“Realizing that classes and teachers fail to see intersectionality as a valid form of feminism helped me realize it was my job to educate myself on those issues and to preach those to people who are misinformed or are too ignorant to realize that there is more than white feminism out there.”
“For Hijab Day we just want people to stand in solidarity with our Muslim sisters.”
Men and boys should be encouraged to embrace vulnerability and femininity. However, expecting women and femmes to emotionally service the men in their lives is not and expression of intersectionality. It is just another mechanism that asymmetrically benefits men.
Conversations about representation in media have been critical in America’s changing political and cultural landscape, particularly with the rampant cultural appropriation, white-washing, and transphobia in Hollywood. Recently, Nolwen Cifuentes, Silas Howard, and Tani Ikeda addressed identity and media in an intersectional feminist panel hosted by Allies in Arts to reflect on rising activism under the new US president.
The most terrifying result of the rhetoric used during these debates is the normalization of xenophobia and the validation of overblown suspicion of Middle Eastern and Muslim people.