Introducing Literary Criticism A Graphic - Owen Holland 2015

Intersectionality

Much feminist criticism has operated at an intersection with other theoretical traditions, including psychoanalysis and Marxism. The intersection of gender, race, class and sexual identities also led some feminists to question essentialist, undifferentiated constructions of the category of womanhood, pointing to the many differences (of race and class) that make it problematic to think about the notion of female experience as shared by all women.

Intersectionality refers to the study of links between different kinds of oppression and domination.

The self-described “lesbian, mother, warrior, poet” Audre Lorde (1934—92) criticized a perceived white bias within second-wave feminism. In her essay “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” (1984) she argued that feminist attempts to achieve reforms of the dominant patriarchal system can lead some white feminists unconsciously to adopt elements of the oppressive logic of the ruling system, assuming a universalizing subjectivity, predominantly identified as white and heterosexual.

The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.