This Morning’s Twitter Rant
This morning I went on a bit of a rant on Twitter. It was prompted by author Linda Hirshman’s Salon defense of Cheryl Sandberg, specifically by Hirshman’s disavowal of “intersectional race/class/gender/save the whales feminism,” and by reading this review of Hirshman’s 2012 history of the gay rights movement.
Here’s that rant, stitched together from its original 140-character bites, but otherwise unchanged.
Intersectionality isn’t a checklist. It’s not about making sure you give a nod to all the stuff and people you’re supposed to nod to.The core problem with non-intersectional writing isn’t that it’s not broad enough. It’s that it’s not DEEP enough. The very word “intersectional” is a recognition that communities, identities, struggles are rarely discrete.
Even when you write about rich white straight people you need to remember that other people exist, because RWSP don’t exist in a vacuum. Hirshman’s history of gay rights screws up even the narrow slice it tries to cover