Intersectionality as a tool for social movements: Strategies of inclusion and representation in the Québécois women’s movement

“In recent years, intersectionality has become a “normative goal, or preferred mode of organizing” invoked by feminists and activists from various social movements who claim to represent single identity constituencies, such as “women,” in all their diversity (Weldon, 2008: 217; see also Evans, 2015).”

“They also pointed out how introducing an intersectional logic to a coalition potentially makes it harder for the coalition to put forward coherent positions and manage the balance of power among member organizations (see also Laperrière and Lépinard 2016).”

“…a core concern in feminist studies (Bygnes, 2013; Chun et al., 2013 ; Nielsen, 2012; Verloo, 2013; Waites, 2017) and an area of sociological inquiry (Choo & Ferree, 2010; Degnen & Tyler, 2017; B. Roth, 2017), it as yet remains on the margins of social movement studies (Laperrière & Lépinard, 2016).”

“It is argued that as a social movement, the adoption of intersectionality by organizations does not necessarily lead to improvements in the political and social marginalization of minority groups (Laperrière & Lépinard, 2016).”

“…protest movements, and elected officials, with occasional reference to interest groups (Brown et al. 2017; English 2019a; 2020; Gershon et al. 2019; Laperrière and Lépinard 2016; Marchetti 2014; Purdie-Vaughns and Eibach 2008; Reingold, Widner, and Harmon 2019; Skrentny 2002; Strolovitch 2007).”

“Normalising inclusivity, paying attention to intersectional issues, and acknowledging how power shapes relations between activists, are all strategies that can help facilitate successful coalitional organising (Cole & Luna, 2010; Laperrière & Lépinard, 2016; Weldon, 2006).”

“Scholars have increasingly adopted an intersectional lens to examine social movements (Doetsch-Kidder, 2012; Laperrière & Lépinard, 2016, Luna, 2020; Roberts & Jesudason, 2013; Strolovitch, 2007; Tormos, 2017; Weldon, 2011).”

“Instead, white, middle-class, cisgender, heterosexual, and able-bodied women still predominate the movements (Erevelles, 2011; Evans, 2015 ; Laperrière & Lépinard, 2016).”

“…words, that adopt intersectionality as a guiding framework for organisation and mobilisation, mainly in the fields of feminism (e.g. Heaney, 2021; Laperrière & Lépinard, 2016; Weldon, 2006), reproductive justice (e.g. Daniel & de Leon, 2020; Mandell et al., 2019; Roberts & Jesudason, 2013),…”

“…oppression—into our understanding of oppression and, through the myriad of lived bodily differences (Clare, 2001), highlighting experiences of multiple oppressions (Butler, 2015; Laperrière & Lépinard, 2016) by spanning the distance between disability politics and trans experience (Clare, 2001).”

“Hence, the most privileged migrants were likely to benefit most from the inclusion project, but not because their interests were intentionally prioritized or because they were in a position of power to determine the “shared” agenda (Laperrière & Lépinard, 2016).”

“Intersectionality offers a lens to understand individuals through the multiple and layered experiences of oppression related to their complex identities (Crenshaw, 2013; Laperrière and Lépinard, 2016).”

“…framework and as a critical praxis (Cho et al. , 2013; Collins and Bilge, 2016), revealing the political marginalisation of women from minority groups ‘within the organization and the broader women’s movement and (. . .) redress[ing] their under-representation’ (Laperrière and Lépinard, 2016: 376).”

“…with an eye to how differences are represented, and how marginalized groups are included (Strolovitch, 2007; Townsend-Bell, 2011) and to the repertoires of intersectional practices used by movements (Chun et al., 2013; Evans, 2016; Laperrière and Lépinard, 2016; Lépinard, 2014; Zavella, 2017).”

“Feminist scholars used it to draw attention to the intersecting experiences of inequality which significantly shaped the demands and composition of protests (Chun et al. 2013; Laperrière and Lépinard 2016).”

“…during what we call the global period, became increasingly global in focus, epitomized by the World March of Women in 2000 organized by the FFQ, while at the same time attending to issues of intersectionality and diversity within the movement itself (see, for example, Laperrière and Lépinard 2016).”

“For example, migrant women’s organizations in Europe have criticized mainstream feminist movements for prioritizing concerns like pay equity over immigration reform, upholding marginalization within activist spaces[6].”