Marxist Intersectionality?

[Comrade #138672]

First, what is your opinion on intersectionality? Is it useful or does it "blur" the class struggle because it introduces all sort of other struggles against sexism, racism, etc.? Because of this, the role of class becomes less obvious.

I was wondering whether there was already a Marxist adaption of intersectionality (if I understand it right). By this I mean that intersectionality is adapted to make the class struggle the center of all other struggles without ignoring that they influence each other (according to intersectionality, that is).

What do you think?

[#FF0000]

I don't think it's a thing that can "useful" or not. It's a thing that is. Say what you will about "identity politics" but I don't think anyone can seriously contend that women, ethnic minorities, etc. don't deal with another set of problems on top of the set that we as workers all face.

[Yuppie Grinder]

The struggle against institutional bigotry in the year 2012 is inseparable from class struggle. Liberal feminism can go to hell though.
Also, it is great for PR. People in the real world are more likely to sympathize with a socialist organization that fights social ills they themselves experience than one that is more concerned with the prolier-than-thou "class politics over identity politics" shtick.

[l'Enfermé]

Intersectionality is a bourgeois feminist ideology. Marxism has nothing to do with it.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

I think J. Sakai, in "When Race Burns Class" (a really interesting interview, looking back at his seminal Settlers with 20-odd years perspective), approaches this question in a way that is worth grappling with.
More broadly, I think we have to avoid understanding class and capital in narrow economistic terms. Understood as a totality, capital fundamentally restructures heteropatriarchy, white supremacy, ablism, etc. in relation to the commodity form (through the total reimagining of time, space, and so on). "Intersectionality" as a discourse is maybe fraught, in some cases, with problematic (academic, liberal) baggage, but, on the other hand, so, undeniably, is Marxism. In any case, failing to grapple with the fundamental interrelationship between forms of oppression is a recipe for shitty organizing, missed opportunities, lousy grasp of real material conditions, and a retreat to the mythology of the white male industrial worker.

[#FF0000]

Intersectionality is a bourgeois feminist ideology. Marxism has nothing to do with it.

How would you respond to Virgin Molotov Cocktail's post? Specifically:


"Intersectionality" as a discourse is maybe fraught, in some cases, with problematic (academic, liberal) baggage, but, on the other hand, so, undeniably, is Marxism. In any case, failing to grapple with the fundamental interrelationship between forms of oppression is a recipe for shitty organizing, missed opportunities, lousy grasp of real material conditions, and a retreat to the mythology of the white male industrial worker.

[Manic Impressive]

is maybe fraught, in some cases, with problematic (academic, liberal) baggage, but, on the other hand, so, undeniably, is Marxism.
If it's undeniable you should have no problem expanding and developing this point because at the moment it just looks like a flaccid assertion to me.

[Marxaveli]

The struggle against institutional bigotry in the year 2012 is inseparable from class struggle.

This.

Class struggle and all other divisions fundamentally overlap with one another, and have a dialectical relationship. I recently wrote a paper on modern institutionalized racism and its relationship to capitalism using Marxist analysis - using the historical developments of both capitalism and racism to show how racism is necessitated by the capitalist most of production. The conventional view is that racism and capitalism developed and exist independently from one another, but this of course, is not so. You cannot have a capitalist society free of racism, it is impossible. The ruling class knows very well that further social divisions of labor are necessary to protect their status and power.

To some degree, it might blur the class struggle, but nevertheless class struggle and all other social divisions are mutually inclusive to one another, as Brodiga said, you cannot separate them.

[Manic Impressive]

except they can be separated. Capitalism can exist without patriarchy and racism and other forms of discrimination. If racism was reformed away, capitalism would not collapse would it? If patriarchy was reformed away, capitalism would not collapse would it? It might make things easier for us but it's not revolutionary. Of course the modern conception of race is a result of the development of capitalism, but the development of capitalism did not come about due to racism. Capitalism and racism are not on equal footing and neither are class and race. One is a social construction the other an economic. One can be combated through reform the other can only be destroyed through a revolutionary change in society.

[#FF0000]

except they can be separated. Capitalism can exist without patriarchy and racism and other forms of discrimination. If racism was reformed away, capitalism would not collapse would it? If patriarchy was reformed away, capitalism would not collapse would it?

It wouldn't, but I don't think racism or patriarchy can be "reformed" out of capitalism. Capitalism didn't come from these things, but I'd argue that they are inseparable in any system in which one person is considered another's better.

EDIT: There's also, you know, the fact that patriarchy is as old as the agricultural revolution.

[Marxaveli]

Racism and patriarchy cannot ever be reformed out of Capitalism. They might change their contextual and material form - as they have done several times, but they will never, ever be eliminated as long as capitalism exists. Racism and chauvinism are mutually inclusive to class (even if one is economic and the others are social is irrelevant - since the relationship to the means of production is the determining factor for all social and political relationships in society), and because class is the fundamental division within capitalist society, racism too, requires revolution to eliminate because they overlap.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Intersectionality is a bourgeois feminist ideology. Marxism has nothing to do with it.

I see you are one of those Marxists who dismisses anything that you're not familiar with as bourgeois. A quick google search will tell you Patricia Collins, probably the second most important figure in in intersectionality, is a Marxist-Feminist and is adamant about it. It will also tell you that the thought of W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the bravest and most brilliant socialists in American history who devoted his life towards the liberation of the toilers of the world was a major influence on intersectionality.