I approach violence against women of color in a transnational feminist lens. Particularly analyzing how discourses of victimization creep into discussions of immigrant women seeking domestic violence assistance. This discussion does not delve into detailed accounts and examples, but rather searches for tools of better approaching domestic violence away from victimizing and savior approaches concerning women of color in domestic violence situations. The goal is to find tools to flip the lens and analyze regimes of power existing in the framing of certain narratives of domestic violence. Kimberle Williams Crenshaw addresses such an analysis in her piece, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color.” Crenshaw addreses the realm of identity politics, mobility behind feminist and anti-racist organizations and argues that the women of color experience accounts both race and gender and such specification, although historically specific, cannot work in separate boxes as these organizations come to approach women of color experiences. Such refusal to think of these identities as “boxed” has everything to do with how violence is experienced and how violence within communities of color is spoken about. Crenshaw touches on two significant frames in her work: intersectional subordination confronted in the notion of structural intersectionality, and political intersectionality. Intersectional subordination addresses the multiplicities of power dynamics in the lives of women pertaining to their location in the intersections of race and gender, structural intersectionality. In addressing this concept and the theories of domestic violence legislation in Congress such as the Violence Against Women Act of the 1990s and the 1990s revision of the marriage fraud policy under the Immigration Act of 1990 to allow a waiver of hardship gathered through evidence from police reports to social service agencies. In this topic of immigration and domestic violence she address that not considering the disparities of the bilingual resources and personnel in the U.S. in women of color accessing these documents, often compromises the “equal distribution” logic that is falsely promoted for these reforms. Such intention rather addresses policy and legislation as it soothes government consciousness and validates power-reinforcing colorblind legislation. In this case of governmental, or Congressional handling of domestic violence, she states intersectional subordination, it “need not be intentionally produced…the consequence of the imposition of one burden interacting with pre-existing vulnerabilities to create yet another dimension of disempowerment” (495). In connection, this insight connects to the last frame of political intersectionality, most relevant in political approaches of anti-racist and feminist organization. In discussing political intersectionality, women of color often find themselves in the “conflicting political agendas,” separately addressed” faced in their position in multiple politically subordinated groups. For one,this makes us rethink how women of color experience in racism is “different from men of color and sexism in ways not always parallel to experiences of white women” (496). I encourage our fellow readers to pick up this valuable Crenshaw piece and explore her examples from immigrant women and domestic violence shelter accessibility and a re-reading of the media portrayal of women of color who have experienced domestic violence and refuse to report or cooperate. The reader will further explore how notions of accessibility, the lack of bilingual resources and personnel provided for non-English speaker, and specificities of identities of women of color as not just an identity as “woman” or an identity as “person of color,” and I would add as a “queer” person complicates for further analysis of regimes of power. TO end, we must always keep a critical lens on identity categories and identity politics that structure various organization. To have a critical lens is not to invalidate the good brought by these organization, but recognizing that how specific identity politics can often be detrimental by reinforcing multiple invisibilities and erasures of narratives that work to validate the U.S. colorblind agenda.
In particular, I want to challenge you to to begin thinking of the relationship of immigration and the U.S. and checking our own incarnations of savior mentality and such an approach in U.S. human rights discourse.
Here's a link to an informative blog that approaches feminism through a transnational lens :) http://www.genderacrossborders.com
Jasmine Herrera
Gender Buffet and Programming Intern
Crenshaw, Kimberle W. “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color.” The Feminist Philosophy Reader. Ed. Alison Bailey and Chris Cuomo. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008. 279-309.
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