The Intersectionality Behind Suffragism and Feminism

Women Supporting Women and Activists Supporting Activists: A Tale as Old as Time

By Joshua Kloss, Alessandra Benetiz, and Maddie Roth

From the inception of voting rights for U.S. women to the MeToo movement that remains ongoing today, collective action and social change is a story of both challenge and hope. And, of course, one of unity; one that must prevail beyond race, class, and all other social distinctions. Especially important when analyzing and organizing successful movements is the notion of intersectionality. Kimberle Crenshaw, a legal scholar and critical race theorist, is credited with coining the term during the late eighties and early nineties, though many other scholars at the time also showed thinking that was concurrent with Crenshaw’s idea.

Crenshaw and other scholars were distressed at the state of civil rights advocacy groups, who seemed to employ a “single-axis framework,” which focused solely on “the experiences of the most privileged members of subordinate groups.” Indeed: there seemed to be a lack of, well, intersectionality. For instance, the suffrage movement of the U.S. focused foremost on the voting rights of White women, whereas the civil rights movement focused foremost on the civil rights of Black men. This left no fighting specifically for the rights of Black women. Crenshaw interpreted this through studying the interaction of Black women plaintiffs with the U.S. legal system: she found that, sometimes, they experienced discrimination in ways similar to white women or Black men. Other times, they experienced a sort of “double discrimination,” which she explained as the combined effects of discrimination on the basis of sex and on the basis of gender. Yet, other times, “they experience discrimination as Black women— not the sum of race and sex discrimination, but as Black women.”

The manifesto writings of Combahee River Collective, a group of Black feminists, are another early example of intersectionality. Their writing focused on the difficulty “to separate race from class from sex oppression… because in our lives they are most often experienced simultaneously.” Though their writings likely came years after Crenshaw originated the term, their take is not unlike Crenshaw’s, whose notion of intersectionality operated under the hypothesis that one’s personal and social statuses are felt simultaneously, and can be considered an intersection of those statuses. Further evidence of intersectionality can be found in other writings and activism of Black scholars, such as Anna Julia Cooper, who asked Black males leading in civil rights causes to include sexist discrimination faced by Black women in their agendas. According to an analysis from Elizabeth R. Cole, a cultural psychologist at the University of Michigan, the early 1980s saw a particular surge in literature that reflected intersectional approaches, specifically scholarship about race and gender by women of color. Undoubtedly, intersectionality has been an imperative approach to propelling the rights of any group, and it is one that is, unfortunately, so often overlooked when we discuss activism nowadays.

Take the suffragettes movement as an example: every single woman we learned about in classes was a white woman—looking out for white women’s interests. In fact, the way that history is often taught puts white women at the forefront of the voting rights movement, when in reality, they were not the only ones who were fighting. Black, Asian, Native American, and Latinx women were all part of the movement in ways that were instrumental to its success. Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a prominent activist and educator of the late 19th and early 20th centuries who shed light on the conditions of African Americans throughout the South, as well as focusing on educating black women. Her activism is still present through organizations she was a founder of, such as the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin spent her life defending the rights of Native American people and in 1914 was among other suffragists who met with President Wilson to urge him to support womens’ right to vote.

There are, of course, countless other suffragettes who deserve recognition. If you’re interested in learning more about overlooked suffragists, the California Commission on the Status of Women is a good place to start. Recognition is an integral part of intersectionality, and the starting point for developing ways of activism that include all.

I’d argue that the most important part of intersectional activism is to remember that we can never achieve true change unless we advocate for change for all. Just as important is the act of recognizing the apparatuses hurting marginalized communities are structural, and that the way to deconstruct them is exactly that, to abolish them— which takes a lot of community work and solidarity to achieve. Christina Sharpe explains the need for communal care better in her book In The Wake, in which she traces how the aftershocks of slavery still influence the societal relationships that hurt POC— specifically Black communities. In this book she also claims ‘wake work,’ as the way in which through art, resistance, and imagining we can work towards creating new futures in the wake of chattel slavery. Wake work calls for community care and engagement to recognize that true change is achieved through collective work, and an integral part of that is to give recognition where it’s due. The suffragettes movement, along with many other movements, have continuously erased the voices of black and POC women—but this is 2024, and we must do better. In an increasingly interconnected world, intersectional activism is not just an option anymore, it’s the only way to achieve real change.

So let’s talk about intersectional feminism! Women supporting women is one of my favorite things. And how can we do that? Why, I’m so glad you asked. To all my women out there, how many times have you judged another woman for what they’ve been wearing? Or said something behind her back? Or were rude to them for no reason other than you “don’t like them?” We all remember that scene in Mean Girls—shoutout to our Fall Bizarro issue!— where Tina Fey is a queen and all the girls realize how horrible they are to each other. With how some women are today, at least the ones I know, maybe we haven’t really strayed too far from that scene. Because we’ve all said something rude and definitely continue to; guilty as charged.

That’s exactly what we shouldn’t be doing if we want to see intersectional feminism. So many of us want to prove to this world that we are more than what society tells us to be. We are more than a pretty face. We are more than the pressure placed on us to be the smartest or most creative in the room. We are more than everything we are told to be, more than being told to compete with the other women surrounding us.

Take, for instance, Alice Paul, who played a major role in women having the right to vote in the U.S., and definitely didn’t do it alone. The 19th Amendment would not have been possible without Paul, but it also would not have been possible without countless other women who advocated for their rights. This goes to show that the most beautiful change can happen when women work together. For example, the #MeToo movement was sparked because women supported women in coming forward and being open to tell their stories. Since the movement, 24 states and the District of Columbia have passed more than 80 workplace anti-harassment bills, according to the National Women’s Law Center. Now more than ever, women are gaining the confidence to talk about their experiences and to stand up for themselves in the workplace. None of this would have happened if it wouldn’t have been for the #MeToo movement—if it wouldn’t have been for women standing by each other. So next time you feel like judging the woman sitting next to you because you don’t like the color of her shirt, think about complimenting the color of her jeans instead. After all, what’s more powerful than women when they stand together? We’re more than the sum of our parts when working together, one thing that past intersectional activism has proven time and time again—but it won’t ever be easy.