Womens Rights as Human Rights Toward a Re-Vision of Human Ri.docx

Women's Rights as Human Rights: Toward a Re-Vision of
Human Rights
Charlotte Bunch
Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 4. (Nov., 1990), pp. 486-
498.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici ?sici=0275-0392%28199011
%2912%3A4%3C486%3A WRAHRT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4
Human Rights Quarterly is currently published by The Johns
Hopkins University Press.
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of
JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.htmL JSTOR's Terms and
Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you
have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire
issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and
you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your
personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this
work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.j stor .org/journals/jhup.html.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the
same copyright notice that appears on the screen or
printed page of such transmission.

JSTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated
to creating and preserving a digital archive of
scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR,
please contact [email protected]
http://www.jstor.org/
Sun Oct 22 16:42:07 2006
®
HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY
Women's Rights as Human Rights:
Toward a Re-Vision of Human Rights
Charlotte Bunch"'
Significant numbers of the world's population are routinely
subject to torture,
starvation, terrorism, humiliation, mutilation, and even murder
simply be-
cause they are female. Crimes such as these against any group
other than
women would be recognized as a civil and political emergency
as well as
a gross violation of the victims' humanity. Yet, despite a clear
record of
deaths and demonstrable abuse, women's rights are not
commonly classified
as human rights. This is problematic both theoretically and
practically, be-
cause it has grave consequences for the way society views and
treats the
fundamental issues of women's lives. This paper questions why
women's

rights and human rights are viewed as distinct, looks at the
policy implications
of this schism, and discusses different approaches to changing
it.
Women's human rights are violated in a variety of ways. Of
course,
women sometimes suffer abuses such as political repression that
are similar
to abuses suffered by men. ln these situations, female victims
are often
invisible, because the dominant image of the political actor in
our world is
male. However, many violations of women's human rights are
distinctly
connected to being female-that is, women are discriminated
against and
abused on the basis of gender. Women also experience sexual
abuse in
situations where their other human rights are being violated, as
political
prisoners or members of persecuted ethnic groups, for example.
In this paper
l address those abuses in which gender is a primary or related
factor because
gendeMelated abuse has been most neglected and offers the
greatest chal-
lenge to the field of human rights today.
The concept of human rights is one of the few moral visions
ascribed
to internationally. Although its scope is not universally agreed
upon, it strikes
• A shorter version of this article appeared in RESPONSE to the
Victimization of Women and

Children.
Human Rights Quarterly 12 {1990) 486-498 c 1990 by The
Johns Hopkins University Press
1990 Women's Rights as Human Rights 487
deep chords of response among many. Promotion of human
rights is a widely
accepted goal and thus provides a useful framework for seeking
redress of
gender abuse. Further it is one of the few concepts that speaks
to the need
for transnational activism and concern about the lives of people
globally.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,1 adopted in 1948,
symbolizes
this world vision and defines human rights broadly. While not
much is said
about women, Article 2 entitles all to "the rights and freedoms
set forth in
this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race,
colour, sex,
language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social
origin, prop-
erty, birth or other status." Eleanor Roosevelt and the Latin
American women
who fought for the inclusion of sex in the Declaration and for
its passage
clearly intended that it would address the problem of women's
subordina-
tion.2
Since 1948 the world community has continuously debated

varying
interpretations of human rights in response to global
developments. Little of
this discussion, however, has addressed questions of gender,
and only re-
cently have significant challenges been made to a vision of
human rights
which excludes much of women's experiences. The concept of
human rights,
like all vibrant visions, is not static or the property of any one
group; rather,
its meaning expands as peoplereconceiveoftheir needs and
hopes in relation
to it. In this spirit, feminists redefine human rights abuses to
include the
degradation and violation of women. The specific experiences
of women
must be added to traditional approaches to human rights in
order to make
women more visible and to transform the concept and practice
of human
rights in our culture so that it takes better account of women's
lives.
In the next part of this article, I will explore both the
importance and
the difficulty of connecting women's rights to human rights, and
then I will
outline four basic approaches that have been used in the effort
to make this
connection.
I. BEYOND RHETORIC: POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS
Few governments exhibit more than token commitment to
women's equality

as a basic human right in domestic or foreign policy. No
government de-
1. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adapted 10
December 1948, G.A. Res. 217A(fll),
U.N. Doc. N810 (1948).
2. Blanche Wiesen Cook, "Eleanor Roosevelt and Human
Rights: The Battle for Peace and
Planetary Decency," Edward P. Crapo], ed. Women and
American Foreign Policy: Lobbyists,
Critics, and Insiders {New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), 98-
118; Geor!lina Ashworth,
"Of Violence and Violation: Women and Human Rights,''
Change Thinkbook II (London,
1986).
488 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol.12
termines its policies toward other countries on the basis of their
treatment
of women, even when some aid and trade decisions are said to
be based
on a country's human rights record. Among nongovernmental
organizations,
women are rarely a priority, and Human Rights Day programs
on 1 O De-
cember seldom include discussion of issues like violence
against women or
reproductive rights. When it is suggested that governments and
human rights
organizations should respond to women's rights as concerns that
deserve
such attention, a number of excuses are offered for why this

cannot be done.
The responses tend to follow one or more of these lines: (1) sex
discrimination
is too trivial, or not as important, or will come after larger
issues of survival
that require more serious attention; (2) abuse of women, while
regrettable,
is a cultural, private, or individual issue and not a political
matter requiring
state action; (3) while appropriate for other action, women's
rights are not
human rights per se; or (4) when the abuse of women is
recognized, it is
considered inevitable or so pervasive that any consideration of
it is futile or
will overwhelm other human rights questions. It is important to
challenge
these responses.
The narrow definition of human rights, recognized by many in
the West
as solely a matter of state violation of civil and political
liberties, impedes
consideration of women's rights. In the United States the
concept has been
further limited by some who have used it as a weapon in the
cold war almost
exclusively to challenge human rights abuses perpetrated in
communist
countries. Even then, many abuses that affected women, such as
forced
pregnancy in Romania, were ignored.
Some important aspects of women's rights do fit into a civil
liberties
framework, but much of the abuse against women is part of a

larger socio-
economic web that entraps women, making them vulnerable to
abuses which
cannot be delineated as exclusively political or solely caused by
states. The
inclusion of "second generation" or socioeconomic human rights
to food,
shelter, and work-which are clearly delineated as part of the
Universal
Declaration of Human Rights-is vital to addressing women's
concerns fully.
Further, the assumption that states are not responsible for most
violations of
women's rights ignores the fact that such abuses, although
committed per-
haps by private citizens, are often condoned or even sanctioned
by states.
I will return to the question of state responsibility after
responding to other
instances of resistance to women's rights as human rights.
The most insidious myth about women's rights is that they are
trivial or
secondary to the concerns of life and death. Nothing could be
farther from
the truth: sexism kills. There is increasing documentation of the
many ways
in which being female is life-threatening. The following are a
few examples:
-Before birth: Amniocentesis is used for sex selection leading to
the
abortion of more female fetuses at rates as high as 99 percent in
Bombay,
India; in China and India, the two most populous nations, more
males than

females are born even though natural birth ratios would produce
more
females. 3
-During childhood: The World Health Organization reports that
in
many countries, girls are fed less, breast fed for shorter periods
of time, taken
to doctors less frequently, and die or are physically and
mentally maimed
by malnutrition at higher rates than bays. 4
-In adulthood: The denial of women's rights ta control their
bodies in
reproduction threatens women's lives, especially where this is
combined
with poverty and poor health services. In Latin America,
complications from
illegal abortions are the leading cause of death for women
betw'een the ages
of fifteen and thirty-nine.5
Sex discrimination kills women daily. When combined with
race, class,
and other forms of oppression, it constitutes a deadly denial of
women's
right to life and liberty on a large scale throughout the world.
The most
pervasive violation of females is violence against women in all
its manifes-
tations, from wife battery, incest, and rape, to dowry deaths,6

genital mu-
tilation/ and female sexual slavery. These abuses occur in every
country
and are found in the home and in the workplace, on streets, on
campuses,
and in prisons and refugee camps. They cross class, race, age,
and national
lines; and at the same time, the forms this violence takes often
reinforce
other oppressions such as racism, "able-bodyism," and
imperialism. Case
in point: in order to feed their families, poor women in brothels
around US
military bases in places like the Philippines bear the burden of
sexual, racial,
and national imperialism in repeated and often brutal violation
of their
bodies.
Even a short review of random statistics reveals that the extent
of violence
against women globally is staggering:
3. Vibhuti Patel, In Search of Our Bodies: A Feminist Look al
Women, Health and Reproduction
in India (Shakti, Bombay, 1987); Lori Heise, "International
Dimensions of Violence Against
Women,'' Response, vol. 12, no. 1 (1989): 3.
4. Sundari Ravindran, Health lmplicationsofSex Discrimination
in Childhood(Geneva: World
Health Organization, 1986). These problems and proposed
social programs to counter
them in India are discussed in detail in "Gender Violence:
Gender Discrimination Between
Boy and Girl in Parental Family/' paper published by CHETNA

{Child Health Education
Training and Nutrition Awareness), Ahmedabad, 1989,
5. Debbie Taylor, ed., Women: A World Report, A New
Internationalist Book (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1985), 10. See Joni Seager and Ann Olson,
eds., Women In The World:
An International Atlas {London: Pluto Press, 1986) for more
statistics on the effects of sex
discrimination.
6. Frequently a husband will disguise the death of a bride as
suicide or an accident in order
to collect the marriage settlement paid him by the bride's
parents. Although dowry is now
illegal in many countries, official records for 1987 showed
1,786 dowry deaths iR tndia
alone. See Heise, note 3 above, S.
7. For an in-depth examination of the practice of female
circumcision see Alison T. Slack,
"Female Circumcision: A Critical Appraisal," Human Rights
Quarterly 10 (1988): 439.
490 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol.12
-In the United States, battery is the leading cause of injury to
adult
women, and a rape is committed every six minutes. 6
-In Peru, 70 percent of all crimes reported to police involve
women
who are beaten by their partners; and in Lima (a city of seven
million people),

168,970 rapes were reported in 1987 alone.9
- In India, eight out of ten wives are victims of violence, either
domestic
battery, dowry-related abuse, or, among the least fortunate,
murder. 10
- In France, 95 percent of the victims of violence are women; 51
percent
at the hands of a spouse or lover. Similar statistics from places
as diverse as
Bangladesh, Canada, Kenya, and Thailand demonstrate that
more than SO
percent of female homicides were committed by family
members. 11
Where recorded, domestic battery figures range from 40 percent
to 80
percent of women beaten, usually repeatedly, indicating that the
home is
the most dangerous place for women and frequently the site of
cruelty and
torture. As the Carol Stuart murder in Boston demonstrated,
sexist and racist
attitudes in the United States often cover up the real threat to
women; a
woman is murdered in Massachusetts by a husband or lover
every 22 days. 12
Such numbers do not reflect the full extent of the problem of
violence
against women, much of which remains hidden, Yet rather than
receiving
recognition as a major world conflict, this violence is accepted
as normal
or even dismissed as an individual or cultural matter. Georgina

Ashworth
notes that:
The greatest restriction of liberty, dignity and movement, and at
the same time,
direct violation of the person is the threat and realisation of
violence., .. However
violence against the female sex, on a scale which far exceeds
the list of Amnesty
International victims, is tolerated publicly; indeed some acts of
violation are
not crimes in law, others are legitimized in custom or court
opinion, and most
are blamed on the victims themselves."
Violence against women is a touchstone that illustrates the
limited con-
cept of human rights and highlights the political nature of the
abuse of
women. As Lori Heise states: "This is not random violence ....
[nhe risk
factor is being female.m 4 Victims are chosen because of their
gender. The
8. C. Everett Koop, M.D., "Violence Against Women: A Global
Problem," presentation by
the Surgeon General of the U.S., Public Health Service,
Washington D.C., 1989.
9, Ana Maria Portugal, "Cronica de Una Violacion Provocada?",
Fempress especial "Con-
traviolencia," Santiago, 1988; Seager and Olson, note 5 above,
37.
10. Ashworth, note 2 above, 9.
11. "Violence Against Women in the Family," Centre for Social

Development and Humanitarian
Affairs, United Nations Office at Vienna, 1989.
12. Bella English, "Stereotypes Led Us Astray," The Baston
Globe, 5 Jan. 1990, 17, col. 3.
See also the statistics in Women's ln1ernational Network News,
1989; United Na1ions
Office, note 11 above; Ashworth, note 2 above; Heise, note 3
above; and Fempress, note
9 above.
13. Ashworth, note 2 above, 8.
14. Heise, note 3 above, 3.
message is domination: stay in your place or be afraid. Contrary
to the
argument that such violence is only personal or cultural, it is
profoundly
political. It results from the structural relationships of power,
domination,
and privilege between men and women in society. Violence
against women
is central to maintaining those political relations at home, at
work, and in
all public spheres.
Failure to see the oppression of women as political also results
in the
exclusion of sex discrimination and violence against women
from the human
rights agenda. Female subordination runs so deep that it is still

viewed as
inevitable or natural, rather than seen as a politically
constructed reality
maintained by patriarchal interests, ideology, and institutions.
But I do not
believe that male violation of women is inevitable or natural.
Such a belief
requires a narrow and pessimistic view of men. If violence and
domination
are understood as a politically constructed reality, it is possible
to imagine
deconstructing that system and building more just interactions
between the
sexes.
The physical territory of this political struggle over what
constitutes
women's human rights is women's bodies. The importance of
control over
women can be seen in the intensity of resistance to laws and
social changes
that put control of women's bodies in women's hands:
reproductive rights,
freedom of sexuality whether heterosexual or lesbian, laws that
criminalize
rape in marriage, etc. Denial of reproductive rights and
homophobia are
also political means of maintaining control over women and
perpetuating
sex roles and thus have human rights implications. The physical
abuse of
women is a reminder of this territorial domination and is
sometimes accom-
panied by other forms of human rights abuse such as slavery
(forced pros-
titution), sexual terrorism (rape), imprisonment (confinement to

the home),
and torture (systematic battery). Some cases are extreme, such
as the women
in Thailand who died in a brothel fire because they were
chained to their
beds. Most situations are more ordinary like denying women
decent edu-
cation or jobs which leaves them prey to abusive marriages,
exploitative
work, and prostitution.
This raises once again the question of the state's responsibility
for pro-
tecting women's human rlghts. Feminists have shown how the
distinction
between private and public abuse is a dichotomy often used to
justify female
subordination in the home. Governments regulate many matters
in the family
and individual spheres. For example, human rights activists
pressure states
to prevent slavery or racial discrimination and segregation even
when these
are conducted by nongovernmental forces in private or
proclaimed as cul-
tural traditions as they have been in both the southern United
States and in
South Africa. The real questions are: (1) who decides what are
legitimate
human rights; and (2) when should the state become involved
and for what
purposes. Riane Eisler argues that:
492 HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY Vol. 12

the issue is what types of private acts are and are not protected
by the right to
privacy and/or the principle of family autonomy. Even more
specifically, the
issue is whether violations of human rights within the family
such as genital
mutilation, wife beating, and other forms of violence designed
to maintain
patriarchal control should be within the purview of human
rights theory and
action .... [T]he underlying problem for human rights theory, as
for most other
fields of theory, is that the yardstick that has been developed
for defining and
measuring human rights has been based on the male as the
norm. 15
The human rights community must move beyond its male
defined norms
in order to respond to the brutal and systematic violation of
women globally.
This does not mean that every human rights group must alter the
focus of
its work. However it does require examining patriarchal biases
and ac-
knowledging the rights of women as human rights. Governments
must seek
to end the politically and culturally constructed war on women
rather than
continue to perpetuate it. Every state has the responsibility to
intervene in
the abuse of women's rights within its borders and to end its
collusion With
the forces that perpetrate such violations in other countries.

II. TOWARD ACTION: PRACTICAL APPROACHES
The classification of human rights is more than just a semantics
problem
because it has practical policy consequences. Human rights are
still con-
sidered to be more important than women's rights. The
distinction perpet-
uates the idea that the rights of women are of a lesser order than
the "rights
of man," and, as-Eisler describes it, "serves to justify practices
that do not
accord women full and equal status." 16 In the United Nations,
the Human
Rights Commission has more power to hear and investigate
cases than the
Commission on the Status of Women, more staff and budget,
and better
mechanisms for implementing its findings. Thus it makes a
difference in
what can be done if a case is deemed a violation of women's
rights and not
of human rights.17
The determination of refugee status illustrates how the
definition of
human rights affects people's lives. The Dutch Refugee
Association, in its
pioneering efforts to convince other nations to recognize sexual
persecution
15. Riane Eisler, "Human Rights: Toward an Integrated Theory
for Action," Human Rights
Qualterly9 (1987): 297. See also Alida Brill, Nobody's
Business: The Paradoxes of Privacy
{New York: Addison-Wesley, 1990).

16. Eisler, note 15 above, 291.
17. Sandra Coliver, "United Nations Machineries on Women's
Rights: How Might They Better
Help Women Whose Rights Are Being Violated1" in Ellen L.
Lutz, Hurst Hannum, and
Kathryn /. Burke, eds., New Directions in Human Rights
(Philadelphia: Univ. of Penn.
Press, 1989).
and violence against women as justifications for granting
refugee status,
found that some European governments would take sexual
persecution into
account as an aspect of other forms of political repression, but
none would
make it the grounds for refugee status per se.16 The
implications of such a
distinction are dear when examining a situation like that of the
Bangladeshi
women, who having been raped during the Pakistan-Bangladesh
war, sub-
sequently faced death at the hands of male relatives to preserve
"family
honor." Western powers professed outrage but did not offer
asylum to these
victims of human rights abuse.
I have observed four bask approaches to linking women's rights
to
human rights. These approaches are presented separately here in

order to
identify each more dearly. In practice, these approaches often
overlap, and
while each raises questions about the others, I see them as
complementary.
These approaches can be applied to many issues, but I will
illustrate them
primarily in terms of how they address violence against women
in order to
show the implications of their differences on a concrete issue.
1. Women's Rights as Political and Civil Rights. Taking
women's specific
needs into consideration as part of the already recognized "first
generation"
political and civil liberties is the first approach. This involves
both raising
the visibility of women who suffer general human rights
violations as well
as calling attention to particular abuses women encounter
because they are
female. Thus, issues of violence against women are raised when
they connect
to other forms of violation such as the sexual torture of women
political
prisoners in South America. 19 Groups like the Women's Task
Force of Am-
nesty International have taken this approach in pushing for
Amnesty to launch
a campaign on behalf of women political prisoners which would
address
the sexual abuse and rape of women in custody, their lack of
maternal care
in detention, and the resulting human rights abuse of their
children.

Documenting the problems of women refugees and developing
respon-
sive policies are other illustrations of this approach. Women
and children
make up more than 80 percent of those in refugee camps, yet
few refugee
policies are specifically shaped to meet the needs of these
vulnerable popula-
tions who face considerable sexual abuse. For example, in one
camp where
men were allocated the community's rations, some gave food to
women
18. Marijke Meyer, "Oppressioll of Women alld Refugee
Status," unpublished report to NGO
Forum, Nairobi, Kenya, 1985 and "Sexual Violence Agaillst
Women Refugees," Ministry
of Social Affairs and Labour, The Netherlands, June 1984.
19. Ximena Bunster describes this ill Chile and Argentina in
"The Torture of Women Political
Prisoners: A Case Study ill Female Sexual Slavery," in Kathleen
Barry, Charlotte Bunch,
and Shirley Castley, eds., International Feminism: Networking
Against Female Sexual Slav-
ery (New York: IWTC, 1984).
and their children in exchange for sex. Revealing this abuse led
to new
policies that allocated food directly to the women. 20
The political and civil rights approach is a useful starting point

for many
human rights groups; by considering women's experiences, these
groups
can expand their efforts in areas where they are already
working. This ap-
proach also raises contradictions that reveal the limits of a
narrow civil
liberties view. One contradiction is to define rape as a human
rights abuse
only when it occurs in state custody but not on the streets or in
the home.
Another is to say that a violation of the right to free speech
occurs when
someone is jailed for defending gay rights, but not when
someone is jailed
or even tortured and killed for homosexuality. Thus while this
approach of
adding women and stirring them into existing first generation
human rights
categories is useful, it is not enough by itself.
2. Women's Rights as Socioeconomic Rights. The second
approach
includes the particular plight of women with regard to "second
generation"
human rights such as the rights to food, shelter, health care, and
employment.
This is an approach favored by those who see the dominant
Western human
rights tradition and international law as too individualistic and
identify wom-
en's oppression as primarily economic.
This tendency has its origins among socialists and labor
activists who
have long argued that political human rights are meaningless to

many without
economic rights as well. It focuses on the primacy of the need
to end women's
economic subordination as the key to other issues including
women's vul-
nerability to violence. This particular focus has led to work on
issues like
women's right to organize as workers and opposition to violence
in the
workplace, especially in situations like the free trade zones
which have
targeted women as cheap, nonorganized labor. Another focus of
this ap-
proach has been highlighting the feminization of poverty or
what might
better be called the increasing impoverishment of females.
Poverty has not
become strictly female, but females now comprise a higher
percentage of
the poor.
Looking at women's rights in the context of socioeconomic
development
is another example of this approach. Third world peoples have
called for
an understanding of socioeconomic development as a human
rights issue.
Within this demand, some have sought to integrate womeh's
rights into
development and have examined women's specific needs in
relation to areas
like land ownership or access to credit. Among those working
on women
in development, there is growing interest in violence against
women as both

20. Report given by Margaret Groarke at Women's Pane[,
Amnesty International New Yark
Regional Meeting, 24 Feb. 1990.
a health and development issue. If violence is seen as having
negative
consequences for social productivity, it may get more attention.
This type
of narrow economic measure, however, should not determine
whether such
violence is seen as a human rights concern. Violence as a
development issue
is linked to the need to understand development not just as an
economic
issue but also as a question of empowerment and human growth.
One of the limitations of this second approach has been its
tendency
to reduce women's needs to the economic sphere which implies
that wom-
en's rights will follow automatically with third world
development, which
may involve socialism. This has not proven to be the case.
Many working
from this approach are no longer trying to add women into
either the Western
capitalist or socialist development models, but rather seek a
transformative
development process that links women's political, economic,
and cultural
empowerment.

3. Women's Rights afld the Law. The creation of new legal
mechanisms
to counter sex discrimination characterizes the third approach to
women's
rights as human rights. These efforts seek to make existing legal
and political
institutions work for women and to expand the state's
responsibility for. the
violation of women's human rights. National and local laws
which address
sex discrimination and violence against women are examples of
this ap-
proach. These measures allow women to fight for their rights
within the legal
system. The primary international illustration is the Convention
on the Elim-
ination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. 21
The Convention has been described as "essentially an
international bill
of rights for women and a framework for women's participation
in the
development process ... [which] spells out internationally
accepted prin-
ciples and standards for achieving equality between women and
men." 22
Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979, the Convention
has been
ratified or acceded to by 104 countries as of January 1990. In
theoiy these
countries are obligated to pursue policies in accordance with it
and to report
on their compliance to the Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination
Against Women (CEDAW).

While the Convention addresses many issues of sex
discrimination, one
of its shortcomings is failure to directly address the question of
violence
against women. CEDAW passed a resolution at its eighth
session in Vienna
in 1989 expressing concern that this issue be on its agenda and
instructing
21. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination Against Women, G.A. Res.
34/180, U.N. Doc. A/Res/34/180 (1980).
22. International Women's Rights Action Watch, "The
Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women" (Minneapolis:
Humphrey Institute of Public
Affairs, 1988), 1.
states to include in their periodic reports information about
statistics, leg-
islation, and support services in this area. 23 The
Commonwealth Secretariat
in its manual on the reporting process for the Convention also
interprets the
issue of violence against women as "clearly fundamental to the
spirit of the
Convention," especially in Article 5 which calls for the
modification of social
and cultural patterns, sex roles, and stereotyping that are based
on the idea
of the inferiority or the superiority of either sex. 24

The Convention outlines a dear human rights agenda for women
which,
if accepted by governments, would mark an enormous step
forward. It also
carries the limitations of all such international documents in
that there is
little power to demand its Implementation. Within the United
Nations, it is
not generally regarded as a convention with teeth, as lllustrated
by the
difficulty that CEDAW has had in getting countries to report on
compliance
with its provisions. Further, it is still treated by governments
and most non-
governmental organizations as a document dealing with
women's (read
"secondary") rights, not human rights. Nevertheless, it is a
useful statement
of principles endorsed by the United Nations around which
women can
organize to achieve legal and political change in their regions.
4. Feminist Transformation of Human Rights. Transforming the
human
rights concept from a feminist perspective, so that it will take
greater account
of women's lives, is the fourth approach. This approach relates
women's
rights and human rights, looking first at the violations of
women's lives and
then asking how the human rights concept can change to be
more responsive
to women. For example, the GABRIELA women's coalition in
the Philippines
simply stated that "Women's Rights are Human Rights" In

launching a cam-
paign last year. As Ninotchka Rosca explained, coalition
members saw that
"human rights are not reducible to a question of legal and due
process .
. . . In the case of women, human rights are affected by the
entire society's
traditional perception of what is proper or not proper for
women." 25 Similarly,
a panel at the 1990 International Women's Rights Action Watch
conference
asserted that "Violence Against Women is a Human Rights
Issue." While
work in the three previous approaches is often done from a
feminist per-
spective, this last view is the most distinctly feminist with its
woman-centered
23. CEOAW Newsletter, 3rd Issue (13 Apr. 1989), 2 (summary
of U.N. Report on the Eighth
Session, U.N. Doc. N44/38, 14 April 1989).
24. Commonwealth Secretariat, "The Convention on the
Elimination of All forms of Discrim-
ination Against Women: The Reporting Process-A Manual for
Commonweahh Jurisdic-
tions," London, 1989.
25. Speech given by Ninotchka Rosca at Amnesty International
New York Resional Conference,
24 Feb. 1990, 2.

stance and its refusal to wait for permission from some
authority to determine
what is or is not a human rights issue.
This transformative approach can be taken toward any issue, but
those
working from this approach have tended to focus most on
abuses that arise
specifically out of gender, such as reproductive rights, female
sexual slavery,
violence against women, and "family crimes" like forced
marriage, com-
pulsory heterosexuality, and female mutilation. These are also
the issues
most often dismissed as not really human rights questions. This
is therefore
the most hotly contested area and requires that barriers be
broken down
between public and private, state and nongovernmental
responsibilities.
Thoseworkingto transform the human rights vision from this
perspective
can draw on the work of others who have expanded the
understanding of
human rights previously. For example, two decades ago there
was no concept
of "disappearances" as a human rights abuse. However, the
women of the
Plaza de Mayo in Argentina did not wait for an official
declaration but stood
up to demand state accountability for these crimes. In so doing,
they helped
to create a context for expanding the concept of responsibility
for deaths at
the hands of paramilitary or right-wing death squads which,

even if not
carried out by the state, were allowed by it to happen. Another
example is
the developing concept that civil rights violations include "hate
crimes,"
violence that is racially motivated or directed against
homosexuals, Jews,
or other minority groups. Many accept that states have an
obligation to work
to prevent such human rights abuses, and getting violence
against women
seen as a hate crime is being pursued by some.
The practical applications of transforming the human rights
concept
from feminist perspectives need to be explored further. The
danger in pur-
suing only this approach is the tendency to become isolated
from and com-
petitive with other human rights groups because they have been
so reluctant
to address gender violence and discrimination. Yet most women
experience
abuse on the grounds of sex, race, class, nation, age, sexual
preference, and
politics as interrelated, and little benefit comes from separating
them as
competing claims. The human rights community need not
abandon other
issues but should incorporate gender perspectives into them and
see how
these expand the terms of their work. By recognizing issues like
violence
against women as human rights concerns, human rights scholars
and activists
do not have to take these up as their primary tasks. However,

they do have
to stop gate-keeping and guarding their prerogative to determine
what is
considered a "legitimate" human rights issue.
As mentioned before, these four approaches are overlapping and
many
strategies for change involve elements of more than one. All of
these ap-
proaches contain aspects of what is necessary to achieve
women's rights.
At a time when dualist ways of thinking and views of competing
economic
systems are in question, the creative task is to look for ways to
connect these
approaches and to see how we can go beyond exclusive views of
what
people need in their lives. In the words of an early feminist
group, we need
bread and roses, too. Women want food and liberty and the
possibility of
living lives of dignity free from domination and violence. In
this struggle,
the recognition of women's rights as human rights can play an
important
role.

To our Families
Reconstructing Political Theory
Feminist Perspectives
EDITED BY
Mary Lyndon Shanley and Uma Narayan
The Pennsylvania State University Press
University Park, Pennsylvania
10
Intersectionality and Identity Politics:
Learning from Violence Against
Women of Color
Kimberle Crenshaw
Introduction
Over the past two decades, recognizing that the political
demands of many
speak more powerfully than the pleas of a few isolated voices,
women have
organized against the almost routine violence that shapes their
lives. This
politicization in turn has transformed the way we understand
violence
agai~st women. For example, battering and rape, once seen as
private

(family matters) and aberrational (errant sexual aggression), are
now
largely recognized as part of a broad-scale system of
domination that
affects women as a class.
1
This process of recognizing as social and systemic
what was formerly perceived as isolated and individual has also
character-
ize~ the deve~opment of what has been called the "identity
politics" of
Afncan Amencans, other people of color, and gays and lesbians,
among
other~. ~or those who engage in or advocate identity-based
politics, mem-
bership m a group - defined by race, sex, class, sexual
orientation or other
characteristics - both helps to explain the nature of the
oppression expe-
rienced ~y members of that group and serves as a source of
strength,
commumty, and intellectual development.
. The ~roblem with identity politics is that it frequently
conflates or
ig~ore~ ~ntragro~p differences. In the context of violence
against women,
this el1S1on o~ diff~rence is problematic because the violence
that many
women expenence is often shaped by other dimensions of their
identities,
su~h _as race, class, a?d sexual orientation. Moreover, ignoring
difference
_withi~ group~ contnbutes to tension among groups, another

problem of
iden~i~ politics that bears on efforts to politicize violence
against women.
Femmist efforts to politicize experiences of women and anti-
racist efforts
to politicize _experiences of people of color have frequently
proceeded as
thoug? the is~ues and experiences they each detail occur on
mutually
exclusive terrams. Although racism and sexism readily intersect
in the lives
Intersectionality and Identity Politics 179
of real people, they seldom do in Ji::minist and anti-racist
theories and
practices. And so, when those theories and practices expound
identity as
"woman" or "person of color" as an either/or proposition, they
relegate the
identity of women of color to a location that resists telling.
My objective in this article is to advance the telling of that
location by
exploring the race and gender dimensions of violence against
women of
color.2 I consider how the experiences of women of color are
frequently the
product of intersecting patterns of racism and sexism, and how
these
experiences tend not to be represented within the discourses of
either
feminism or anti-racism, discourses that are shaped to respond
to one or
the other, leaving women of color marginalized within both. I
do not

m(?an to imply that the disempowerment of women of color is
singularly
or even primarily caused by feminist and anti-racist theorists or
activists.
Rather, I hope to capture, at least in part, how prevailing
structures of
domination shape various discourses of resistance. Although
there are
significant political and conceptual obstacles to moving against
structures
of domination with an intersectional sensibility, I argue that the
effort to
do so should be a central theoretical and political objective of
both anti-
racism and feminism.
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. 3
Lesbian
violence is often shrouded in secrecy for similar reasons that
have sup-
pressed exposure of heterosexual violence in communities of
color - fear of
embarrassing other members of the community, which is already
stereo-
typed as deviant, and fear of being ostracized from the
community. There
are nonetheless distinctions between heterosexual violence
against women
and lesbian violence that warrant more analysis than is possible
in this
essay. I will therefore focus on the intersectionality of race and
gender in

the context of heterosexual violence.
In an earlier article, I used the concept of intersectionality to
denote the
various ways in which race and gender interact to shape the
multiple
dimensions of Black women's employment experiences.4 My
objective
there was to illustrate that many of the experiences Black
women face are
not subsumed within the traditional boundaries of race or
gender discrimi-
nation as these boundaries are currently understood, and that the
intersec-
tion of racism and sexism factors into Black women's lives in
ways that
cannot be captured wholly by looking at the race or gender
dimensions of
those experiences separately. I build on those observations here
by explor-
ing the various ways in which race and gender intersect in
shaping struc-
tural, political, and representational aspects of violence against
women of
color.
180 Kimberli Crenshaw
. I ~nd by addressing the implications of the intersectional
approach
withm the broader scope of contemporary identity politics, and
argue that
we must recognize that the organized identity groups in which
we and

others find ourselves are in fact not monolithic but made up of
members
with different and perhaps competing identities as well. Rather
than
viewing this as a threat to group solidarity, we should view it as
an
opportunity for bridge building and coalition politics.
~nter~ectionality is not being offered here as some new,
totalizing theory
of identity. I consider intersectionality a provisional concept
linking con-
temporary politics with postmodern theory. In mapping the
intersections
of race and gender, the concept does engage dominant
assumptions that
race a~d. gender ~re essentially separate categories. By tracing
the categories
t~ thetr mtersection~, I hope to suggest a methodology that will
ultimately
disrupt the tendencies to see race and gender as exclusive or
separable.5
While the primary intersections that I explore here are between
race and
gender, the concept can and should be expanded by factoring in
issues
such as class, sexual orientation, age, and color. Indeed, factors
I address
only in part or not at all, such as class or sexual orientation, are
often as
critical in shaping the experiences of women of color. My focus
on the
intersections of race and gender only highlights the need to
account for
multiple grounds of identity when considering how the social

world is
constructed.
Structural and Political Intersectionality and Battering
I observed the dynamics of structural intersectionality during
a.brief field
study of battered women's shelters located in minority
communities in Los
Angeles.6 In most cases, the physical assault that leads women
to these
shelters is merely the most immediate manifestation of the
subordination
they experience. Many women who seek protection are
unemployed or
underemployed, and a good number of them are poor. Shelters
serving
these women cannot afford to address only the violence
inflicted by the
batterer; they must also confront the other multilayered and
routinized
fori:ns o: ~omination that often converge in these women's
lives, hindering
thetr ability to create alternatives to the abusive relationships
that brought
them to shelters in the first place. Many women of color, for
example, are
burdened by poverty, childcare responsibilities, and the lack of
job skills.
These burdens, largely the consequence of gender and class
oppression, are
then ~om pounded by the racially discriminatory employment
and housing
practices women of color often face, as well as by the
disproportionately
high unemployment among people of color that makes battered

women of
color less able to depend on th1~i:~upport of friends and
relatives for
temporary shelter. ,·,
Where systems of race, gender, and class domina~ion con~erge,
as th_ey
do in the experiences of battered women of color, mtervennon
strategies
based solely on the experiences of women who do not share the
sa~e class
or race backgrounds will be of limited help to women who face
different
obstacles. Such was the case in 1990 when Congress amended
the mar-
riage fraud provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act to
protect
immigrant women who were battered or exposed to extreme
cru~lty by
their spouses who were United States citizens or permanen_t
res~dents.
Under the marriage fraud provisions of the Act, a person who
immigrated.
to the United States to marry a United States citizen or
permanent
resident had to remain "properly" married for two years before
even
applying for permanent resident status, at which time
applications _for the
immigrant's permanent status were required of both spouses.
Predtctably,
under these circumstances, many immigrant women were

reluctant to
leave even the most abusive of partners for fear of being
deported. Reports
of the tragic consequences of this double subordination ~~t
pressure _on
Congress to include in the Immigration Act of 1990 a
prov1S1on a?1endmg
the marriage fraud rules to allow for an explicit waiver for
hardship caused
by domestic violence.7 . . .
Yet many immigrant women, parncularly immigrant women of
color,
have remained vulnerable to battering because they are unable
to meet the
conditions established for a waiver. The evidence required to
support a
waiver "can include, but is not limited to, reports and affidavits
from
police, medical personnel, psychologists, sc?o?l officials, and
social service
agencies."8 For many immigrant women, limited access to these
reso~rces
can make it difficult for them to obtain the evidence needed for
a waiver.
And cultural barriers often further discourage immigrant women
from
reporting or escaping batterin? situations. T,~na ~hum, a family
counselor
at a social service agency, pomts out that [t)his law sounds so
:asy to
apply, but there are cultural complications in the Asian
community t~at
make even these requirements difficult .... Just to find th;
opportu~ity

and courage to call us is an accomplishment for many. Th:
typtcal
immigrant spouse, she suggests, may live "[i)n an exte~ded
family where
several generations live together, there may be no pnvacy _on
,the tel~-
phone, no opportunity to leave the house and no understandmg
of public
phones." 9 As a consequence, many immigrant women_are
w~olly depen-
dent on their husbands as their link to the world outside thetr
hom~s ..
Language barriers present another structural problem that often
lt~its
opportunities of noh-English-speaking women_ co_ take
advant~ge of ex~st-
ing support services. Such barriers not only limit access to
mformat10n
about shelters, but also limit access to the security shelters
provide. Some
shelters turn non-English-speaking women away for lack of
bilingual
personnel and resources. These examples illustrate how patterns
~f subor-
dination intersect in women's experience of domestic violence.
Intersec-
tional subordination need not be intentionally produced; in fact,
it is
frequently the consequence of the imposition of one burden that
interacts

with preexisting vulnerabilities to create yet another dimension
of
disempowerment. In the case of the marriage fraud provisions of
the
Im~igration and Nationality Act, the imposition of a policy
specifically
designed to burden one class - immigrant spouses seeking
permanent
r~sident status - exacerbated the disempowerment of those
already subor-
dmated by other structures of domination. By failing to take
into account
the _v~lnerability of immigrant wives to their husbands'
control, Congress
posltloned these women to absorb the simultaneous impact of its
anti-
immigration policy and their spouses' abuse.
The enactment of the domestic violence waiver of the marriage
fraud
provisions similarly illustrates how modest attempts to respond
to certain
problems can be ineffective when the intersectional location of
women of
color is not considered in fashioning the remedy. Cultural
identity and
cla~s affect the likelihood that a battered spouse could take
advantage of the
waiver. Although the waiver is formally available to all women,
the terms of
the waiver make it inaccessible to some. Those immigrant
women least able
to take advantage of the waiver - women who are socially or
economically
the most marginal - are the ones most likely to be women of
color.

The concept of political intersectionality highlights the fact that
women
of color are situated within at least two subordinated groups
that fre-
quently pursue conflicting political agendas. The need to split
one's politi-
cal energies between two sometimes opposing groups is a
dimension of
intersectional disempowerment that men of color and white
women sel-
dom confront. Indeed, their specific raced and gendered
experiences,
although intersectional, often define as well as confine the
interests of the
entire group. For example, racism as experienced by people
ofcolor who
are of a particular gender - male - tends to determine the
parameters of
anti-racist strategies, just as sexism as experienced by women
who are of a
particular race - white - tends to ground the women's movement.
The
problem is not simply that both discourses fail women of color
by not
acknowledging the "additional" issue of race or of patriarchy
but that the
discourses are often inadequate even to the discrete tasks of
articulating the
ful~ di11?ensions of racism and sexism. Because women of
color experience
ractsm m ways not always the same as those experienced by
men of color
and sexism in ways not always parallel to experiences of white
women,
anti-racism and feminism are limited, even on their own terms.

That the political interests of woJ~n of color are obscured and
jeopar-
dized by political strategies that igriore or suppress
intersectional issues is
illustrated by my experiences in gathering information for this
essay. I
attempted to review Los Angeles Police Department statistics
reflecting
the rate of domestic violence interventions by precinct because
such statis-
tics can provide a rough picture of arrests by racial group, given
the degree
of racial segregation in Los Angeles.10 LAPD, however, would
not release
the statistics. A representative explained that one reason the
statistics were
not released was that domestic violence activists both within
and outside
the Department feared that statistics reflecting the extent of
domestic
violence in minority communities might be selectively
interpreted and
publicized so as to undermine long-term efforts to force the
Department
to address domestic violence as a serious problem. I was told
that activists
were worried that the statistics might permit opponents to
dismiss domes-
tic violence as a minority problem and, therefore, not deserving
of aggres-
sive action.
· The informant also claimed that representatives from various
minority

communities opposed the release of these statistics. They were
apparently
concerned that the data would unfairly represent Black and
Brown com-
munities as unusually violent, potentially reinforcing
stereotypes that
might be used in attemp~s to justify oppressive police 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 uncontrollably violent.
Some
worry that attempts to make domestic violence an object of
political action
may only serve to confirm such stereotypes and undermine
efforts to
combat negative beliefs about the Black community.
This account sharply illustrates how women of color can be
erased by
the strategic silences of anti-racism and feminism. The political
priorities
of both were defined in ways that suppressed information that
could have
facilitated attempts to confront the problem of domestic
violence in
communities of color.
Domestic Violence and Anti-racist and Feminist
Discourses and Politics
Within communities of color, efforts to stem the politicization
of domes-

tic violence are often grounded in attempts to maintain the
integrity of the
community. Yet th<; violence that accompanies these attempts
at unity is
devastating, not only for the Black women who are victimized,
but also for
the entire Black community. The recourse to violence to resolve
conflicts
I
184 Kimberle Crenshaw
establishes a dangerous pattern for children raised in such
environments.
It has been estimated that nearly 40 percent of all homeless
women and
children have fled violence in the home, and an estimated 63
percent of
young men between the ages of 11 and 20 who are imprisoned
for
homicide have killed their mothers' batterers. And yet, while
gang vio-
lence, homicide, and other forms of Black-on-Black crime have
increas-
ingly been discussed within African-American politics,
patriarchal ideas
about gender and power preclude the recognition of domestic
violence as
yet another compelling incidence of Black-on-Black crime.
A common problem is that the political or cultural interests of
the
community are interpreted in a way that precludes full public

recognition
of the problem of domestic violence. While it would be
misleading to
suggest that white Americans have come to terms with the
degree of
violence in their own homes, race adds yet another dimension to
why the
problem of domestic violence is suppressed within non-white
communi-
ties. People of color often must weigh their interests in avoiding
issues that
might reinforce distorted public perceptions against the need to
acknowl-
edge and address intracommunity problems. Yet the cost of
suppression .is
seldom recognized in part because the failure to discuss the
issue shapes
perceptions of how serious the problem is in the first place.
Suppression of
some of these issues in the name of anti-racism imposes real
costs. Where
information about violence in minority communities is not
available,
domestic violence is unlikely to be addressed as a serious issue.
The political imperatives of a narrowly focused anti-racist
strategy
support other practices that isolate women of color. For
example, activists
who have attempted to provide support services to Asian- and
African-
American women report intense resistance from those
communities. At
other times, cultural and social factors contribute to
suppression. Nilda
Rimonte, director ofEverywoman's Shelter in Los Angeles,

points out that
in the Asian community, saving the honor of the family from
shame is a
priority.
11
Unfortunately, this priority tends to be interpreted as obliging
women not to scream rather than obliging men not to hit.
Race and culture contribute to the suppression of domestic
violence in
other ways as well. Women of color are often reluctant to call
the police,
a hesitancy likely due to a general unwillingness among people
of color to
subject their private lives to the scrutiny and control of a police
force that
is frequently hostile. There is also a more generalized
community ethic
against public intervention, the product of a desire to create a
private
world free from the diverse assaults on the public lives of
racially subordi~
nated people. The home is not simply a man's castle in the
patriarchal
sense, but may also function as a safe haven from the
indignities of life in
a racist society. However, but for r#{~ "safe haven" in many
cases, women
of color victimized by violence might otherwise seek help.
There is also a general tendency within anti-racist discourse to

regard
the problem of violence against women of color as just another
manifesta-
tion of racism. Gender domination within the community is
reconfigured
as a consequence of discrimination against men. Of course, it is
probably
true that racism contributes to the cycle of violence, given the
stress that
men of color experience in dominant society. It is therefore
more than
reasonable to explore the links between racism and domestic
violence. But
_the chain of violence is more complex and extends beyond this
single link.
Racism is linked to patriarchy to the extent that racism denies
men of color
the power and privilege that dominant men enjoy. When
violence is
understood as an acting-out of being denied male power in other
spheres,
it seems counterproductive to embrace constructs that implicitly
link the
solution to domestic violence to the acquisition of greater male
power.
The more promising political imperative is to challenge the
legitimacy of
such power expectations by exposing their dysfunctional and
debilitating
effect on families and communities of color. Moreover, while
understand-
ing links between racism and domestic violence is an important
compo-
nent of any effective intervention strategy, it is also clear that
women of
color need not await the ultimate triumph over racism before

they can
expect to live violence-free lives.
Not only do race-based priorities function to obscure the
problem of
violence suffered by women of color; feminist concerns often
suppress
minority experiences as well. Strategies for increasing
awareness of domes-
tic violence within the white community tend to begin by citing
the
commonly shared assumption that battering is a minority
problem. The
strategy then focuses on demolishing this strawman, stressing
that spousal
abuse also occurs in the white community. That battering occurs
in
families of all races and all classes seems to be an ever-present
theme of
anti-abuse campaigns. 12 Such disclaimers seem relevant only
in the pres-
ence of an initial, widely held belief that domestic violence
occurs prima-
rily in minority or poor families. A few commentators have
even
transformed the message that battering is not exclusively a
problem of the
poor or minority communities into a claim that it equally affects
all races
and classes. I would suggest that assertions that the problem is
the same
across race and class are driven less by actual knowledge about
the preva-
lence 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. These comments seem less concerned with exploring
domestic abuse
within "stereotyped" communities than with removing the
stereotype as
an obstacle to exposing battering within white middle- and
upper-class
communities.
Women working in the field of domestic violence have
sometimes
reproduced the subordination and marginalization of women of
color not
only by speaking in un·iversal terms about "batterers" and
"victims" but
also 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. 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 accommodation at a shelter
because
she could not prove that she was English-proficient. The woman
had fled
her home with her teenage 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. All of the women at the shelter
are
required to attend a support group and they would not be able to
have her
in the group if she could not communicate. 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
• 13 .
screenmg.
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 disfinpowering 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 move-
ment - to get the woman out of danger. ·
Here the woman in crisis was made to bear the burden of the
shelter's

refusal to anticipate and provide for the needs of non-English-
speaking
women. Said Campos, "It is unfair to impose more stress on
victims by
placing them in the position of having to demonstrate their
proficiency in
English in order to receive services that are readily available to
other
battered women." 14 The problem is not easily dismissed as one
of well-
intentioned ignorance. The specific issue of monolingualism and
the
monistic view of women's experience that set the stage for this
tragedy
were not new issues in New York. Indeed, several women of
color reported
that they had repeatedly struggled with the New York State
Coalition
Against Domestic Violence over language exclusion and other
practices
that marginalized the interests of women of color.
15
Yet despite repeated
lobbying, the Coalition· did not act to incorporate the specific
needs of
non-English-speaking women, many of whom are women of
color, into
their central organizing vision.
The struggle over which differences matter and which do not is
neither
an abstract nor an insignificant debate among women. Indeed,
these
conflicts are about more than difference as such; they raise

critical issues of
power. The problem is not simply that women who dominate the
anti-
violence movement are different from women of color but that
they
frequently have power to determine, either through material or
rhet~rical
resources, whether the intersectional differences of women of
color will be
incorporated at all into the basic formulation of policy. Efforrs
to politicize
the issue of violence against women challenge beliefs that
violence occurs
only in homes of "others." While it is unlikely that advocates
and others
intend to exclude or ignore the needs of poor and colored
women, the
underlying premise of this seemingly universalistic appeal is to
keep the
sensibilities of dominant social groups focused on the
experiences of those
groups. 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 com-
munity. Unless 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.
The struggle over incorporating these differences is not a petty
or superfi-
cial conflict about who gets to sit at the head of the table. In the
context
. ,
1,1
of violence, it is sometimes a deadly serious matter of who will
survive and
who will not.
Conclusion
This essay has presented intersectionality as a way of framing
the various
interactions. of race and gender in the context of violence
against women
of color. Yet intersectionality might be more broadly useful as a
way of
mediating the tension between assertions of multiple identity
and the
ongoing necessity of group politics. It is helpful in this regard
to dis-
tinguish intersectionality from the closely related perspective of
anti-
essentialism, from which women of color have critically
engaged white
feminism for the absence of women of color on the one hand,
and for

speaking for women of color on the other.
One rendition of this anti-essentialist critique - that feminism
essentializes the category woman - owes a great deal to the
postmodernist
idea that categories we consider natural or merely
representational are
actually socially constructed in a linguistic economy of
difference. 16 While
the descriptive project of postmodernism of questioning the
ways in which
meaning is socially constructed is generally sound, this critique
sometimes
misreads the meaning of social construction and distorts its
political
relevance.
One version of anti-essentialism, embodying what might be
called the
vulgarized social construction thesis, is that since all categories
are socially
constructed, there is no such thing as, say, Blacks or women,
and thus it
makes no sense to continue reproducing those categories by
organizing
around them. But to say that a category such as race or gender
is socially
constructed is not to say that the category has no significance in
our world.
On ~he contrary, a large and continuing project for subordinated
people -
and mdeed, one of the projects for which postmodern theories
have been
very helpful - is thinking about the way power has clustered
around
certain categories and is exercised against others. This project

attempts to
unveil th~ processes of subordination and the various ways
those processes
are experienced by people who are subordinated and people who
are
privil~ged by them. It is, then, a project that presumes that
categories have
meanmg and consequences. And this project's most pressing
problem, in
many if not most cases, is not the existence of the categories,
but rather the
particular values attached to them and the way those values
foster and
create social hierarchies.
This is not to deny that the process of categorization is itself an
exercise
of power, but the story is much more complicated and nuanced
than that.
lntersectionality and Identity Politics 189
First, the process of categorizing -J.i~, in identity terms,
naming - is not
·"' unilateral. Subordinated people cfo and do participate,
sometimes even
subverting the naming process in empowering ways. One need
only think
about the historical subvers1on of the category "Black" or the
current
transformation of "queer" to understand that categorization is
not a one-
way street. Clearly, there is unequal power, but there is
nonetheless some
degree of agency that people can and do exert in the politics of

naming.
And it is important to note that identity continues to be a site of
resistance
for members of different subordinated groups. At this point in
history, a
strong case can be made that the most critical resistance
strategy for
disempowered groups is to occupy and defend a politics of
social location
rather than to vacate and destroy it.
Vulgar constructionism thus distorts the possibilities for
meaningful
identity politics by conflating at least two separate but closely
linked
manifestations of power. One is the power exercised simply
through the
process of categorization; the other, the power to cause that
categorization
to have social and material consequences. While the former
power facili-
tates the latter, the political implications of challenging one
over the other
matter greatly. We can look at debates over racial subordination
through-
out history and see that in each instance, there was a possibility
of chal-
lenging either the construction of identity or the system of
subordination
based on that identity.
Consider, for example, the segregation system in Plessy v.
Ferguson.17 At
issue were multiple dimensions of domination, including
categorization,
the sign of race, and the subordination of those so labeled.

There were at
least two targets for Plessy to challenge: the construction of
identity
("What is a Black?"), and the system of subordination based on
that
identity ("Can Blacks and whites sit together on a train?").
Plessy actually
made both arguments, one against the coherence of race as a
category, the
other against the subordination of those deemed to be Black. In
his attack
on the former, Plessy argued that the segregation statute's
application to
him, given his mixed race status, was inappropriate. The Court
refused to
see this as an attack on the coherence of the race system and
instead
responded in a way that simply reproduced the Black/white
dichotomy
that Plessy was challenging. As we know, Plessy's challenge to
the segrega-
tion system was not successful either. In evaluating various
resistance
strategies today, it is useful ~o ask which of Plessy's challenges
would have
been best for him to have won - the challenge against the
coherence of the
racial categorization system or the challenge to the practice of
segregation?
The same que~tion can be posed for Brown v. Board of
Education.
18
Which of two possible arguments was politically more
empowering - that

segregation was unconstitutional because the racial
categorization system
on which it was based was incoherent, or that segregation was
unconstitu-
tional because it was injurious to Black children and oppressive
to their
communities? While it might strike some as a difficult question,
for the
most part, the dimension of racial domination that has been
most vexing
to African Americans has not been the social categorization as
such, but
the myriad ways in which those of us so defined have been
systematically
subordinated. With particular regard to problems confronting
women of
color, when identity politics fail us, as it frequently does, it is
not primarily
because that politics takes as natural certain categories that are
socially
constructed but rather because the descriptive content of those
categories
and the narratives on which they are based have privileged some
experi-
ences and excluded others.
Consider the Clarence Thomas/ Anita Hill confrontation during
the
Senate hearings for the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the
Supreme
Court. Anita Hill, in bringing allegations of sexual harassment

against
Thomas, was rhetorically disempowered in part because she fell
between
the dominant interpretations of feminism and anti-racism.
Caught be-
tween the competing narrative tropes of rape (advanced by
feminists) on
the one hand and lynching (advanced by Thomas and his anti-
racist
supporters) on the other, the raced and gendered dimensions of
her
position could not be told. This dilemma could be described as
the
consequence of anti-racism's essentializing Blackness and
feminism's
essentializrng womanhood. But recognizing as much does not
take us
far enough, for the problem is not simply linguistic or
philosophical in
nature. It is specifically political: the narratives of gender are
based on
the experience of white, middle-class women, and the narratives
of race
are based on the experience of Black men. The solution does not
merely
entail arguing for the multiplicity of identities or challenging
essentialism
generally. Instead, in Hill's case, for example, it would have
been necessary
to assert those · crucial aspects of her location that were erased,
even by
many of her advocates - that is, to state what difference her
difference
made.
If, as this analysis asserts, history and context determine the

utility of
identity politics, how then do we understand identity politics
today,
especially in light of our recognition of multiple dimensions of
identity?
More specifically, what does it mean to argue that gendered
identities have
been obscured in anti-racist discourses, just as race identities
have been
obscured in femini~t discourses? Does that mean we cannot talk
about
identity? Or instead, that any discourse about identity has to
acknowledge
how our identities are constructed through the intersection of
multiple
dimensions? A beginning response to these questions requires
that we first
recognize that the organized identity groups in which we find
ourselves in
are in fact coalitions, or at least potf'ial coalitions waiting to
be formed.
In the context of anti-racism, recognizing the ways in which the
inter-
sectional experiences of women of color are marginalized in
prevailing
conceptions of identity politics does not require that we give
up_ attempts
to organize as communities of color. Rather, intersectionality
provides a
basis for reconceptualizing race as a coalition between men and
women of
color. For example, in the area of rape, intersectionality

provides a way of
explaining why women of color have to abandon the general
argument
that the interests of the community require the suppression of
any con-
frontation around intraracial rape. lntersectionality may provide
the
means for dealing with other marginalizations as well. For
example, race
can also be a means to create a coalition of straight and gay
people of color,
and thus serve as a basis for critique of cultural institutions,
including
churches, that reproduce heterosexism.
With identity thus reconceptualized, it may be easier to
understand the
need for and to summon the courage to challenge groups that
are after all,
in one sense, "home" to us, in the name of the parts of us that
are not made
at home. This takes a great deal of energy and arouses intense
anxiety. The
most one could expect is that we will dare to speak against
internal
exclusions and marginalizations, that we might call attention to
how the
identity of"the group" has been centered on the intersectional
identities 0£
a few. Recognizing that identity politics takes place at the site
where
categories intersect thus seems more fruitful than challenging
the possi-
bility of talking abo!lt categories at all. Through an awareness
of
intersectionality, we can better acknowledge and ground the

differences
among us and negotiate the means by which these differences
will find
expression in constructing group politics.
Notes
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,
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 Leri 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 Work-
shop and the Yale Legal Theory Workshop. This article is
dedicated to the
memory of Denise Carty-Bennia and Mary Joe Frug.

1 See Susan Schechter, Women and Male Violence: The Visions
and Struggles
of the Batiered Womens Movement (Boston: South End Press,
1982); R.
Emerso"n Dobash and Russell Dobash, ViolenceAgainst Wives:
A CaseAgainst
the Patriarchy (New York: Free Press, 1979); Lenore E. Walker,
Terrifying
Love: Why Battered Women Kill and How Society Responds
(New York: Harper
& Row, 1989).
2 For a body of legal scholarship that investigates the
connections between race
and gender, see, e.g., Regina Austin, "Sapphire Bound!",
Wisconsin Law
Review (1989), p. 539; Angela P. Harris, "Race and
Essentialism in Feminist
Legal Theory," Stanford Law Review, 42 (1990), p. 581; Marlee
Kline, "Race,
Racism and Feminist Legal Theory," Harvard Womens Law
journal, 12
(1989), p. 115.
3 See Jane Garcia, "The Cost of Escaping Domestic Violence:
Fear of Treat-
ment in a Largely Homophobic· Society May Keep Lesbian
Abuse Victims
from Calling for Help," Los Angeles Times, May 6, 1991, at 2;
see also Kerry
Lobel, ed., Naming the Violence: Speaking Out About Lesbian
Battering (Se-
attle: Seal Press, 1986); Ruthann Robson, "Lavender Bruises:
Intralesbian
Violence, Law and Lesbian Legal Theory," Golden Gate

University Law Re-
view, 20 (1990), p. 567.
4 Kimberle Crenshaw, "Demarginalizing the Intersection of
Race and Sex,"
University of Chicago Legal Forum (1989), p. 139.
5 Professor Mari Matsuda calls this inquiry "asking the other
question." For
example, we should look at an issue or condition traditionally
regarded as a
gender issue and ask, "Where's the racism in this?" Mari J.
Matsuda, "Beside
My Sister, Facing the Enemy: Legal Theory Out of Coalition,"
Stanford Law
Review, 43 (1991).
6 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 Los Angeles.
7 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 conditionaf permanent resident status
can be granted
a waiver for failure to meet the requirements if she can show

that "the
marriage was entered into in good faith and that after the
marriage the alien
spouse was battered 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), reprinted in 1990 U.S.C.C.A.N. 6710, 6758.
8 H.R. Rep. No. 723(I) at 79, reprinted in 1990 U.S.C.C.A.N.
6710, 6759.
9 Ibid.
10 Most crime statistic~ 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. G. Chezia Carraway,
"Violence Against
Women of Color," Stanford Law Review, 43 (1991).
11 Interview with Nilda Rimonte, Dir4'.itor of the Everywoman
Shelter, in Los
Angeles, California (April 19, 1991). Also see Nilda Rimonte,
"Cultural
Sanction of Violence Against Women in the Pacific-Asian
Community,"
Stanford Law Review, 43 (1991).

12 Natalie Loder Clark, "Crime Begins At Home: Let's Stop
Punishing Victims
and Perpetuating Violence," William and Mary Law Review, 28
(1987), pp.
263, 282 n. 74 ("The problem of domestic violence cuts across
all social lines
and affects 'families regardless of their economic class, race,
national origin, or
educational background.'")
13 Letter of Diana M. Campos, Director of Human Services, PO
DER, to Joseph
Semidei, Deputy Commissioner, New York State Department of
Social Ser-
vices (Mar. 26, 1992).
14 Ibid.
15 Roundtable Discussion on Racism and the Domestic
Violence Movement
(April 2, 1992) (transcript on file with the Stanford Law
Review). The partici-
pants in the discussion - Diana Campos, Director, Bilingual
Outreach
Project of the New York State Coalition Against Domestic
Violenc~; Elsa A.
Rios, Project Director, Victim Intervention Project (a
commumty-based
project in East Harlem, New York, serving battered :,vomen);
and Hay~ee
Rosario, a social worker with the East Harlem Council for
Human Services
and a Victim Intervention Project volunteer - recounted
conflicts relating to
race and culture during their association with the New York

State Coalition
Against Domestic Violence, a state oversight group that
distributed resour~es
to battered women's shelters throughout the state and generally
set policy
priorities for the shelters that were part of the Coalition.
16 I follow the practice of others in linking anti-essentialism to
postmodern-
ism. See generally Linda Nicholson, Feminism/Postmodernism
(New York:
Routledge, 1990).
17 Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).
18 Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. (1954).

Womens Rights as Human Rights Toward a Re-Vision of Human Ri.docx

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

More from lefrancoishazlett

More from lefrancoishazlett (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Womens Rights as Human Rights Toward a Re-Vision of Human Ri.docx