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Reading Journal Response Sheet
Part 1: Model for Reading Articles
Fill out each section
Full Citation in APA:
Keywords (your own keywords that jog your memory):
Main Arguments/Theories/Ideas:
Questions you have about the article:
Part 2: Prompts
Respond to one of the
prompts below (be sure to put which one you’re answering – delete the others).
1. What connections does this work have to you and your cultural identities?
2. How did this chapter or article change your understanding of the world?
3. How do the ideas in this chapter or article challenge, stretch, or violate your usual ways
of thinking?
4. Play devils advocate. Respond to this chapter from the opposite of your usual viewpoint.
5. How does this work relate to other chapters we have read? How do they engage in
dialogue?
6. Create your own prompt.
Intercultural Exchange Project Proposal Guidelines
Objectives
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Describe a cultural space
Apply theory to define “culture”
Propose a detailed, well thought out project
Practice cohesive writing skills
Engage in critical self-reflection
a. These fulfill course objectives: 1, 2, 3, 5
b. These fulfill learning objectives: 2, 4
If you have not read the IEP Project Guidelines, STOP. Please go read that document
thoroughly first.
Description
This is the proposal portion of your Intercultural Exchange Project. You must have a project
approved by me before engaging in any intercultural exchange. Importantly, you will not
exhibit “zoo behavior,” where you go somewhere new, sit and people watch and take notes.
This does not get you deeply involved in a cultural space, it does not force you to use the
Intercultural Praxis Model in a real way, and does not improve your intercultural
communication practices. Refer to the IEP Project Guidelines for more information.
For this proposal, you will choose an intercultural space/place that is different than the cultures
with which you identify. This can be an online space, but it must be a public group. First, in the
proposal you will describe some of your own cultural identities. Second, you will deeply
describe the space/place you will be going to. This should show that you have done quite a bit
of research up to this point. Third, using the readings, you will explain how this cultural
space/place can be considered a site of culture. For example, perhaps you see this place as
fitting in with the anthropological idea, or the cultural studies definition, or perhaps the
globalization one: you need to use the appropriate readings to back up this argument. You
must use in-text citations, either with direct quotes and/or paraphrases. Fourth, using the
inquiry, framing, and position part of the Intercultural Praxis Model, you will critically selfreflect on how you’re approaching this project (inquiry), how your positionality could
potentially impact you (position), and how inquiry and position may impact your framing. Fifth,
you will propose a schedule by first looking at the due dates for the IEP reflections in the
syllabus schedule. When are you planning on going? For how long each time? How much time
will you allow between the interactions and when the reflections are due? Please at the end
include how you will be taking notes after your interactions (see IEP guidelines).
Guidelines
1. Paper length: 2-3 pages, Times New Roman, 12 pt font, 1-inch margins all around. Do
not add an extra space between paragraphs (you fix this in Format – Paragraph). Do not
add an extra space after the end of each sentence. Do not use a cover page – just put
your name in the upper right-hand corner. Your references page is an additional page.
Please submit the paper in a Doc or Docx format, (NOT PDF, Linux, or Google Docs) on
D2L by the date in the syllabus. Please re-read your papers more than once. Reading
them out loud will help with flow, clarity and can often identify issues you missed when
reading them silently.
a. You must use in-text citations – direct quotes and/or paraphrases
b. You must have an APA references page (this is in addition to your 2-3 pages)
c. If you get information about the space from their web site or any other
information, you must cite that also. When in doubt: CITE!
d. Your papers will be checked for plagiarism automatically through TurnIt In
2. References: You are required bring in the readings from class. You need in-text citations
and a references page that follows the guidelines of APA. You can find information on
these by going to OWL PURDUE.
3. Expectations: This is a 300-level class. The expectations for this project are high due not
only to it being a 300-level class, but due to the abilities you have demonstrated this
term.
4. Plagiarism: Don’t do it. Over-citing is far better than not citing enough. I will never dock
points for over-citing; it gives me a chance to teach you when/where/how to cite. Please
consult MetroState’s Plagiarism policy here.
Grading Procedures
•
•
You will be graded on how well you answer the required information in the five steps
outlined above – including how well you used theory to define the cultural space/place,
and how well you integrated the IPM into your thinking about this project. You need to
demonstrate that you have given this considerable thought and attention. If it’s clear
you’ve given this a passing thought, your grade will reflect that. You will be graded on
grammar, sentence structure, and flow – demonstrating you have worked to re-read
this proposal. You will be graded on using citations and your references page. Any
plagiarism will result in a 0 for the proposal and we’ll need to meet to discuss.
The proposal is worth 20 points.
Stanford Law Review
Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color
Author(s): Kimberle Crenshaw
Source: Stanford Law Review, Vol. 43, No. 6 (Jul., 1991), pp. 1241-1299
Published by: Stanford Law Review
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1229039
Accessed: 19-09-2015 15:52 UTC
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Mappingthe Margins: Intersectionality,
Identity Politics, and Violence Against
Women of Color
KimberleCrenshaw*
INTRODUCTION
Over the last two decades, women have organized against the almost
routine violence that shapes their lives.1 Drawing from the strength of
sharedexperience,women have recognizedthat the politicaldemandsof millions speak more powerfullythan the pleas of a few isolated voices. This
politicization in turn has transformed the way we understand violence
againstwomen. For example,batteringand rape, once seen as private(family matters)and aberrational(errantsexual aggression),are now largelyrecognized as part of a broad-scalesystem of dominationthat affectswomen as
a class.2 This process of recognizingas social and systemic what was for* ? 1993
by Kimberle Crenshaw. Professor of Law, University of California, Los Angeles.
B.A. Cornell University, 1981; J.D. Harvard Law School, 1984; LL.M. University of Wisconsin,
1985.
I am indebted to a great many people who have pushed this project along. For their kind assistance in facilitating my field research for this article, I wish to thank Maria Blanco, Margaret Cambrick, Joan Creer, Estelle Cheung, Nilda Rimonte and Fred Smith. I benefitted from the comments
of Taunya Banks, Mark Barenberg, Darcy Calkins, Adrienne Davis, Gina Dent, Brent Edwards,
Paul Gewirtz, Lani Guinier, Neil Gotanda, Joel Handler, Duncan Kennedy, Henry Monaghan, Elizabeth Schneider and Kendall Thomas. A very special thanks goes to Gary Peller and Richard Yarborough. Jayne Lee, Paula Puryear, Yancy Garrido, Eugenia Gifford and Leti Volpp provided
valuable research assistance. I gratefully acknowledge the support of the Academic Senate of
UCLA, Center for Afro-American Studies at UCLA, the Reed Foundation and Columbia Law
School. Earlier versions of this article were presented to the Critical Race Theory Workshop and the
Yale Legal Theory Workshop.
This article is dedicated to the memory of Denise Carty-Bennia and Mary Joe Frug.
1. Feminist academics and activists have played a central role in forwardingan ideological and
institutional challenge to the practices that condone and perpetuate violence against women. See
AGAINSTOUR WILL: MEN, WOMEN AND RAPE (1975);
generally SUSAN BROWNMILLER,
LORENNEM.G. CLARK& DEBRAJ. LEWIS,RAPE:THE PRICEOFCOERCIVE
SEXUALITY
(1977);
R. EMERSON
DOBASH& RUSSELLDOBASH,VIOLENCE
AGAINSTWIVES:A CASEAGAINSTTHE
PATRIARCHY
(1979); NANCYGAGER& CATHLEENSCHURR,SEXUALASSAULT:CONFRONTING
RAPE IN AMERICA(1976); DIANA E.H. RUSSELL,THE POLITICS
OF RAPE:THE VICTIM’SPERSPECTIVE
ANNE STANKO,INTIMATEINTRUSIONS:
WOMEN’SEXPERIENCE
OF
(1974); ELIZABETH
MALE VIOLENCE(1985); LENOREE. WALKER,TERRIFYING
LOVE:WHY BATTEREDWOMEN
KILLANDHOWSOCIETY
RESPONDS
WOMANSYN(1989); LENOREE. WALKER,THE BATTERED
DROME(1984); LENOREE. WALKER,THE BATTERED
WOMAN(1979).
2. See, e.g., SUSANSCHECHTER,
WOMENAND MALEVIOLENCE:
THE VISIONSAND STRUGGLESOFTHEBATTERED
WOMEN’SMOVEMENT
(1982) (arguing that battering is a means of maintaining women’s subordinate position); S. BROWNMILLER,
supra note 1 (arguing that rape is a
1241
1242
STANFORDLAWREVIEW
[Vol. 43:1241
merly perceivedas isolatedand individualhas also characterizedthe identity
politics of African Americans,other people of color, and gays and lesbians,
among others. For all these groups,identity-basedpolitics has been a source
of strength,community,and intellectualdevelopment.
The embraceof identitypolitics, however,has been in tension with dominant conceptionsof social justice. Race, gender, and other identity categories are most often treatedin mainstreamliberaldiscourseas vestigesof bias
or domination-that is, as intrinsicallynegativeframeworksin which social
power works to exclude or marginalizethose who are different. According
to this understanding,our liberatoryobjectiveshould be to empty such categories of any social significance. Yet implicit in certain strands of feminist
and racial liberation movements, for example is the view that the social
power in delineatingdifferenceneed not be the power of domination;it can
instead be the source of social empowermentand reconstruction.
The problemwith identity politics is not that it fails to transcenddifference, as some critics charge,but ratherthe opposite-that it frequentlyconflates or ignores intragroupdifferences. In the context of violence against
women, this elision of differencein identity politics is problematic,fundamentally because the violence that many women experienceis often shaped
by other dimensionsof their identities, such as race and class. Moreover,
ignoring differencewithin groups contributesto tension among groups, another problemof identity politics that bears on effortsto politicize violence
against women. Feminist effortsto politicize experiencesof women and antiracist efforts to politicize experiencesof people of color have frequently
proceeded as though the issues and experiencesthey each detail occur on
mutuallyexclusiveterrains. Although racismand sexism readilyintersectin
the lives of real people, they seldom do in feminist and antiracistpractices.
And so, when the practicesexpoundidentityas woman or personof color as
an either/or proposition,they relegate the identity of women of color to a
location that resists telling.
My objectivein this article is to advance the telling of that location by
exploring the race and gender dimensions of violence against women of
color.3 Contemporaryfeministand antiracistdiscourseshave failed to conpatriarchalpractice that subordinateswomen to men); Elizabeth Schneider, The Violenceof Privacy,
23 CONN. L. REV. 973, 974 (1991) (discussing how “concepts of privacy permit, encourage and
reinforce violence against women”); Susan Estrich, Rape, 95 YALEL.J. 1087 (1986) (analyzing rape
law as one illustration of sexism in criminal law); see also CATHARINE
A. MACKINNON,SEXUAL
HARASSMENT
OF WORKING
WOMEN:A CASEOF SEX DISCRIMINATION 143-213 (1979) (arguing
that sexual harassment should be redefined as sexual discrimination actionable under Title VII,
rather than viewed as misplaced sexuality in the workplace).
3. This article arises out of and is inspired by two emerging scholarly discourses. The first is
critical race theory. For a cross-section of what is now a substantial body of literature, see PATRICIA
J. WILLIAMS,
THE ALCHEMY
OFRACEANDRIGHTS(1991); Robin D. Barnes, Race Consciousness:
The Thematic Content of Racial Distinctivenessin Critical Race Scholarship, 103 HARV. L. REV.
1864 (1990); John 0. Calmore, Critical Race Theory, Archie Shepp, and Fire Music. Securing an
Authentic Intellectual Life in a Multicultural World, 65 S. CAL. L. REV. 2129 (1992); Anthony E.
Cook, Beyond Critical Legal Studies: The ReconstructiveTheology of Dr. Martin Luther King, 103
HARV.L. REV. 985 (1990); Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, Race, Reform and Retrenchment:Transformation and Legitimation in AntidiscriminationLaw, 101 HARV. L. REV. 1331 (1988); Richard
July 1991]
INTERSECTIONALITY
1243
sider intersectionalidentities such as women of color.4 Focusing on two
dimensionsof male violence againstwomen-battering and rape-I consider
how the experiencesof women of color are frequentlythe product of intersecting patternsof racism and sexism,5and how these experiencestend not
Delgado, When a Story is Just a Story: Does Voice Really Matter?, 76 VA. L. REV. 95 (1990); Neil
Gotanda, A Critiqueof “OurConstitutionis Colorblind,”44 STAN.L. REV. 1 (1991) Mari J. Matsuda, Public Response to Racist Speech: Considering the Victim’s Story, 87 MICH. L. REV. 2320
(1989); Charles R. Lawrence III, The Id, the Ego, and Equal Protection:Reckoning with Unconscious
Racism, 39 STAN. L. REV. 317 (1987); Gerald Torres, Critical Race Theory: The Decline of the
UniversalistIdeal and the Hope of Plural Justice-Some Observationsand Questionsof an Emerging
Phenomenon, 75 MINN. L. REV. 993 (1991). For a useful overview of critical race theory, see
Calmore, supra, at 2160-2168.
A second, less formally linked body of legal scholarship investigates the connections between
race and gender. See, e.g., Regina Austin, Sapphire Bound!, 1989 WIS. L. REV. 539; Crenshaw,
supra; Angela P. Harris, Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory, 42 STAN. L. REV. 581
(1990); Marlee Kline, Race, Racism and Feminist Legal Theory, 12 HARV. WOMEN’SL.J. 115
(1989); Dorothy E. Roberts, Punishing Drug Addicts Who Have Babies: Women of Color, Equality
and the Right of Privacy, 104 HARV. L. REV. 1419 (1991); Cathy Scarborough, Conceptualizing
Black Women’s Employment Experiences, 98 YALE L.J. 1457 (1989) (student author); Peggie R.
Smith, Separate Identities: Black Women, Workand Title VII, 14 HARV.WOMEN’SL.J. 21 (1991);
Judy Scales-Trent, Black Women and the Constitution:Finding Our Place, Asserting Our Rights, 24
HARV.C.R-C.L. L. REV. 9 (1989); Judith A. Winston, Mirror,Mirroron the Wall: Title VII, Section
1981, and the Intersectionof Race and Gendet ‘n the Civil Rights Act of 1990, 79 CAL. L. REV. 775
(1991). This work in turn has been informed oy a broader literature examining the interactions of
race and gender in other contexts. See, e.g., PATRICIA
HILLCOLLINS,
BLACKFEMINIST
THOUGHT:
AND THE POLITICS
OF EMPOWERMENT
KNOWLEDGE,
CONSCIOUSNESS,
(1990); ANGELADAVIS,
AIN’T I A WOMAN?BLACKWOMENANDFEMIWOMEN,RACEANDCLASS(1981); BELLHOOKS,
NISM(1981); ELIZABETH
V. SPELMAN,
IN FEMIOFEXCLUSION
INESSENTIAL
WOMAN:PROBLEMS
NISTTHOUGHT(1988); Frances Beale, Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female, in THE BLACK
WOMAN90 (Toni Cade ed. 1970); Kink-Kok Cheung, The Woman Warriorversus The Chinaman
IN
Pacific: Must a Chinese American Critic Choose betweenFeminism and Heroism?, in CONFLICTS
FEMINISM
234 (Marianne Hirsch & Evelyn Fox Keller eds. 1990); Deborah H. King, Multiple Jeopardy, Multiple Consciousness:The Context of a Black Feminist Ideology, 14 SIGNS42 (1988); Diane
K. Lewis, A Response to Inequality: Black Women, Racism and Sexism, 3 SIGNS339 (1977);
Deborah E. McDowell, New Directionsfor Black Feminist Criticism, in THE NEW FEMINIST
CRITICISM:ESSAYSON WOMEN,LITERATURE
AND THEORY186 (Elaine Showalter ed. 1985); Valerie
Smith, Black Feminist Theory and the Representationof the “Other” in CHANGINGOUR OWN
WORDS:ESSAYSONCRITICISM,
THEORYANDWRITINGBYBLACKWOMEN38 (Cheryl A. Wall ed.
1989).
4. Although the objective of this article is to describe the intersectional location of women of
color and their marginalization within dominant resistance discourses, I do not mean to imply that
the disempowerment of women of color is singularly or even primarily caused by feminist and antiracist theorists or activists. Indeed, I hope to dispell any such simplistic interpretationsby capturing, at least in part, the way that prevailing structures of domination shape various discourses of
resistance. As I have noted elsewhere, “People can only demand change in ways that reflect the
logic of the institutions they are challenging. Demands for change that do not reflect . . . dominant
ideology . . . will probably be ineffective.” Crenshaw, supra note 3, at 1367. Although there are
significant political and conceptual obstacles to moving against structures of domination with an
intersectional sensibility, my point is that the effort to do so should be a central theoretical and
political objective of both antiracism and feminism.
5. Although this article deals with violent assault perpetrated by men against women, women
are also subject to violent assault by women. Violence among lesbians is a hidden but significant
problem. One expert reported that in a study of 90 lesbian couples, roughly 46% of lesbians have
been physically abused by their partners. Jane Garcia, The Cost of Escaping Domestic Violence:Fear
of Treatment in a Largely Homophobic Society May Keep Lesbian Abuse Victimsfrom Calling for
SPEAKING
OUT ABOUT
Help, L.A. Times, May 6, 1991, at 2; see also NAMINGTHE VIOLENCE:
LESIBIAN
BATTERING
(Kerry Lobel ed. 1986); Ruthann Robson, LavenderBruises. Intralesbian Violence, Law and Lesbian Legal Theory, 20 GOLDENGATE U.L. REV. 567 (1990). There are clear
parallels between violence against women in the lesbian community and violence against women in
1244
STANFORDLAWREVIEW
[Vol. 43:1241
to be representedwithin the discoursesof eitherfeminismor antiracism. Because of their intersectionalidentity as both women and of color within discourses that are shaped to respondto one or the other, women of color are
marginalizedwithin both.
In an earlierarticle, I used the concept of intersectionalityto denote the
variousways in which race and genderinteractto shape the multipledimensions of Black6women’s employmentexperiences.7My objectivethere was
to illustrate that many of the experiencesBlack women face are not subsumed within the traditionalboundariesof race or gender discriminationas
these boundariesare currentlyunderstood,and that the intersectionof racism and sexism factors into Black women’s lives in ways that cannot be
capturedwholly by looking at the race or genderdimensionsof those experiences separately. I build on those observationshere by exploringthe various ways in which race and genderintersectin shapingstructural,political,
and representationalaspects of violence against women of color.8
I should say at the outset that intersectionalityis not being offeredhere
as some new, totalizing theory of identity. Nor do I mean to suggest that
violence against women of color can be explainedonly through the specific
frameworksof race and gender consideredhere.9 Indeed, factors I address
communities of color. Lesbian violence is often shrouded in secrecy for similar reasons that have
suppressed the exposure of heterosexual violence in communities of color-fear of embarassingother
members of the community, which is already stereotyped as deviant, and fear of being ostracized
from the community. Despite these similarities, there are nonetheless distinctions between male
abuse of women and female abuse of women that in the context of patriarchy, racism and
homophobia, warrants more focused analysis than is possible here.
6. I use “Black” and “African American” interchangeablythroughout this article. I capitalize
“Black” because “Blacks, like Asians, Latinos, and other ‘minorities,’ constitute a specific cultural
group and, as such, require denotation as a proper noun.” Crenshaw, supra note 3, at 1332 n.2
(citing Catharine MacKinnon, Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State: An Agendafor Theory,7
SIGNS 515, 516 (1982)). By the same token, I do not capitalize “white,” which is not a proper noun,
since whites do not constitute a specific cultural group. For the same reason I do not capitalize
“women of color.”
7. Kimberle Crenshaw, Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex, 1989 U. CHI.
LEGALF. 139.
8. I explicitly adopt a Black feminist stance in this survey of violence against women of color.
I do this cognizant of several tensions that such a position entails. The most significant one stems
from the criticism that while feminism purports to speakfor women of color through its invocation
of the term “woman,” the feminist perspective excludes women of color because it is based upon the
experiences and interests of a certain subset of women. On the other hand, when white feminists
attempt to include other women, they often add our experiences into an otherwise unaltered framework. It is important to name the perspective from which one constructs her analysis; and for me,
that is as a Black feminist. Moreover, it is important to acknowledge that the materials that I
incorporate in my analysis are drawn heavily from research on Black women. On the other hand, I
see my own work as part of a broader collective effort among feminists of color to expand feminism
to include analyses of race and other factors such as class, sexuality, and age. I have attempted
therefore to offer my sense of the tentative connections between my analysis of the intersectional
experiences of Black women and the intersectional experiences of other women of color. I stress that
this analysis is not intended to include falsely nor to exclude unnecessarily other women of color.
9. I consider intersectionality a provisional concept linking contemporary politics with
postmodern theory. In mapping the intersections of race and gender, the concept does engage dominant assumptions that race and gender are essentially separate categories. By tracing the categories
to their intersections, I hope to suggest a methodology that will ultimately disrupt the tendencies to
see race and gender as exclusive or separable. While the primary intersections that I explore here are
INTERSECTIONALITY
July 1991]
1245
only in part or not at all, such as class or sexuality, are often as critical in
shapingthe experiencesof women of color. My focus on the intersectionsof
race and genderonly highlightsthe need to account for multiplegroundsof
identity when consideringhow the social world is constructed.’0
I have dividedthe issues presentedin this articleinto three categories. In
Part I, I discuss structuralintersectionality,the ways in which the location
of women of color at the intersectionof race and gender makes our actual
experienceof domestic violence, rape, and remedialreformqualitativelydifferent than that of white women. I shift the focus in Part II to political
intersectionality,where I analyze how both feminist and antiracistpolitics
have, paradoxically,often helped to marginalizethe issue of violenceagainst
women of color. Then in Part III, I discuss representationalintersectionality, by which I mean the culturalconstructionof women of color. I consider
how controversiesover the representationof women of color in popularculture can also elide the particularlocation of women of color, and thus become yet another source of intersectional disempowerment. Finally, I
address the implicationsof the intersectionalapproachwithin the broader
scope of contemporaryidentity politics.
I.
STRUCTURAL INTERSECTIONALITY
A. StructuralIntersectionalityand Battering
I observedthe dynamicsof structuralintersectionalityduringa brieffield
study of batteredwomen’s shelters located in minority communitiesin Los
Angeles.” In most cases, the physical assault that leads women to these
shelters is merely the most immediate manifestationof the subordination
they experience. Many women who seek protectionare unemployedor underemployed,and a good numberof them are poor. Sheltersserving these
women cannot affordto addressonly the violence inflictedby the batterer;
they must also confrontthe other multilayeredand routinizedforms of domination that often convergein these women’s lives, hinderingtheir ability to
create alternativesto the abusiverelationshipsthat broughtthem to shelters
in the first place. Many women of color, for example,are burdenedby poverty, child care responsibilities,and the lack of job skills.’2 These burdens,
between race and gender, the concept can and should be expanded by factoring in issues such as
class, sexual orientation, age, and color.
10. Professor Mari Matsuda calls this inquiry “asking the other question.” Mari J. Matsuda,
Beside My Sister, Facing the Enemy: Legal TheoryOut of Coalition, 43 STAN.L. REV. 1183 (1991).
For example, we should look at an issue or condition traditionally regarded as a gender issue and
ask, “Where’s the racism in this?”
11. During my research in Los Angeles, California, I visited Jenessee Battered Women’s Shelter, the only shelter in the Western states primarily serving Black women, and Everywoman’s Shelter, which primarily serves Asian women. I also visited Estelle Chueng at the Asian Pacific Law
Foundation, and I spoke with a representative of La Casa, a shelter in the predominantly Latino
community of East L.A.
12. One researcherhas noted, in reference to a survey taken of battered women’s shelters, that
“many Caucasian women were probably excluded from the sample, since they are more likely to
have available resources that enable them to avoid going to a shelter. Many shelters admit only
women with few or no resources or alternatives.” MILDREDDALEY PAGELOW,WOMAN-BAT-
1246
STANFORDLAWREVIEW
[Vol. 43:1241
largely the consequence of gender and class oppression, are then compounded by the racially discriminatoryemploymentand housing practices
women of color often face,13as well as by the disproportionatelyhigh unemployment among people of color that makes battered women of color less
able to depend on the support of friends and relatives for temporary
shelter. 14
Where systems of race, gender, and class dominationconverge, as they
do in the experiencesof battered women of color, intervention strategies
based solely on the experiencesof women who do not sharethe same class or
race backgroundswill be of limited help to women who becauseof race and
class face differentobstacles.15 Such was the case in 1990 when Congress
amendedthe marriagefraud provisionsof the Immigrationand Nationality
Act to protect immigrantwomen who were batteredor exposed to extreme
cruelty by the United States citizens or permanentresidents these women
TERING:VICTIMS
ANDTHEIREXPERIENCES
97 (1981). On the other hand, many middle- and upper-class women are financially dependent upon their husbands and thus experience a diminution in
their standard of living when they leave their husbands.
13. Together they make securing even the most basic necessities beyond the reach of many.
Indeed one shelter provider reported that nearly 85 percent of her clients returned to the battering
relationships, largely because of difficulties in finding employment and housing. African Americans
are more segregated than any other racial group, and this segregation exists across class lines. Recent studies in Washington, D.C., and its suburbsshow that 64% of Blacks trying to rent apartments
in white neighborhoods encountered discrimination. Tracy Thompson, Study Finds ‘Persistent’Racial Bias in Area’s Rental Housing, Wash. Post, Jan. 31, 1991, at D1. Had these studies factored
gender and family status into the equation, the statistics might have been worse.
14. More specifically, African Americans suffer from high unemployment rates, low incomes,
and high poverty rates. According to Dr. David Swinton, Dean of the School of Business at Jackson
State University in Mississippi, African Americans “receive three-fifths as much income per person
as whites and are three times as likely to have annual incomes below the Federally defined poverty
level of $12,675 for a family of four.” UrbanLeague UrgesAction, N.Y. Times, Jan. 9, 1991, at A14.
In fact, recent statistics indicate that racial economic inequality is “higher as we begin the 1990s
than at any other time in the last 20 years.” David Swinton, The Economic Status of African Americans: “Permanent”Povertyand Inequality, in THE STATEOFBLACKAMERICA1991, at 25 (1991).
The economic situation of minority women is, expectedly, worse than that of their male counterparts. Black women, who earn a median of $7,875 a year, make considerably less than Black men,
who earn a median income of $12,609 a year, and white women, who earn a median income of
$9,812 a year. Id. at 32 (Table 3). Additionally, the percentage of Black female-headed families
living in poverty (46.5%) is almost twice that of white female-headed families (25.4%). Id. at 43
(Table 8). Latino households also earn considerably less than white households. In 1988, the median income of Latino households was $20,359 and for white households, $28,340-a difference of
almost $8,000. HISPANICAMERICANS:
A STATISTICAL
149 (1991). Analyzing by
SOURCEBOOK
origin, in 1988, Puerto Rican households were the worst off, with 34.1% earning below $10,000 a
year and a median income for all Puerto Rican households of $15,447 per year. Id. at 155. 1989
statistics for Latino men and women show that women earned an average of $7,000 less than men.
Id. at 169.
15. See text accompanying notes 61-66 (discussing shelter’s refusal to house a Spanish-speaking woman in crisis even though her son could interpret for her because it would contribute to her
disempowerment). Racial differences marked an interesting contrast between Jenesee’s policies and
those of other shelters situated outside the Black community. Unlike some other shelters in Los
Angeles, Jenessee welcomed the assistance of men. According to the Director, the shelter’s policy
was premised on a belief that given African American’s need to maintain healthy relations to pursue
a common struggle against racism, anti-violence programs within the African American community
cannot afford to be antagonistic to men. For a discussion of the differentneeds of Black women who
are battered, see Beth Richie, BatteredBlack Women:A Challengefor the Black Community, BLACK
SCHOLAR, Mar./Apr.
1985, at 40.
July 1991]
INTERSECTIONALITY
1247
immigratedto the United States to marry. Under the marriagefraud provisions of the Act, a person who immigratedto the United States to marrya
United States citizen or permanentresidenthad to remain “properly”married for two years before even applying for permanentresident status,16at
which time applicationsfor the immigrant’spermanentstatus were required
of both spouses.17Predictably,underthese circumstances,many immigrant
women were reluctantto leave even the most abusiveof partnersfor fear of
being deported.18When faced with the choice betweenprotectionfrom their
batterersand protectionagainstdeportation,many immigrantwomen chose
the latter.19Reportsof the tragic consequencesof this double subordination
put pressureon Congressto include in the ImmigrationAct of 1990 a provision amendingthe marriagefraud rules to allow for an explicit waiver for
hardshipcaused by domestic violence.20Yet many immigrantwomen, par16. 8 U.S.C. ? 1186a (1988). The Marriage Fraud Amendments provide that an alien spouse
“shall be considered, at the time of obtaining the status of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent
residence, to have obtained such status on a conditional basis subject to the provisions of this section.” ? 1186a(a)(1). An alien spouse with permanent resident status under this conditional basis
may have her status terminated if the Attorney General finds that the marriage was “improper,”
? 1186a(b)(l), or if she fails to file a petition or fails to appear at the personal interview.
? 1186a(c)(2)(A).
17. The Marriage Fraud Amendments provided that for the conditional resident status to be
removed, “the alien spouse and the petitioning spouse (if not deceased)jointly must submit to the
Attorney General . . . a petition which requests the removal of such conditional basis and which
states, under penalty of perjury, the facts and information.” ? 1186a(b)(l)(A) (emphasis added).
The Amendments provided for a waiver, at the Attorney General’s discretion, if the alien spouse was
able to demonstrate that deportation would result in extreme hardship, or that the qualifying marriage was terminated for good cause. ? 1186a(c)(4). However, the terms of this hardship waiver
have not adequately protected battered spouses. For example, the requirementthat the marriagebe
terminated for good cause may be difficult to satisfy in states with no-fault divorces. Eileen P. Lynsky, Immigration Marriage Fraud Amendments of 1986: Till CongressDo Us Part, 41 U. MIAMIL.
REV. 1087, 1095 n.47 (1987) (student author) (citing Jerome B. Ingber & R. Leo Prischet, The
LAWOF 1986, at 564IMMIGRATION
Marriage Fraud Amendments, in THE NEW SIMPSON-RODINO
65 (Stanley Mailman ed. 1986)).
18. Immigration activists have pointed out that “[t]he 1986 Immigration Reform Act and the
Immigration MarriageFraud Amendment have combined to give the spouse applying for permanent
residence a powerful tool to control his partner.” Jorge Banales, AbuseAmong Immigrants;As Their
Numbers GrowSo Does the Need for Services, Wash. Post, Oct. 16, 1990, at E5. Dean Ito Taylor,
executive director of Nihonmachi Legal Outreach in San Francisco, explained that the Marriage
Fraud Amendments “bound these immigrant women to their abusers.” Deanna Hodgin, ‘MailOrder’ Brides Marry Pain to Get Green Cards, Wash. Times, Apr. 16, 1991, at El. In one egregious
instance described by Beckie Masaki, executive director of the Asian Women’s Shelter in San Francisco, the closer the Chinese bride came to getting her permanent residency in the United States, the
more harshly her Asian-American husband beat her. Her husband, kicking her in the neck and face,
warned her that she needed him, and if she did not do as he told her, he would call immigration
officials. Id.
19. As Alice Fernandez, head of the Victim Services Agency at the Bronx Criminal Court,
explained, “‘Women are being held hostage by their landlords, their boyfriends, their bosses, their
husbands…. The message is: If you tell anybody what I’m doing to you, they are going to ship
your ass back home. And for these women, there is nothing more terrible than that …. Sometimes
their response is: I would rather be dead in this country than go back home.'” Vivienne Walt,
Immigrant Abuse:Nowhere to Hide; WomenFear Deportation,Experts Say, Newsday, Dec. 2, 1990,
at 8.
20. Immigration Act of 1990, Pub. L. No. 101-649, 104 Stat. 4978. The Act, introduced by
Representative Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), provides that a battered spouse who has conditional permanent resident status can be granted a waiver for failure to meet the requirementsif she can show
that “the marriage was entered into in good faith and that after the marriage the alien spouse was
1248
STANFORDLAWREVIEW
[Vol. 43:1241
ticularly immigrantwomen of color, have remainedvulnerableto battering
becausethey are unableto meet the conditionsestablishedfor a waiver. The
evidence requiredto support a waiver “can include, but is not limited to,
reports and affidavitsfrom police, medical personnel,psychologists,school
officials,and social service agencies.”21For many immigrantwomen, limited access to these resourcescan make it difficultfor them to obtain the
evidenceneededfor a waiver. And culturalbarriersoften furtherdiscourage
immigrant women from reporting or escaping battering situations. Tina
Shum, a family counselorat a social service agency, points out that “[t]his
law sounds so easy to apply, but there are cultural complications in the
Asian community that make even these requirements difficult….
Just to
find the opportunity and courage to call us is an accomplishment for
many.”22The typical immigrantspouse, she suggests,may live “[i]n an extended family where several generationslive together, there may be no privacy on the telephone, no opportunity to leave the house and no
understandingof publicphones.”23As a consequence,many immigrantwomen are wholly dependent on their husbands as their link to the world
outside their homes.24
Immigrant women are also vulnerableto spousal violence because so
many of them depend on their husbands for informationregardingtheir
legal status.25 Many women who are now permanentresidentscontinue to
suffer abuse under threats of deportationby their husbands. Even if the
threats are unfounded,women who have no independentaccess to information will still be intimidatedby such threats.26And even though the domesbattered by or was subjected to extreme mental cruelty by the U.S. citizen or permanent resident
spouse.” H.R. REP. No. 723(I), 101st Cong., 2d Sess. 78 (1990), reprintedin 1990 U.S.C.C.A.N.
6710, 6758; see also 8 C.F.R. ? 216.5(3) (1992) (regulations for application for waiver based on claim
of having been battered or subjected to extreme mental cruelty).
21. H.R. REP. No. 723(I), supra note 20, at 79, reprintedin 1990 U.S.C.C.A.N. 6710, 6759.
22. Hodgin, supra note 18.
23. Id.
24. One survey conducted of battered women “hypothesized that if a person is a member of a
discriminated minority group, the fewer the opportunities for socioeconomic status above the poverty level and the weaker the English language skills, the greater the disadvantage.” M. PAGELOW,
supra note 12, at 96. The 70 minority women in the study “had a double disadvantagein this society
that serves to tie them more strongly to their spouses.” Id.
25. A citizen or permanent resident spouse can exercise power over an alien spouse by threatening not to file a petition for permanent residency. If he fails to file a petition for permanent
residency, the alien spouse continues to be undocumented and is considered to be in the country
illegally. These constraints often restrict an alien spouse from leaving. Dean Ito Taylor tells the
story of “one client who has been hospitalized-she’s had him arrested for beating her-but she
keeps coming back to him because he promises he will file for her …. He holds that green card over
her head.” Hodgin, supra note 18. Other stories of domestic abuse abound. Maria, a 50-year-old
Dominican woman, explains that ” ‘One time I had eight stitches in my head and a gash on the other
side of my head, and he broke my ribs …. He would bash my head against the wall while we had
sex. He kept threatening to kill me if I told the doctor what happened.’ ” Maria had a “powerful
reason for staying with Juan through years of abuse: a ticket to permanent residence in the United
States.” Walt, supra note 19.
26. One reporter explained that “Third-world women must deal with additional fears, however. In many cases, they are afraid of authority, government institutions and their abusers’ threat
of being turned over to immigration officials to be deported.” Banales, supra note 18.
July 1991]
INTERSECTIONALITY
1249
tic violencewaiverfocuses on immigrantwomen whose husbandsare United
States citizens or permanentresidents,there are countlesswomen marriedto
undocumentedworkers (or who are themselvesundocumented)who suffer
in silence for fear that the securityof their entirefamilieswill be jeopardized
should they seek help or otherwisecall attentionto themselves.27
Languagebarrierspresent another structuralproblem that often limits
opportunitiesof non-English-speakingwomen to take advantageof existing
supportservices.28Such barriersnot only limit access to informationabout
shelters,but also limit access to the securitysheltersprovide. Some shelters
turn non-English-speakingwomen away for lack of bilingualpersonneland
resources.29
These examplesillustratehow patternsof subordinationintersectin women’s experience of domestic violence. Intersectionalsubordinationneed
not be intentionallyproduced;in fact, it is frequentlythe consequenceof the
imposition of one burden that interacts with preexistingvulnerabilitiesto
create yet another dimensionof disempowerment.In the case of the marriage fraud provisionsof the Immigrationand Nationality Act, the imposition of a policy specificallydesignedto burdenone class-immigrant spouses
seeking permanent resident status-exacerbated the disempowermentof
those alreadysubordinatedby other structuresof domination. By failing to
take into account the vulnerabilityof immigrantspouses to domestic vio27. Incidents of sexual abuse of undocumented women abound. Marta Rivera, director of the
Hostos College Center for Women’s and Immigrant’s Rights, tells of how a 19-year-old Dominican
woman had “arrived shaken . . . after her boss raped her in the women’s restroom at work.” The
woman told Rivera that “70 to 80 percent of the workers [in a Brooklyn garment factory] were
undocumented, and they all accepted sex as part of the job …. She said a 13-year-oldgirl had been
raped there a short while before her, and the family sent her back to the Dominican Republic.”
Walt, supra note 19. In another example, a “Latin American woman, whose husband’s latest attack
left her with two broken fingers, a swollen face and bruises on her neck and chest, refused to report
the beating to police.” She returned to her home after a short stay in a shelter. She did not leave the
abusive situation because she was “an undocumented, illiterate laborer whose children, passport and
money are tightly controlled by her husband.” Although she was informed of her rights, she was not
able to hurdle the structural obstacles in her path. Banales, supra note 18.
28. For example, in a region with a large number of Third-World immigrants, “the first hurdle
these [battered women’s shelters] must overcome is the language barrier.” Banales, supra note 18.
29.
There can be little question that women unable to communicate in English are severely
handicapped in seeking independence. Some women thus excluded were even further disadvantaged because they were not U.S. citizens and some were in this country illegally.
For a few of these, the only assistance shelter staff could render was to help reunite them
with their families of origin.
M. PAGELOW,
supra note 12, at 96-97. Non-English speaking women are often excluded even from
studies of battered women because of their language and other difficulties. A researcherqualifiedthe
statistics of one survey by pointing out that “an unknown number of minority group women were
excluded from this survey sample because of language difficulties.” Id. at 96. To combat this lack of
appropriateservices for women of color at many shelters, special programshave been created specifically for women from particular communities. A few examples of such programs include the Victim
Intervention Project in East Harlem for Latina women, Jenesee Shelter for African American women in Los Angeles, Apna Gar in Chicago for South Asian women, and, for Asian women generally,
the Asian Women’s Shelter in San Francisco, the New York Asian Women’s Center, and the Center
for the Pacific Asian Family in Los Angeles. Programs with hotlines include Sakhi for South Asian
Women in New York, and Manavi in Jersey City, also for South Asian women, as well as programs
for Korean women in Philadelphia and Chicago.
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[Vol. 43:1241
lence, Congresspositionedthese women to absorbthe simultaneousimpact
of its anti-immigrationpolicy and their spouses’ abuse.
The enactment of the domestic violence waiver of the marriagefraud
provisions similarly illustrateshow modest attempts to respond to certain
problems can be ineffectivewhen the intersectionallocation of women of
color is not consideredin fashioningthe remedy. Culturalidentityand class
affect the likelihood that a battered spouse could take advantage of the
waiver. Although the waiveris formallyavailableto all women, the termsof
the waiver make it inaccessibleto some. Immigrantwomen who are socially, culturally, or economically privilegedare more likely to be able to
marshallthe resourcesneededto satisfy the waiverrequirements.Those immigrantwomen least able to take advantageof the waiver-women who are
socially or economicallythe most marginal-are the ones most likely to be
women of color.
B. StructuralIntersectionalityand Rape
Women of color are differentlysituated in the economic, social, and
political worlds. When reform efforts undertakenon behalf of women neglect this fact, women of color are less likely to have their needs met than
women who are racially privileged. For example, counselors who provide
rape crisis servicesto women of color reportthat a significantproportionof
the resourcesallocatedto them must be spent handlingproblemsother than
rape itself. Meeting these needs often places these counselorsat odds with
their funding agencies,which allocate funds accordingto standardsof need
that are largely white and middle-class.30These uniformstandardsof need
ignore the fact that differentneeds often demanddifferentprioritiesin terms
of resourceallocation, and consequently,these standardshinder the ability
of counselorsto addressthe needs of nonwhiteand poor women.31A case in
point: women of color occupy positions both physically and culturally
marginalizedwithin dominantsociety, and so informationmust be targeted
directly to them in order to reach them.32 Accordingly,rape crisis centers
30. For example, the Rosa Parks Shelter and the Compton Rape Crisis Hotline, two shelters
that serve the African-American community, are in constant conflict with funding sources over the
ratio of dollars and hours to women served. Interview with Joan Greer, Executive Director of Rosa
Parks Shelter, in Los Angeles, California (April 1990).
31. One worker explained:
For example, a woman may come in or call in for various reasons. She has no place to go,
she has no job, she has no support, she has no money, she has no food, she’s been beaten,
and after you finish meeting all those needs, or try to meet all those needs, then she may
say, by the way, during all this, I was being raped. So that makes our community different
than other communities. A person wants their basic needs first. It’s a lot easier to discuss
things when you are full.
Nancy Anne Matthews, Stopping Rape or Managing its Consequences?State Intervention and Feminist Resistance in the Los Angeles Anti-Rape Movement, 1972-1987, at 287 (1989) (Ph.D dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles) (chronicling the history of the rape crisis movement, and
highlighting the different histories and dilemmas of rape crisis hotlines run by white feminists and
those situated in the minority communities).
32.
Typically, more time must be spent with a survivor who has fewer personal resources.
INTERSECTIONALITY
July 1991]
1251
must earmarkmore resourcesfor basic informationdisseminationin communities of color than in white ones.
Increasedcosts are but one consequenceof servingpeople who cannot be
reachedby mainstreamchannels of information. As noted earlier,counselors in minority communitiesreport spending hours locating resourcesand
contacts to meet the housingand other immediateneeds of women who have
been assualted. Yet this work is only considered”informationand referral”
by funding agencies and as such, is typically underfunded,notwithstanding
the magnitude of need for these services in minority communities.33The
problem is compoundedby expectationsthat rape crisis centers will use a
significantportion of resourcesallocated to them on counselors to accompany victims to court,34even though women of color are less likely to have
their cases pursuedin the criminaljustice system.35The resourcesexpected
to be set aside for court services are misdirectedin these communities.
The fact that minoritywomen sufferfrom the effectsof multiplesubordination, coupled with institutional expectations based on inappropriate
nonintersectionalcontexts,shapesand ultimatelylimits the opportunitiesfor
meaningfulinterventionon their behalf. Recognizingthe failureto consider
intersectionaldynamicsmay go far toward explainingthe high levels of failure, frustration,and burn-out experiencedby counselors who attempt to
meet the needs of minority women victims.
II.
POLITICALINTERSECTIONALITY
The concept of political intersectionality highlights the fact that women
These survivors tend to be ethnic minority women. Often, a non-assimilatedethnic minority survivor requires translating and interpreting,transportation,overnight shelter for herself and possibly children, and counseling to significant others in addition to the usual
counseling and advocacy services. So, if a rape crisis center serves a predominantlyethnic
minority population, the “average”number of hours of service provided to each survivor is
much higher than for a center that serves a predominantly white population.
Id. at 275 (quoting position paper of the Southern California Rape Hotline Alliance).
33. Id. at 287-88.
34. The Director of Rosa Parks reported that she often runs into trouble with her funding
sources over the Center’s lower than average number of counselors accompanying victims to court.
Interview with Joan Greer, supra note 30.
35.
Even though current statistics indicate that Black women are more likely to be victimized
than white women, Black women are less likely to report their rapes, less likely to have
their cases come to trial, less likely to have their trials result in convictions, and, most
disturbing, less likely to seek counseling and other support services.
PATRICIAHILL COLLINS,BLACKFEMINISTTHOUGHT:
ANDTHE
CONSCIOUSNESS
KNOWLEDGE,
POLITICS
OF EMPOWERMENT
178-79 (1990); accord HUBERTS. FEILD& LEIGHB. BIENEN,JURORSAND RAPE:A STUDYIN PSYCHOLOGY
AND LAW 141 (1980) (data obtained from 1,056 citizens serving as jurors in simulated legal rape cases generally showed that “the assailant of the black
woman was given a more lenient sentence than the white woman’s assailant”). According to Fern
Ferguson, an Illinois sex abuse worker, speaking at a Women of Color Institute conference in Knoxville, Tennessee, 10% of rapes involving white victims end in conviction, compared with 4.2% for
rapes involving non-white victims (and 2.3% for the less-inclusive group of Black rape victims).
UPI, July 30, 1985. Ferguson argues that myths about women of color being promiscuous and
wanting to be raped encourage the criminal justice system and medical professionals as well to treat
women of color differently than they treat white women after a rape has occurred. Id.
1252
STANFORDLAWREVIEW
[Vol. 43:1241
of color are situatedwithin at least two subordinatedgroups that frequently
pursueconflictingpoliticalagendas. The need to split one’s politicalenergies
betweentwo sometimesopposinggroupsis a dimensionof intersectionaldisempowermentthat men of color and white women seldom confront. Indeed,
their specificraced and genderedexperiences,although intersectional,often
define as well as confine the interestsof the entire group. For example, racism as experiencedby people of color who are of a particulargendermale-tends to determinethe parametersof antiraciststrategies,just as sexism as experiencedby women who are of a particularrace-white-tends to
ground the women’s movement. The problem is not simply that both discourses fail women of color by not acknowledgingthe “additional”issue of
race or of patriarchybut that the discoursesare often inadequateeven to the
discrete tasks of articulatingthe full dimensionsof racism and sexism. Because women of color experience racism in ways not always the same as
those experiencedby men of color and sexism in ways not always parallelto
experiencesof white women, antiracismand feminism are limited, even on
their own terms.
Among the most troubling political consequencesof the failure of antiracist and feminist discoursesto addressthe intersectionsof race and gender is the fact that, to the extent they can forwardthe interestof “peopleof
color” and “women,”respectively,one analysis often implicitly denies the
validity of the other. The failureof feminismto interrogaterace means that
the resistancestrategies of feminism will often replicate and reinforce the
subordinationof people of color, and the failureof antiracismto interrogate
patriarchymeans that antiracismwill frequentlyreproducethe subordination of women. These mutualelisionspresenta particularlydifficultpolitical
dilemma for women of color. Adopting either analysis constitutesa denial
of a fundamentaldimensionof our subordinationand precludesthe development of a political discoursethat more fully empowerswomen of color.
A.
The Politicizationof Domestic Violence
That the political interests of women of color are obscured and sometimesjeopardizedby politicalstrategiesthat ignoreor suppressintersectional
issues is illustratedby my experiencesin gatheringinformationfor this article. I attemptedto review Los Angeles Police Departmentstatistics reflecting the rate of domestic violence interventionsby precinct because such
statistics can provide a rough picture of arrestsby racial group, given the
degreeof racialsegregationin Los Angeles.36L.A.P.D., however,would not
release the statistics. A representativeexplainedthat one reason the statistics were not releasedwas that domestic violence activists both within and
36. Most crime statistics are classified by sex or race but none are classified by sex and race.
Because we know that most rape victims are women, the racial breakdown reveals, at best, rape rates
for Black women. Yet, even given this head start, rates for other non-white women are difficult to
collect. While there are some statistics for Latinas, statistics for Asian and Native American women
are virtually non-existent. Cf G. Chezia Carraway, ViolenceAgainst Womenof Color, 43 STAN.L.
REV. 1301 (1993).
July 1991]
INTERSECTIONALITY
1253
outside the Departmentfearedthat statistics reflectingthe extent of domestic violence in minority communities might be selectively interpretedand
publicizedso as to underminelong-termeffortsto force the Departmentto
address domestic violence as a serious problem. I was told that activists
were worriedthat the statistics might permitopponentsto dismiss domestic
violence as a minoirty problem and, therefore,not deservingof aggressive
action.
The informantalso claimed that representativesfrom various minority
communitiesopposed the release of these statistics. They were concerned,
apparently,that the data would unfairlyrepresentBlack and Browncommunities as unusuallyviolent, potentiallyreinforcingstereotypesthat might be
used in attemptsto justify oppressivepolice tactics and other discriminatory
practices. These misgivings are based on the familiar and not unfounded
premise that certain minority groups-especially Black men-have already
been stereotyped as uncontrollablyviolent. Some worry that attempts to
make domestic violence an object of political action may only serve to confirmsuch stereotypesand undermineeffortsto combatnegativebeliefsabout
the Black community.
This accountsharplyillustrateshow women of color can be erasedby the
strategicsilencesof antiracismand feminism. The politicalprioritiesof both
were definedin ways that suppressedinformationthat could have facilitated
attempts to confront the problem of domestic violence in communitiesof
color.
1. Domestic violence and antiracist politics.
Within communitiesof color, effortsto stem the politicizationof domestic violence are often groundedin attempts to maintainthe integrity of the
community. The articulationof this perspectivetakes differentforms. Some
critics allege that feminism has no place within communitiesof color, that
the issues are internally divisive, and that they representthe migration of
white women’sconcernsinto a context in which they are not only irrelevant
but also harmful. At its most extreme,this rhetoricdenies that genderviolence is a problemin the community and characterizesany effort to politicize gender subordination as itself a community problem. This is the
position taken by ShahrazadAli in her controversialbook, The Blackman’s
Guide to Understanding the Blackwoman.37 In this stridently antifeminist
tract, Ali draws a positive correlationbetween domestic violence and the
37.
SHAHRAZAD
ALI, THE BLACKMAN’S
GUIDE
TO UNDERSTANDING
THE BLACKWOMAN
(1989). Ali’s book sold quite well for an independently published title, an accomplishment no doubt
due in part to her appearanceson the Phil Donahue, Oprah Winfrey, and Sally Jesse Raphael television talk shows. For public and press reaction, see Dorothy Gilliam, Sick, Distorted Thinking,
Wash. Post, Oct. 11, 1990, at D3; Lena Williams, Black Woman’sBook Starts a PredictableStorm,
N.Y. Times, Oct. 2, 1990, at C11; see also PEARL CLEAGUE, MAD AT MILES: A BLACK WOMAN’S
GUIDE TO TRUTH (1990). The title clearly styled after Ali’s, Mad at Miles responds not only to
issues raised by Ali’s book, but also to Miles Davis’s admission in his autobiography, Miles: The
Autobiography(1989), that he had physically abused, among other women, his former wife, actress
Cicely Tyson.
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STANFORDLAWREVIEW
[Vol. 43:1241
liberation of African Americans. Ali blames the deterioratingconditions
within the Black communityon the insubordinationof Black women and on
the failureof Black men to control them.38 Ali goes so far as to advise Black
men to physically chastise Black women when they are “disrespectful.”39
While she cautions that Black men must use moderation in disciplining
“their”women, she arguesthat Black men must sometimesresort to physical force to reestablishthe authority over Black women that racism has
disrupted.40
Ali’s premiseis that patriarchyis beneficialfor the Black community,41
and that it must be strengthenedthroughcoercivemeansif necessary.42Yet
38. Shahrazad Ali suggests that the “[Blackwoman] certainly does not believe that her disrepect for the Blackman is destructive, nor that her opposition to him has deteriorated the Black
nation.” S. ALI, supra note 37, at viii. Blaming the problems of the community on the failure of the
Black woman to accept her “real definition,” Ali explains that “[n]o nation can rise when the natural
order of the behavior of the male and the female have been altered against their wishes by force. No
species can survive if the female of the genus disturbs the balance of her nature by acting other than
herself.” Id. at 76.
39. Ali advises the Blackman to hit the Blackwoman in the mouth, “[b]ecause it is from that
hole, in the lower part of her face, that all her rebellion culminates into words. Her unbridled tongue
is a main reason she cannot get along with the Blackman. She often needs a reminder.” Id. at 169.
Ali warns that “if [the Blackwoman] ignores the authority and superiority of the Blackman, there is
a penalty. When she crosses this line and becomes viciously insulting it is time for the Blackman to
soundly slap her in the mouth.” Id.
40. Ali explains that, “[r]egretfullysome Blackwomen want to be physically controlled by the
Blackman.” Id. at 174. “The Blackwoman, deep inside her heart,” Ali reveals, “wants to surrender
but she wants to be coerced.” Id. at 72. “[The Blackwoman] wants [the Blackman] to stand up and
defend himself even if it means he has to knock her out of the way to do so. This is necessary
whenever the Blackwoman steps out of the protection of womanly behavior and enters the dangerous domain of masculine challenge.” Id. at 174.
41. Ali points out that “[t]he Blackman being number 1 and the Blackwoman being number 2
is another absolute law of nature. The Blackman was created first, he has seniority. And the
Blackwoman was created 2nd. He is first. She is second. The Blackman is the beginning and all
others come from him. Everyone on earth knows this except the Blackwoman.” Id. at 67.
42. In this regard, Ali’s arguments bear much in common with those of neoconservatives who
attribute many of the social ills plaguing Black America to the breakdown of patriarchal family
values. See, e.g., William Raspberry, If We Are to Rescue American Families, We Have to Save the
Boys, Chicago Trib., July 19, 1989, at C15; George F. Will, VotingRights Won’tFix It, Wash. Post,
Jan. 23, 1986, at A23; George F. Will, “WhiteRacism” Doesn’t Make Blacks Mere Victimsof Fate,
Milwaukee J., Feb. 21, 1986, at 9. Ali’s argument shares remarkablesimilarities to the controversial
“Moynihan Report” on the Black family, so called because its principal author was now-Senator
Daniel P. Moynihan (D-N.Y.). In the infamous chapter entitled “The Tangle of Pathology,” Moynihan argued that
the Negro community has been forced into a matriarchal structure which, because it is so
out of line with the rest of American society, seriously retards the progress of the group as
a whole, and imposes a crushing burden on the Negro male and, in consequence, on a great
many Negro women as well.
OFFICEOFPOLICYPLANNINGANDRESEARCH,
U.S. DEPARTMENT
OFLABOR,THE NEGROFAMILY:THE CASEFORNATIONALACTION 29 (1965), reprintedin LEE RAINWATER
& WILLIAML.
YANCEY,THE MOYNIHANREPORTAND THEPOLITICSOFCONTROVERSY
75 (1967). A storm of
controversy developed over the book, although few commentators challenged the patriarchyembedded in the analysis. Bill Moyers, then a young minister and speechwriter for President Johnson,
firmly believed that the criticism directed at Moynihan was unfair. Some 20 years later, Moyers
resurrected the Moynihan thesis in a special television program, The Vanishing Family: Crisis in
Black America (CBS television broadcast, Jan. 25, 1986). The show first aired in January 1986 and
featured several African-American men and women who had become parents but were unwilling to
marry. Arthur Unger, HardhittingSpecial About Black Families, Christian Sci. Mon., Jan. 23, 1986,
July 1991]
INTERSECTIONALITY
1255
the violence that accompaniesthis will to control is devastating,not only for
the Black women who are victimized,but also for the entire Black community.43 The recourseto violence to resolve conflicts establishesa dangerous
pattern for children raised in such environmentsand contributesto many
other pressingproblems.44It has been estimatedthat nearlyforty percentof
all homeless women and children have fled violence in the home,45and an
estimatedsixty-threepercentof young men between the ages of eleven and
twenty who are imprisonedfor homicide have killed their mothers’batterers.46 And yet, while gang violence, homicide,and other formsof Black-onBlack crime have increasinglybeen discussedwithin African-Americanpolitics, patriarchalideas about gender and power preclude the recognitionof
domestic violence as yet another compelling incidence of Black-on-Black
crime.
Efforts such as Ali’s to justify violence against women in the name of
Black liberationare indeed extreme.47The more common problemis that
at 23. Many saw the Moyers show as a vindication of Moynihan. President Reagan took the opportunity to introduce an initiative to revamp the welfare system a week after the program aired.
Michael Barone, Poor Childrenand Politics, Wash. Post, Feb. 10, 1986, at Al. Said one official, “Bill
Moyers has made it safe for people to talk about this issue, the disintegrating black family structure.” Robert Pear, President Reported Ready to Propose Overhaulof Social WelfareSystem, N.Y.
Times, Feb. 1, 1986, at A12. Critics of the Moynihan/Moyers thesis have argued that it scapegoats
the Black family generally and Black women in particular. For a series of responses, see Scapegoating the Black Family, NATION,July 24, 1989 (special issue, edited by Jewell Handy Gresham and
Margaret B. Wilkerson, with contributions from Margaret Burnham, Constance Clayton, Dorothy
Height, Faye Wattleton, and Marian Wright Edelman). For an analysis of the media’s endorsement
of the Moynihan/Moyers thesis, see CARLGINSBURG,
RACEANDMEDIA:THEENDURINGLIFEOF
THEMOYNIHANREPORT(1989).
43. Domestic violence relates directly to issues that even those who subscribe to Ali’s position
must also be concerned about. The socioeconomic condition of Black males has been one such
central concern. Recent statistics estimate that 25% of Black males in their twenties are involved in
the criminal justice systems. See David G. Savage, Young Black Males in Jail or in Court Control
Study Says, L.A. Times, Feb. 27, 1990, at Al; Newsday, Feb. 27, 1990, at 15; Study Shows Racial
Imbalance in Penal System, N.Y. Times, Feb. 27, 1990, at A18. One would think that the linkages
between violence in the home and the violence on the streets would alone persuade those like Ali to
conclude that the African-Americancommunity cannot afford domestic violence and the patriarchal
values that support it.
44. A pressing problem is the way domestic violence reproduces itself in subsequent generations. It is estimated that boys who witness violence against women are ten times more likely to
batter female partners as adults. Women and Violence:Hearings Before the Senate Comm. on the
Judiciary on Legislation to Reduce the Growing Problem of Violent Crime Against Women, 101st
Cong., 2d Sess., pt. 2, at 89 (1991) [hereinafterHearings on Violent Crime Against Women] (testimony of Charlotte Fedders). Other associated problems for boys who witness violence against women include higher rates of suicide, violent assault, sexual assault, and alcohol and drug use. Id., pt.
2, at 131 (statement of Sarah M. Buel, Assistant District Attorney, Massachusetts, and Supervisor,
Harvard Law School Battered Women’s Advocacy Project).
45. Id. at 142 (statement of Susan Kelly-Dreiss) (discussing several studies in Pennsylvania
linking homelessness to domestic violence).
46. Id. at 143 (statement of Susan Kelly-Dreiss).
47. Another historical example includes Eldridge Cleaver, who argued that he raped white
women as an assault upon the white community. Cleaver “practiced” on Black women first. ELDRIDGE CLEAVER, SOUL ON ICE 14-15 (1968). Despite the appearanceof misogyny in both works,
each professes to worship Black women as “queens”of the Black community. This “queenly subservience” parallels closely the image of the “woman on a pedestal” against which white feminists have
railed. Because Black women have been denied pedestal status within dominant society, the image
of the African queen has some appeal to many African-American women. Although it is not a
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the political or culturalinterestsof the communityare interpretedin a way
that precludesfull public recognitionof the problem of domestic violence.
While it would be misleadingto suggest that white Americanshave come to
terms with the degree of violence in their own homes, it is nonethelessthe
case that race adds yet another dimensionto why the problemof domestic
violence is suppressedwithin nonwhite communities. People of color often
must weigh their interests in avoiding issues that might reinforcedistorted
public perceptionsagainst the need to acknowledgeand address intracommunity problems. Yet the cost of suppressionis seldom recognizedin part
becausethe failureto discuss the issue shapesperceptionsof how seriousthe
problemis in the first place.
The controversyover Alice Walker’snovel The ColorPurplecan be understood as an intracommunitydebate about the political costs of exposing
gender violence within the Black community.48 Some critics chastised
Walkerfor portrayingBlack men as violent brutes.49One critic lambasted
Walker’sportrayalof Celie, the emotionallyand physicallyabusedprotagonist who finallytriumphsin the end. Walker,the critic contended,had created in Celie a Black woman whom she couldn’t imagine existing in any
Black communityshe knew or could conceive of.50
The claim that Celie was somehow an unauthenticcharactermight be
read as a consequenceof silencing discussion of intracommunityviolence.
Celie may be unlike any Black woman we know because the real terrorexperienceddaily by minority women is routinely concealed in a misguided
(though perhapsunderstandable)attemptto forestallracialstereotyping. Of
course, it is true that representationsof Black violence-whether statistical
or fictional-are often written into a largerscript that consistentlyportrays
Black and other minoritycommunitiesas pathologicallyviolent. The problem, however, is not so much the portrayalof violence itself as it is the absence of other narrativesand images portraying a fuller range of Black
experience. Suppressionof some of these issues in the name of antiracism
imposesreal costs. Whereinformationabout violencein minoritycommunifeminist position, there are significant ways in which the promulgation of the image directly counters
the intersectional effects of racism and sexism that have denied African-American women a perch in
the “gilded cage.”
48. ALICEWALKER,THE COLORPURPLE(1982). The most severe criticism of Walker developed after the book was filmed as a movie. Donald Bogle, a film historian, argued that part of the
criticism of the movie stemmed from the one-dimensional portrayalof Mister, the abusive man. See
Jacqueline Trescott, Passions Over Purple; Anger and Unease Over Film’s Depiction of Black Men,
Wash. Post, Feb. 5, 1986, at C1. Bogle argues that in the novel, Walker linked Mister’s abusive
conduct to his oppression in the white world-since Mister “can’t be himself, he has to assert himself
with the black woman.” The movie failed to make any connection between Mister’s abusive treatment of Black women and racism, and thereby presented Mister only as an “insensitive, callous
man.” Id.
49. See, e.g., Gerald Early, Her Picture in the Papers:RememberingSome Black Women, ANTAEUS, Spring 1988, at 9; DarylPinckney, Black Victims, Black Villains, N.Y. REVIEW OF BOOKS,
Jan. 29, 1987, at 17; Trescott, supra note 48.
50. Trudier Harris, On the Color Purple, Stereotypes,and Silence, 18 BLACK AM. LIT. F. 155,
155 (1984).
July 1991]
INTERSECTIONALITY
1257
ties is not available,domesticviolenceis unlikelyto be addressedas a serious
issue.
The political imperativesof a narrowly focused antiraciststrategy support other practicesthat isolate women of color. For example,activistswho
have attemptedto providesupportservicesto Asian- and African-American
women reportintense resistancefrom those communities.51At other times,
culturaland social factors contributeto suppression. Nilda Rimonte, director of Everywoman’sShelter in Los Angeles, points out that in the Asian
community,saving the honor of the family from shame is a priority.52Unfortunately,this priority tends to be interpretedas obliging women not to
scream rather than obliging men not to hit.
Race and culture contributeto the suppressionof domestic violence in
other ways as well. Women of color are often reluctantto call the police, a
hesitancy likely due to a general unwillingnessamong people of color to
subjecttheir privatelives to the scrutinyand control of a police force that is
frequentlyhostile. There is also a more generalizedcommunityethic against
public intervention,the product of a desire to create a private world free
from the diverseassaultson the public lives of raciallysubordinatedpeople.
The home is not simply a man’s castle in the patriarchalsense, but may also
function as a safe haven from the indignitiesof life in a racist society. However, but for this “safe haven”in many cases, women of color victimizedby
violence might otherwise seek help.
There is also a generaltendencywithin antiracistdiscourseto regardthe
problemof violence against women of color as just anothermanifestationof
racism. In this sense, the relevanceof gender dominationwithin the community is reconfiguredas a consequenceof discriminationagainst men. Of
51. The source of the resistance reveals an interesting difference between the Asian-American
and African-American communities. In the African-American community, the resistance is usually
grounded in efforts to avoid confirming negative stereotypes of African-Americans as violent; the
concern of members in some Asian-American communities is to avoid tarnishing the model minority
myth. Interview with Nilda Rimonte, Director of the Everywoman Shelter, in Los Angeles, California (April 19, 1991).
52. Nilda Rimonte, A Question of Culture: Cultural Approvalof ViolenceAgainst Women in
the Pacific-AsianCommunityand the Cultural Defense, 43 STAN.L. REV. 1311 (1991); see also Nilda
OF WRITRimonte, Domestic ViolenceAgainst Pacific Asians, in MAKINGWAVES:AN ANTHOLOGY
INGSBY ANDABOUTASIANAMERICAN
WOMEN327, 328 (Asian Women United of California ed.
1989) (“Traditionally Pacific Asians conceal and deny problems that threaten group pride and may
bring on shame. Because of the strong emphasis on obligations to the family, a Pacific Asian woman
will often remain silent rather than admit to a problem that might disgrace her family.”). Additionally, the possibility of ending the marriage may inhibit an immigrant woman from seeking help.
Tina Shum, a family counselor, explains that a “‘divorce is a shame on the whole family…. The
Asian woman who divorces feels tremendous guilt.'” Of course, one could, in an attempt to be
sensitive to cultural difference, stereotype a culture or defer to it in ways that abandon women to
abuse. When-or, more importantly, how-to take culture into account when addressing the needs
of women of color is a complicated issue. Testimony as to the particularitiesof Asian “culture” has
increasingly been used in trials to determine the culpability of both Asian immigrant women and
men who are charged with crimes of interpersonal violence. A position on the use of the “cultural
defense” in these instances depends on how “culture” is being defined as well as on whether and to
what extent the “cultural defense” has been used differently for Asian men and Asian women. See
Leti Volpp, (Mis)Identifying Culture:Asian Women and the “Cultural Defense,” (unpublished manuscript) (on file with the Stanford Law Review).
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course, it is probablytrue that racism contributesto the cycle of violence,
given the stress that men of color experiencein dominantsociety. It is therefore more than reasonableto explore the links between racismand domestic
violence. But the chain of violenceis more complexand extendsbeyondthis
single link. Racism is linked to patriarchyto the extent that racism denies
men of color the power and privilegethat dominantmen enjoy. When violence is understoodas an acting-out of being denied male power in other
spheres, it seems counterproductiveto embrace constructs that implicitly
link the solution to domestic violence to the acquisition of greater male
power. The more promisingpolitical imperativeis to challenge the legitimacy of such power expectations by exposing their dysfunctional and
debilitatingeffect on families and communities of color. Moreover, while
understandinglinks between racism and domestic violence is an important
componentof any effectiveinterventionstrategy,it is also clear that women
of color need not await the ultimate triumph over racism before they can
expect to live violence-freelives.
2. Race and the domesticviolencelobby.
Not only do race-basedprioritiesfunctionto obscurethe problemof violence sufferedby women of color; feministconcernsoften suppressminority
experiencesas well. Strategiesfor increasingawarenessof domestic violence
within the white community tend to begin by citing the commonly shared
assumptionthat batteringis a minorityproblem. The strategythen focuses
on demolishingthis strawman,stressingthat spousalabusealso occurs in the
white community. Countlessfirst-personstoriesbegin with a statementlike,
“I was not supposedto be a batteredwife.” That batteringoccurs in families
of all races and all classes seems to be an ever-presenttheme of anti-abuse
campaigns.53First-personanecdotes and studies, for example, consistently
assert that batteringcuts across racial, ethnic, economic, educational,and
religiouslines.54 Such disclaimersseem relevantonly in the presenceof an
53. See, e.g., Hearings on ViolentCrimeAgainst Women,supra note 44, pt. 1, at 101 (testimony
of Roni Young, Director of Domestic Violence Unit, Office of the State’s Attorney for Baltimore
City, Baltimore, Maryland) (“The victims do not fit a mold by any means.”); Id. pt. 2, at 89 (testimony of Charlotte Fedders) (“Domestic violence occurs in all economic, cultural, racial, and religious groups. There is not a typical woman to be abused.”); Id. pt. 2 at 139 (statement of Susan
Kelly-Dreiss, Executive Director, Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence) (“Victims
come from a wide spectrum of life experiences and backgrounds. Women can be beaten in any
neighborhood and in any town.”).
54. See, e.g., LENOREF. WALKER,TERRIFYING
LOVE:WHYBATTERED
WOMENKILLAND
How SOCIETY
RESPONDS101-02 (1989) (“Battered women come from all types of economic, cultural, religious, and racial backgrounds…. They are women like you. Like me. Like those whom
BEyou know and love.”); MURRAYA. STRAUS,RICHARDJ. GELLES,SUZANNEK. STEINMETZ,
HINDCLOSEDDOORS:VIOLENCE
IN THEAMERICAN
FAMILY31 (1980) (“Wife-beatingis found in
every class, at every income level.”); Natalie Loder Clark, Crime Begins At Home: Let’s Stop Punishing Victims and Perpetuating Violence, 28 WM. & MARYL. REV. 263, 282 n.74 (1987) (“The problem of domestic violence cuts across all social lines and affects ‘families regardlessof their economic
class, race, national origin, or educational background.’ Commentators have indicated that domestic
violence is prevalent among upper middle-class families.”) (citations omitted); Kathleen Waits, The
Criminal Justice System’s Response to Battering. Understandingthe Problem, Forging the Solutions,
60 WASH. L. REV. 267, 276 (1985) (“It is important to emphasize that wife abuse is prevalent
July 1991]
INTERSECTIONALITY
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initial, widely held belief that domesticviolence occurs primarilyin minority
or poor families. Indeed some authorities explicitly renounce the “stereotypical myths” about batteredwomen.55 A few commentatorshave even
transformedthe message that batteringis not exclusivelya problem of the
poor or minority communitiesinto a claim that it equally affects all races
and classes.56 Yet these comments seem less concernedwith exploringdomestic abusewithin “stereotyped”communitiesthan with removingthe stereotype as an obstacleto exposingbatteringwithin white middle- and upperclass communities.57
Effortsto politicize the issue of violence againstwomen challengebeliefs
that violence occurs only in homes of “others.” While it is unlikely that
advocatesand others who adopt this rhetoricalstrategyintend to exclude or
ignore the needs of poor and colored women, the underlyingpremiseof this
seemingly univeralisticappeal is to keep the sensibilitiesof dominantsocial
throughout our society. Recently collected data merely confirm what people working with victims
have long known: battering occurs in all social and economic groups.”) (citations omitted); Liza G.
Lerman, Mediation of Wife Abuse Cases: The adverse Impact of Informal Dispute Resolution on
Women, 7 HARV.WOMEN’SL.J. 57, 63 (1984) (“Battering occurs in all racial, economic, and religious groups, in rural, urban, and suburbansettings.”) (citation omitted); Steven M. Cook, Domestic
Abuse Legislation in Illinois and OtherStates: A Survey and Suggestionsfor Reform, 1983 U. ILL. L.
REV. 261, 262 (1983) (student author) (“Although domestic violence is difficult to measure, several
studies suggest that spouse abuse is an extensive problem, one which strikes families regardless of
their economic class, race, national origin, or educational background.”) (citations omitted).
55. For example, Susan Kelly-Dreiss states:
The public holds many myths about battered women-they are poor, they are women of
color, they are uneducated, they are on welfare, they deserve to be beaten and they even
like it. However, contrary to common misperceptions, domestic violence is not confined to
any one socioeconomic, ethnic, religious, racial or age group.
Hearings on Violent Crime Against Women, supra note 44, pt. 2, at 139 (testimony of Susan KellyDreiss, Executive Director, Pa. Coalition Against Domestic Violence). Kathleen Waits offers a possible explanation for this misperception:
It is true that battered women who are also poor are more likely to come to the attention of
governmental officials than are their middle- and upper-class counterparts. However, this
phenomenon is caused more by the lack of alternative resources and the intrusiveness of
the welfare state than by any significantly higher incidence of violence among lower-class
families.
Waits, supra note 54, at 276-77 (citations omitted).
56. However, no reliable statistics support such a claim. In fact, some statistics suggest that
there is a greater frequency of violence among the working classes and the poor. See M. STRAUS,R.
GELLES, & S. STEINMETZ, supra note 54, at 31. Yet these statistics are also unreliable because, to
follow Waits’s observation, violence in middle- and upper-class homes remains hidden from the view
of statisticians and governmental officials alike. See note 55 supra. I would suggest that assertions
that the problem is the same across race and class are driven less by actual knowledge about the
prevalence of domestic violence in different communities than by advocates’ recognition that the
image of domestic violence as an issue involving primarily the poor and minorities complicates efforts to mobilize against it.
57. On January 14, 1991, Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del.) introduced Senate Bill 15, the Violence Against Women Act of 1991, comprehensive legislation addressing violent crime confronting
women. S. 15, 102d Cong., 1st Sess. (1991). The bill consists of several measures designed to create
safe streets, safe homes, and safe campuses for women. More specifically, Title III of the bill creates
a civil rights remedy for crimes of violence motivated by the victim’s gender. Id. ? 301. Among the
findings supporting the bill were “(1) crimes motivated by the victim’s gender constitute bias crimes
in violation of the victim’s right to be free from discrimination on the basis of gender” and “(2) current law [does not provide a civil rights remedy] for gender crimes committed on the street or in the
home.” S. REP. No. 197, 102d Cong., 1st Sess. 27 (1991).
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groups focused on the experiences of those groups. Indeed, as subtly suggested by the opening comments of Senator David Boren (D-Okla.) in support of the Violence Against Women Act of 1991, the displacement of the
“other” as the presumed victim of domestic violence works primarily as a
political appeal to rally white elites. Boren said,
Violent crimes against women are not limited to the streets of the inner
cities, but also occur in homes in the urban and rural areas across the
country.
Violence against women affects not only those who are actually beaten
and brutalized,but indirectlyaffectsall women. Today, our wives, mothers,
daughters,sisters, and colleagues are held captive by fear generatedfrom
these violent crimes-held captivenot for what they do or who they are, but
solely becauseof gender.58
Rather than focusing on and illuminating how violence is disregarded when
the home is “othered,” the strategy implicit in Senator Boren’s remarks
functions instead to politicize the problem only in the dominant community.
This strategy permits white women victims to come into focus, but does little
to disrupt the patterns of neglect that permitted the problem to continue as
long as it was imagined to be a minority problem. The experience of violence by minority women is ignored, except to the extent it gains white support for domestic violence programs in the white community.
Senator Boren and his colleagues no doubt believe that they have provided legislation and resources that will address the problems of all women
victimized by domestic violence. Yet despite their universalizing rhetoric of
“all” women, they were able to empathize with female victims of domestic
violence only by looking past the plight of “other” women and by recognizing the familiar faces of their own. The strength of the appeal to “protect
our women” must be its race and class specificity. After all, it has always
been someone’s wife, mother, sister, or daughter that has been abused, even
when the violence was stereotypically Black or Brown, and poor. The point
here is not that the Violence Against Women Act is particularistic on its
own terms, but that unless the Senators and other policymakers ask why
violence remained insignificant as long as it was understood as a minority
problem, it is unlikely that women of color will share equally in the distribution of resources and concern. It is even more unlikely, however, that those
in power will be forced to confront this issue. As long as attempts to politicize domestic violence focus on convincing whites that this is not a “minority” problem but their problem, any authentic and sensitive attention to the
58. 137 Cong. Rec. S611 (daily ed. Jan. 14, 1991) (statement of Sen. Boren). Senator William
Cohen (D-Me.) followed with a similar statement, noting that rapes and domestic assaults
are not limited to the streets of our inner cities or to those few highly publicized cases that
we read about in the newspapers or see on the evening news. Women throughout the
country, in our Nation’s urban areas and rural communities, are being beaten and brutalized in the streets and in their homes. It is our mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, friends,
neighbors, and coworkers who are being victimized; and in many cases, they are being
victimized by family members, friends, and acquaintances.
Id. (statement of Sen. Cohen).
July 1991]
INTERSECTIONALITY
1261
experiencesof Black and other minoritywomen probablywill continueto be
regardedas jeopardizingthe movement.
While SenatorBoren’sstatementreflectsa self-consciouslypoliticalpresentation of domestic violence, an episode of the CBS news program 48
Hours59shows how similarpatternsof otheringnonwhitewomen are apparent in journalistic accounts of domestic violence as well. The program
presentedseven women who were victims of abuse. Six were interviewedat
some length along with their family members,friends,supporters,and even
detractors. The viewer got to know somethingabout each of these women.
These victims were humanized. Yet the seventh woman, the only nonwhite
one, never came into focus. She was literallyunrecognizablethroughoutthe
segment,first introducedby photographsshowing her face badly beatenand
later shown with her face electronicallyalteredin the videotapeof a hearing
at which she was forcedto testify. Otherimagesassociatedwith this woman
included shots of a bloodstainedroom and blood-soakedpillows. Her boyfriendwas picturedhandcuffedwhile the camerazoomed in for a close-upof
his bloodied sneakers. Of all the presentationsin the episode, hers was the
most graphicand impersonal. The overall point of the segment “featuring”
this woman was that batteringmight not escalate into homicide if battered
women would only cooperate with prosecutors. In focusing on its own
agendaand failing to explorewhy this woman refusedto cooperate,the program diminishedthis woman, communicating,howeversubtly, that she was
responsiblefor her own victimization.
Unlike the other women, all of whom, again, were white, this Black woman had no name, no family, no context. The viewer sees her only as victimized and uncooperative. She cries when shown pictures. She pleads not
to be forced to view the bloodstainedroom and her disfiguredface. The
programdoes not help the viewer to understandher predicament. The possible reasons she did not want to testify-fear, love, or possibly both-are
never suggested.60Most unfortunately,she, unlike the other six, is given no
epilogue. While the fates of the other women are revealedat the end of the
episode,we discovernothing about the Black woman. She, like the “others”
she represents,is simply left to herself and soon forgotten.
I offer this descriptionto suggest that “other” women are silenced as
much by being relegatedto the margin of experienceas by total exclusion.
Tokenistic,objectifying,voyeuristicinclusionis at least as disempoweringas
complete exclusion. The effortto politicize violence against women will do
little to addressBlack and other minoritywomen if their imagesare retained
simply to magnify the problem rather than to humanize their experiences.
Similarly,the antiracistagendawill not be advancedsignificantlyby forcibly
suppressingthe reality of battering in minority communities. As the 48
Hours episode makes clear, the images and stereotypeswe fear are readily
59. 48 Hours: Till Death Do Us Part (CBS television broadcast, Feb. 6, 1991).
60. See Christine A. Littleton, Women’sExperienceand the Problemof Transition:Perspectives
on Male Battering of Women, 1989 U. CHI. LEGALF. 23.
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available and are frequently deployed in ways that do not generate sensitive
understanding of the nature of domestic violence in minority communities.
3.
Race and domestic violence support services.
Women working in the field of domestic violence have sometimes reproduced the subordination and marginalization of women of color by adopting
policies, priorities, or strategies of empowerment that either elide or wholly
disregard the particular intersectional needs of women of color. While gender, race, and class intersect to create the particular context in which women
of color experience violence, certain choices made by “allies” can reproduce
intersectional subordination within the very resistance strategies designed to
respond to the problem.
This problem is starkly illustrated by the inaccessibility of domestic violence support services to many non-English-speaking women. In a letter
written to the deputy commissioner of the New York State Department of
Social Services, Diana Campos, Director of Human Services for Programas
de Ocupaciones y Desarrollo Econ6mico Real, Inc. (PODER), detailed the
case of a Latina in crisis who was repeatedly denied accomodation at a shelter because she could not prove that she was English-proficient. The woman
had fled her home with her teenaged son, believing her husband’s threats to
kill them both. She called the domestic violence hotline administered by
PODER seeking shelter for herself and her son. Because most shelters
would not accommodate the woman with her son, they were forced to live
on the streets for two days. The hotline counselor was finally able to find an
agency that would take both the mother and the son, but when the counselor
told the intake coordinator at the shelter that the woman spoke limited English, the coordinator told her that they could not take anyone who was not
English-proficient. When the woman in crisis called back and was told of
the shelter’s “rule,” she replied that she could understand English if spoken
to her slowly. As Campos explains, Mildred, the hotline counselor, told
Wendy, the intake coordinator
that the womansaid that she could communicatea little in English. Wendy
told Mildred that they could not provide services to this woman because
they have house rules that the woman must agree to follow. Mildredasked
her, “Whatif the woman agreesto follow your rules? Will you still not take
her?” Wendyrespondedthat all of the women at the shelterare requiredto
attend [a] supportgroupand they would not be able to have her in the group
if she could not communicate. Mildredmentionedthe severityof this woman’scase. She told Wendythat the womanhad been wanderingthe streets
at night while her husbandis home, and she had been mugged twice. She
also reiteratedthe fact that this woman was in danger of being killed by
eitherher husbandor a mugger. Mildredexpressedthat the woman’ssafety
was a priorityat this point, and that once in a safe place, receivingcounseling in a supportgroup could be dealt with.61
61. Letter of Diana M. Campos, Director of Human Services, PODER, to Joseph Semidei,
July 1991]
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1263
The intake coordinator restated the shelter’s policy of taking only English-speaking women, and stated further that the woman would have to call
the shelter herself for screening. If the woman could communicate with
them in English, she might be accepted. When the woman called the
PODER hotline later that day, she was in such a state of fear that the hotline
counselor who had been working with her had difficulty understanding her
in Spanish.62 Campos directly intervened at this point, calling the executive
director of the shelter. A counselor called back from the shelter. As Campos reports,
Marie [the counselor]told me that they did not want to take the woman in
the shelterbecausethey felt that the womanwould feel isolated. I explained
that the son agreed to translatefor his mother during the intake process.
Furthermore,that we would assist them in locating a Spanish-speakingbattered women’sadvocateto assist in counselingher. Mariestated that utilizing the son was not an acceptablemeansof communicationfor them,since it
further victimizedthe victim. In addition, she stated that they had similar
experienceswith women who were non-English-speaking,and that the women eventuallyjust left because they were not able to communicatewith
anyone. I expressedmy extremeconcern for her safety and reiteratedthat
we would assist them in providingher with the necessaryservicesuntil we
could get her placed someplacewhere they had bilingualstaff.63
After several more calls, the shelter finally agreed to take the woman.
The woman called once more during the negotiation; however, after a plan
was in place, the woman never called back. Said Campos, “After so many
calls, we are now left to wonder if she is alive and well, and if she will ever
have enough faith in our ability to help her to call us again the next time she
is in crisis.”64
Despite this woman’s desperate need, she was unable to receive the protection afforded English-speaking women, due to the shelter’s rigid commitment to exclusionary policies. Perhaps even more troubling than the
shelter’s lack of bilingual resources was its refusal to allow a friend or relative to translate for the woman. This story illustrates the absurdity of a
feminist approach that would make the ability to attend a support group
without a translator a more significant consideration in the distribution of
resources than the risk of physical harm on the street. The point is not that
the shelter’s image of empowerment is empty, but rather that it was imposed
without regard to the disempowering consequences for women who didn’t
match the kind of client the shelter’s administrators imagined. And thus
they failed to accomplish the basic priority of the shelter movement-to get
the woman out of danger.
Deputy Commissioner, New York State Department of Social Services (Mar. 26, 1992) [hereinafter
PODER Letter].
62. The woman had been slipping back into her home during the day when her husband was at
work. She remained in a heightened state of anxiety because he was returningshortly and she would
be forced to go back out into the streets for yet another night.
63. PODER Letter, supra note 61 (emphasis added).
64. Id.
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Here the woman in crisis was made to bear the burden of the shelter’s
refusalto anticipateand providefor the needs of non-English-speakingwomen. Said Campos,”It is unfairto impose more stress on victims by placing
them in the position of having to demonstratetheir proficiencyin English in
order to receive services that are readily available to other battered women.”65The problemis not easily dismissedas one of well-intentionedignorance. The specific issue of monolingualism and the monistic view of
women’sexperiencethat set the stage for this tragedywere not new issues in
New York. Indeed, several women of color reportedthat they had repeatedly struggled with the New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence over language exclusion and other practices that marginalizedthe
interestsof women of color.66 Yet despite repeatedlobbying,the Coalition
did not act to incorporatethe specific needs of nonwhite women into its
central organizingvision.
Some critics have linked the Coalition’sfailureto addressthese issues to
the narrow vision of coalition that animatedits interactionwith women of
color in the first place. The very location of the Coalition’sheadquartersin
Woodstock,New York-an area where few people of color live-seemed to
guaranteethat women of color would play a limited role in formulatingpolicy. Moreover,efforts to include women of color came, it seems, as something of an afterthought. Many were invited to participateonly after the
Coalitionwas awardeda grantby the state to recruitwomen of color. However, as one “recruit”said, “they were not really preparedto deal with us or
our issues. They thought that they could simply incorporateus into their
organizationwithout rethinkingany of their beliefs or prioritiesand that we
would be happy.”67Even the most formal gesturesof inclusionwere not to
be taken for granted. On one occasion when several women of color attended a meeting to discuss a special task force on women of color, the
group debatedall day over including the issue on the agenda.68
The relationshipbetween the white women and the women of color on
the Boardwas a rocky one from beginningto end. Otherconflictsdeveloped
over differingdefinitionsof feminism. For example, the Board decided to
hire a Latina staffpersonto manage outreach programsto the Latino community, but the white membersof the hiring committee rejectedcandidates
favoredby Latinacommitteememberswho did not have recognizedfeminist
65. Id.
66. Roundtable Discussion on Racism and the Domestic Violence Movement (April 2, 1992)
(transcript on file with the Stanford Law Review). The participants in the discussion-Diana Campos, Director, Bilingual Outreach Project of the New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence; Elsa A. Rios, Project Director, Victim Intervention Project (a community-based project in
East Harlem, New York, serving battered women); and Haydee Rosario, a social worker with the
East Harlem Council for Human Se…