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A great place to start is the White House Project. Not only does it have fantastic resources, but it also runs campaigns designed to get more women to run for political office.

Its Vote, Run, Lead campaign is particularly cool. The project aims to get younger women involved in the political process through training, media campaigns, and grassroots organizing. There are additional resources in the resource guide, but you get the idea. It’s time that young women took some initiative; we have to stop letting other people talk for us and about us (and calling us Sex and the City voters!). So let’s speak for ourselves.

13

A QUICK ACADEMIC ASIDE

I’m not a big fan of waxing academic, which is why most of the chapters in this book are informal (and, I know, slightly potty-mouthed). But if there’s one thing—something ridiculously important—that can’t be missed, it’s this.

Some folks call it intersectionality; others call it multiple oppressions; some call it the intersection of oppressions. Whatever you call it, the point is that different kinds of “-isms” (sexism, classism, racism) all intersect in a truly fucked-up way. Yeah, academic or not, my cursing just won’t quit.

There used to be a whole bunch of infighting among feminists—I guess there still is, to some extent—about this idea of sisterhood, that we’re all in the same boat sexism-wise. Because no matter how different we are, or how different our experiences may be, we’re all oppressed as women, right?

Not so much. This idea of common oppression among all women almost always negates the lived experiences of actual women—because we don’t all experience sexism in the same way. Classism, racism, ageism, homophobia—you name it—all come into play in the ways sexism is acted out against women. And while the idea of sisterhood is nice, a sisterhood that’s built on the idea that we’re all oppressed in the same way tends to erase things like race, class, and sexual orientation. Because, unfortunately, when feminism is talked about, it’s still positioned from the experience of a white, middle- to upper-class, hetero gal. It just is. And if that’s the only way we think of feminism, then we’re essentially erasing the existence of any other woman who doesn’t function within those confines. Yeah, not so cool.

Audre Lorde (whom I had a massive academic crush on in college) wrote a lot of great stuff concerning the intersection of oppressions, but my fave essay of hers by far on this topic is “Age, Race, Class, and Sex.”

❂ Certainly there are very real differences between us of race, age, and sex. But it is not those differences between us that are separating us. It is rather our refusal to recognize those differences, and to examine the distortions which result from our misnaming them and their effects upon human behavior and expectation.1

So, ignoring the differences between women—whatever they may be—is hindering the women’s movement. Terribly.

In comes the idea of intersectionality as a tool to discuss and create change within feminism and feminist activism. The cool thing is, this idea of intersectionality isn’t just an abstract idea in academic feminism—it is being used in a real way. In the work that’s done by the United Nations on behalf of women, for example, the intersection of oppressions is often talked about:

❂ Central to the realization of the human rights of women is an understanding that women do not experience discrimination and other forms of human rights violations solely on the grounds of gender, but for a multiplicity of reasons, including ages, disability, health status, race, ethnicity, caste, class, national origin, and sexual orientation. Various bodies and entities within the UN have to a certain extent recognized the intersectionality of discrimination in women’s lives.2

The idea of intersectional oppressions was even used in the Beijing Platform for Action and other documents related to the UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women. (Translation: