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74. Kimberlé Crenshaw: "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique"

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74. Kimberlé Crenshaw: "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique"

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This text is by none other than the woman who coined the term intersectionality. Kimberlé Crenshaw provides an in-depth overview of the attention that needs to be given to those who are multiply marginalized. Crenshaw states that in many cases, activism for marginalized populations focuses on what would be beneficial to the most privileged members of the group at hand.

In order for our activism to be truly inclusive and benefit those who need it most, we must make sure we focus on the struggles that lie at the intersections of those oppressions. All of this is specifically from the standpoint of Black women, and how they often get left out of feminism and racial justice; she cites All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave, the title of a Black women's studies book, to prove her point.

I believe this text is especially powerful because it draws attention to the specific struggles of Black women in the United States, including their struggles within the criminal justice system and how they are viewed and stereotyped through the eyes of white Americans. This text is important to feminist theory because it is necessary to have an education on the concept of intersectionality to inform one's activism. This is so that one does not do what many so-called feminists have done in the past: focus solely on the struggles of cisgendered, heterosexual, able-bodied white women.

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"As such, disability has four aspects: first, it is a system for interpreting and disciplining bodily variations; second, it is a relationship between bodies and their environments; third, it is a set of practices that produce both the able-bodied and the disabled, fourth, it is a way of describing the inherent disability of the embodied self" (Garland-Thompson 294).

This text provides a great argument in favor of the integration of disability studies and feminist theory. One of the claims from this passage that stands out to me the most is that the term disability has become synonymous with words such as sick, ugly, crazy, deformed, and abnormal. All of these words take value away from the bodies of those who are disabled or do not conform to traditional norms. Garland-Thompson also draws similarities between how women were historically treated and spoken about and the words often used to describe disabled people. An example of this is when Aristotle claimed that women were merely "mutilated males" (Garland-Thompson 296).

Through these comparisons, I believe the author makes a great point that the goals of feminism and the goals of disability studies are often similar and should become part of the same field so that disabled populations get the benefit of being fought for in the name of intersectional feminist activism. This text is very important to this collection because it is just one of the readings I've included proving that feminists come from all walks of life and don't deserve to be overlooked simply because they are multiply marginalized.

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2. bell hooks: "Theory as a Liberatory Practice"

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2. bell hooks: "Theory as a Liberatory Practice"

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This text by bell hooks does a great job at reframing theory as something that can be healing and extremely beneficial to those who are marginalized and want to attempt to change the world for the better. There is, however, a focus on the word can in the last sentence. "Theory is not inherently healing, liberatory, or revolutionary. It fulfills this function only when we ask that it do so and direct our theorizing towards this end" (hooks 9).

hooks' goal in this reading is to counteract the stereotypical white, upper-class, masculinity of traditional theory in favor of queering it for a Black and brown feminine audience. I appreciate that she is a figure who writes theory from personal struggle and through this, makes it liberatory. This text is important to feminist theory because it is by one of the most important writers of accessible theory made for not just academics, but also others who have experienced her struggles.

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87. Riki Wilchins: "A Certain Kind of Freedom: Power and the Truth of Bodies"

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87. Riki Wilchins: "A Certain Kind of Freedom: Power and the Truth of Bodies"

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In Riki Wilchins' text, she makes her case against the gender binary. It's not this simple, though. She more so critically analyzes the use of the gender binary in our culture and how it tends to be centered on cisgender men. This text also provides a case for how limiting the gender binary is and how our language often doesn't accommodate the nuances of identities outside the gender binary.

I appreciate how Wilchins writes this all from personal experience as a trans individual. She writes about how people have commented on her surgeries (not implying that she gained a vagina but rather that she lost "the big Magic Wand," again, centering their invasive comments on cisgender male anatomy) and insisted on knowing whether she was a man or a woman (the  incredibly simplified answer being "neither") (Wilchins 342).

This text is important to this collection because it includes the perspective of a trans theorist. The queering of gender and sexuality is a very important part of feminist and queer theory, and therefore is more than deserving of a place in this anthology.

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61. Sojourner Truth (Isabella Baumfree): "Ain't I a Woman?"

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61. Sojourner Truth (Isabella Baumfree): "Ain't I a Woman?"

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Probably one of the most famous speeches in history, these words by the one and only Sojourner Truth are extremely deserving of a place in this collection. The speech is so straightforward in asking the basic question "Ain't I a Woman?" Truth was a woman, of course, but when the customs of the time included carrying women over ditches, "helped into carriages" (Truth 229), over puddles, and to be given the utmost care, Black women were not even considered to be women. Truth is pointing out that she does in fact deserve to have the same amount of respect and special treatment as white women. On a deeper level, it's also about Truth being a mother and seeing most of her children sold to other slaveowners. None of the slave traders would see her as a woman, let alone a mother.

Truth said this centuries ago and it's still an important issue in modern feminist theory, one which was also brought up in the Kimberlé Crenshaw entry. Black women are overlooked, because white women have traditionally been the focus of feminism and Black men have been the focus of racial justice. Truth was bringing up the concept of intersectionality over a century before the term was coined. This text is essential to this anthology because it is one of the earliest and most groundbreaking works of intersectional feminist theory.

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85. Jack Halberstam: "An Introduction to Female Masculinity: Masculinity Without Men"

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85. Jack Halberstam: "An Introduction to Female Masculinity: Masculinity Without Men"

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Jack Halberstam, in their introduction to their book Female Masculinity, speaks on the "bathroom problem," dealt with by androgynous  and otherwise trans individuals, especially butch lesbians and trans women. This "bathroom problem" specifically refers to non-cis and/or straight women. I appreciate that Halberstam focuses their argument on the version of masculinity embodied by some women. When women choose to not dress in a traditionally feminine way or—as Nice Rodriguez, author of Throw it to the River, puts it—sway their hips and parade their boobs once entering a women's restroom (334), they are treated as outsiders and as a potential threat to the women who conform to their expected standards. This puts queer and trans women in danger, because it puts them at risk of having risky and invasive encounters with law enforcement.

This whole text is in support of loosening the gender binary in order to make the world safer for queer and trans individuals. This text is important because it takes the attention away from the typical upper-middle, white, cisgendered, straight woman that feminism was historically designed to support. It plays into the concept of intersectionality in the way that women can be victims of multiple forms of oppression because of their race, sexuality, class, and the gender they were assigned at birth.

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77. Angela Y. Davis: "Outcast Mothers and Surrogates: Racism and Reproductive Politics in the Nineties"

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77. Angela Y. Davis: "Outcast Mothers and Surrogates: Racism and Reproductive Politics in the Nineties"

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Reproductive Justice is an incredibly important term in the world of feminist theory. For this reason, I have included a text by the world-renowned activist and author Angela Y. Davis that outlines many struggles Black and brown women face when attempting to exercise their bodily autonomy. In this text, Davis makes use of modern fertility- and reproduction-centered terms in order to highlight the rights stolen from Black women from slavery to now.

Davis' argument in the end is in favor of universal healthcare, adequate and affordable childcare services, accessible education, and housing for all. This, in her opinion, would give marginalized people with uteruses more freedom to make their own choices in the formation of their families. This is a great argument to make, although it was (and still is) considered radical when it written. This is very important to this anthology of texts because it provides a pathway for reproductive justice among marginalized populations.

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73. Gloria Anzaldúa: "Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza"

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73. Gloria Anzaldúa: "Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza"

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In Gloria Anzaldúa's text titled Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, Anzaldúa writes about her experience as a mestiza: a person born and raised in a community in Mexico near the Mexico/US border. Her text is made up of explanations of the lifestyle of those who are a part of border culture and poems written by her. She describes life looking across the waves at the United States from Tijuana and thinking about the prejudice that divides Mexico from the US so sharply.

The mestiza is a unique population described first by Mexican philosopher José Vasconcelos, which encapsulates the rich variety of people living at the border—there are people of all races, from all walks of life, who simultaneously belong everywhere and nowhere at all. Anzaldúa speaks to how the only ones of the mestiza who belong and are accepted on the US side of the border are those who can pass as white. This excludes most of the population, and brings to the forefront the blatant racism and violence perpetrated against the people of Mexico.

This text is crucial to this collection because it is written from the perspective of a self-proclaimed mestiza and shows its audience that women fight for their rights in many areas of the world, and may be forced to fight against multiple layers of oppression at once.

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Carl Collison: "Queer Muslim Women are Making Salaam with Who They Are"

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Carl Collison: "Queer Muslim Women are Making Salaam with Who They Are"

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This text by Carl Collison is about queer muslim women and their relationships with themselves, their families, and their religion. According to Collison, there are many mosques and muslim religious leaders who do not support LGBTQ+ rights, because—just like with Christianity—there are determined roles for women and men and when women are queer, there is no reason to live a life submitting to patriarchal standards. I appreciate that the author involves stories about how muslim women found strength in their faith by coming to terms with their queerness.

This text is important to this collection because it involves anecdotes from the perspectives of muslim women and again reinforces the importance of seeing feminist issues through an intersectional lens.

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When she speaks at public meetings, Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw has a trick. She asks everyone to stand up until they hear an unfamiliar name. She then reads the names of unarmed black men and boys whose deaths ignited the Black Lives Matter movement; names such as Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Trayvon Martin. Her audience are informed and interested in civil rights so "virtually no one will sit down," Crenshaw says approvingly. "Then I say the names of Natasha McKenna, Tanisha Anderson, Michelle Cusseaux, Aura Rosser, Maya Hall. By the time I get to the third name, almost everyone has sat down. By the fifth, the only people standing are those working on our campaign" (Khaleeli 558).

This text does a great job of explaining how issues of feminism and racial justice are often one and the same. The #SayHerName campaign was created to draw attention to the high number Black women killed by police officers. Khaleeli calls this a "brutal illustration of how racism and sexism play out on black women's bodies" (558). By outlining the cases of police brutality against Black women, Khaleeli brings to the forefront that Black women and their deaths must be recognized and prevented in order for the police brutality problem to actually be solved.

However, the problem doesn't stop there. #SayHerName was also created to uncover the startling rates of sexual assault committed against Black women by law enforcement officers. There are many kinds of state-sanctioned violence against Black women that must be recognized in order for justice to be won, and this text does a great job of drawing attention to those important issues. This is crucial to this anthology, because an intersectional feminist must know how sexism and white supremacy work together to oppress non-white women.

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Francis Ray White: "The Future of Fat Sex"

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Francis Ray White: "The Future of Fat Sex"

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The article "The Future of Fat Sex" by Francis Ray White serves the purpose of outlining misconceptions about larger bodies in the Western world and how fat people are put in non-sexual, unappealing, unhealthy boxes when this is most often not the case.

White begins this text with an example of a public health campaign that attempts to advise people against being fat because of perceived sexual dysfunction and the inability to live a fulfilling life in general. Throughout the text, White questions these claims of inordinate sexual dysfunction among fat people by citing multiple medical journals and claiming that a few of them outright discarded the supposed negative correlation between fatness and sexual function, and many of the others were inconclusive—with this in mind, it is absolutely inappropriate to claim that being fat inhibits sexual function and pleasure, as well as quality of life.

This article is important to this collection because it highlights the stigma surrounding bigger bodies and their sexual lives, which is a feminist issue because many feminists are fat women who face discrimination because of their size on a daily basis.

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Laurie Penny: "Most Women You Know Are Angry"

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Laurie Penny: "Most Women You Know Are Angry"

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Laurie Penny's short piece titled "Most Women You Know Are Angry" is a great example of a subtle call to action for people who want to become feminist activists. The text explains a widely known phenomenon in feminist circles: people do not hesitate to judge women for expressing anger when it is perfectly acceptable for men to express their rage. Penny, in this text, explains that women must not push their anger down, but rather gain an ability to narrow and control their anger in a way that can affect social change. This, I believe, is one of the most important texts in this collection because it explains just how effective feminist anger can be. It is likely that you, the reader, are angry as well. Do not push that anger down. Hopefully this Feminist Survival Kit has given you the resources to further your journey as a feminist and hone your anger in order to make the changes you want to in the world.

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Anzaldúa, G., et al. “Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza.” Reading Feminist Theory, Oxford University Press, USA, 1987, pp. 260-263.

Collison, C., et al. “Queer Muslim Women Are Making Salaam With Who They Are.” Gendered Voices, Feminist Visions, 7th ed., Oxford University Press, USA, 2019, p. 319-321.

Crenshaw, K., et al. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of
Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics.” Reading Feminist Theory, Oxford University Press, USA, 1989, pp. 264-273.

Davis, A. Y., et al. “Outcast Mothers and Surrogates: Racism and Reproductive Politics in the Nineties.” Reading Feminist Theory, Oxford University Press, USA, 1993, pp. 284-288.

Garland-Thompson, R., et al. “Integrating Disability, Transforming Feminist Theory.” Reading Feminist Theory, Oxford University Press, USA, 2002, pp. 294-298.

Halberstam, J., et al. “An Introduction to Female Masculinity: Masculinity Without Men.” Reading Feminist Theory, Oxford University Press, USA, 1998, pp. 331-335.

Hooks, b., et al. “Theory as a Liberatory Practice.” Reading Feminist Theory, Oxford University Press, USA, 1994, pp. 8-14.

Khaleeli, H., et al. “#SayHerName.” Gendered Voices, Feminist Visions, 7th ed., Oxford University Press, USA, 2019, p. 558-559.

Penny, L., et al. “Most Women You Know Are Angry.” Gendered Voices, Feminist Visions, 7th ed., Oxford University Press, USA, 2019, p. 742-744.

Truth, S., et al. “Ain’t I a Woman?” Reading Feminist Theory, Oxford University Press, USA, 1851, pp. 229.

White, F. R., et al. “The Future of Fat Sex.” Gendered Voices, Feminist Visions, 7th ed., Oxford University Press, USA, 2019, p. 328-336.

Wilchins, R., et al. “A Certain Kind of Freedom: Power and the Truth of Bodies.” Reading Feminist Theory, Oxford University Press, USA, 2002, pp. 341-345.