xxxiii: up in the mountains
hello Christiana, intersectionality and the New Year
Good morning 2024,
Hope you have all crossed with a light heart in the new year. Five days in, but I still have December stories to tell. A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to celebrate the birthday of a dear friend. In the evening, while at dinner in the mountains, the misty weather started to clear up, revealing the beautiful lake in the valley. Like children do for the first snow, we ditched table manners and rushed outside to catch a glimpse of Leman’s glitz. I couldn’t find my jacket at the garderobe and as the inpatient kid I can be, just grabbed a random one. We stared at the landscape, took some selfies, watched the stars, chatted about art and lovers, but more importantly, the birthday girl noticed my newly acquired jacket and pointed out how my fashionable spontaneity is the result of privilege. I didn’t give it a second thought, when just picking from the many pret-a-porter pieces on the hangers. The innocent white femaleness protects me from anyone thinking I might want to steal it. That would be a different story, if I’d have more melanin or a strong certain accent.
This sparkled a conversation about intersectional feminism and how we all have our blind spots. It doesn’t make us worse humans, but gives us a task to work on and/or an incentive to keep an open mind, if child-like curiosity has been squeezed out of you by the mundane.
As a New Year’s gift, the above-mentioned lovely birthday girl is sharing with us her thoughts on the matter, so we can put more puzzle pieces together in the quest of dismantling the patriarchy. Ladies and gentlemen, gals and blokes, I introduce you to Christiana Onyebujoh.
As an African, my lens on feminism has always, by necessity, been intersectional. It is the only one I have ever known in a resonating way. In this commentary I will share a view that might persuade others to view feminism from an intersectional lens, because feminism that considers the varied experiences of women is just feminism.
My background, experiences and the world I saw before me helped shape me into the person I am today. We are all shaped in this way to some degree. I spent my early years in post-apartheid era South Africa. A country with a strong awareness of how every gain was fought for and earned; and a country that boasts the world’s most progressive constitution. At the time, the country’s HIV epidemic was at its height and across Southern and sub-saharan Africa, contributing to heightened rates of other infectious diseases including tuberculosis. The newly developed public healthcare system strived to tackle this and inequalities built over years through policies and an existing healthcare system developed to provide comprehensive care to less than 10% of the population.
I went on to specialise in immunology and infectious diseases as an undergraduate biomedical scientist; and later in pharmaceutics and drug development as a postgraduate before going to business school. Working in bioproduction, drug manufacturing and later health systems policy – I know that the world that I saw before me played a role in my decisions – including moving into global public health. There is a desire within each one of us in some form or another for justice. In my case, my yearning for justice is directed towards the desire that every human person might benefit from their right to fair, quality and equitable healthcare no matter who they are.
I quickly realized that intersectionality sits at the core of what most women experience. During the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, women played a crucial, multifaceted role. The struggle against apartheid was not only a fight against racial discrimination but also a broader battle for human rights, equality, and justice. Time and time again, women stepped forth to fight battles beyond the scope of womanhood. The South African women who formed the Federation of South African Women in 1954 were leaders and foot soldiers. Their historic 1956 march brought together 20,000 women to protest the discriminatory pass laws.
There is a strong history of women of colour playing a crucial role in fighting injustice. In modern-day South Africa, scholars recognize the continued importance of intersectional feminism in addressing the complex challenges faced by women. It is acknowledged that issues like access to education, economic inequality and gender-based violence (I recently published a Podcast episode on GBV on Global Health Conversations) cannot be effectively tackled without considering the intersection of factors such as race and socio-economic status.
Understanding Intersectionality
When Loredana invited me to collaborate with her on this piece sitting on a balcony looking out onto a magnificent view in the mountains above Montreux in early December, she gave me one mandate: just write about your experiences. Then, thoughtfully, she added a second: How best can one meaningfully approach allyship? On this latter question – there are a plethora of experiences, national and social identities that time will not permit for me to speak on. But I can frame intersectionality in the most authentic way that I see it with a hope that lending this understanding will highlight areas that some readers may not have considered deeply and will henceforth be apt to notice more carefully in daily life.
If we regard the right to adequate health care as a human right (here, here & everywhere); it is imperative to tackle facts and inequities that arise due to a multitude of social determinants. Women’s health is wrought with inequities. In this regard, the fact of even further, inferior health outcomes for black, brown and other POC women must be regarded as unacceptable. Beyond this, the perception of black girls as ‘more mature’ or ‘appearing older’ than their true age is a concept that is seeped in misogynoir – defined as misogyny where both race and gender play a role, coined by feminist writer, Moya Bailey.
Unconcious Bias
The term Intersectionality was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in the late 1980s. It emphasizes the importance of considering multiple social identities, such as race, gender, faith, class, sexual orientation, and ability when addressing issues related to social justice; recognizing that individuals may experience a combination of both privileges and disadvantages that cannot be fully understood by examining each identity in isolation.
The term might be relatively new but the experience is not. I remember a specific moment in my girlhood, sitting cross-legged on the carpet in Pretoria, South Africa, watching the United States Democratic primaries. (Go figure) The unique element at this point in that election cycle is that the democratic candidate was to be either a black man or a white woman. Either would be a history making presidency. I heard the adults in my life discussing their campaign promises and this historic moment. At an unusually young age, I was very very interested in politics. I knew that I always liked Hilary Clinton and was very impressed by the then new (to me) Barack Obama. It was then that I wondered to myself – what am I more? Was I more Black or more a woman (girl, at the time). The answer was both, both in equal measure.
Intersectional feminism should not exist to be viewed as a ‘subset’ of standard feminism; no more than women should exist as a ‘subset’ within humanity. Women are part of the human population and as such, women’s experiences should be taken as part of the human experience and condition. Similarly, the concepts presented by women who intersect at different points or throughout their lives are part of a holistic way of viewing women’s experiences.
Breaking down the consequences of unconscious bias – Unpacking Disparities in Healthcare
Pregnant women or women in childbirth often have an intersecting experience of discrimination. Women who are perceived as overweight may experience a compounded form of discrimination – often sitting at the intersection of sexism and fatfobia. This can be applied to women with disabilities, refugees, women of various religious groups, women struggling with mental health conditions, women dealing with gender identity, women in poverty, elderly women and more. In December 2022, the Economist published an article entitled The Economics of Thinness. I found and read it months later and immediately forwarded it to Lore, only to find that she had already written an in-depth analysis (hyperlink). TW: The byline reads – It is economically rational for ambitious women to try as hard as possible to be thin. The data found that for a moderately obese woman, theoretically, losing approximately 30kg could have the same impact on her earning potential as obtaining a master’s degree. Reinforcing the harmful notion that for women, appearance is paramount – even in the professional domain.
The correlation was less clear for Black and Hispanic women due to other discriminatory factors at play; many discussed here. Nevertheless, this intersection of sexism and fatfobia at which many women find themselves, even women not formally classified as obese, is an important one. If you think of a form of discrimination that you, a friend, a colleague or a loved one has experienced – in many instances these can be multiplied by sexism to create a compounded effect when experienced by women.
What happens when compounded forms of discrimination are taken to their logical end?
Vulnerability, Fear and Intersectionality
It is not always the easiest task to convey the deep and particular vulnerability experienced by many women of colour. The way that women navigate life is very different when they understand that one or other factor/s compounded upon their womanhood, their life has significantly less value than that of the next woman. It is the experience of life at the bottom of the totem pole. Even when other factors such as education, socioeconomic background, language and so on may convey privilege in other areas; the factor of race means that women of colour often feel particularly vulnerable in broader society. The example of a white, working class man walking into a gala dinner and feeling terribly out of place comes to mind. The individual might feel and be treated like an outsider. This is unfair and unpleasant. Nevertheless, his race will never be the factor that sets him apart as an unworthy guest or participant. The same cannot be said of a man or woman of colour, regardless of their other social identities or personal background.
There is a deepened sense of vulnerability that results from navigating the world with the knowledge that if in trouble, one is more likely to be met with suspicion from strangers than with help. This likely fuels the phenomenon that; while the vast majority of high-profile True Crime cases that receive media coverage are about white, upper-middle class women; the primary, female listeners and readers of the true crime genre in the United States are disproportionately Black and Hispanic women at 36 and 43 percent, respectively. Many of these women likely intuit that female victims of violent and sexual crimes are disproportionately lower-income women of colour.
Factors of bias and discrimination have a compounding effect that can ultimately impinge upon an individual’s right to live a healthy, long, fruitful and productive life in all its aspects. Identifying bias within oneself is a task for everyone to undertake. For some, it might be the task of unlearning the inferiority, lack of belonging and hatred for oneself, and for others like them, that has been imposed by our collective society. For another, it might be the inverse. But where one has a position of power, benefitting from thin privilege, ability privilege or white privilege among others, the onus is more heavily defined and the consequences can be more heavily amplified.
Assumptions about women are made daily, very often from the exterior. How often have we seen assumptions of a women and their awareness of their own self and identity based on what she wears. Assumptions, for instance, about a woman in a hijab who oftentimes finds herself in a position of not only feeling vulnerable but, in addition, having to ‘reassure’ wider society that the expression of her devotion is indeed her choice. The assumptions of socio-economic status and wealth based on race is a very well understood and well documented phenomenon. It is the compounding effect on women of colour of the stereotypes based on their race, even in majority (insert race here) countries and environments; and the perceptions that come with the race an onlooker perceives them to be. In 2013, the richest black woman in the world, multi-billionaire Oprah Winfrey, was shopping in Zurich when a sales associate refused to show her a handbag that she asked to see as it was ‘too expensive’. Needless to say, the Oprah Winfrey show never really took off in Switzerland, the country from whence I write this early January commentary.
Allyship
Allyship is a cornerstone of intersectional feminism, emphasising the importance of individuals advocating for and supporting those who face systemic oppression. And I feel that the best way to be an ally is to start by breaking down unconscious biases. The generosity of spirit and empathy that we hold for one another is so valuable. Women who work in healthcare, HR, service industries etc. may also experience discrimination in different forms. But it is important to inspect the areas in which we have privilege. It is imperative to understand that patriarchy is ubiquitous and it is highly likely that as a woman, you too, might hold implicit biases. Racism, classism, ableism, antisemitism among others affect us all. We need to dismantle each of these in our hearts, consciously, and not be too afraid to realise that we may possess biases to tackle them. As an optimist, I choose to believe that women are stronger together than apart. And as Lore would say, a greater sense of unity leaves us better equipped to ‘pirate the patriarchy’
Contact Christiana:
E-Mail: christiana@globalhealthwriter.com
Substack: https://globalhealthconversations.substack.com
Podcast: Global Health Conversations
It is quite sad that we often fail to cross apply otherism. White women might at times be closest to power and get some crumbs of alleged equity, which is what tricks them to reinforce a damaged and damaging social system. But just like Black men, they have one foot in and one foot out. Their skin colour provides some privilege, but their gender takes some away. Depending on the geography and industry, it might be better to be male and melanated, than female and pale and vice versa. Until the ridiculous hierarchy of gender, race and other absolutely random facts is not abolished, we will fail to harvest most human potential, might burn down this planet and spiral down more psychological and physical human suffering. Life is tough and it can’t always be fair for everyone. But maybe it is so, because we all choose to still be led by fear of the other and refuse to step up on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a collective. Self actualisation at an individual level can only get us this far. We are each others’ prison wardens and letting each other break free would liberate us all. Nobody is watching. Run.
Spread the word, join the pack and pirate the patriarchy. Share this newsletter.