Dancing Around Objectification Summary
This article talks about the objectification of women in terms of race in the 1950s. One woman is a black dancer from Harlem and the other is a white dancer. They are both dehumanized because of the general sexism during the mid-twentieth century, but there is a vast difference between how the two dancers are treated. The Harlem dancer is appreciated more for her “perfect” body than her singing talents and has no authority over her audience. The Harlem dancer is noted to have a “sound of blended flutes…”, while men and women only see her as a sex symbol. The white dancer is considered to be in a higher social class than the Harlem dancer, but is still objectified in another way. The white dancer is used as an object that black teenagers can’t ever obtain. The white dancer can refuse the touch of black men, but have little to no power over white men, who are a social class above her. Both dancers are objectified, but go through a different kind of torture because of racism.
Intersectionality 101 Summary
Intersectionality is the study of how the different types of discrimination are actually interrelated, instead of being independent of each other. The intersectionality theory was not a term until Kimberle Williams Crenshaw coined it when she described an instance where there were multiple types of discrimination occurring as an intersection. The types of discrimination include sexism, racism, homophobia, and religion-based bigotry. The theory of intersectionality focuses on how minorities are being seen as troublesome or inferior in western traditions and cultures. Patricia Hill Collins’ paper also makes a good point that men are also discriminated against. She states that it is important to look at the whole context of a person before making claims. Powell may be black, but he was also an upper class male who had a better social standing than many people during that time. Lastly, the Standpoint Theory is based on the fact that every person in an ethnic group goes through different life experiences, which may cause them to achieve higher economic standing, which have a large impact on their social status.
The Urgency of Intersectionality Summary
Intersectionality is extremely important to identify in today’s society. TED Talk speaker Kimberle Crenshaw started her speech with a game, which at the end, demonstrated the issue of police violence toward black people and violence toward women; more specifically, the little recognition that black women receive compared to black men when they die of police violence. This shows that women are being discriminated on sex and race, creating multiple levels of social injustice. Crenshaw created the term intersectionality in order to make her message to law makers loud and clear: that something needs to be done to get black women who were killed, more media attention like black men who have been killed.
The Bechdel Test Summary
The Bechdel test is the way women are portrayed in fiction. The test needs to meet the requirements that 2 women in the movie talk about something other than men. At first, the test was taken as a joke in a comic. Later on in 2010, the saying became more of a common phrase and a “standard for which feminist critics judge television, movies, books, and other media”. The test made up for something that was missing in movie culture: giving female characters more depth and a backstory. Since then, there have been additions to the Bechdel test, such as females must talk for at least 60 seconds. The Bechdel test brought awareness to feminism in the movie industry since its introduction in 1985.
Respond/Connect
Reading these articles and watching the TED Talk really opened my eyes to real life intersectionality. I agree with Kimberle Crenshaw that the news that only black men have been killed are talked about and many black women are not mentioned. I was surprised while I was learning about intersectionality from Crenshaw because I thought I was pretty caught up with the major news these days. This made me more interested in learning about the forgotten stories of black women who have been killed. The theory of intersectionality is similar to the Egg and Sperm reading from last week. Both bring up the point that males have always been seen as superior to women and action needs to be taken to fix this issue.
Question
Can intersectionality ever be stopped in a way that makes everyone happy?