asserted that white women are the major beneficiaries of affirmative action policy, an empirical question, for which the paper cites no empirical data, and as alleged by Coleman Hughes, is not true.

All of which is to say, I remain unconvinced by the mission of intersectionality, but I would refine it to a skepticism that anything is gained through those mid-range resolutions between a singular group identity of common interests and universal rights of individuals. 

I would stand by my initial impression of intersectionality, as a way to target activist groups, with other activist groups analogous to a political wedge issue but for some reason generated internally, rather than externally. 

I find myself continually returning to 'GenderQueer : voices from beyond the sexual binary' a compelling read and specifically it's epilogue: 'Epilogue: gender rights are human rights /

Riki Wilchins.' which by my recollection argued that gender rights fall under an all encompassing umbrella of the right to self expression. Thus as a cis-het-white-male this argument was convincing that I should have solidarity with gender rights insofar as they overlap with the right of self expression which I would also have for myself. The limit of self expression is however when it comes to the obligation of others to affirm our self expression. The 'Maestro v Jerry the Great' issue.

That said Riki Wilchins has more recently published 'Gender Norms and Intersectionality: Connecting Race, Class and Gender.' and a number of books since GenderQueer, So I do not know if she herself has revised her position, though she does appear to have embraced intersectionality herself.

Regardless, I liked the original argument as the best basis for solidarity. Human rights are supposed to be enforced, for me the most promising avenue for intersectionality would be the disability intersection, because so often there are questions of physical access to be addressed and there's a cost associated, but again... as I think about it, this could be addressed across the board by the highest level group identity of 'disability'...

Anyway, I'll keep thinking so long as this keeps being a popular intuition or idea.