CHAPTER 5 Intersectionality: Locating and Critiquing Internal Structures of Oppression within Feminism Grayson Hunt Assistant Professor of Philosophy Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green In the 2016 feminist revamp of the Ghostbusters movie, there is a scene where the lone Black ghostbuster, Patty Tolan (played by the comedian Leslie Jones), attempts to bodysurf at a concert. Having just seen one of her fellow white ghostbusters, Abby Yates (played by Melissa McCarthy), do the same, Patty stands on the edge of the stage, turns her back to the mostly white, mostly male crowd, and jumps backward, expecting to be caught and carried on top of the crowd. Instead, the crowd parts and Patty falls flat on her back. Not having been caught, she sits up and yells at the crowd, “I don’t know if it’s a race thing or a lady thing, but I’m mad as hell.” The joke is that, as a Black 1 woman, Patty never knows exactly what identity (her being Black or being a woman), nor what corresponding oppression (white supremacy or patriarchy), is the basis for her mistreatment. But couldn’t both be operating at the same time, in concert? Intersectional feminism is the idea that “various forms of oppression and privilege interact with each other in multiple complex ways” (Garry 2012, 493). This chapter is intended to introduce the reader to the experiential and political meanings of intersectionality as metaphor, concept, and critical tool. The reader might be tempted to ask why Patty thinks her mistreatment is caused by either racism or sexism, but not both. Part of the reason is that US culture still seems to understand oppressions as deriving from separable categories of identity. Whereas various liberation movements (Black or feminist, for instance) might argue about the singular, ultimate source of Patty’s oppression (her race or gender), theorists of intersectionality see Patty’s oppression as being the result of multiple oppressions simultaneously. Intersection- ality is the concept and metaphor used to describe how people who occupy multiple marginalized social positions experience oppression that is qualitatively (not simply quantitatively) different from those with fewer social disadvantages. In other words, the sum of intersecting oppressions is greater than the mere addition of its parts (race and gender, for example, but also, class, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, nationality, etc.). Intersectionality as the multiplicity of intermeshed oppressions will be discussed in the second half of the chapter. Intersectionality is more than a measure of oppression, however. Intersectionality is also a critical and political method used to reveal structures of oppression that operate within 121 COPYRIGHT 2017 Macmillan Reference USA, a part of Gale, a Cengage Company WCN 02-200-210