About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

1989 U. Chi. Legal F. 139 (1989)
Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics

handle is hein.journals/uchclf1989 and id is 143 raw text is: Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics Kimberle Crenshawt One of the very few Black women's studies books is entitled All the Women Are White; All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us are Brave.1 I have chosen this title as a point of departure in my efforts to develop a Black feminist criticism2 because it sets forth a problematic consequence of the tendency to treat race and gender as mutually exclusive categories of experience and analysis.' In this talk, I want to examine how this tendency is perpetuated by a single-axis framework that is dominant in antidiscrimination law and that is also reflected in feminist theory and antiracist politics. I will center Black women in this analysis in order to contrast the multidimensionality of Black women's experience with the sin- gle-axis analysis that distorts these experiences. Not only will this juxtaposition reveal how Black women are theoretically erased, it will also illustrate how this framework imports its own theoretical limitations that undermine efforts to broaden feminist and an- t Acting Professor of Law, University of California, Los Angeles Law School. Gloria T. Hull, et al, eds (The Feminist Press, 1982). For other work setting forth a Black feminist perspective on law, see Judy Scales- Trent, Black Women and the Constitution: Finding Our Place, Asserting Our Rights (Voices of Experience: New Responses to Gender Discourse), 24 Harv CR-CL L Rev 9 (1989); Regina Austin, Sapphire-Bound!, forthcoming in Wisc Women's L J (1989); Angela Harris, Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory (unpublished manuscript on file with author); and Paulette M. Caldwell, A Hair Piece (unpublished manuscript on file with author). The most common linguistic manifestation of this analytical dilemma is represented in the conventional usage of the term Blacks and women. Although it may be true that some people mean to include Black women in either Blacks or women, the context in which the term is used actually suggests that often Black women are not considered. See, for example, Elizabeth Spelman, The Inessential Woman 114-15 (Beacon Press, 1988) (discuss- ing an article on Blacks and women in the military where the racial identity of those iden- tified as 'women' does not become explicit until reference is made to Black women, at which point it also becomes clear that the category of women excludes Black women). It seems that if Black women were explicitly included, the preferred term would be either Blacks and white women or Black men and all women.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most