Intersectionality in Feminist and Queer Movements

Confronting Privileges

Elizabeth Evans, Eléonore Lépinard, Elizabeth Evans, Eléonore Lépinard

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000747409
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Femminismo e teoria femminista

Examining the ways in which feminist and queer activists confront privilege through the use of intersectionality, this edited collection presents empirical case studies from around the world to consider how intersectionality has been taken up (or indeed contested) by activists in order to expose and resist privilege.

The volume sets out three key ways in which intersectionality operates within feminist and queer movements: it is used as a collective identity, as a strategy for forming coalitions, and as a repertoire for inclusivity. The case studies presented in this book then evaluate the extent to which some, or all, of these types of intersectional activism are used to confront manifestations of privilege. Drawing upon a wide range of cases from across time and space, this volume explores the difficulties with which activists often grapple when it comes to translating the desire for intersectionality into a praxis which confronts privilege.

Addressing inter-related and politically relevant questions concerning how we apply and theorise intersectionality in our studies of feminist and queer movements, this timely edited collection will be of interest to students and scholars from across the social sciences and humanities with an interest in gender and feminism, LGBT+ and queer studies, and social movement studies.

Section two Thinking through differences in feminist and queer movements

Chapter 7 Disability and intersectionality

Patterns of ableism in the women's movement¹

DOI: 10.4324/9780429289859-10

Elizabeth Evans

Introduction

Intersectionality provides a critical tool for understanding how difference affects women’s lives (Crenshaw 1991; Combahee River Collective 1982). Offering a framework for theorising oppression and marginalisation, intersectionality enables us to identify structural intersections within power dynamics, whilst acknowledging individual experiences of difference (Collins and Bilge 2016). Intersectionality can also be considered a social movement strategy (Verloo 2013), albeit one that raises various challenges for activists (Laperrière and Lépinard 2016). Exploring how, when, and where social movement actors choose to engage with intersectionality and the politics of privilege can reveal patterns of marginalisation, conflict, and/or cooperation (Evans and Lépinard, this volume). Whilst women’s movement actors have increasingly sought to engage with intersectional politics, the emphasis has remained focused upon the three ‘original’ signifiers: gender, race, and class (Erevelles 2011).

It has been over 20 years since scholars such as Nasa Begum (1992) and Jenny Morris (1996) explored the intersections between disability, race, gender, and feminism in the UK, revealing the numerous ways in which disabled women² were marginalised and excluded from political debate and participation – both within the disability rights movement but also from within the women’s movement. Morris observed that a women’s movement which included the issues and interests of disabled women would require a radical rethink of feminist ‘terms of analysis’ (1996, p. 7); arguing that including the experiences and perspectives of disabled women would result in a more explicit feminist resistance to oppression. Incorporating disabled women’s varied epistemologies would provide a more meaningful engagement with the politics of difference and would necessitate a critical engagement with able-bodied and able-minded privilege.

Despite being a well-known social and political category of difference, disability receives little attention from scholars, or activists, looking to explore inter or intra-movement intersectional politics (Garland-Thomson 2005; Erevelles 2011). Drawing on feminist disability scholarship, and in particular theoretical work on ableism, this chapter explores how, when and where disability features within the UK women’s movement. Based upon original empirical research undertaken with disabled women activists and two high-profile women’s organisations, the chapter reveals that whilst the women’s movement is in some respects attempting to adopt an intersectional framework in order to become more inclusive of disabled women (Evans and Lépinard, this volume), in particular through attempts to adopt a pedagogical approach to intersectionality, which incorporates disability, disabled women feel that the movement is inherently ableist.

The research raises wider questions for social movement scholars regarding the ways in which we analyse, understand, and classify intersectional praxis. By comparing different types of feminist organisation, the study reveals that discursive commitments to intersectionality are not always sufficient to address ableist politics or able-bodied/able-minded privilege. The research identifies three key critiques that disabled women activists make with regards the wider women’s movement: (1) it is ignorant with regards disability; (2) that where disabled women are included this is simply tokenistic; and (3) that there is a failure to engage reflexively on organising strategies and accessibility. The chapter begins by reviewing some of the key ideas within critical and feminist disability scholarship, paying particular attention to the concept of ableism; the chapter then briefly sets out the methodology employed, before presenting and analysing the empirical data.

Disability, feminist disability, and ableism

It is difficult (and arguably undesirable) to offer a precise definition of disability, given its discursive, juridical, and political fluidity. Although all identity markers are open to contestation (Marx Ferree 2009), approaches to disability in particular have been characterised by conflicting, contradictory, and overlapping definitions and models (Davis 2013). Historic and contemporary medical-scientific approaches have established discursive frameworks and classificatory systems, which in turn have exerted social control over the minds and bodies of disabled people (Tremain 2015). In these analyses, disability is posited as an individual problem to which a solution must be found. In UK law, a disability is considered a ‘physical or mental impairment’ that ‘has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on [a person’s] ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities’ (Equality Act 2010). Such an individualist account of impairment negates the role of society in creating and sustaining disabilities and in particular the historical and material context within which disability/ies are produced.

Disability

The social model of disability rejects an individualist or medical-based approach to disability (Oliver 1983) and has had a profound impact on the UK disability rights movement. The social model describes how society disables people. Instead of focusing on ways to treat, cure, or manage an individual’s disability/ies, the emphasis is on changing society so as not to disable people. The most obvious example is that of wheelchair users, who might be impaired but not disabled in a world in which everyone used a wheelchair and no one built stairs (Siebers 2006, p. 12). Proponents of the social model argue that it facilitates activism because it calls for a unified community of disabled people (Shakespeare 1993). The social model analyses the obstacles that prevent equality and perpetuate cultural discrimination (Morris 2001), whilst emphasising the fluid nature of disability; as Tobin Siebers observes, ‘the nature of disability is such that every human being may be considered temporarily able-bodied’ (2006, p. 11).

Feminist disability

Whilst feminist disability scholars have had sympathy with the social model, they have also critiqued its failure to adequately incorporate gender into its analysis (Wendell 1989; Lloyd 1992). Creating a unified disability rights movement is at the core of the social model approach, rendering attempts to adopt an intersectional approach contentious (Vernon 1999). Accordingly, feminist disability scholars have played an important role in revealing the intersections between gender and disability (see Fawcett 2018 for an overview). Drawing on Foucault, writers have identified the historic links between the treatment of women and disabled people in paternalist capitalist systems (Miles 1988), in which medical professionals have sought to eliminate or discipline women’s bodies (Sherwin 1992). Disabled women, especially migrant women, deemed biologically inferior to non-disabled women, have had their reproductive rights curtailed, for instance through enforced sterilisation, and they are at increased risk of having their children removed from their care (Silvers 2007). Whilst feminist disability scholars have brought a gendered lens to disability, they have also raised contentious questions for the wider feminist movement, particularly regarding care³ and reproductive rights.⁴ Observing that these ‘difficult’ issues are too often overlooked by feminist activists, Lloyd argues that disabled women struggling to ‘locate themselves within organizations whose theoretical and ideological base is for them inadequate or partial’ (1992, p. 218).

For those interested in pursuing an intersectional analysis, a materialist feminist account of disability offers a useful analytical framework. Such an approach delineates the ways in which bodies and minds not only matter to understanding disability politics, but are constituted along gendered, racialised and classed lines, called into being by capitalist systems (Inckle 2015; Erevelles 2011). Building on this, Price develops the concept of the ‘bodymind,’ which she defines as ‘socio-politically constituted and material entity that emerges through both structural (power- and violence-laden) contexts and also individual (specific) experience’ (2015, p. 271). The theoretical links to intersectionality are clear: the interconnectedness between body and mind and the subsequent effects of impairment on the lived experiences of gendered, racialised, classed, nationalised disabled people have material consequences that require political attention and action. Indeed, ‘disabling attitudes, stereotypes and policies’ all but guarantee that disabled people remain amongst the most economically disadvantaged in society (Vernon 1999, p. 388). In order to theorise such a material context, scholars and activists have developed the concept of ‘ableism’ to refer to a set of beliefs and attitudes that privilege the able-bodied/able-minded.

Ableism

Ableist ideology infuses our institutions and social relations (Chouinard 1997), revealing itself in the belief that a disabled person is not only defined by their disability but that they are essentially inferior to non-disabled people (Ho 2008); as such, disabled people occupy an abject or ‘diminished’ position in society (Campbell 2001, p. 44). The drive for ‘compulsory able-bodiedness’ (McRuer 2013) has led to both the pathologisation of disability, and conterminously, to a practice wherein disability is ‘unthought,’ a process by which disabled people constitute spectral visions at the peripheries of society (Campbell 2009). Despite the pervasive nature of ableism, Linton suggests that there is little consensus regarding the specific behaviours or discourse that might be deemed ableist, because ‘the nature of the oppression of disabled people is not yet as widely understood’ (2006, p. 161). Thus, ableism is underpinned by a pervasive able-bodied/able-minded privilege.

For disability rights activists, ableism is analogous to other systemic structural forms of oppression, such as sexism, racism, or homophobia. Whilst ableism has been a particularly useful means by which to name the oppression of disabled people, it is also true that unlike other structural forms of oppression it has not had a significant purchase within wider society (Goodley 2014). The material effects of ableism are such that there is an effective ‘removal and/or erasure of disability’ in spaces that claim an inclusive agenda, requiring disabled people to assimilate in order to be included (Erevelles 2011, p. 33). For social movements, able-bodied/ able-minded privilege can therefore be identified where little thought has been given to issues of accessibility either with respect to discourse, campaigns, or the range of tactical repertoires adopted.

Such privilege also manifests itself in the default assumption that the object, and subject, of analysis is based upon the experiences and abilities of non-disabled people (Goodley 2014). Even when non-disabled people are the subject of political inquiry, there is typically a failure to recognise the varied forms of ableism, for instance biological-based ableism or cognitive-based ableism (Wolbring 2008), which results in a stereotypical idea of what constitutes a disabled person. For social movement activists, a failure to address either the exclusion or the homogenisation of disabled people will reinforce ableist logic (Inckle 2015). Drawing upon ideas of ableism, this research explores these themes with regards to the inclusion of disabled women and disability-related issues in the UK women’s movement; in so doing the research reveals the wider need for social movement actors to challenge privilege framed by ableism.

Methods

Analysis of intersectionality within social movement activism typically involves close study of specific groups and campaigns, in order to identify the extent to which different types of organisation, and organising, are more conducive or resistant to intersectional frameworks (see Bonane, this volume; David, this volume; Labelle, this volume). This research evaluates how disabled women and their issues and interests are included within the UK movement, specifically through analysis of three key groups: Fawcett Society, Sisters Uncut, and disabled women’s collective Sisters of Frida.

Fawcett Society, the largest women’s civil society organisation in the UK, was established in the mid-19th century to campaign for women’s rights. Fawcett is a membership organisation which undertakes national high-profile campaigns as well as organising around the country in local groups. Fawcett can broadly be defined as a liberal feminist organisation, seeking to work through official political channels to effect change. Whilst critics have identified a lack of radicalism, it has at times sought to strike a more defiant tone; for example, it sued the government for failing to take account of gender in its austerity measures. The organisation is viewed by some (especially younger) feminists as part of the establishment (Evans 2015), which at times seems at odds with an increasingly radical and queer (Chamberlain 2017) UK women’s movement. The research draws upon analysis of the organisation’s policy documents and briefs, campaigns, and qualitative data gathered from those involved with policymaking and events organisation.

Sisters Uncut are a grassroots direct-action group established in 2014 as an offshoot of anti-austerity group UK Uncut; they were formed by, amongst others, domestic violence survivors in order to defend women’s services from austerity (Guest 2016). Since then they have expanded and now include a number of groups across the UK. Their high-profile tactics have attracted attention for the causes that they champion; fo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• List of contributors
• Confronting privileges in feminist and queer movements
• SECTION ONE Intersectionality and social movement organising
• SECTION TWO Thinking through differences in feminist and queer movements
• Conclusion: privileges confronted?
• Index