Easier to Proclaim than Practice? A Multidimensional Theory of Feminist Organizational Intersectionality

• In Event: 1154 - Women of Color and Social Movements

Abstract

Feminist scholars and activists advocate intersectional analysis, an approach mainstream feminist social movement organizations frequently struggle to fully implement. Prior studies of organizational intersectionality have generated various approaches to understanding these efforts, typically measuring organizational intersectionality with binary or discrete categorizations of success. Building on that work, this article proposes a multidimensional framework assessing the full spectrum of what I term intersectional permeation of feminist organizations. I identify two important axes of permeation: breadth and depth. Through a discourse analysis of the national websites of the Feminist Majority Foundation and the National Organization for Women, this article demonstrates the utility of a multidimensional and continuous understanding of organizational intersectionality. Both organizations engage relatively shallowly with intersectionality to frame their own work and to portray racialized state violence as an infringement on Black women’s mothering. The model proposed here reveals both the value and the limitations of organizations’ efforts toward intersectionality.

Author

• Anna Chatillon, University of California, Santa Barbara