I would suggest caution with invoking intersectionality as it typically comes with some baked-in assumptions such as:
a) Each class is either privileged or oppressed, rather than some combination of both
b) Interactions consist of effects stacking—ie. if you are a member of two oppressed classes then you are doubly oppressed.
For example, the model doesn’t deal very well with the fact that Asians earn more on average than people who are white or an Asian woman may be better off in some ways than an Asian man (such as dating in a Western context).
A natural question is why not invoke intersectionality without those assumptions. My response is that it’d be an uphill battle and that if you want to have nuanced discussion about this area it’s almost certainly better to start a new language game. If someone wants to try persuading people to use current terms in a more nuanced way, then I respect the effort, I would just be surprised if it worked.
Hi Chris, I’ve responded to this somewhat in my response to Jackson above.
FWIW, I’m trying to avoid focusing on race questions here, because I think they’re pretty charged and racial equality isn’t an EA cause area in any case. Still, I think it’s worth responding to your comment that:
… the model doesn’t deal very well with the fact that Asians earn more on average than people who are white or an Asian woman may be better off in some ways than an Asian man (such as dating).
I actually think the model deals very well with this, as intersectionality would predict that being Asian + a minority + male would present a separate set of issues to being Asian + a minority + female. So fact that Asian women do better off in the dating scene is actually a pretty good example of intersectionality creating novel outcomes that might not be easily predicted by just stacking up disadvantages.
If, for some reason, discrimination against minority Asian women suddenly became an EA cause area, then people wanting to tackle the issue might do better trying tospecifically tackle ‘issues encountered by minority Asian women’ rather than just generally ‘reduce discrimination against women/minorities/Asians’.
For example, the model doesn’t deal very well with the fact that Asians earn more on average than people who are white or an Asian woman may be better off in some ways than an Asian man (such as dating).
Isn’t this only true of Asian Americans (as opposed to Asians in general)?
I just edited in “in a Western context” as I was trying to refer to the fact that I’ve seen many more white men date Asian girls than white girls date Asian men.
I think the theory of intersectionality actually does address this well, though perhaps for a different reason than John:
a) Intersectionality is explicitly about the idea that people can be both privileged and oppressed, e.g. Black men having privilege along a gender axis but oppression along a racial axis
b) Intersectionality is explicitly not about “double oppression”, it is about unique forms of oppression.
For instance, we can break down this idea that Asians earn more than white people in the US. When you consider factors like country of origin, class, and immigration status, there’s actually substantial variability in earnings; in particular, East and South Asians tend to earn more than whites, and Southeast Asians tend to earn less. (I haven’t read this study in detail, but it’s an example of this finding.) Therefore, simply categorically ignoring Asians in analyses of economic inequality would (and does) leave Southeast Asians neglected. Southeast Asians will probably not be addressed by interventions to help low-income people in general or interventions to help Asian people in general, because the causes of their suffering are different.
And it’s true that Asian women are seen as more desirable than Asian men in America, but that’s mostly because of fetishization of Asian women. As an Asian-American woman, yes, it’s nice to be able to get a Tinder date or whatever. But overall, being fetishized is rather undesirable, and sometimes involves unfortunate outcomes such as dying in a mass shooting. Addressing the emasculation of Asian men and fetishization of Asian women in American culture are two interrelated but separate problems, which is again what intersectional theory would posit.
Intersectionality is a word that has often been thrown around improperly over the years, so it’s certainly possible that these misinterpretations of the theory would hamper nuanced discussion. But it wouldn’t be due to the academic theory itself.
Intersectionality is explicitly about the idea that people can be both privileged and oppressed, e.g. Black men having privilege along a gender axis but oppression along a racial axis
Yes, but it only predicts it when you are a member of a “privileged” class and an “oppressed” class*. It doesn’t predict that being a member of two “oppressed” classes can result in an intersectional “privilege”.
And it’s true that Asian women are seen as more desirable than Asian men in America, but that’s mostly because of fetishization of Asian women.
When you examine things through the lens of intersectionality, this apparent advantage that Asian women have over Asian men has to be reframed as a disadvantage. From the social justice perspective, it can be acknowledged that Asian men are stereotypically seen as less masculine, but when it comes to the difference in dating this has to be seen as a function of fetishization rather than a result of this emasculation. I haven’t seen the research in this area, so I can’t be certain about the exact allocation, but I’m pretty sure that this belief is coming from theory rather than empirics.
In any case, there are disadvantages associated with fetishization, but acknowledging this group’s relative dating advantage as an advantage would break the model*. I’m not claiming that Asian women are better off than Asian men, just that it is incompatible with the simplistic version of the theory.
Intersectionality is explicitly not about “double oppression”, it is about unique forms of oppression.
You’re right, I didn’t describe it very well. It’s more about “triple oppression”^ - ie. a black women gets the disadvantages of being black, of being a woman and of being a black women*.
*Here I’m referring to how the version of intersectionality that seems to be used in practice, even if the theory differs. If the theory is actually more sophisticated than this (I’m not completely certain that academic circles do use it in a more sophisticated than this) then that’s great, hopefully someday people start actually using it rather than the simplified version.
^ I’m not claiming that social justice advocates would explain the concept in this way just describing how I’ve seen the concept function in discourse.
That said, your comment has shifted me towards your perspective that intersectionality is unlikely to be useful for EAs, and it’s better to start a new language game. I think the word comes with enough baggage that it is hard to use as a neutral tool for analysing issues, and is liable to be misunderstood.
Ah, I apologize, I think I’ve phrased my first comment poorly. I believe that the difference in desirability is due to both fetishization of women and emasculation of men. My initial comment did not make that clear due to the word “mostly”, which was the wrong word to use. I meant simply to highlight that desirability as an Asian woman is not without its downsides.
Re:
It doesn’t predict that being a member of two “oppressed” classes can result in an intersectional “privilege”… In any case, there are disadvantages associated with fetishization, but acknowledging this group’s relative dating advantage as an advantage would break the model*.
I actually think that this is perfectly compatible with intersectional theory:
There’s a distinction between “privilege” as a class, and “advantage” in certain areas of life. Intersectionality claims that Asian men have gender privilege, as a class, over Asian women, and that Asian women exist at the intersection of oppressions in a way that Asian men do not. It doesn’t claim that Asian men are advantaged in every area of life over Asian women, or that every single experience of Asian women is due to disadvantage. (edit: John’s comment below explains this way better than I did)
In fact, I think an analysis of how Western gender ideals hurt Asian men via emasculation and Asian women via fetishization is an intersectional analysis, i.e. Asian men and women have different experiences of racism due to the ways in which racism and sexism intersect. (And both are still racism, and bad.)
Acknowledging that Asian women empirically have larger dating pools is just a statement about the world. Whether you consider this to be an “advantage” or not is really subjective, and not addressed by a theory of systemic oppression. I would personally rather have fewer dates than have to wade through fetishizing weebs, but that’s obviously a subjective judgment that you disagree with.
I do share the hope that in popular discourse we start to see more understanding of the nuances of the theory, because it is absolutely more sophisticated in academia than it is on Twitter (or in my EA Forum comments!).
Acknowledging that Asian women empirically have larger dating pools is just a statement about the world. Whether you consider this to be an “advantage” or not is really subjective, and not addressed by a theory of systemic oppression. I would personally rather have fewer dates than have to wade through fetishizing weebs, but that’s obviously a subjective judgment that you disagree with.
Hmm… I think it’s worth considering the implications of considering that subjective. I assume that there’s some women (likely a small group) who would prefer the old 1950s system where women didn’t have to work, but they were discriminated against in the job market? Should we say that’s subjective too? Do we end up in a space where everything is subjective because we can always find a minority with unusual views? I’m not saying that’s right or wrong, just trying to figure out what it would mean.
I think that’s precisely what I’m saying—people have different preferences, but that doesn’t negate the existence of broader dynamics of privilege, i.e. John’s earlier comment, and doesn’t negate that the facts of the matter are shaped by intersecting oppressions.
Assuming that we take as true that systemic oppression is a real thing, the distinction is this: I don’t consider myself to have a dating “advantage”, but I do think that I have a larger dating pool than the average Asian man because of the ways in which Asian women sit at the intersection of racism and sexism. I’m sure plenty of 1950s housewives considered themselves to be advantaged personally, but that doesn’t negate that they were structurally disempowered.
I am no philosopher, but I think it’s a bit slippery-slope to go from “we disagree on whether larger dating pools have inherent goodness” to “everything is subjective”!
it only predicts it when you are a member of a “privileged” class and an “oppressed” class*. It doesn’t predict that being a member of two “oppressed” classes can result in an intersectional “privilege”.
I think perhaps we mean different things when we use the words ‘privilege’ and ‘oppression’. Under intersectionality theory, Group X is privileged in respect of Group Y if they are the beneficiaries of the power relationship, all things considered. Similarly, Group Y is oppressed if they are generally disadvantaged by that relationship. That doesn’t mean that Group X benefits 100%, or that Group Y always suffers.
To unpack that a bit, you might imagine the general structure of a male-female relationship in the early 1900s: Broadly-speaking, a woman born in 1900 would be disadvantaged compared to a man born in the same year. She was treated as subservient to her husband, she would be excluded from positions of power where men were not, and she was (in many countries) denied the vote.
Men were the overall beneficiaries of this arrangement, essentially having a lifelong live-in servant and childcarer. However, women also benefitted from this relationship in some ways—a 1900s woman would never have been expected to go to war, and once her children had grown up she would not have been expected to work a job. Nonetheless, it is fair to say that the power relationship between men and women in earliest 20th Century was a unequal one. This is the sense in which intersectionality theory would describe women as oppressed and men as privileged.
This logic then extends to intersectional disadvantages, meaning that the model doesn’t break even if you get an intersectional ‘privilege’[1]. Going back to Western Asian women, it seems to be true that Asian folks are treated as more ‘feminine’ than White folks. The feminisation of Western Asians might therefore benefit Asian women (who are ‘hyperfeminised’, and so get even more of the benefits which accrue to women) and disadvantage Asian men (who are emasculated, and so get fewer of the benefits which accrue to men).
’It doesn’t predict that being a member of two “oppressed” classes can result in an intersectional “privilege”.’
Is referring to the advantage that western Asian women receive on the dating scene. My point is that this is compatible with intersectionality theory, because although the general structure of the power relationships between men/women, majority/minority ethnic groups, and white people/Asians disadvantages western Asian women, none of these relationships are 100% downside.
So, the idea is that on balance the relationship is oppressive, rather than that the relationship is just 100% beneficial/harmful for either side.
I would suggest caution with invoking intersectionality as it typically comes with some baked-in assumptions such as:
a) Each class is either privileged or oppressed, rather than some combination of both
b) Interactions consist of effects stacking—ie. if you are a member of two oppressed classes then you are doubly oppressed.
For example, the model doesn’t deal very well with the fact that Asians earn more on average than people who are white or an Asian woman may be better off in some ways than an Asian man (such as dating in a Western context).
A natural question is why not invoke intersectionality without those assumptions. My response is that it’d be an uphill battle and that if you want to have nuanced discussion about this area it’s almost certainly better to start a new language game. If someone wants to try persuading people to use current terms in a more nuanced way, then I respect the effort, I would just be surprised if it worked.
Hi Chris, I’ve responded to this somewhat in my response to Jackson above.
FWIW, I’m trying to avoid focusing on race questions here, because I think they’re pretty charged and racial equality isn’t an EA cause area in any case. Still, I think it’s worth responding to your comment that:
I actually think the model deals very well with this, as intersectionality would predict that being Asian + a minority + male would present a separate set of issues to being Asian + a minority + female. So fact that Asian women do better off in the dating scene is actually a pretty good example of intersectionality creating novel outcomes that might not be easily predicted by just stacking up disadvantages.
If, for some reason, discrimination against minority Asian women suddenly became an EA cause area, then people wanting to tackle the issue might do better trying tospecifically tackle ‘issues encountered by minority Asian women’ rather than just generally ‘reduce discrimination against women/minorities/Asians’.
Isn’t this only true of Asian Americans (as opposed to Asians in general)?
I just edited in “in a Western context” as I was trying to refer to the fact that I’ve seen many more white men date Asian girls than white girls date Asian men.
I think the theory of intersectionality actually does address this well, though perhaps for a different reason than John:
a) Intersectionality is explicitly about the idea that people can be both privileged and oppressed, e.g. Black men having privilege along a gender axis but oppression along a racial axis
b) Intersectionality is explicitly not about “double oppression”, it is about unique forms of oppression.
For instance, we can break down this idea that Asians earn more than white people in the US. When you consider factors like country of origin, class, and immigration status, there’s actually substantial variability in earnings; in particular, East and South Asians tend to earn more than whites, and Southeast Asians tend to earn less. (I haven’t read this study in detail, but it’s an example of this finding.) Therefore, simply categorically ignoring Asians in analyses of economic inequality would (and does) leave Southeast Asians neglected. Southeast Asians will probably not be addressed by interventions to help low-income people in general or interventions to help Asian people in general, because the causes of their suffering are different.
And it’s true that Asian women are seen as more desirable than Asian men in America, but that’s mostly because of fetishization of Asian women. As an Asian-American woman, yes, it’s nice to be able to get a Tinder date or whatever. But overall, being fetishized is rather undesirable, and sometimes involves unfortunate outcomes such as dying in a mass shooting. Addressing the emasculation of Asian men and fetishization of Asian women in American culture are two interrelated but separate problems, which is again what intersectional theory would posit.
Intersectionality is a word that has often been thrown around improperly over the years, so it’s certainly possible that these misinterpretations of the theory would hamper nuanced discussion. But it wouldn’t be due to the academic theory itself.
Yes, but it only predicts it when you are a member of a “privileged” class and an “oppressed” class*. It doesn’t predict that being a member of two “oppressed” classes can result in an intersectional “privilege”.
When you examine things through the lens of intersectionality, this apparent advantage that Asian women have over Asian men has to be reframed as a disadvantage. From the social justice perspective, it can be acknowledged that Asian men are stereotypically seen as less masculine, but when it comes to the difference in dating this has to be seen as a function of fetishization rather than a result of this emasculation. I haven’t seen the research in this area, so I can’t be certain about the exact allocation, but I’m pretty sure that this belief is coming from theory rather than empirics.
In any case, there are disadvantages associated with fetishization, but acknowledging this group’s relative dating advantage as an advantage would break the model*. I’m not claiming that Asian women are better off than Asian men, just that it is incompatible with the simplistic version of the theory.
You’re right, I didn’t describe it very well. It’s more about “triple oppression”^ - ie. a black women gets the disadvantages of being black, of being a woman and of being a black women*.
*Here I’m referring to how the version of intersectionality that seems to be used in practice, even if the theory differs. If the theory is actually more sophisticated than this (I’m not completely certain that academic circles do use it in a more sophisticated than this) then that’s great, hopefully someday people start actually using it rather than the simplified version.
^ I’m not claiming that social justice advocates would explain the concept in this way just describing how I’ve seen the concept function in discourse.
That said, your comment has shifted me towards your perspective that intersectionality is unlikely to be useful for EAs, and it’s better to start a new language game. I think the word comes with enough baggage that it is hard to use as a neutral tool for analysing issues, and is liable to be misunderstood.
Thanks for helping to improve my thinking here.
Ah, I apologize, I think I’ve phrased my first comment poorly. I believe that the difference in desirability is due to both fetishization of women and emasculation of men. My initial comment did not make that clear due to the word “mostly”, which was the wrong word to use. I meant simply to highlight that desirability as an Asian woman is not without its downsides.
Re:
I actually think that this is perfectly compatible with intersectional theory:
There’s a distinction between “privilege” as a class, and “advantage” in certain areas of life. Intersectionality claims that Asian men have gender privilege, as a class, over Asian women, and that Asian women exist at the intersection of oppressions in a way that Asian men do not. It doesn’t claim that Asian men are advantaged in every area of life over Asian women, or that every single experience of Asian women is due to disadvantage. (edit: John’s comment below explains this way better than I did)
In fact, I think an analysis of how Western gender ideals hurt Asian men via emasculation and Asian women via fetishization is an intersectional analysis, i.e. Asian men and women have different experiences of racism due to the ways in which racism and sexism intersect. (And both are still racism, and bad.)
Acknowledging that Asian women empirically have larger dating pools is just a statement about the world. Whether you consider this to be an “advantage” or not is really subjective, and not addressed by a theory of systemic oppression. I would personally rather have fewer dates than have to wade through fetishizing weebs, but that’s obviously a subjective judgment that you disagree with.
I do share the hope that in popular discourse we start to see more understanding of the nuances of the theory, because it is absolutely more sophisticated in academia than it is on Twitter (or in my EA Forum comments!).
Hmm… I think it’s worth considering the implications of considering that subjective. I assume that there’s some women (likely a small group) who would prefer the old 1950s system where women didn’t have to work, but they were discriminated against in the job market? Should we say that’s subjective too? Do we end up in a space where everything is subjective because we can always find a minority with unusual views? I’m not saying that’s right or wrong, just trying to figure out what it would mean.
I think that’s precisely what I’m saying—people have different preferences, but that doesn’t negate the existence of broader dynamics of privilege, i.e. John’s earlier comment, and doesn’t negate that the facts of the matter are shaped by intersecting oppressions.
Assuming that we take as true that systemic oppression is a real thing, the distinction is this: I don’t consider myself to have a dating “advantage”, but I do think that I have a larger dating pool than the average Asian man because of the ways in which Asian women sit at the intersection of racism and sexism. I’m sure plenty of 1950s housewives considered themselves to be advantaged personally, but that doesn’t negate that they were structurally disempowered.
I am no philosopher, but I think it’s a bit slippery-slope to go from “we disagree on whether larger dating pools have inherent goodness” to “everything is subjective”!
I think perhaps we mean different things when we use the words ‘privilege’ and ‘oppression’. Under intersectionality theory, Group X is privileged in respect of Group Y if they are the beneficiaries of the power relationship, all things considered. Similarly, Group Y is oppressed if they are generally disadvantaged by that relationship. That doesn’t mean that Group X benefits 100%, or that Group Y always suffers.
To unpack that a bit, you might imagine the general structure of a male-female relationship in the early 1900s: Broadly-speaking, a woman born in 1900 would be disadvantaged compared to a man born in the same year. She was treated as subservient to her husband, she would be excluded from positions of power where men were not, and she was (in many countries) denied the vote.
Men were the overall beneficiaries of this arrangement, essentially having a lifelong live-in servant and childcarer. However, women also benefitted from this relationship in some ways—a 1900s woman would never have been expected to go to war, and once her children had grown up she would not have been expected to work a job. Nonetheless, it is fair to say that the power relationship between men and women in earliest 20th Century was a unequal one. This is the sense in which intersectionality theory would describe women as oppressed and men as privileged.
This logic then extends to intersectional disadvantages, meaning that the model doesn’t break even if you get an intersectional ‘privilege’[1]. Going back to Western Asian women, it seems to be true that Asian folks are treated as more ‘feminine’ than White folks. The feminisation of Western Asians might therefore benefit Asian women (who are ‘hyperfeminised’, and so get even more of the benefits which accrue to women) and disadvantage Asian men (who are emasculated, and so get fewer of the benefits which accrue to men).
Given the definition of privilege I’ve just set out, ‘privilege’ is probably the wrong word for what’s going on here, but you get my point.
Could you clarify? Have I used the term “oppression” or “privilege” here to refer to something that isn’t a power relationship?
So, your comment here:
’It doesn’t predict that being a member of two “oppressed” classes can result in an intersectional “privilege”.’
Is referring to the advantage that western Asian women receive on the dating scene. My point is that this is compatible with intersectionality theory, because although the general structure of the power relationships between men/women, majority/minority ethnic groups, and white people/Asians disadvantages western Asian women, none of these relationships are 100% downside.
So, the idea is that on balance the relationship is oppressive, rather than that the relationship is just 100% beneficial/harmful for either side.
Is that more clear?