Intersectionality Argumentative Essay
INTERSECTIONALITY WITHIN A HETERNORMATIVE SOCIETY Previous research focusing LGBT lifestyles has given relatively minimal attention to race, class, and gender as systems of power. Through the multiple and often times complicated intersections of race, class, gender, location, capital, religion, and sexuality, this analysis explores interactional dimensions of power, privilege, and oppression in narratives of finding one’s sexual identity. A term created by Kimberlé Crenshaw, intersectionality explores the systematic structures of dominance of race, class, gender and sexuality that affect those who are neither White nor male nor heterosexual (Mirza, 2015). Intersectionality highlights the ways in which multiple dimensions of socially constructed
…show more content…
Often times supported by the academy, religion, politics, family, and other social institutions, heterosexuality established its dominance by lending itself as fundamental to all human existence (Warner 1993). Heterosexuality is displayed and made visible through gender at the intersection of other social indicators. This association with other components of identity is what makes heterosexuality seem necessary to human interaction and social well-being. Furthermore, heterosexuality has become associated with certain gender, racial, and class practices, articulating a specific western heterosexuality, which is white, middle-class, monogamous, reproductive, gender normative. One of the great failings of queer politics is inability to incorporate into analysis of the world’s strategies for political mobilization and the roles that race, class, and gender play in defining people's differing relations to dominant and normalizing power (Cohen, 1997, p.34). When it comes to living within a heteronormative society, although finding one’s sexual identity vary in experiences, time and place, sexuality scholars note the assumed difficulties are common when claiming a non-heteronormative identity, including stress, isolation, discrimination, and rejection (Savin-Williams and Ream
Often times supported by the academy, religion, politics, family, and other social institutions, heterosexuality established its dominance by lending itself as fundamental to all human existence (Warner 1993). Heterosexuality is displayed and made visible through gender at the intersection of other social indicators. This association with other components of identity is what makes heterosexuality seem necessary to human interaction and social well-being. Furthermore, heterosexuality has become associated with certain gender, racial, and class practices, articulating a specific western heterosexuality, which is white, middle-class, monogamous, reproductive, gender normative. One of the great failings of queer politics is inability to incorporate into analysis of the world’s strategies for political mobilization and the roles that race, class, and gender play in defining people's differing relations to dominant and normalizing power (Cohen, 1997, p.34). When it comes to living within a heteronormative society, although finding one’s sexual identity vary in experiences, time and place, sexuality scholars note the assumed difficulties are common when claiming a non-heteronormative identity, including stress, isolation, discrimination, and rejection (Savin-Williams and Ream