tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/intersectionality-24515/articlesIntersectionality – The Conversation2024-03-07T19:24:11Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2241532024-03-07T19:24:11Z2024-03-07T19:24:11ZWhat are the four waves of feminism? And what comes next?<p>In Western countries, feminist history is generally packaged as a story of “waves”. The so-called first wave lasted from the mid-19th century to 1920. The second wave spanned the 1960s to the early 1980s. The third wave began in the mid-1990s and lasted until the 2010s. Finally, some say we are experiencing a fourth wave, which began in the mid-2010s and continues now.</p>
<p>The first person to use “waves” was journalist Martha Weinman Lear, in her 1968 New York Times article, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1968/03/10/archives/the-second-feminist-wave.html">The Second Feminist Wave</a>, demonstrating that the women’s liberation movement was another <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/16955588/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth">“new chapter</a> in a grand history of women fighting together for their rights”. She was responding to anti-feminists’ framing of the movement as a “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/16955588/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth">bizarre historical aberration</a>”.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/718868">Some feminists</a> criticise the usefulness of the metaphor. Where do feminists who preceded the first wave sit? For instance, Middle Ages feminist writer <a href="https://blogs.loc.gov/bibliomania/2023/08/30/christine-de-pizan/">Christine de Pizan</a>, or philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wollstonecraft/">Mary Wollstonecraft</a>, author of <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/a-vindication-of-the-rights-of-woman-9780141441252">A Vindication of the Rights of Woman</a> (1792). </p>
<p>Does the metaphor of a single wave <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/16955588/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth">overshadow</a> the complex variety of feminist concerns and demands? And does this language exclude the <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/718868">non-West</a>, for whom the “waves” story is meaningless?</p>
<p>Despite these concerns, countless feminists <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317322421_Finding_a_Place_in_History_The_Discursive_Legacy_of_the_Wave_Metaphor_and_Contemporary_Feminism">continue to use</a> “waves” to explain their position in relation to previous generations.</p>
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<span class="caption">A second-wave International Women’s Day rally in Melbourne, 1975.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.naa.gov.au/students-and-teachers/learning-resources/learning-resource-themes/society-and-culture/gender-and-sexuality/international-womens-day-rally-melbourne">National Archives of Australia</a></span>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-whitlam-government-gave-us-no-fault-divorce-womens-refuges-and-childcare-australia-needs-another-feminist-revolution-202238">The Whitlam government gave us no-fault divorce, women's refuges and childcare. Australia needs another feminist revolution</a>
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<h2>The first wave: from 1848</h2>
<p>The first wave of feminism refers to the campaign for the vote. It began in the United States in 1848 with the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibitions/women-fight-for-the-vote/about-this-exhibition/seneca-falls-and-building-a-movement-1776-1890/">Seneca Falls Convention</a>, where 300 gathered to debate Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Declaration of Sentiments, outlining women’s inferior status and demanding suffrage – or, the right to vote.</p>
<p>It continued over a decade later, in 1866, in Britain, with the presentation of a <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/parliamentary-collections/1866-suffrage-petition/presenting-the-petition/">suffrage petition</a> to parliament.</p>
<p>This wave ended in 1920, when women were granted the right to vote in the US. (Limited women’s suffrage had been introduced in Britain two years earlier, in 1918.) First-wave activists believed once the vote had been won, women could use its power to enact other much-needed reforms, related to property ownership, education, employment and more. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Vida Goldstein.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vida_Goldstein#/media/File:Vida_Goldstein-01.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
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<p>White leaders dominated the movement. They included longtime president of the the International Woman Suffrage Alliance <a href="https://cattcenter.iastate.edu/home/about-us/carrie-chapman-catt/">Carrie Chapman Catt</a> in the US, leader of the militant Women’s Social and Political Union <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Emmeline-Pankhurst">Emmeline Pankhurst</a> in the UK, and <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/spence-catherine-helen-4627">Catherine Helen Spence</a> and <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/goldstein-vida-jane-6418">Vida Goldstein</a> in Australia. </p>
<p>This has tended to obscure the histories of non-white feminists like evangelist and social reformer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sojourner-Truth">Sojourner Truth</a> and journalist, activist and researcher <a href="https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/ida-b-wells-barnett">Ida B. Wells</a>, who were fighting on multiple fronts – including anti-slavery and anti-lynching – as well as feminism. </p>
<h2>The second wave: from 1963</h2>
<p>The second wave coincided with the publication of US feminist Betty Friedan’s <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-feminine-mystique-9780141192055">The Feminine Mystique</a> in 1963. Friedan’s “<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/powerful-complicated-legacy-betty-friedans-feminine-mystique-180976931/">powerful treatise</a>” raised critical interest in issues that came to define the women’s liberation movement until the early 1980s, like workplace equality, birth control and abortion, and women’s education. </p>
<p>Women came together in “consciousness-raising” groups to share their individual experiences of oppression. These discussions informed and motivated public agitation for <a href="https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/HaeberlenPolitics">gender equality and social change</a>. Sexuality and gender-based violence were other prominent second-wave concerns. </p>
<p>Australian feminist Germaine Greer wrote <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780007205011/the-female-eunuch/">The Female Eunuch</a>, published in 1970, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-female-eunuch-at-50-germaine-greers-fearless-feminist-masterpiece-147437">urged women to</a> “challenge the ties binding them to gender inequality and domestic servitude” – and to ignore repressive male authority by exploring their sexuality. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-female-eunuch-at-50-germaine-greers-fearless-feminist-masterpiece-147437">Friday essay: The Female Eunuch at 50, Germaine Greer's fearless, feminist masterpiece</a>
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<p>Successful lobbying saw the establishment of refuges for women and children fleeing domestic violence and rape. In Australia, there were groundbreaking political appointments, including the world’s first Women’s Advisor to a national government (<a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/audio/landmark-women/transcripts/landmark-women-elizabeth-reid-181013.mp3-transcript">Elizabeth Reid</a>). In 1977, a <a href="https://www.whitlam.org/women-and-whitlam">Royal Commission on Human Relationships</a> examined families, gender and sexuality. </p>
<p>Amid these developments, in 1975, Anne Summers published <a href="https://theconversation.com/damned-whores-and-gods-police-is-still-relevant-to-australia-40-years-on-mores-the-pity-47753">Damned Whores and God’s Police</a>, a scathing historical critique of women’s treatment in patriarchal Australia. </p>
<p>At the same time as they made advances, so-called women’s libbers managed to anger earlier feminists with their distinctive claims to radicalism. Tireless campaigner <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/rich-ruby-sophia-14202">Ruby Rich</a>, who was president of the Australian Federation of Women Voters from 1945 to 1948, responded by declaring the only difference was her generation had called their movement “<a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-296328435/findingaid">justice for women</a>”, not “liberation”. </p>
<p>Like the first wave, mainstream second-wave activism proved largely irrelevant to non-white women, who faced oppression on intersecting gendered and racialised grounds. African American feminists produced their own critical texts, including bell hooks’ <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Aint-I-a-Woman-Black-Women-and-Feminism/hooks/p/book/9781138821514">Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism</a> in 1981 and Audre Lorde’s <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/198292/sister-outsider-by-audre-lorde/">Sister Outsider</a> in 1984. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/bell-hooks-will-never-leave-us-she-lives-on-through-the-truth-of-her-words-173900">bell hooks will never leave us – she lives on through the truth of her words</a>
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<h2>The third wave: from 1992</h2>
<p>The third wave was announced in the 1990s. The term is popularly attributed to Rebecca Walker, daughter of African American feminist activist and writer <a href="https://alicewalkersgarden.com/about/">Alice Walker</a> (author of <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/alice-walker/the-color-purple-now-a-major-motion-picture-from-oprah-winfrey-and-steven-spielberg">The Color Purple</a>). </p>
<p>Aged 22, Rebecca proclaimed in a 1992 Ms. magazine <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200404030632/http:/heathengrrl.blogspot.com/2007/02/becoming-third-wave-by-rebecca-walker.html">article</a>: “I am not a post-feminism feminist. I am the Third Wave.” </p>
<p>Third wavers didn’t think gender equality had been more or less achieved. But they did share <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1464700119842555">post-feminists</a>’ belief that their foremothers’ concerns and demands were obsolete. They argued women’s experiences were now shaped by <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2016.1190046">very different</a> political, economic, technological and cultural conditions. </p>
<p>The third wave has been described as “an <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/beauty/meet-the-woman-who-coined-the-term-third-wave-feminism-20180302-p4z2mw.html">individualised feminism</a> that can not exist without diversity, sex positivity and intersectionality”. </p>
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<span class="caption">Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term ‘intersectionality’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">UCLA</span></span>
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<p>Intersectionality, <a href="https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=uclf">coined</a> in 1989 by African American legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, recognises that people can experience intersecting layers of oppression due to race, gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity and more. Crenshaw notes this was a “lived experience” before it was a term. </p>
<p>In 2000, Aileen Moreton Robinson’s <a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/books/talkin-up-to-the-white-woman-indigenous-women-and-feminism-20th-anniversary-edition">Talkin’ Up to the White Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism</a> expressed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women’s frustration that white feminism did not adequately address the legacies of dispossession, violence, racism, and sexism.</p>
<p>Certainly, the third wave accommodated <a href="https://paromitapain.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/10.10072F978-3-319-72917-6.pdf#page=112%22">kaleidoscopic views</a>. Some scholars claimed it “grappled with fragmented interests and objectives” – or micropolitics. These included ongoing issues such as sexual harassment in the workplace and a scarcity of women in positions of power. </p>
<p>The third wave also gave birth to the <a href="https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/brief-history-riot-grrrl-space-reclaiming-90s-punk-movement-2542166">Riot Grrrl</a> movement and “girl power”. Feminist punk bands like <a href="https://bikinikill.com/about/">Bikini Kill</a> in the US, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/nov/28/pussy-riot-beaten-jailed-exiled-taunting-putin">Pussy Riot</a> in Russia and Australia’s <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/mbknev/little-ugly-girls-tractor-album-single-premiere-2018">Little Ugly Girls</a> sang about issues like homophobia, sexual harassment, misogyny, racism, and female empowerment. </p>
<p>Riot Grrrl’s <a href="https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/riotgrrrlmanifesto.html">manifesto</a> states “we are angry at a society that tells us Girl = Dumb, Girl = Bad, Girl = Weak”. “Girl power” was epitomised by Britain’s more sugary, phenomenally popular Spice Girls, who were accused of peddling “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/sep/14/spice-girls-how-girl-power-changed-britain-review-fabulous-and-intimate">‘diluted feminism’ to the masses</a>”.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Riot Grrrrl sang about issues like homophobia, sexual harassment, misogyny and racism.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>The fourth wave: 2013 to now</h2>
<p>The fourth wave is epitomised by “<a href="https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol25/iss2/10/">digital or online feminism</a>” which gained currency in about <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/16955588/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth">2013</a>. This era is marked by mass online mobilisation. The fourth wave generation is connected via new communication technologies in ways that were not previously possible. </p>
<p>Online mobilisation has led to spectacular street demonstrations, including the #metoo movement. #Metoo was first founded by Black activist <a href="https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/tarana-burke">Tarana Burke</a> in 2006, to support survivors of sexual abuse. The hashtag #metoo then went viral during the 2017 Harvey Weinstein <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/10/28/1131500833/me-too-harvey-weinstein-anniversary">sexual abuse scandal</a>. It was used at least <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563221002193">19 million times</a> on Twitter (now X) alone.</p>
<p>In January 2017, the <a href="https://www.womensmarch.com/">Women’s March</a> protested the inauguration of the decidedly misogynistic Donald Trump as US president. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Womens-March-2017">Approximately 500,000</a> women marched in Washington DC, with demonstrations held simultaneously in <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Remembering-Womens-Activism/Crozier-De-Rosa-Mackie/p/book/9781138794894">81 nations</a> on all continents of the globe, even Antarctica.</p>
<p>In 2021, the <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/8564388">Women’s March4Justice</a> saw some 110,000 women rallying at more than 200 events across Australian cities and towns, protesting workplace sexual harassment and violence against women, following high-profile cases like that of Brittany Higgins, revealing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/29/brittany-higgins-bruce-lehrmann-defamation-trial-evidence-stand-rape-allegations-liberal-party-ntwnfb#:%7E:text=Bruce%20Lehrmann%20has%20brought%20a,Wilkinson%20are%20defending%20the%20case.">sexual misconduct</a> in the Australian houses of parliament.</p>
<p>Given the prevalence of online connection, it is not surprising fourth wave feminism has reached across geographic regions. The Global Fund for Women <a href="https://www.globalfundforwomen.org/movements/me-too/">reports</a> that #metoo transcends national borders. In China, it is, among other things, #米兔 (translated as “<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/61903744-9540-11e8-b67b-b8205561c3fe">rice bunny</a>”, pronounced as “mi tu”). In Nigeria, it’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we-F0Gi0Lqs">#Sex4Grades</a>. In Turkey, it’s #<a href="https://ahvalnews.com/sexual-harrasment/dozens-turkish-womens-organisations-issue-statement-backing-latest-metoo-movement">UykularınızKaçsın</a> (“may you lose sleep”). </p>
<p>In an inversion of the traditional narrative of the Global North leading the Global South in terms of feminist “progress”, Argentina’s “<a href="https://www.auswhn.com.au/blog/colour-green/">Green Wave</a>” has seen it decriminalise abortion, as has Colombia. Meanwhile, in 2022, the US Supreme Court <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade-but-for-abortion-opponents-this-is-just-the-beginning-185768">overturned historic abortion legislation</a>.</p>
<p>Whatever the nuances, the prevalence of such highly visible gender protests have led some feminists, like <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14680777.2020.1804431">Red Chidgey</a>, lecturer in Gender and Media at King’s College London, to declare that feminism has transformed from “a dirty word and publicly abandoned politics” to an ideology sporting “a new cool status”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-a-sex-positive-feminist-takes-up-the-unfinished-revolution-her-mother-began-but-its-complicated-189139">Friday essay: a sex-positive feminist takes up the 'unfinished revolution' her mother began – but it's complicated</a>
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<h2>Where to now?</h2>
<p>How do we know when to pronounce the next “wave”? (Spoiler alert: I have no answer.) Should we even continue to use the term “waves”?</p>
<p>The “wave” framework was first used to demonstrate feminist continuity and solidarity. However, whether interpreted as disconnected chunks of feminist activity or connected periods of feminist activity and inactivity, represented by the crests and troughs of waves, some believe it encourages binary thinking that produces <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2016.1190046">intergenerational antagonism</a>.</p>
<p>Back in 1983, Australian writer and second-wave feminist Dale Spender, who died last year, <a href="https://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/feminism/radical-books-dale-spender-theres-always-been-a-womens-movement-this-century-1983/">confessed her fear</a> that if each generation of women did not know they had robust histories of struggle and achievement behind them, they would labour under the illusion they’d have to develop feminism anew. Surely, this would be an overwhelming prospect.</p>
<p>What does this mean for “waves” in 2024 and beyond?</p>
<p>To build vigorous varieties of feminism going forward, we might reframe the “waves”. We need to let emerging generations of feminists know they are not living in an isolated moment, with the onerous job of starting afresh. Rather, they have the momentum created by generations upon generations of women to build on.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224153/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sharon Crozier-De Rosa receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>We’re used to describing feminism in ‘waves’, from the first in 1848, campaigning for women to vote, to the current fourth wave, in the age of #metoo. But do waves still work to describe feminism?Sharon Crozier-De Rosa, Professor, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2136972024-02-06T13:30:01Z2024-02-06T13:30:01ZBlack travelers want authentic engagement, not checkboxes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571338/original/file-20240125-19-jhtqbj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Black travelers want to see the travel industry embrace their full identities.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/african-woman-with-smartphone-vacationing-in-tokyo-royalty-free-image/1155295723?phrase=black+tourists&adppopup=true">AzmanL/ Getty</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, when <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2020/06/26/travel-brands-rushed-post-blacklivesmatter-are-slow-share-how-theyre-taking-action/">travel brands</a> – including Delta Air Lines, Hilton and Enterprise – pronounced their support for diversity and the Black Lives Matter movement, our research group was motivated to conduct a study that collected data of the travel experiences of more than 5,000 Black people and people of color. </p>
<p>Our work, published in <a href="https://www.afar.com/magazine/black-travel-is-not-a-monolith">Afar magazine</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2022.2149848">Tourism Geographies</a>, found that Black travelers expressed dissatisfaction with how the travel industry promotes itself as inclusive.</p>
<h2>Authenticity matters</h2>
<p>Black travelers want more genuine and authentic engagement and representation, we found, that showcases an investment in the Black community by partnering with Black-owned travel businesses, guides and experiences. </p>
<p>We conducted in-depth interviews with several of the people who provided data to us. Those we interviewed told us plainly that they are weary of being perceived as a single, uniform entity. They want more attention paid to their <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-intersectionality-mean-104937">intersecting identities</a>. First coined by Law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw back in 1989, intersectionality has come to mean that all oppression is linked to people’s complex identities related to their gender, race, class, sexual orientation, physical ability and more.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.instagram.com/urbanistamom/?hl=en">Joshlyn Crystal Adams</a>, CEO of Urbanista Travel, told us, “It’s definitely more than being Black. It’s also as a woman, where do I feel safe going … if you go to this country as a gay person, just be mindful that if you’re caught doing this or that, you can be arrested. So it spins far beyond race. It’s definitely about gender and sexuality.” </p>
<p>We also found that Black travelers notice the small things that add up to an experience of feeling valued and seen – or not.</p>
<p>Some companies support Black-owned businesses by buying their products in limited amounts. For example, <a href="https://travelnoire.com/black-skincare-line-owner-partners-with-marriott-hotels">JW Marriott</a> sells <a href="https://travelnoire.com/black-skincare-line-owner-partners-with-marriott-hotels">Diamond’s Body Care</a> in their spas. But the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2022.2149848">people in our study emphasized</a> the need for brands and destinations to make a greater effort. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.theroot.com/is-hotel-shampoo-kind-of-racist-1790876376">What do you know about my hair</a>? Nothing,” travel media personality, pilot and avid adventurer <a href="https://www.kelleesetgo.com/">Kellee Edwards</a> said about hotel shampoo. “Until they go ahead and mix that pot up and sprinkle some salt and pepper in it … this is what we’re going to be dealing with.” </p>
<h2>Diversity is not a box to check</h2>
<p>In the <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/traveling-through-jim-crow-america">Jim Crow era</a>, Black travelers were regularly denied access to crucial services such as gas, food, restrooms and lodging. Stopping in unfamiliar locations posed the threat of humiliation, threats or worse. </p>
<p>While it’s true that race relations and access to travel by Black people have improved in the United States since <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/oasam/civil-rights-center/statutes/civil-rights-act-of-1964">the Civil Rights Act of 1964</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-040218-043750">generational trauma</a> has left a mark on Black travelers, affecting how and why <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2019.1630671">they choose to travel</a>. </p>
<p>Edwards shared that identifying as a Black woman in a <a href="https://www.unwto.org/gender-and-tourism">traditionally male-dominated industry</a> is “exhausting.” </p>
<p>“Diversity is a lot of things, but … as women, we are very much underrepresented,” Edwards said. “While we need to focus on inclusion when it comes to race, we also must focus on gender.” </p>
<p>Travel often reinforces entrenched power dynamics, noted Christopher Carr, one of our study participants and an associate dean at George Mason University. </p>
<p>Carr said that destinations often engage in “<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/lgbtq-pride-consumerism/">rainbow washing</a>” – superficial LGBTQ-friendly gestures meant to elicit positive feelings about a brand in order to sell something – with no real support going to the community, such as promoting pride flags while passing <a href="https://vogue.sg/rainbow-washing-pride-month/">anti-LGBTQIA corporate policies</a>. </p>
<p>That leaves him to wonder if “the attention that I’m receiving is genuine or is it because I’m somebody’s box to tick?” </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2022.2149848">interviewees</a> called for actions beyond symbolic gestures and real effort to engage the community.</p>
<p>“If companies want to understand how to be appeasing to our communities, they should go directly to us,” study participant and AfroBuenaventura Transformative Travel founder <a href="https://www.afrobuenaventura.com/">Ronnell Perry</a> said.</p>
<h2>Change the industry from within</h2>
<p>Black individuals hold fewer than 1% of top leadership roles – C-suite, director, CEO/president – in the U.S. hospitality industry, according to a <a href="https://www.ahla.com/sites/default/files/2022blackrepresentationinhospitalityindustryleadership_final_0.pdf">report by Castell Project</a>. </p>
<p>Over the past decade, consultancies such as <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/why-diversity-matters">McKinsey</a> have made it increasingly clear that companies with more diverse workforces perform better financially.</p>
<p>In our recent publication “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2022.2149848">Black Travel Is Not Monolithic</a>,” we proposed a road map to help guide the travel sector toward authentic inclusion. However, change requires taking power from the hands of dominant white, heterosexual, nondisabled and first-world nation groups. </p>
<p>One of our top suggestions is to <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.864043">diversify human resource departments</a> so that individuals from diverse identities and backgrounds can actively participate in the hiring process. From there, they can address culturally sensitive issues on a daily basis. Of course, this is true not just in travel but across industries.</p>
<p>Fostering an inclusive workplace also requires nurturing diverse leaders, inclusive of intersecting marginalized identities. </p>
<p>“Until you get people in who can represent us to say, ‘Hey, this is my community and I know something about this and we can represent this,’” Edwards said, “it’s not going to change.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213697/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Black travelers want the tourism industry to recognize their full identity. That will require more than procedural checkboxes and targeted advertising.Alana Dillette, Assistant Professor. L. Robert Payne School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Tourism RESET, San Diego State UniversityStefanie Benjamin, Associate Professor of Retail, Hospitality, and Tourism Management; Co-Founder of CODE, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2193572024-01-22T21:21:50Z2024-01-22T21:21:50ZThree trailblazing women in media who’ve been forgotten – until now<p>Men have had their empires. Everyone else has had the hushed, forgotten, erased or overlooked stories of the scientists, witches, explorers, artists, writers and scholars who didn’t fit the mould. </p>
<p>In the field of media studies, there are researchers, academics, journalists and public intellectuals who, often due to their gender, race or politics, have been ignored and marginalised in favour of recognising the “founding fathers” of the field.</p>
<p>Finally, these ghosts are making their way back into academic books, articles, teaching materials and popular culture. Our <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9781913380748/the-ghost-reader/#:%7E:text=The%20Ghost%20Reader%3A%20Recovering%20Women's,cultural%20studies%2C%20and%20communication%20studies.">new book</a>, co-edited with Carol Stabile, reclaims the original ideas, essays and scholarship of 19 women and provides an introduction by experts in the field, along with samples of their work. From that 19, here are three we think are particularly worth knowing about. </p>
<h2>Film theory</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/filmhistory.27.1.135">Mae D. Huettig</a> from Los Angeles was the first economist to explain how the US film industry functioned as a vertically integrated factory that was less about dreams and glamour and more about vulgar capitalism. <a href="https://www.pennpress.org/9781512812381/economic-control-of-the-motion-picture-industry/">Her book</a>, Economic Control of the Motion Picture Industry: A Study in Industrial Organization (1944), revealed how Hollywood movie studios produced films cheaply and used their own network of cinemas to screen them. </p>
<p>Huettig argued that Hollywood studios, just like automobile or coal factories, used the same economic model as any industry – dominate the competition and corner the market. Her work ultimately became a part of the 1948 federal case, the <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/334/131/">Paramount Decree</a>. This landmark case addressed the practice of film studios owning cinemas and controlling their film distribution. The decree ended the vertically integrated Hollywood studio system. Production studios could no longer own the cinemas that screened their films, and cinemas were no longer beholden to one studio only. </p>
<p>After a few semesters teaching at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and working at a think tank, Huettig became an activist. Following the <a href="https://crdl.usg.edu/events/watts_riots">1965 Watts rebellion</a>, a civil rights uprising in Los Angeles, she trained minority youths on how to use film to monitor police misconduct. She also campaigned against school racial segregation, police abuse and corruption.</p>
<h2>The importance of images</h2>
<p><a href="https://archives.nypl.org/mss/6197">Romana Javitz</a> from New York was the first librarian to develop an organised, browsable collection of pictures that anyone with a library card could check out from the <a href="https://www.nypl.org">New York Public Library</a> (NYPL). </p>
<p>As the NYPL superintendent of the picture collection between 1928 and 1968, Javitz and her staff collected as many items as they could by cutting out images from old books and magazines. These included photos, paintings, ads, pop art and images of everyday people, places and things. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A statue of a lion outside the grand entrance to the New York Public Library" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Romana Javitz worked at the New York Public Library between 1928 and 1968.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/new-york-city-public-library-entrance-345087263">Ryan DeBerardinis</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Essentially, Javitz foresaw the image-based browsing that search engines provide today. She also anticipated their commercial control but believed that images are an important public resource. In speeches, pamphlets and grant applications, Javitz acted by <a href="https://www.nypl.org/about/divisions/wallach-division/picture-collection/romana-javitz">urging</a> libraries to steward image collections. </p>
<h2>The media and civil rights</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.aaihs.org/surveillance-state-power-and-the-activism-of-shirley-graham-du-bois/">Shirley Graham DuBois</a> from Indiana was an activist, award-winning novelist, editor, and the first black female dramatist. In 1931, she produced the first black <a href="https://ofa.fas.harvard.edu/blog/finding-tom-tom">opera</a>, Tom-Tom: An Epic of Music and the Negro. Graham was committed to using literacy and popular media as tools to free people from race and sex discrimination, whether Black, white, or Native American. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="An old sepia photo of a woman facing the right hand side of the image and looking upwards." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1024&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1024&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1024&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shirley Graham DuBois played an instrumental role in civil rights activism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/079_vanv.html">Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Carl Van Vechten Collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the second world war, Graham worked on military bases giving courses on journalism and photography for black soldiers, helping them to produce their own literary magazines. She was founded the <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/freedomways-1961-1985/">journal</a>, Freedomways: A Quarterly Review of the Negro Freedom Movement in 1961. It provided a rare forum for discussing discrimination from the early years of the civil rights movement forward. </p>
<p>In 1961, Graham’s background in theatre and education caught the attention of the Ghanaian president, Kwame Nkrumah. He asked her to develop the nation’s first public noncommercial, indigenous television network to promote literacy countrywide. Graham and Nkrumah were forced to leave Ghana after a military coup in 1966, before the network was completed.</p>
<h2>Digging deeper</h2>
<p>The contributions of these women, and the 16 others featured in our book, range broadly from film economics, advertising and library science, to progressive anti-racist journalism, theatre, audience researchers, and more. They show us that there has always been the possibility for progressive, inclusive, intersectional, anti-capitalist, anti-racist and gender-equal thought and action.</p>
<p>Our goal is not to create a “new” canon of media studies. Instead, the goal is for academics and lecturers to use our book in their classes to track their own tradition taking different, more inclusive, and radical routes that could provide fresh insight into the world.</p>
<p>In fact, alongside media and communication scholars such as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09612025.2021.1944345#:%7E:text=This%20silenced%20avenue%20of%20enquiry,and%20editing%20of%20broadcast%20sound.">Carolyn Birdsall and Elinor Carmi</a>, the book questions the need for a canon altogether.</p>
<p>Other researchers and students need to get their hands dirty, too. They need to dig in archives, read original works and examine dismissed ideas that go against the grain. It is likely that researchers in any field will find important women (and their ideas) hidden as typists, transcribers, or editorial, lab, field, or research assistants. Sometimes they may be left out altogether; all that may be left is their name on a grant application. Finding them takes time and effort. But the results are worth it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219357/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Elena Hristova is Lecture in Film and Media at Bangor University, Wales. As part of the research for this book she received funding from the Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, and the Department of Communication Studies, University of Minnesota.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aimee-Marie Dorsten, Ph.D. works for Point Park University and is a member of the Union for Democratic Communication. </span></em></p>Mae D Huettig, Romana Javitz and Shirley Graham DuBois were instrumental in their respective media fields but very few of us will be aware of their individual contributions.Elena D. Hristova, Lecturer in Film and Media, Bangor UniversityAimee-Marie Dorsten, Associate Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication, Point Park UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2176632023-11-16T04:09:09Z2023-11-16T04:09:09ZAs school students strike for climate once more, here’s how the movement and its tactics have changed<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559812/original/file-20231116-26-hutgp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C2044%2C1526&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ss4c/53195665458/in/dateposted/">School Strike 4 Climate/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Friday, students will once again down textbooks and laptops and go on strike for climate action. Many will give their schools a <a href="https://www.climatedoctorscertificate.com.au/">Climate Doctor’s Certificate</a> signed by three leading climate academics. </p>
<p>These strikes – part of a <a href="https://www.schoolstrike4climate.com/upcoming-actions">National Climate Strike</a> – mark five years since school students <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-30/australian-students-climate-change-protest-scott-morrison/10571168">started walking out</a> of schools to demand greater action on climate change. In 2018, the first students to strike defied calls by then prime minister Scott Morrison for “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/26/scott-morrison-tells-students-striking-over-climate-change-to-be-less-activist">less activism</a>” and to stay in school.</p>
<p>Last year, Australia voted out the Morrison government, in what was widely seen as a <a href="https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/climate-election-2022-how-climate-concerned-australians-voted/">climate election</a>. Teal independents won Liberal heartland seats on climate platforms, while the Greens recorded high votes. Labor came to office promising faster action on climate. </p>
<p>So why are school students still striking? Has the movement changed its focus? We have been researching these questions alongside young people involved in climate action in the ongoing <a href="https://strikingvoices.deakin.edu.au/">Striking Voices</a> project, as well as through the coauthor’s <a href="https://www.sapnasolidarity.org/north_south_intersectionality">Sapna South Asian Climate Solidarity</a> project. </p>
<p>We found the movement has expanded its demands from climate action to climate justice, stressing the uneven and unfair distribution of climate impacts. The movement itself has also become more diverse. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559813/original/file-20231116-19-qdvyok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="student strike for climate in Sydney 2022. Students marching with megaphones" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559813/original/file-20231116-19-qdvyok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559813/original/file-20231116-19-qdvyok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559813/original/file-20231116-19-qdvyok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559813/original/file-20231116-19-qdvyok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559813/original/file-20231116-19-qdvyok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559813/original/file-20231116-19-qdvyok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559813/original/file-20231116-19-qdvyok.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Why are students still striking for climate justice? Because the job isn’t anywhere near done. This march was in Warrang (Sydney) in May 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ss4c/52068772752/in/dateposted/">School Strike 4 Climate/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>From climate action to climate justice</h2>
<p>Across the world, young climate advocates such as those from School Strike 4 Climate are calling for “climate justice” alongside “climate action”. </p>
<p>Why? Because climate change doesn’t impact everyone equally. As the <a href="https://www.aycc.org.au/climate_justice">Australian Youth Climate Coalition</a> puts it, it’s “often the most marginalised in our societies who are hit first and worst by climate impacts and carry the burden of polluting industries”. </p>
<p>Mere semantics? No. The idea of climate justice draws attention to existing social and ethical injustices which climate change amplifies. The phrase also points to the need for climate solutions that work for people in a <a href="https://tomorrowmovement.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/CJG_Document.pdf">transformative</a> way and help create <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13549839.2023.2187363?src=recsys">collective and just</a> societies. </p>
<p>In Australia, calls for climate justice are intimately connected with <a href="https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/first-nations-climate-justice-panel/">justice for First Nations people</a> and to protecting, defending and “heal[ing] Country”, as <a href="https://nt.seedmob.org.au/declaration">Seed Mob</a> write, with First Nations-led solutions. </p>
<p>Climate justice is central to the messaging of groups such as <a href="https://350.org/pacific/">Pacific Climate Warriors</a> <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1323238X.2021.1950905">diaspora</a>, and <a href="https://www.sapnasolidarity.org/north_south_intersectionality">Sapna South Asian Climate Solidarity</a>. </p>
<p>In our conversations with young people, climate justice appears highly compelling. High-school student Yehansa Dahanayake explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think I’d always thought of climate change as sort of a 2D thing. I thought about it as the temperature rise, deforestation, and sea caps melting - and while that is definitely true, I think [when] I started to learn about the justice aspects of climate change, [it] made me realise that there are many other factors that tie in, such as the Global North/ Global South difference and how that relates.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>High-school student Emma Heyink told us about the importance of what she called a “justice-centred lens”: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>You can’t look at climate change without looking at all these other issues. It just becomes so much more interlinked and solutions become so much more obvious.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Diversifying networks and strategies</h2>
<p>So who are these young people, and what have they been doing in recent years? </p>
<p>Swedish student <a href="https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2019-greta-thunberg/">Greta Thunberg</a> is frequently credited as sparking the youth-led climate movement. </p>
<p>But the movement is much larger – and more diverse – than one person, and increasingly so in recent years. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://assets.nationbuilder.com/sapnasolidarity/pages/30/attachments/original/1666590554/SapnaReport_%282%29.pdf?1666590554">report by Sapna</a> points out, Australia’s youth-led climate justice networks are more likely to be racially diverse than mainstream climate movements. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-we-want-to-achieve-global-climate-targets-young-people-must-take-centre-stage-171240">If we want to achieve global climate targets, young people must take centre stage</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Yet climate justice networks are not immune from the oppressive dynamics they protest against. When the coauthor interviewed 12 now-graduated school strikers of South Asian heritage, they reported sometimes feeling sidelined in climate spaces – which are often white-dominated – as well as in media opportunities. As one young person put it, it seemed “hard to tell a brown person’s climate justice story”. </p>
<p>There are signs of positive change. The upheaval of the COVID pandemic saw <a href="https://assets.cambridge.org/97810090/16483/excerpt/9781009016483_excerpt.pdf">stronger connections emerge between social movements</a>, and clearer links between intersecting crises and injustices, both globally and in youth-led climate networks.</p>
<p>As recent high-school graduate and school strike organiser Owen Magee explained: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>at our strikes, we are platforming First Nations people, rural and regional people who’ve directly been affected by the climate crisis, directly being affected by fossil fuel greed and corporation greed. That in itself is focusing on the intersectional nature of climate justice.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You can see this cross-pollination in the support shown by young advocates across multiple climate justice networks in the Power Up gathering on Gomeroi Country in northwestern New South Wales to <a href="https://www.fijitimes.com/fijian-youths-part-of-global-power-up-renewable-energy-revolution/">show solidarity with Traditional Owners</a> fighting coal and gas projects on their lands. </p>
<p>The targets and tactics of youth-led climate justice networks have shifted and proliferated in recent years - for example, to the <a href="https://www.movebeyondcoal.com/people_power_wins">banks that finance fossil fuel companies</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559815/original/file-20231116-19-rpz5e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Students protesting against fossil fuels" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559815/original/file-20231116-19-rpz5e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559815/original/file-20231116-19-rpz5e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559815/original/file-20231116-19-rpz5e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559815/original/file-20231116-19-rpz5e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559815/original/file-20231116-19-rpz5e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559815/original/file-20231116-19-rpz5e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559815/original/file-20231116-19-rpz5e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Targets, tactics and strategies have evolved since 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ss4c/51792121410/in/album-72177720295641048/">Student Strike 4 Climate/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When school strikers graduate, some move into <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26799169?seq=1">different modes of climate-related action</a>.</p>
<p>Some have taken part in strategic climate litigation in a bid to create legislation embedding a climate <a href="https://adutyofcare.davidpocock.com.au/#homepage_section_about_the_bill">duty of care</a> for young people in government decisions on issues such as fracking approvals. </p>
<p>Others are involved in non-violent direct actions, such as next week’s <a href="https://www.risingtide.org.au/">Rising Tide People’s Blockade</a> of the world’s largest coal port in Newcastle. </p>
<p>Young climate advocates are battling for climate justice on a wide range of fronts. They are calling on politicians to do the same.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-australias-expanding-environmental-movement-is-breaking-the-climate-action-deadlock-in-politics-183825">How Australia's expanding environmental movement is breaking the climate action deadlock in politics</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><em>We would like to acknowledge and thank the Striking Voices project research associates, Natasha Abhayawickrama, Sophie Chiew, Netta Maiava and Dani Villafaña.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217663/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eve Mayes receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruchira Talukdar is co-founder of Sapna South Asian Climate Solidarity and receives funding from the Sunrise Project.</span></em></p>It’s been five years since school students first went on strike for climate action. Much has changed.Eve Mayes, Senior Research Fellow in Education, Deakin UniversityRuchira Talukdar, Casual senior research fellow, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2155082023-11-03T12:43:53Z2023-11-03T12:43:53ZWhat is intersectionality? A scholar of organizational behavior explains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556869/original/file-20231031-21-gebvyk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=413%2C62%2C2582%2C1782&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Civil rights advocate and legal scholar Kimberle Crenshaw speaks in New York City on Feb. 7, 2015. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/kimberle-crenshaw-speaks-onstage-at-the-3rd-annual-one-news-photo/463097436?adppopup=true">Paul Zimmerman/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In modern conversations on race and politics, a popular buzzword has emerged to describe the impact of belonging to multiple social categories. </p>
<p>Known as <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/19/us/intersectionality-feminism-explainer-cec/index.html">intersectionality</a>, the social theory has a complex history and refers to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/intersectionality-how-gender-interacts-with-other-social-identities-to-shape-bias-53724">intertwining of different identities</a>, such as class, gender and age. It is often applied as a way to understand how individuals may experience multiple forms of prejudice simultaneously. </p>
<p>The theory assumes that meanings associated with one identity are insufficient to explain the experiences associated with multiple, coexisting identities.</p>
<h2>The origins of intersectionality</h2>
<p>The term has its roots in feminist, racial and legal academic literature. </p>
<p>In 1977, the Combahee River Collective, a group of Black feminists, issued the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/lcwaN0028151/">Combahee River Collective Statement</a>. The statement introduced the idea that one’s race, sex, sexual orientation and class were subject to different forms of oppression but ought to be examined simultaneously.</p>
<p>The term was formally coined a dozen years later by Columbia Law Professor <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/20/18542843/intersectionality-conservatism-law-race-gender-discrimination">Kimberlé Crenshaw</a>, one of the scholars behind <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/20/the-man-behind-critical-race-theory">critical race theory</a>. </p>
<p>That theory comprises a <a href="https://theconversation.com/critical-race-theory-what-it-is-and-what-it-isnt-162752">set of concepts</a> that frame racism as structural, rather than simply expressed through personal discrimination. Scholars <a href="https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/cnr/date/2021-05-22/segment/04">such as Crenshaw</a> point to racial discrepancies in educational achievement, economic and employment opportunities and in the criminal justice system as evidence of how racism is embedded in U.S. institutions.</p>
<p>In her <a href="https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8/">1989 paper</a> “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex,” Crenshaw drew upon several legal cases to describe how Black women experience discrimination “greater than the sum of racism and sexism.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ROwquxC_Gxc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw defines and discusses ‘intersectionality’ – a term she coined in the late 1980s to describe how individuals may experience multiple forms of prejudice simultaneously.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a speech two years later at the the Center for American Women and Politics Forum for Women State Legislators, Crenshaw <a href="https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals/scal65&div=70&id=&page=">further explained</a> that in order to address “sexual harassment of African American women,” policymakers needed to understand the “intersections of race and gender.”</p>
<p>Today, Crenshaw hosts a podcast titled “<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/intersectionality-matters/id1441348908">Intersectionality Matters!</a>” where she discusses the relevance of intersectionality in the #MeToo movement, the COVID-19 pandemic and other modern topics. She has also <a href="https://time.com/5786710/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality/">expressed concern</a> over ways that the term has been distorted amid its politicization. </p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Intersectionality explores how people experience life through multiple coexisting identities. </p>
<p>Outside of intersectionality’s academic origins, there are many debates today over whether it is important for understanding workplace and policy issues.</p>
<p>Organizations are increasingly promoting intersectionality as part of their human resource strategies. For instance, <a href="https://us.pg.com/gender-equality/">Procter & Gamble Co.</a>, a large organization with common household brands such as Tide and Pampers, is one of them. “We’re creating an inclusive, gender-equal environment within P&G, while advocating for gender and intersectional equality in workplaces everywhere,” the company says on its website.</p>
<p>Two large consulting firms, <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/bem/our-insights/race-in-the-uk-workplace-the-intersectional-experience">McKinsey & Company</a> and <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/dei/intersections-of-identity.html">Deloitte</a>, have also urged corporate clients to gather and analyze data related to their employees’ intersectionality. They argue that further understanding of intersectionality allows for more tailored firm strategies and equitable workplaces. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Hundreds of women are carrying signs during a march in New York City." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557109/original/file-20231101-21-klhbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557109/original/file-20231101-21-klhbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557109/original/file-20231101-21-klhbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557109/original/file-20231101-21-klhbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557109/original/file-20231101-21-klhbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557109/original/file-20231101-21-klhbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557109/original/file-20231101-21-klhbi6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Demonstrators hold signs during the Women’s March in New York City on Jan. 19, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/marcher-with-a-sign-that-says-vote-with-intersectionality-news-photo/1199544932?adppopup=true">Ira L. Black/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Applying this guidance, Google created <a href="https://about.google/belonging/at-work/">Self-ID</a> “to build a workforce that’s representative of our users.” Self-ID allows Google employees the option to share identities beyond their race, ethnicity and binary gender with Google management. </p>
<p>In its <a href="https://about.google/belonging/diversity-annual-report/2022/methodology/">2022 Annual Diversity Report</a>, Google described how Self-ID further “helps to make everyone at Google more visible” and encourages a more inclusive workplace.</p>
<p>Yet, these efforts do not come without controversy. </p>
<p>Shortly after the 2020 <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/racial-bias-trainings-surged-after-george-floyds-death-a-year-later-experts-are-still-waiting-for-bold-change">George Floyd murder</a>, the FBI offered an employee training session on intersectionality. Training materials were obtained by Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, through a <a href="https://christopherrufo.com/p/the-federal-bureau-of-intersectionality">Freedom of Information Act request</a>. The training encouraged employees to reflect on their intersectionality and the role of intersectionality at work. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-intersectionality-training">Conservative critics</a> question the role of such training in creating equitable workplaces and argue instead that it encourages claims of racial discrimination and oppression in America. </p>
<h2>The politics of intersectionality</h2>
<p>Some elected officials have voiced support for policies that account for individuals’ intersectionality. In early 2022, for instance, U.S. Rep. <a href="https://www.suffolk.edu/news-features/news/2022/02/25/03/13/ayanna-pressley-speaks-at-ram-inclusion-week">Ayanna Pressley</a>, a Democrat from Massachusetts, explained during a talk at Suffolk University, “We live in intersectionality … and our policies have to reflect that.” </p>
<p>To that end, Pressley introduced in 2023 the <a href="https://pressley.house.gov/2023/06/22/ahead-of-dobbs-anniversary-pressley-colleagues-advocates-unveil-abortion-justice-act/">Abortion Justice Act</a> to provide abortion access to all individuals “regardless of zip code, immigration status, income, or background.” <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4061259-pressley-decriminalize-abortion-new-legislation/">She described the act</a> as “inclusive and intersectional.”</p>
<p>Yet, other politicians have limited public discussions on intersectionality, especially within schools. </p>
<p>In May 2023, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law <a href="https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/266">Florida Senate Bill 266</a> in his <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/05/15/1176210007/florida-ron-desantis-dei-ban-diversity">ongoing effort</a> to eliminate state funding for diversity training programs in public schools and universities.</p>
<p>Although the <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/diversity-equity-and-inclusion-is-stripped-out-of-floridas-higher-ed-reform-bill">term intersectionality was ultimately removed</a> during revisions of the bill, the new law prohibits teachers from using theories that suggest “systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent … and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequalities.” </p>
<p>For Crenshaw, the problem with such anti-woke laws is deeper than a question of censorship, but instead an attack on those “who value a multiracial democracy.”</p>
<p>“The whole point of anti-wokeness is to fundamentally change the story of the continuing relevance of enslavement and segregation,” <a href="https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2023-07-31/laws-banning-critical-race-theory-in-schools-will-persist-one-of-its-originators-says-its-time-to-address-the-deeper-issue">Crenshaw said</a> on Boston Public Radio in July 2023. “It chills teachers not to teach this material.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215508/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christina Hymer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>First used in the 1970s, the social theory known as intersectionality triggered widespread debate on racial identifications and the interplay among categories.Christina Hymer, Assistant Professor of Management and Entrepreneurship, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1982372023-01-23T19:18:10Z2023-01-23T19:18:10ZIt’s not all about gender or ethnicity: a blind spot in diversity programs is holding equality back<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505777/original/file-20230123-64502-vwc5k1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4166%2C2105&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Diversity, inclusion and equity policies are now broadly endorsed in Australian organisations. But not all diversities are equal. <a href="https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/handle/10453/164749">Our research</a> suggests while programs for women and some racial minorities are being embraced, other diversities are excluded. </p>
<p>In particular social class is ignored, and people with invisible, subtle or complex diversities are seldom considered. </p>
<p>The almost exclusive and independent focus on gender and race is not surprising, given Australia’s history. Colonisation and the dispossession of Indigenous Australians, the legacy of the White Australia Policy and persistent discrimination against women at work are all realities with which, as a nation, we have not fully reconciled with.</p>
<p>But if everyone in Australia is going to get a fair go at work, all the disadvantages people face need to be recognised.</p>
<h2>What our research involved</h2>
<p>Our research project involved three Australian organisations over four years. One was the Australian subsidiary of a global technology business, another a national sports organisation, and the third a state government agency. </p>
<p>These organisations were selected because they operated in different sectors yet were known for their best-practice approach to diversity and inclusion. We spent up to nine months in each organisation, giving us enough time to learn about their cultures and see how initiatives and ideas played out. The agreement was that we would keep their identities anonymous in exchange for such access and freedom to report our findings, even if unflattering. </p>
<p>There was much to be impressed by. The chief executives supported equality in the workplace, diversity was seen as fundamental to developing the business, there was investment in diversity initiatives, and employees knew where their organisations stood.</p>
<h2>Hierarchies of diversity</h2>
<p>But we also found that how senior leaders managed diversity and inclusion created unintended consequences. Each organisation had a “hierarchy of diversity” – in terms of what, and who, got attention.</p>
<p>What stood out in all three organisations was that when women, or men from a culturally diverse minority, were in senior positions they still almost always came from a similar socio-economic background as other executives.</p>
<p>Though the term is not often used today in what many assume to be a socially mobile Australia, they shared what used to be commonly called “class” attributes. Almost exclusively, those in positions of power had similar experiences and interests borne from having been educated in an elite university and living in affluent suburbs. </p>
<p>This was apparent to staff who commented on how leaders tended to be involved in similar weekend activities and spent time in the same places (including restaurants) outside of work hours.</p>
<p>If they were women in senior leadership positions there was an expectation they would “play the game”, behaving in ways consistent with the “White male” executive norm. Coming from at least an “upper middle class” background made this much easier for them.</p>
<p>This reality, based on social and socio-economic privilege, was something barely talked about. But the lack of diversity on this dimension was palpable. </p>
<h2>Acknowledging ‘intersectionality’</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Kimberlé Crenshaw, a professor at the UCLA School of Law in California and Columbia Law School in New York, first used the term intersectionality in 1989." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505780/original/file-20230123-38981-2xo56m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505780/original/file-20230123-38981-2xo56m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505780/original/file-20230123-38981-2xo56m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505780/original/file-20230123-38981-2xo56m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=811&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505780/original/file-20230123-38981-2xo56m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505780/original/file-20230123-38981-2xo56m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505780/original/file-20230123-38981-2xo56m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1019&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kimberlé Crenshaw, a professor at the UCLA School of Law in California and Columbia Law School in New York, first used the term intersectionality in 1989.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That some forms of systemic exclusion or discrimination are recognised and addressed while others remain largely invisible has been explored through the concept of “<a href="https://time.com/5786710/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality/">intersectionality</a>”, which draws attention to how different forms of diversity and disadvantage intersect, creating unacknowledged forms of discrimination.</p>
<p>The term was <a href="https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=uclf">first used in 1989</a> by American legal scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, and stemmed from her work developing critical race theory and the lived experienced of poor African-American women in the US, who have face discrimination different to that by white women or black men.</p>
<p>We saw this reality in our research.</p>
<p>The director of one of the organisations we studied, and the only Indigenous woman in a leadership position, told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I get often treated by some managers and executives like I’m not really on the executive. I don’t get treated with the same respect as my peers by some of them. […] Partly it’s obviously because I’m black, partly it’s I’m a woman.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Having observed this organisation over a lengthy period, we can attest that her perceptions are legitimate. There may be no “conscious” bias involved, but it is fair to conclude that a female executive who wasn’t Indigenous would have a different experience.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Intersectionality recognises the effect of different combinations of identities and attributes, rather that treating those things discretely." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505781/original/file-20230123-8930-gi4nqc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505781/original/file-20230123-8930-gi4nqc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505781/original/file-20230123-8930-gi4nqc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505781/original/file-20230123-8930-gi4nqc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505781/original/file-20230123-8930-gi4nqc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505781/original/file-20230123-8930-gi4nqc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505781/original/file-20230123-8930-gi4nqc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=659&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Intersectionality recognises the effect of different combinations of identities and attributes, rather that treating those things discretely.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">First Book</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>Even though these organisations didn’t acknowledge intersectionality in their policies and practice, employees were certainly aware of it. One person we spoke to cited the case of a senior manager, a woman born in India:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>She’s a smart woman from an Indian background and she’s always being treated like the last wheel.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In another case, one of the people we spoke to talked about two of his Indian colleagues: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>You couldn’t bottle them both up and say ‘they’re both Indians’, because they’re completely different. One’s from a rich background and one’s from a poorer background. They’ve got different mentalities and different ambitions. They’re different workers and different people.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-intersectionality-all-of-who-i-am-105639">What is intersectionality? All of who I am</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Diversifying diversity</h2>
<p>Diversity and inclusion polices and programs are contributing to progress in reducing entrenched forms of discrimination and disadvantage in the workplace. But if these programs are to truly benefit our most disadvantaged groups, such as Indigenous people who come from low socio-economic backgrounds, much more will have to be done. </p>
<p>The way we understand diversity needs to be diversified. If we continue to privilege gender and race as if they are the only ways by which people are treated differently and excluded from leadership, many inequalities will remain. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/six-misunderstood-concepts-about-diversity-in-the-workplace-and-why-they-matter-181289">Six misunderstood concepts about diversity in the workplace and why they matter</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Our research highlighted the intersectionality of race, gender and class as significant oversights in how we manage diversity. But there are many other intersections to consider – including the treatment of those with different sexual and gender identities, and people with different physical and neurodivergent abilities. </p>
<p>It’s up to all of us to challenge ourselves to understand how we privilege some differences over others. Reducing complex differences to a limited number of simple measurable categories blinds organisations to how privilege and discrimination operate at work.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198237/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If diversity programs are to truly benefit Australia’s most disadvantaged groups, such as Indigenous people, more acknowledgement must be given to class and ‘intersectionality’.Carl Rhodes, Professor of Organization Studies, University of Technology SydneyAlison Pullen, Professor of Management and Organization Studies, Macquarie UniversityCelina McEwen, Senior Research Fellow, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1959652022-12-09T13:07:30Z2022-12-09T13:07:30ZEmotional labour: what it is – and why it falls to women in the workplace and at home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499771/original/file-20221208-18-lesgl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=88%2C18%2C4105%2C2772&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-asian-trainee-intern-carrying-tray-1761274520">imtmphoto/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Have you ever been asked to make a cup of tea for your colleagues in the workplace? A recent <a href="https://news.samsung.com/uk/gender-bias-in-the-workplace-women-more-than-twice-as-likely-to-be-asked-to-make-tea-or-about-their-kids-than-men">survey commissioned by Samsung</a> of around <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/sexism-work-uk-survey-b2191367.html">2,000 employees</a> in the UK showed that this is about three times more likely to happen to you if you are a woman. </p>
<p>Women are expected to do more non-work office tasks, such as organising staff away days and cards and gifts for colleagues, than men. Even if a woman says no to a task like this, it’s likely that another women will be <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03677-6">asked in her place</a>. </p>
<p>Women are fearful of being seen as difficult and more likely to agree to take on the invisible and unpaid labour that detracts from their other responsibilities. They may think, “If I don’t do it, another woman will.” And women have to hide their displeasure or discomfort and pretend to be accommodating even at the cost of their own mental health. This process of managing, modulating and suppressing one’s emotions to fulfil expectations from others or to achieve professional goals is called “emotional labour”. </p>
<p>American sociologist Arlie Hochschild first introduced the <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520272941/the-managed-heart">concept of emotional labour</a> in 1983 to mean that emotions have a market and exchange value in our capitalist society. People are required to regulate their emotions to fit in with the emotional norm, and manage their emotions to ensure the smooth flow of business necessary to get a wage. </p>
<p>Emotional labour was never intended to be a gendered term. But invisible unpaid labour, like doing the office tea round, falls disproportionately on women – who then have to manage their emotional response to carrying out unwanted tasks.</p>
<p>As I discuss in my book <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/hysterical/pragya-agarwal/9781838853228">Hysterical</a>, this is is due to gendered stereotypes that women are more empathetic or nurturing. They lack the “<a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781405165518.wbeoss329.pub2">status shield</a>” – the social protection – that men have to act outside what is expected of their role. So women make the tea or organise the office Secret Santa, and pretend that they are happy to do so. </p>
<h2>Acting out empathy</h2>
<p>There actually seems to be little difference between men and women when it comes to the ability to empathise. However, there is a more significant difference between men’s and women’s <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-020-01260-8">motivation to show empathy</a>. Women are more conscious of their social gender roles and the need to conform to them – perhaps in order to advance their careers. </p>
<p>What’s more, while there is pressure on everyone to maintain pleasantness and conform to emotional rules, people of colour feel this pressure much more than others and have to modulate their emotions much more in the workplace. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black woman talking in work meeting" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499772/original/file-20221208-21-5oyjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499772/original/file-20221208-21-5oyjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499772/original/file-20221208-21-5oyjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499772/original/file-20221208-21-5oyjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499772/original/file-20221208-21-5oyjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499772/original/file-20221208-21-5oyjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499772/original/file-20221208-21-5oyjh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women of colour have to manage their emotional response to discrimination as well as the expectations placed on their gender.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/unposed-group-creative-business-people-open-389252365">ESB Basic/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is because their regulation of emotions in the workplace is also likely to include having to deal with racially motivated hostility and micro-aggressions – small, subtle instances of discrimination that the perpetrator may not even realise they are doing. The intersection of the pressure placed on them by both their gender and their race means that this emotional labour is magnified for women of colour. </p>
<p>In academia, Black and brown women may have to perform <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/feb/05/talented-women-of-colour-are-blocked-why-are-there-so-few-black-female-professors">more emotional labour</a> than men and white women. Research has found that Black women scholars are <a href="https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3227&context=art_sci_etds">challenged by non-Black students</a> who perceive them as less capable and competent and confer lower status on them. </p>
<p>Despite microaggressions like these, Black and brown women academics have to manage their anger and frustration to appear professional because any anger outburst will only reinforce the stereotype that they are not, in fact, capable and professional.</p>
<p>This work – constantly being on high alert to figure out the emotional norms in the workplace, making an effort to appear to be warm and likeable, and suppressing emotions in order to create comfort for others – all have a impact on the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311698846_A_Qualitative_Study_of_the_Impact_of_Emotional_Labour_on_Health_Managers">health and wellbeing</a> of women and <a href="https://hbr.org/2022/09/the-psychological-toll-of-being-the-only-woman-of-color-at-work">women of colour</a> in particular. </p>
<h2>In the home</h2>
<p>While Hochschild does not extend the definition of emotional labour to the domestic domain, I do not agree. In the home, women often bear the responsibility for the everyday running of the house, childcare and all the niggly organisational tasks. </p>
<p>While taking on these roles, women also often internalise the message that they are expected to be nurturing, that this work of caring is their responsibility and shouldn’t seem so onerous – and that they should never complain, or get angry, tired and frustrated. And so they suppress any discontentment. </p>
<p>This emotional load is never higher than around the festive season. In heterosexual relationships, much of the burden of creating magic for everyone, especially the children, and making everyone feel comfortable and joyous seems to <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2013/12/22/women-do-all-work-christmas">fall to women</a> – even in the most <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/emotional-load-christmas_uk_5df7a9fde4b03aed50f22bb1">gender-equitable households</a>. </p>
<h2>What can we do?</h2>
<p>A significant part of the responsibility for changing this lies with men. They should reflect on their expectations of women around them in the workplace – and in the home. Men reading this should reflect: do you treat women differently to your male colleagues? Do you expect them to carry the burden of tasks that are often invisible and unpaid? If so, step up, address your internal biases and become an ally. </p>
<p>For women, it is important to learn to say no. It is true that taking a stand like this is another emotional burden for women to bear. But change has to start somewhere. </p>
<p>Or, another solution might be to <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/caitlin-moran-my-secret-tips-for-happiness-make-bad-tea-and-be-vanilla-in-bed-lngdvrtcc">just make a really bad cup of tea</a> and not be asked ever again. But that is unlikely to change the systemic problems for everyone. More importantly, women of colour do not have the luxury – or the status shield – to fail.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195965/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pragya Agarwal does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Women have to take on more unpaid labour – and manage their emotional response to this extra work.Pragya Agarwal, Visiting Professor of Social Inequities and Injustice, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1947412022-11-24T13:51:34Z2022-11-24T13:51:34ZSimon Nkoli’s fight for queer rights in South Africa is finally being celebrated – 24 years after he died<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496715/original/file-20221122-21-6degfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Simon Nkoli (left) with activist and physician Ivan Toms in 1989. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Julia Nicol Collection/GALA Queer Archive</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Born in 1957, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/simon-nkoli">Simon Tseko Nkoli</a> had just turned 41 when he died, in 1998, of an AIDS-related illness. In his short life, the South African activist fought against different forms of oppression. He fought for those downtrodden because of their “race”. He stood up for those ostracised because of their HIV status. His greatest fight, though, was for those persecuted because of their sexual orientation.</p>
<p>Nkoli was born and raised in <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/place/soweto-johannesburg">Soweto</a>, the largest black township in a South Africa ruled by a white minority who enforced <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a>, a system of racial segregation. His activism began in 1980 when he joined the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/congress-south-african-students-cosas">Congress of South African Students</a>, a youth organisation fighting apartheid. </p>
<p>In 1984, Nkoli was arrested and became a trialist in the <a href="https://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/63470">Delmas Treason Trial</a>. During his imprisonment, he came out as gay to his comrades. This caused much debate in the liberation movement but it was important in changing the attitude of the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/african-national-congress-anc">African National Congress</a> (ANC) to gay rights. The ANC would go on to govern the country with the advent of democracy in 1994, helping shape the first <a href="https://www.concourt.org.za/index.php/gay-and-lesbian-rights">constitution</a> in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation. Nkoli was responsible for setting up diverse projects including organising the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/first-gay-pride-march-held-south-africa">first Pride march</a> in Africa. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A man holds up his fist, a garland of flowers around his neck, a banner behind him." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496741/original/file-20221122-14-azc0hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496741/original/file-20221122-14-azc0hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496741/original/file-20221122-14-azc0hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496741/original/file-20221122-14-azc0hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496741/original/file-20221122-14-azc0hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1025&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496741/original/file-20221122-14-azc0hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1025&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496741/original/file-20221122-14-azc0hg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1025&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nkoli at an anti-apartheid protest in the UK.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gordon Rainsford/Simon Nkoli Collection/GALA Queer Archive</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There has been a growing wave of interest in Nkoli’s life. South African musician <a href="https://www.groundup.org.za/article/musician-who-sings-gay-songs-isixhosa/">Majola</a> sings about queer love in isiXhosa, one of the country’s most widely spoken languages. His 2017 album Boet/Sissy has a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ltEPTp0Tdw">song</a> dedicated to the activist. Also noteworthy is the South African artist <a href="https://www.whatiftheworld.com/artist/athi-patra-ruga/">Athi-Patra Ruga</a>’s <a href="https://zeitzmocaa.museum/art/proposed-model-for-tseko-simon-nkoli-memorial/athi-patra-ruga-proposed-model-for-tseko-simon-nkoli-memorial/">sculptural work</a> on Nkoli. A new South African musical production by composer <a href="https://www.philipmiller.co.za">Philip Miller</a> called <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/lifestyle/2022-10-23-new-show-glow-celebrates-sas-queer-freedom-fighter-simon-nkoli/">GLOW: The Life and Trials of Simon Nkoli </a> is set to launch in 2023. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/desmond-tutus-long-history-of-fighting-for-lesbian-and-gay-rights-131598">Desmond Tutu's long history of fighting for lesbian and gay rights</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The annual <a href="https://simonnkolicollective.wordpress.com/2018/10/04/simon-nkoli-memorial-lecture-an-introduction/">Simon Nkoli Memorial Lecture</a> is another event that celebrates the legacy of the late activist. The <a href="https://twitter.com/unisachs/status/1590342469593464832">ninth edition</a> was held in November 2022, co-organised by the <a href="https://simonnkolicollective.wordpress.com/">Simon Nkoli Collective</a>, where I gave the keynote address. </p>
<p>I argued that Nkoli’s activism highlighted the <a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/what-is-intersectionality-explained/">intersectionality</a> of systems of oppression. Intersectionality refers to how multiple social struggles are interlinked. It recognises the interconnectedness of various systems of oppression such as racism, sexism and homophobia. </p>
<p>Nkoli was acutely aware of how these were interrelated and this article considers what can be learnt from his activism today.</p>
<h2>Intersectional systems of oppression</h2>
<p>In a compelling speech in 1990 before the first Pride march in Johannesburg, organised by the <a href="https://www.gala.co.za/resources/docs/Archival_collection_articles/GLOW.pdf">Gay and Lesbian Organisation of the Witwatersrand (GLOW)</a>, Nkoli said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is what I say to my comrades in the struggle when they ask me why I waste time fighting for moffies (a deregatory Afrikaans language term that means faggot). This is what I say to gay men and lesbians who ask me why I spend so much time struggling against apartheid when I should be fighting for gay rights. I am black and I am gay. I cannot separate the two parts into secondary and primary struggles. In South Africa I am oppressed because I am a black man, and I am oppressed because I am gay. So, when I fight for my freedom, I must fight against both oppressors.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Nkoli recognised that the struggles of queer folk are linked to the struggles of women and that the struggles of queer folk and women cannot be disconnected from those of black people.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6EdHmZ1xRGc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>He was, however, aware of the fact that the intersectionality of struggles had its limits. Although queer people of different classes and races marched together in 1990, he was not so shortsighted that he believed all those people were considered equal. He explained in a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EdHmZ1xRGc&t=1310s">1989 interview</a> that even within the queer liberation movement there were splinters due mainly to racial differences. </p>
<p>Nkoli’s activism ensured that the rights of sexual minorities were enshrined in the <a href="https://www.concourt.org.za/index.php/constitution/your-rights/the-bill-of-rights">Bill of Rights</a> of South Africa’s constitution of 1994. This was done through the advocacy work of organisations like the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality that brought together diverse organisations. </p>
<h2>What we can learn from Nkoli today?</h2>
<p>We learn from Simon Nkoli that the fight for social justice and social equality demands collaborative and joint efforts. I muse at the isiZulu language term for intersectionality coined by a student activist, Zandile Manzini: “<a href="https://twitter.com/PanasheChig/status/711149927242534914">ukuhlangana kobuntu</a>”. Any sustainable forms of fighting against social inequality are built on the idea of returning the humanness to people. Fighting oppression demands that the humanity and the dignity of everyone is respected regardless of social class, race, ethnicity, political affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity or nationality.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496746/original/file-20221122-20-obu6wn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Four people of differing ages pose with an elderly man in a nondescript office setting. They smile at the camera." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496746/original/file-20221122-20-obu6wn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496746/original/file-20221122-20-obu6wn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496746/original/file-20221122-20-obu6wn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496746/original/file-20221122-20-obu6wn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496746/original/file-20221122-20-obu6wn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496746/original/file-20221122-20-obu6wn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496746/original/file-20221122-20-obu6wn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The president meets gay and lesbian activists, 1995. From left: actor Ian McKellen, activist Phumi Mtetwa, Nelson Mandela and Simon Nkoli.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy the National Coalition for Gay & Lesbian Equality Collection/GALA Queer Archive</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Retired South African judge Edwin Cameron, himself openly gay and living with HIV, explained Nkoli’s legacy at the opening of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNxThs1O45A&t=176s">Simon Nkoli exhibition</a> at the Stellenbosch University Museum in 2019. He said that Nkoli’s activism crossed boundaries and had resonated in many other parts of the continent.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-african-singer-nakhane-redefines-ideas-of-masculinity-144957">South African singer Nakhane redefines ideas of masculinity</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>As artists and activists commemorate and celebrate the life and legacy of Nkoli, let us remember his fight for the creation of a democratic South Africa in which all people could live dignified lives without fear of discrimination. As we remember Nkoli, we should think through what other fights still need to be fought, what systems of oppression still need to be unbuckled and what solidarities still need to be forged.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194741/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gibson Ncube does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The activist is today the subject of songs, sculptures, an annual lecture and even a new musical.Gibson Ncube, Lecturer, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1870482022-08-22T18:19:08Z2022-08-22T18:19:08Z‘Digilantism,’ ‘hackbacks’ and mutual aid are used by online activists to fight trolls<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479424/original/file-20220816-12125-wpw8xu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C0%2C4179%2C2896&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Black Lives Matter movement began as a hashtag started by Black women in the United States, and grew into a global protest.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Frank Augstein, File)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Aug. 5, 2022, digital trans activist <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/trans-twitch-star-arrested-at-gunpoint-fears-for-life-after-someone-sent-police-to-her-london-ont-home-1.6546015">Clara Sorrenti found herself arrested at gunpoint</a> at her home in London, Ont. <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9069338/london-police-swatting-twitch-streamer-clara-sorrenti-keffals/">Anti-trans trolls had falsely reported</a> she had killed her mother and was planning a shooting at city hall.</p>
<p>Sorrenti had been swatted.</p>
<p>Swatting involves calling 911 to falsely report a high-risk emergency at their victim’s home, triggering deployment of a SWAT team. In some swatting cases, victims have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/03/29/prankster-sentenced-years-fake-call-that-led-police-kill-an-innocent-man/">died at the hands of police</a>.</p>
<p>Sorrenti’s experience is consistent with my findings in <a href="https://www.ubcpress.ca/transformative-media">long-term research with intersectional global media activists</a>. </p>
<p>She is a new type of intersectional digital activist. These activists work on intersectional issues, drawing connections between systems of oppression including race, gender, sexuality, and so on. And a great deal of their activism takes place online. </p>
<p>Digital campaigns such as #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter have been successful partially because <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/2041-9066.12021">young women</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.12112">Black people</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-018-0577-x">and LGBTQ+</a> are the power users of social media — they are online more often and particularly adept at using social networks.</p>
<p>But despite successes in social justice campaigns, intersectional activists are increasingly at risk — both online and off.</p>
<h2>The emotional tax</h2>
<p>The online trolling and offline swatting of Sorrenti illustrate how <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506818765318">intersectional activists face an emotional tax</a> — <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2018/03/online-violence-against-women-chapter-1-1/">emotional stress over and above everyday norms</a> — mostly from dealing with <a href="https://digitalcommons.schulichlaw.dal.ca/cjlt/vol19/iss2/2/s">violent attacks by online trolls</a>.</p>
<p>Intersectional activists are also doxxed at higher rates, meaning <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17440572.2019.1591952">personal information is dumped online</a>, such as their address, phone number or workplace. Sorrenti’s swatting is a textbook example — there are ongoing emotional impacts of her doxxing, including confronting transphobic police behaviours such as using her deadname (<a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/deadnaming">the name used before transitioning</a>) and incorrect gender.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NQQ_eFIabFI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Global News reports on the swatting of activist Clara Sorrenti, who was arrested at gunpoint.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Bias in the technology</h2>
<p>A deeper problem is that internet <a href="https://www.codedbias.com/">users are not all treated equally by the internet’s technical codes</a>.</p>
<p>Research has repeatedly demonstrated that <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479837243/algorithms-of-oppression/">algorithms — the computer codes that program the internet — are biased</a>. </p>
<p>Algorithms and the big data that drives them are often <a href="https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/6182">racist</a>, <a href="https://carolinecriadoperez.com/book/invisible-women/">gendered</a> or <a href="https://www.gaytascience.com/transphobic-algorithms/">transphobic</a>.</p>
<h2>Made invisible</h2>
<p>One type of algorithmic bias is shadowbanning, which happens when a platform <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.287">limits the visibility of specific users</a> without outright banning them. Activists have noted that social media content about intersectional issues is often shadowbanned. </p>
<p>For example, on May 5, 2021 — Red Dress Day in Canada — almost all posts on Instagram <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/instagram-stories-vanish-mmiwg-red-dress-day-1.6017113">related to missing and murdered Indigenous women disappeared </a>. Instagram claimed it was a “technical issue,” whereas users claimed it was a shadowbanning of intersectional female, Indigenous activist content. But <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437221077174">shadowbanning is often difficult to prove</a>.</p>
<p>There is also evidence that the popular video-hosting platform TikTok has <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54102575">shadowbanned intersectional LGBTQ+, disability, size activism and anti-racist content</a>.</p>
<p>Algorithmic bias and shadowbanning of marginalized users can make intersectional activists feel invisible, with their posts facing challenges to achieve the virality crucial to activist campaigns.</p>
<h2>Response strategies</h2>
<p>One tactic activists have used to address intersectionality online is to create a “breakaway hashtag.” The <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/7/2/21">#MeToo movement</a> is a powerful example of hashtag activism that drew global attention to sexual harassment and abuse. However, for <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374536657/headscarvesandhymens">Egyptian-American writer Mona Eltahawy</a>, #MeToo did not feel like the right space for her as a Muslim woman. She created <a href="https://time.com/5170236/mona-eltahawy-mosquemetoo/">#MosqueMeToo to draw attention to sexual assault in the Muslim community</a>, focusing on the intersectional context of gender, Islamophobia and racism. </p>
<p>Breakaway hashtags like #MosqueMeToo add intersectional dimensions to the premise of a mainstream hashtag, both relying on the original hashtag’s virality and challenging its limitations.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CARnd2DHqQY","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<h2>Digilante justice</h2>
<p>Young feminist women who are trolled online use the tactic of “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305117705996">digilante justice</a>,” or “digilantism,” which involves using digital means to fight for justice, in this case against trolls. They learn how to hack social media platforms to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506818765318">reveal the identities of trolls and confront them in real life</a>. Activists have also excluded trolls from their personal social networks through “hackback” tactics, which are hacker tactics used against hackers.</p>
<p>In another example, feminist game developer Randi Harper was intensely trolled by misogynists in an incident known as <a href="https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/the-gamergate-files/153208">GamerGate</a>. In response, Harper developed <a href="https://github.com/freebsdgirl/ggautoblocker">Good Game Auto Blocker (ggautoblocker)</a> that blocks users who follow misogynist Twitter accounts, the digital equivalent of walking out of a room when someone spews hateful speech.</p>
<h2>Digital solidarity</h2>
<p>Digital activists understand that social media platforms are designed for the capitalist exploitation of content and data produced by everyday users. Countering this, intersectional hacktivists (hacker activists) have <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262043458/">designed technologies</a> for solidarity rather than exploitation. </p>
<p>For example, activists in Athens <a href="https://doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025490">designed an app to share text message costs</a> so media activists within a group would not have to foot the whole bill. The program itself was designed with sharing in mind, illustrating that technologies do not have to be exploitative.</p>
<p>Intersectional activists <a href="https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/15766/3424">aim to empower both givers and receivers</a> of support, acknowledging that all citizens play both roles, sometimes needing support and other times contributing it. This is sometimes called mutual aid.</p>
<p>Digital mutual aid can take place through <a href="https://www.interfacejournal.net/2018/12/interface-volume-10-issues-1-2-open-issue/">mentorship and skillshare workshops</a> that might teach new marginalized activists how to code computers, promote social media posts, produce radio shows or write media releases. Workshops are conducted by individuals sharing some aspect of their identities with participants to create a safer space through a shared experience of lived oppression.</p>
<p>Digital solidarity and mutual aid are important strategies of support and care that can work toward countering the negative emotional tax of being trolled, doxxed, shadowbanned or subjected to algorithmic bias.</p>
<h2>More work to be done</h2>
<p>Beyond intersectional digital activism, more work needs to be done by the tech industry, police services and broader social movements to eliminate the colonialism, racism, sexism and transphobia of online interactions and the devastating offline impacts they can have in people’s everyday lives. </p>
<p>This work is important to a well-functioning, inclusive and diverse democracy, as it aims to ensure that online participation is available equally — and safely — to all citizens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187048/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sandra Jeppesen receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada</span></em></p>Digital activists are targeted for their work on intersectional issues. But they have developed strategies to deal with online and offline hate.Sandra Jeppesen, Professor of Media, Film, and Communications, Lakehead UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1871102022-07-21T20:23:10Z2022-07-21T20:23:10ZFriday essay: 30 years after Mabo, what do Australia’s battler stories – and their evasions – say about who we are?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475304/original/file-20220721-18-m6v206.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C5%2C3988%2C1988&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> </figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-mabo-decision-and-native-title-74147">Mabo decision</a> in 1992
was a turning point for Australia. It finally overturned the dishonest doctrine of <em>terra nullius</em> and recognised Indigenous land rights. It was a moment of hope, accompanied by a productive tension.</p>
<p>Mabo followed a decade in which awareness of the need to address Indigenous dispossession had grown. In the preceding years, sectors of the (white) settler population had begun to distance themselves from a triumphalist, uncritical view of the past. They had finally stopped looking away.</p>
<p>They had stopped looking away from shocking dispossession, disregard, and dismissal of the nation’s First Peoples. From the pretences of equality, a <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-australia-land-of-the-fair-go-not-everyone-gets-an-equal-slice-of-the-pie-70480">fair go</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/mateship-might-sound-blokey-but-our-research-shows-women-value-it-more-highly-than-men-169154">mateship</a>. From the flattening of intersections of identity such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-the-census-ask-about-race-its-not-a-simple-question-and-may-reinforce-racial-thinking-185295">race</a>, cultural backgrounds; and sexualities other than heteronormative. </p>
<p>An important cultural conflict, out in the open, seemed imminent. It would have been healthy.</p>
<p>Paul Keating broached some of that necessary conversation in the December 1992 <a href="https://antar.org.au/sites/default/files/paul_keating_speech_transcript.pdf">Redfern Park Speech</a>. Although that speech has been over-eulogised since, it was the first time that a prime minister used the pronoun “we”, naming settler Australians as the ones who needed to shift their attitudes and behaviour and take responsibility.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LAFaHP6w6tE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Paul Keating’s Redfern Park Speech was the first time a prime minister used “we”, recognising responsibility for invasion.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Comfortable and relaxed’ evasion</h2>
<p>But the Mabo judgement also sparked a backlash which in 1996 contributed to the election of a new prime minister. John Howard immediately set about <a href="https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-10217">urging Australians</a> to feel “comfortable and relaxed” about the past. Howard shifted the “We” of Keating to “Us” (and “Them”). </p>
<p>Since then, Howard’s masterful weaponisation of “us and them” as a cornerstone of national identity has influenced debates in literary and artistic circles. He transitioned the Australian psyche from Menzies’ <a href="http://www.liberals.net/theforgottenpeople.htm">forgotten people</a> to Howard’s <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/howards-battlers-a-broad-church-20040519-gdxvk8.html">battlers</a> – who eventually became the Morrison <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_quiet_Australians">quiet Australians</a> of the past four years. </p>
<p>Conservative governments have held office for the lion’s share of the 30 years since 1992. Their politicians have historically pitted those who are interested in advancing conversations (and genuine dialogues) around class, racial, and gendered equity against the “ordinary” Australian – usually still imagined as a white settler. </p>
<p>The robust public discussions around intersectionality, equity and diversity – along with social justice agendas and displays of ethnic identity and pride – that were coming to be considered healthy in a pre-Howard era were repositioned as a divisive “them” discourse. They still are.</p>
<p>I want to unwind the post-Mabo climate, and the continuing evasion legacy of the Howard years in settler writing, through examining some settler texts (the storytelling emerging from settler colonialism) spanning the late 1990s to where we are today, in 2022. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/live-streamed-event-top-thinkers-explore-the-life-and-legacy-of-eddie-mabo-186543">Live-streamed event: Top thinkers explore the life and legacy of Eddie Mabo</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>The Castle, Mabo and Howard’s ‘Us-Australians’</h2>
<p>In 1997, a film hit Australian cinemas that nailed the Howard ethos and represented the “Us-Australians”. It set the blueprint for the largely flatliner, non-intersectional, evasive textual conversation to follow. The film was <a href="https://theconversation.com/straight-to-the-pool-room-a-love-letter-to-the-castle-on-its-25th-anniversary-176361">The Castle</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475083/original/file-20220720-26-kemjmq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a man stands under a plane, hands on hips, in front of a house" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475083/original/file-20220720-26-kemjmq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475083/original/file-20220720-26-kemjmq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475083/original/file-20220720-26-kemjmq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475083/original/file-20220720-26-kemjmq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475083/original/file-20220720-26-kemjmq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475083/original/file-20220720-26-kemjmq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475083/original/file-20220720-26-kemjmq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The original 1997 film poster for The Castle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Castle is the story of the Kerrigan family – portrayed as an ordinary, clean-living, working-class family in western Melbourne. The family live in a ramshackle home they have built themselves, just a few metres from Melbourne Airport in Tullamarine. </p>
<p>When their family home is condemned by a building inspector and plans are revealed, showing that the property is to become part of a government-planned expansion of airspace, the family enter a legal battle to save their family home. The plot of the film revolves around this battle.</p>
<p>25 years on, the timing of this film and its post-Mabo message are worth unwinding.</p>
<p>The film’s narrative verifies gender binaries, heteronormativity, larrikinism, healthy scepticism, surface egalitarianism and manual-hands-on type jobs. It verifies minimal engagement with national/current affairs, mateship, and the great Aussie illusion of luck and chance. It reflects minimum diversity always matched with jibes at difference, masked as humour (e.g. “the wogs next-door”). And it valorises an attachment to the Australian dream of private property, represented through a small corner of Australia – the suburban backyard.</p>
<p>Comic as The Castle may be, its overt ideology can be interpreted critically as enacting a self-reflexivity on the part of the viewer: a <em>how-would-you-feel-if-you-were-the-Kerrigan-family</em> moment. It undermines the disengagement from politics, national and current affairs that was being encouraged from late 1990s Australia, which is still persistent in popular settler texts. But it also enacts a disengagement with “other Australians who don’t have any property to start with”. It’s a story for the propertied only.</p>
<p>Daryl Kerrigan makes a brief and fleeting reference to “knowing how the Aborigines feel”, in having land stolen. It’s poised as a statement spoken to the nation for brief consideration, as if Daryl is saying it for everyone. His wife’s dismissal with “have you been drinking?” and Daryl’s short rejoinder, “people have got to stop stealing other people’s land in this country”, are striking for the way the sentence is allowed to hang – inviting the rest of the “Us-Australians” to whom John Howard was talking to finish the statement. Moreover, the audience can.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qFr2Gh6yIyQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Daryl Kerrigan’s reference to ‘knowing how the Aborigines feel’ in having their land stolen is poised as if for brief consideration.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I think it is no accident that the moment is poised and framed this way: to allow the viewer time for a quick mental calculation between their “little piece of Australia” and the vast tracts of Australian First Nations land that <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTtlHZxigOY">Howard’s government positioned</a> as “under threat from Native Title” when he used a pendulum to describe Australia’s swing towards recognition of First Nations sovereignty (and the need to address it through the 1996 <a href="https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/original/00010323.pdf">Wik Ten-Point Plan</a>).</p>
<p>What doesn’t Daryl Kerrigan say? Where does he not go? Which people and whose land? Which land has got to stop getting stolen? And when it’s got to stop? And what of the intersections of identity, and the entanglements between First Nations peoples, settlers, and many different diasporas to Australia since – left unexplored in this statement, in this text – who have been largely evaded in Australian mainstream literature since?</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GTtlHZxigOY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">John Howard claimed on the 7.30 Report, in 1997, that 78% of Australia’s landmass was under threat from Native Title claims.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Also – how polite is the text? It’s the ultra-genteel working-class backbone of Australia on display. Howard ushered in, and his legacy left, an era of the dangerous politics of settler civility – the language of euphemism and evasion.</p>
<p>There’s nothing about the Kerrigan family that threatens the status quo of the “Australian Dream” and the mythscape of a united nation. </p>
<p>The Kerrigans’ challenge to the system is positioned as a healthy insurgence – the Kerrigans’ quarter acre is inconsequential to the state. Their win is positioned as a concession to a good family by a benevolent system. The film glorifies white crime as Aussie <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-larrikin-lives-on-as-a-conservative-politician-168464">larrikinism</a> – there’s a son in jail, a scene with a firearm, a scene where a truck is used to tear down someone’s front gate. </p>
<p>The film upholds a landmark case, for which and whose land (or property) really is sacred in post-Mabo Australia – and it’s not First Nations land. At a time when right-wing politicians and newspapers were arguing against native title, The Castle sold a story to a nervous nation that was quite reassuring.</p>
<p>Think about the casting. How would these roles fly with a family that’s anything other than white? What sort of appeal would the film have had (and still have) if the family at the centre, fighting for their piece of land, were Aboriginal? Or Lebanese? </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475078/original/file-20220720-26-cklqel.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475078/original/file-20220720-26-cklqel.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475078/original/file-20220720-26-cklqel.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475078/original/file-20220720-26-cklqel.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475078/original/file-20220720-26-cklqel.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=296&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475078/original/file-20220720-26-cklqel.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475078/original/file-20220720-26-cklqel.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475078/original/file-20220720-26-cklqel.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=371&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How would the characters of The Castle – and their actions – play with a cast that wasn’t white?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">IMDB</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Can you imagine the different reaction if a First Nations protagonist or a protagonist of Islamic heritage had pulled down the gates to someone else’s property in a tow-truck, or pulled a gun on someone? Would it be funny then? </p>
<p>Imagine a First Nations family being as relaxed as the Kerrigans are about their son – or anyone – being incarcerated. An audit of secondary social science and humanities curricula that I undertook in 2020 revealed that The Castle is the most taught text in units relating to identity and culture in Australian high schools. This film is a canonised text for Australian settler identity.</p>
<p>At the end of the Howard era, Australia’s Indigenous population was in a ruinous state. Australia’s extraordinary natural environment was threatened on numerous fronts, and its people were beginning to ask where the wealth had gone. Public schools and public health were in crisis, social welfare was decimated, housing was unaffordable for many, and wages and conditions were being cut under Howard’s industrial reforms.</p>
<p>At the height of the 2001 election, when 400 refugees were rescued from a sinking boat and left stranded in the tropical heat on the deck of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-politics-explainer-the-mv-tampa-and-the-transformation-of-asylum-seeker-policy-74078">Tampa</a>, Howard publicly refused permission to land the refugees in Australia. His immigration and defence ministers claimed that refugees had thrown their children overboard, leading Howard to <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/a-bit-of-empathy-wouldnt-go-amiss-20040817-gdjkbs.html">declare</a>: “I don’t want people like that in Australia.” Only after the election was it proven that the government had known the claim was false. </p>
<p>Truth became an inconvenient detail from here on. We entered an era of <a href="https://theconversation.com/post-truth-politics-and-why-the-antidote-isnt-simply-fact-checking-and-truth-87364">post-truth</a>. The nation’s already murky relationship with its hidden truths – its <a href="https://theconversation.com/of-course-australia-was-invaded-massacres-happened-here-less-than-90-years-ago-55377">settlement by invasion</a>, massacre and cultural genocide, and the continued <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-australia-wont-recognise-indigenous-customary-law-60370">legal fiction of terra nullius</a> – were relegated to the spectre of irresolution that hangs over of the nation.</p>
<p>At the heart of the legacy of Howard’s 11-year era is an unease, and (dis) ease – something deeper that Australians would perhaps rather not admit. For a decade, Howard’s power had resided in his ability to speak directly and powerfully to the great negativity at the core of the Australian soul. Its timidity, its conformity, its fear of other people and new ideas. Its colonial desire to ape rather than lead – and its shame (which sometimes seems close to a terror) of the uniqueness of its land and people. </p>
<p>The country was frightened: unready for the great changes it must make, and ill-fitted for the robust debates it must have.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/post-truth-politics-and-why-the-antidote-isnt-simply-fact-checking-and-truth-87364">Post-truth politics and why the antidote isn't simply 'fact-checking' and truth</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>Alexis Wright’s overtly political, ‘distinctly First Nations’ debut novel</h2>
<p>Released in 1997, the same year as The Castle, paralleling the narrative of “Us”, was <a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/books/plains-of-promise">Plains of Promise</a>, the debut novel by Waanyi writer <a href="https://theconversation.com/alexis-wright-wins-2018-stella-prize-for-tracker-an-epic-feat-of-aboriginal-storytelling-94906">Alexis Wright</a>. </p>
<p>Alexis’s work arrived with much less fanfare – it was neither subtle nor polite, amid its intricate plot and beautifully crafted words in the language of the coloniser. Plains of Promise spoke to the “Them” – those “other Australians” outside of the “Us” that Howard claimed to be governing for. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475077/original/file-20220720-15-bud0gi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475077/original/file-20220720-15-bud0gi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475077/original/file-20220720-15-bud0gi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475077/original/file-20220720-15-bud0gi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475077/original/file-20220720-15-bud0gi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475077/original/file-20220720-15-bud0gi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475077/original/file-20220720-15-bud0gi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/475077/original/file-20220720-15-bud0gi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1126&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Plains of Promise is a story of mothers and daughters who endure and survive a series of colonial interventions. A story of the intergenerational trauma of separation, dispossession from land, and repeated sexual assaults of Aboriginal women at the hands of white men and black men who have internalised the worst of settler behaviours. The novel ends with a powerful allegory that alludes to a precarious future for First Nations peoples under conservative governments. </p>
<p>Wright’s narrative is a brutal parody of settler texts like The Castle, and the Howard-Australian mythscape that evoked Russell Ward’s <a href="https://insidestory.org.au/the-legend-turns-fifty/">Australian Legend</a> of egalitarianism, mateship, larrikinism, anti-intellectualism, and healthy, non-threatening anti-authoritarianism. </p>
<p>Plains of Promise posits an overtly political, distinctly First Nations, and determinedly fictional and literary account of Indigenous peoples’ experiences in Australia. It’s a text that writes at the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-intersectionality-mean-104937">intersectionality</a> of racism, sexism, classism, ableism, chauvinism; and all that hover in the spectre of irresolution and dis-ease above the nation – and the bearing that these intersections and entanglements have on the First Nations, Waanyi protagonists of the novel. </p>
<p>With its particular focus on the way the intersections of sexism, classism, ableism, and racism impact the lives and futures of Waanyi women, Plains of Promise is the total antithesis of: <em>A man’s home is his castle!</em> Alexis achieves this through making First Nations identities visible and complex, and by highlighting ongoing colonial dispossession and struggles for land rights and recognition.</p>
<p>We are now living under the spectre of post-Howard euphemisms that locate truth as divisive. First Nations people are labelled as rude or confrontational if we point out cultural chauvinism in settler language or call out skin privilege or white fragility. Under Howard and his “Us-Australians”, charges of “identity politics” were levelled against “Them-Australians” – and identity politics were positioned as both anti-Australian and anti-art. This remains the case.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/read-listen-understand-why-non-indigenous-australians-should-read-first-nations-writing-78925">Read, listen, understand: why non-Indigenous Australians should read First Nations writing</a>
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<h2>All writing is identity politics</h2>
<p>Attacks on <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-conservatives-use-identity-politics-to-shut-down-debate-89026">“identity politics”</a> and the construction of an ideological hard binary between ethnic identity and art and literature are legacies of post-Howardism. Yet the idea that any artwork or piece of literature is free of cultural value is mythical and warrants interrogation.</p>
<p>Some terms are used a lot, but rarely deconstructed – like the slippery charge of “identity politics” in art and literature. So, the scientists have been telling us for some time that <a href="https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/science-genetics-reshaping-race-debate-21st-century/">the concept of race is dead</a>. I don’t dispute what it all looks like under a microscope, but socially and politically, the term and all its connotations are alive and well – in literature, art, music, policy. And the terms “race” and “culture” are conflated in Australian discourse. </p>
<p>Together, these words drive Australian national policy and historical discourse. The politics of race, the politics of skin privilege and the politics of representation have been cornerstones of Australian policy and practice since invasion. Literature is the handmaiden who tells this tale. White identity politics is the most dominant force of production in Australian settler literary culture. </p>
<p>Charges of identity politics impeding art have only entered the public space since First Nations people and people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities have infiltrated the space, and now use it and some of the “tools” it affords to tell their own tales – or stories. </p>
<p>These presences challenge the unspoken identity of white-settlerism and make identities explicit – and explicitly political, as they have been politicised in public discourse. Charges of “identity politics” come from those who now have to concede space – and see themselves represented, not always to their own liking, in someone else’s picture or story.</p>
<p>All creative pieces are identity politics in some way or other. All writing is identity politics: from a shopping list to a treatise on government and all in-between. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-black-lives-matter-movement-has-provoked-a-cultural-reckoning-about-how-black-stories-are-told-149544">The Black Lives Matter movement has provoked a cultural reckoning about how Black stories are told</a>
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<h2>Popular settler texts, post-Mabo</h2>
<p>So, how am I reading the settler landscape of influential writing post-Mabo, and in the aftermath of Howardism? Influence is decided by the literary economy of prizes, and the public visibility of a text.</p>
<p>In the main, settler texts are still repurposed, largely intersectionless battler narratives, where the protagonists battle different obstacles depending on the times. Or, as Sujatha Fernandes put it so well in <a href="https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/review/cummins-american-dirt-krien-act-of-grace/">her 2019 essay</a> for the Sydney Review of Books, they are “great white social justice narratives”. Though they may read as concern, really the writer should be yielding space for those they are so concerned about to speak, write or tell their own stories.</p>
<p>Popular settler literature in post Mabo-Australia (and literature on the border between literary and popular) still loves to be a “good battler narrative”. The best battler is the battler who succeeds. The one who is aspirational within a recognisable setting. </p>
<p>And the best battler narrative re-enforces a meritocracy and the myth of a classless, raceless, society, where intersectionality is irrelevant. It continues to erase deeper, more complex, and contested histories of place. It’s a place that flattens or erases intersectionality – racial/cultural background, orientation/sexuality (what is your pronoun?), age, ability, religion/spirituality, socio-economic class – and the complex and contested histories of place.</p>
<p>What can we learn about contemporary Australia from its popularly and critically acclaimed novels – and their success? This is a question that critics and reviewers have been reluctant to broach. Critics tend to avoid writing about popular works, as part of an intra-cultural cringe. </p>
<p>But by refusing to engage, they’re in danger of writing into a blinkered, self-informed space that reproduces a very narrow view of Australian national identity and the values it perpetuates in its literature.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-larrikin-lives-on-as-a-conservative-politician-168464">The larrikin lives on — as a conservative politician</a>
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</em>
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<h2>Trent Dalton’s superficial melting pot</h2>
<p>A popular writer is the public’s barometer. The optimistically conservative view of national identity – Australianness if you like – that was aired in The Castle 25 years ago has carried through to the popular literature of the moment. You only need to look at Trent Dalton. </p>
<p>Unlike many popular, big-selling Australian authors, Dalton’s writing has been listed for prestigious awards. His first novel, <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781460757765/boy-swallows-universe/">Boy Swallows Universe</a>, was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award in 2019. At the NSW Premier’s Prizes, it won the Glenda Adams Award for New Writing, and the People’s Choice Award, and was shortlisted for the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction. </p>
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<p>The plot of Boy Swallows Universe revolves around the coming of age of teenager Eli Bell – son of a heroin-addicted mother, an alcoholic father, a drug-dealing stepfather; and brother to Gus, an elective mute since age six. As the story unfolds, Eli overcomes many obstacles and learns much about being ‘street-wise’ from his babysitter Slim, a convicted murderer. The plot is driven by Eli’s largely individualistic quest to determine what a “good man” is.</p>
<p>Boy Swallows Universe <a href="https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/review/dalton-shimmering-skies-boy-swallows-universe/">is apparently</a> the fastest-selling Australian debut novel ever published. With one exception I’ve found, reviewers have been laudatory. The labels of “literariness” could be because both Dalton’s works are laced with literary allusions, and brief and fleeting references to western classics. For example, an orphaned teenager, Molly, carries The Collected Works of Shakespeare in their duffle bag; Eli is well versed in the 20th-century white male canon, and often bursts into optimistic streams of consciousness, in a way that is meant to evoke <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-wonder-of-joyces-ulysses-79417">James Joyce</a>. </p>
<p>Such literary allusions and references reassure readers that these works and their protagonists are literary, despite the grungy realism of the settings; and that the western literary canon endures.</p>
<p>In the <a href="https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/review/dalton-shimmering-skies-boy-swallows-universe/">one critical review</a> I could find (in the Sydney Review of Books), settler critic Catriona Menzies Pike described Dalton as the “Scott Morrison writer” of the decade. Howard’s “battlers” segues seamlessly into Morrison’s quiet Australians who <em>have a go to get a go</em>.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781460759325/all-our-shimmering-skies/">All Our Shimmering Skies</a> is Dalton’s second novel. Set in Darwin in 1942, it’s about teenager Molly Hook’s quest to remove a curse she believes was cast on her family by an Aboriginal man called Longcoat Bob. To me as an Aboriginal reader, Longcoat Bob, penned in 2020, resonates with an ongoing colonial trope – that of the part-Aboriginal (sic) child, and the black witch-doctor-sorcerer stereotype in settler literature. From Marbuck in Charles Chauvel’s 1955 film <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048227/">Jedda the Uncivilised</a> to Bobwirridirridi in Xavier Herbert’s Miles Franklin award-winning work <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781460703243/poor-fellow-my-country/">Poor Fellow My Country</a> (published in 1975), through to Craig Silvey’s <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Craig-Silvey-Jasper-Jones-9781742372624">Jasper Jones</a>, 2009 – the trope lives on.</p>
<p>In Shimmering Skies, the “our” pronoun, in Dalton’s hands, becomes a conduit for a melting pot. Evoking the language of evasion and euphemism, a group of “diverse” people – whose differences are superficially and stereotypically represented throughout – can put all differences (which aren’t explored anyway) aside and unite under common symbols, traditions, and icons.</p>
<p>We’re given a painless, quick, sentimental version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-courage-to-feel-uncomfortable-what-australians-need-to-learn-to-achieve-real-reconciliation-183914">reconciliation</a> that basically involves finding aspects of settlement to celebrate – with no basis whatsoever for land rights or reparative justice. Readers are presented with chess-set characters in starry campfire scenes that bring together Yukio, a Japanese pilot; Greta, a woman of German heritage; Molly, an orphaned teen; and her Aboriginal friend Sam, as they discover their common humanity as bombs explode in the sky. </p>
<p>Catriona Menzies Pike <a href="https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/review/dalton-shimmering-skies-boy-swallows-universe/">writes</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dalton presents a national domain in which no obstacle is too great for an earnest and well-intentioned individual to overcome on their own. There is seemingly no ill in the world that can’t be sentimentalised by Dalton: prison life, addiction, violence, colonialism. There is no insight into contemporary life here, just fantasy built on nostalgia and dishonest nationalism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Boy Swallows Universe and All Our Shimmering Skies offer Hollywood endings, where kids haul themselves up and out of poverty and disempowerment, through strength of will and character. </p>
<p>These stories give literary and social value to a narrative that relies on and reinforces pernicious, dangerous, and untrue ideas about poverty and social marginalisation – mainly, that it requires nothing more than effort to get out of it. Socio-economic success and security simply become questions of individual moral fortitude, altruism, and determination. Systemic structural failures are not called into question.</p>
<p>The only role for First Nations and people of colour in Dalton’s national epic is to advance the plot. The people brought together under the shimmering skies are settlers. All Our Shimmering Skies wants a quick and easy, group-hug reconciliation – but the text doesn’t want to recognise the violence of settler colonialism and ongoing dispossession. </p>
<p>In his fiction, Dalton refuses to acknowledge that there’s anything structural about the suffering his characters must endure. There’s no room for state intervention or reform in these worlds. </p>
<p>Both works unequivocally disseminate the same intensely conservative vision of nationhood and identity as The Castle. </p>
<p>Ethnic and gender stereotypes abound – but as Menzies-Pike points out, the difficult questions about representation and cultural appropriation that are recently being asked of literary authors have not been raised in relation to Dalton’s fiction. Such issues are seldom raised in relation to popular fiction because it is too easily dismissed. </p>
<h2>Ignoring the popular makes us ‘part of the problem’</h2>
<p>Different sets of rules apply to popular (or genre) fiction and literary fiction. Definitions tend to centre around literary fiction being more driven by character and theme, while popular commercial fiction is driven by plot and lots of action – and distinguished by higher book sales. </p>
<p>Whether it is clever marketing on the part of publishers, or whether it is driven by intellectual snobbery and elitism, the divide between popular (or genre) and literary fiction leads to a disconnect between what is being read and internalised by the public, and what is being analysed as good literature. </p>
<p>This separation between “literature” and the rest of culture is unhelpful. Popular culture should be held to the same high standards as literary authors – which means that critics, academics and the rest of the self-selected elite need to properly engage with it. If they do, they will unpack what is driving its mass appeal.</p>
<p>Nurturing critical thinking is the responsibility of all of us who read literature and care about issues of representation. All of us who care about exposing and addressing structural inequalities and systematic discrimination. If we only focus on changing the “literary” culture we read, but ignore what mainstream Australia is reading, then we’re part of the problem of Australia’s continuing evasion discourse.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-courage-to-feel-uncomfortable-what-australians-need-to-learn-to-achieve-real-reconciliation-183914">The courage to feel uncomfortable: what Australians need to learn to achieve real reconciliation</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187110/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeanine Leane receives funding from ARC grants. </span></em></p>What do popular ‘settler’ Australian stories like The Castle and Trent Dalton’s books say about who we are? What do they evade? Jeanine Leane investigates the state of post-Mabo Australian literature.Jeanine Leane, Associate Professor In Creative Writing, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1794492022-06-28T11:57:18Z2022-06-28T11:57:18ZThe Episcopal saint whose journey for social justice took many forms, from sit-ins to priesthood<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468590/original/file-20220613-26-78wxsx.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=12%2C0%2C650%2C470&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Pauli Murray: priest, activist, lawyer and more.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UNCPauliMurray.png">Carolina Digital Library and Archives/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>July 1 is <a href="https://www.episcopalchurch.org/lectionary/pauli-murray/">the annual feast day</a> for Episcopal saint Pauli Murray, the first Black woman to be ordained by the denomination: an affirmation of her many contributions not only to the church, but to social justice in the United States. </p>
<p>Saints exemplify “what it means to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and make a difference in the world, and Pauli Murray is one of those people,” Episcopal Bishop <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120715080740/http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/07/13/2197752/durhams-pauli-murray-to-be-named.html">Michael Curry said</a> when Murray gained the status of a saint in 2012.</p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://utsnyc.edu/faculty/sarah-azaransky/">scholar of religion and ethics</a> and have written a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199744817.001.0001">biography of Murray and her faith</a>. Throughout her life as an activist, author, lawyer and priest, Murray developed new ways of thinking about justice and identity – ideas important in the U.S. today.</p>
<h2>Front line for racial justice</h2>
<p>Born in 1910 in Baltimore, Murray jumped into civil rights activism after she graduated from New York’s Hunter College. In the 1940s, she was in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190262204.001.0001">the vanguard of Black Christian activists</a> who studied Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi’s <a href="https://www.mkgandhi.org/articles/ahimsa-Its-theory-and-practice-in-Gandhism.html#:%7E:text=For%20">practice of nonviolent direct action</a> and applied it to the struggle for racial justice in the U.S.</p>
<p>More than a decade before <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-was-rosa-parks-and-what-did-she-do-in-the-fight-for-racial-equality-51539">Rosa Parks’ arrest</a> for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white rider, Murray <a href="https://newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn83045120/1940-04-06/ed-1/seq-1/">was arrested</a> for integrating an interstate bus. She <a href="https://snccdigital.org/events/pauli-murray-organizes-howard-student-sit-ins/">organized sit-ins in segregated restaurants</a> in Washington, D.C., a strategy other activists famously replicated in <a href="https://northcarolinahistory.org/encyclopedia/greensboro-sit-in/">Greensboro, North Carolina</a>.</p>
<p>In 1956 Murray published “<a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/exhibitions/pauli-murrays-proud-shoes">Proud Shoes</a>,” a family memoir that brought attention to <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315210285">how central sexual violence was in the history of U.S. slavery</a>. Murray offered her family – who was Black, white and Indigenous, and whose ancestors were both enslaved and free – as an emblem of the nation, and an example of the history all Americans needed to reckon with.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A young woman in thick pants, jacket and scarf leans against a tree on a snowy day." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468591/original/file-20220613-19-1fa9y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468591/original/file-20220613-19-1fa9y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468591/original/file-20220613-19-1fa9y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468591/original/file-20220613-19-1fa9y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468591/original/file-20220613-19-1fa9y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1240&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468591/original/file-20220613-19-1fa9y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1240&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468591/original/file-20220613-19-1fa9y2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1240&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Murray photographed in or before 1955.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pauli_Murray_approx._1955.jpg">FDR Presidential Library & Museum/Flickr/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Feminist and priest</h2>
<p>As a lawyer, Murray used her career to advocate for racial justice. But she also grew increasingly involved with advocacy for women’s rights, to which she made landmark legal contributions.</p>
<p>In the 1960s, Murray laid the groundwork by encouraging feminist lawyers to move away from seeking special protections for women and instead argue for equal rights. Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg <a href="https://time.com/5896410/ruth-bader-ginsburg-pauli-murray/">credited Murray</a> with teaching her how appealing to <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/equal_protection#:%7E:text=The%20Fourteenth%20Amendment's%20Equal%20Protection,to%20a%20legitimate%20governmental%20objective.">the equal protection clause</a> of the 14th Amendment could be an effective method to fight sex discrimination. After hearing Murray argue that there should be an NAACP – <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-century-ago-james-weldon-johnson-became-the-first-black-person-to-head-the-naacp-149513">the country’s oldest civil rights organization</a> – just for women, feminist leader Betty Friedan invited Murray to a strategy session where <a href="https://now.org/about/history/finding-pauli-murray/">the National Organization for Women</a> was founded.</p>
<p>A lifelong Episcopalian, Murray made a dramatic-seeming move to enroll in a seminary when she was in her mid-60s. Yet to Murray, it made perfect sense. She described preparing for the ministry as one more way to address questions of human rights and social justice. </p>
<p>Murray entered seminary before the Episcopal Church began ordaining women and organized with others to push for women’s ordination. In January 1977, she became one of the first women, and the <a href="https://www.episcopalchurch.org/glossary/murray-pauli/">first Black woman</a>, to be ordained.</p>
<p>Murray indeed contained multitudes, <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/pauli-murray-lgbtq-historical-figure#:%7E:text=Pauli%20Murray%20had%20at%20least,were%20attracted%20to%20her%20masculinity">including when it came to gender identity</a>. At some points in life Murray identified as a man; at others, as a woman. Murray was in long-term romantic relationships with women, but did not publicly identify as lesbian or queer. </p>
<p>When she prepared <a href="https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/8/resources/4874">her papers to be archived</a>, Murray included writings about her multiple gender and sexual identities so they would be available for future generations. During her life, categories like “nonbinary” or “trans” were not used, but many scholars and admirers today see her as an early icon for transgender people.</p>
<h2>Written into law</h2>
<p>Another way Murray’s work seems prescient today is her focus on what’s now called “<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-intersectionality-all-of-who-i-am-105639">intersectionality</a>”: how multiple aspects of a person’s identity, such as race, gender, income and nationality, intersect to shape their privilege or oppression.</p>
<p>A prime example is Murray’s phrase “<a href="https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1347">Jane Crow</a>” – a spin on “<a href="https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/video/understanding-jim-crow-setting-setting">Jim Crow</a>” – <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/509052/summary">which she coined</a> to describe Black women’s experiences of being discriminated against because of racism and sexism. In a world where “male supremacy” and “white supremacy” are prevalent, a Black woman “finds herself at the bottom of the economic and social scale,” <a href="https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/8/archival_objects/1405968">Murray wrote in 1947</a>.</p>
<p>Murray’s “Jane Crow” has <a href="https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1014&context=ijlse">made important contributions in American history</a>. In 1964, for example, she employed the concept to keep “sex” as a category in Title VII of <a href="https://www.dol.gov/agencies/oasam/civil-rights-center/statutes/civil-rights-act-of-1964#:%7E:text=The%20Civil%20Rights%20Act%20of%201964%20prohibits%20discrimination%20on%20the,hiring%2C%20promoting%2C%20and%20firing.">the 1964 Civil Rights Act</a>, making it unlawful to discriminate against someone in employment based on race, color, national origin, sex or religion. Some lawmakers thought “sex” was a distraction in a law that focused on discrimination based on race. As a Black woman, Murray argued that both race and sex needed to be included if the law were to protect people like her.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A middle-aged woman holding a briefcase and purse and wearing a raincoat walks between cars in a parking lot." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468592/original/file-20220613-18-ewgc0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468592/original/file-20220613-18-ewgc0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468592/original/file-20220613-18-ewgc0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468592/original/file-20220613-18-ewgc0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468592/original/file-20220613-18-ewgc0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1234&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468592/original/file-20220613-18-ewgc0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1234&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468592/original/file-20220613-18-ewgc0f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1234&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Murray, who taught law at Brandeis University, arrives for classes in Waltham, Mass., in 1971.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Murray’s insistence on including sex in Title VII has become essential to LGBTQ rights today. The landmark 2020 Supreme Court ruling in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/17-1618_hfci.pdf">Bostock v. Clayton County</a> prohibits employers from firing people because they are gay or trans. Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, who wrote the majority opinion, wrote, “It is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.” </p>
<p>Murray’s capacious sense of being a human, which she gleaned in part from her own experiences, inspired her many contributions to social justice. In a letter to friends soon after her ordination, <a href="https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/8/resources/4874">Murray wrote</a>, “we bring our total selves to God, our sexuality, our joyousness, our foolishness. … I’m out to make Christianity a joyful thing.”</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Azaransky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pauli Murray, the first Black woman to be ordained by the Episcopal Church, was an advocate for women’s rights and racial justice.Sarah Azaransky, Associate Professor of Social Ethics, Union Theological SeminaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1849342022-06-22T14:52:24Z2022-06-22T14:52:24ZWidows in Nigeria are sometimes treated badly: culture is no excuse to violate rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470234/original/file-20220622-23-7c1zo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Widows in the northern Nigerian city of Kano.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Aminu Abubakar/AFP/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nigeria is home to about 15 million of the world’s <a href="https://guardian.ng/news/15m-widows-in-abject-poverty-group-says/">258 million widows</a>. Widowhood in an ethnically and religiously diverse country like Nigeria, with three major ethnic groups and over 250 minorities, is complex.</p>
<p>Widowhood is a period when a person has lost his or her spouse by death and has remained unmarried. The state of widowhood has multiple intersecting elements – social, cultural, economic, and even historical. </p>
<p>This period of life comes with challenges, a reality which led the UN to set aside a day every year (<a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/widows-day">23 June</a>) to look at the rights of widows and the issues that affect them. </p>
<p>In patrilineal and patriarchal societies, including Nigeria, descent is traced through males, with systems controlled and dominated by men. In such societies, women are expected to be subservient. Becoming a widow often compounds the disadvantages. It creates a doubly marginalised subgroup and sometimes subjects women to dehumanising rituals and harmful practices.</p>
<p>In my <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Blessing-Onyima/publication/336588684_Women_in_Pastoral_Societies_in_Africa/links/5da72f4b299bf1c1e4c818f1/Women-in-Pastoral-Societies-in-Africa.pdf">studies</a> of marginal groups in Nigeria, I explored how being a woman intersects with other socioeconomic realities, exposing them to multiple disadvantages. </p>
<p>These studies found that women suffer social, economic, and health constraints. These are compounded by low literacy levels, cultural beliefs and rituals. </p>
<h2>Burdens of widowhood in Nigeria</h2>
<p>In Nigeria, widowhood comes with a lot of burdens and disadvantages. These include maltreatment, discrimination and stigmatisation. </p>
<p>Tradition, modernity and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341077323_Patriarchy_and_Colonization_The_Brooder_House_for_Gender_Inequality_in_Nigeria">neo-patriarchy</a> all present challenges to Nigerian women. </p>
<p>Some traditions barred women from inheriting land and property. Upon the death of a husband, the widow lost all she had acquired by herself and from her husband. She would be traditionally dehumanised through compulsory mourning rituals like forced seclusion. </p>
<p>The impact of this on children and the widow’s livelihood, psyche and health were not considered. Practices included widow inheritance, when a woman was expected to voluntarily or compulsorily marry her late husband’s brother or relative. </p>
<p>In some Nigerian cultures, widowhood automatically made a woman “unclean” and required “ritual cleansing”. She would be confined within a particular space for a specified period, forced to eat from broken plates and sleep on the bare floor. She would not be allowed to bath. She would be prevented from changing her clothes and from farming, doing house chores and going to market during the mourning period.</p>
<p>A widow’s choice of a sex partner was not respected. Thus, her sexuality and reproduction were controlled in a social framework of gender inequality. Her emotional, health and psychological needs were disregarded.</p>
<p>In some southern Nigerian communities, widows accused of killing their husbands were forced to drink or bath with water used to wash the husband’s corpse. Some were forced to have sex with the corpse or kinsmen. </p>
<p>In the 1970s, feminists became more active in empowering women in Nigeria. Some of these traditions are no longer commonly practised, with the advent of Christianity and human rights movements. </p>
<p>In 21st century Nigeria, a widow’s right to inherit from her husband is recognised by <a href="https://www.europeanjournalofsocialsciences.com/issues/PDF/EJSS_62_2_05.pdf">statutory law</a>. But it’s seen as normal for the widow’s in-laws to demand the husband’s cheque book, bank pin number and account details. </p>
<p>In some southern Nigerian communities, widows are not consulted when matters concerning them and their children are discussed by their in-laws. Widows and women alike are excluded from discussions about allocating land. </p>
<p>Traditions can be slow to change. In 2013, Catholics in eastern Nigeria insisted that women must pour soil from the grave on their husband’s coffin, but some people <a href="https://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/07/30-injured-as-catholics-awka-community-clash/">opposed</a> this Christian ritual, insisting that it was not culturally permissible.</p>
<p>In northern Nigeria where polygamy is the norm, remarried widows occupy a <a href="https://www.peerreviewedjournal.com.ng/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/WIDOWS-PAPER-REVIEWED.pdf">“lower wives” status</a> in the family. </p>
<p>But a 2018 <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2018/01/20/invisible-and-excluded-the-fate-of-widows-and-divorcees-in-africa">World Bank report</a> observed that, among Christian dominated regions of Nigeria, widowhood came with more vulnerability than in the Muslim dominated regions where people give alms. </p>
<p>In almost all parts of Nigeria, socio-cultural expectations still demand that widows wear special robes (white or dark dresses) and shave their hair throughout the period of mourning. </p>
<h2>Equity, gender and law</h2>
<p>Not everybody sees widows’ maltreatment as a violation of human rights. The husband’s family, kinsmen, and local women’s or fellow wives’ associations may all enforce harmful widowhood practices. This is because they are entrenched in culture. </p>
<p>Widows are also treated differently from widowers. Men tend to be free from demeaning social expectations. For instance, in eastern Nigeria, some widowers voluntarily mourn their late wives, but it’s not compulsory. They are permitted to keep beards and don’t have to wear mourning dress. Widowers are not monitored and can remarry immediately. Some mourn for just short periods, while women compulsorily mourn for longer periods under strict surveillance. </p>
<p>Law making and policy formulation are dominated by men in Nigeria. Legislation is influenced by male values, lenses, worldviews and privileges. Women constitute only <a href="https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2022/03/14/a-nations-struggle-for-inclusion-of-women-in-politics-other-sectors/">11.2%</a> of the membership in both chambers of the 9th National Assembly. Seven women are in the Senate while only 11 are in the House of Representatives. Most bills are scrutinised from the male point of view. Therefore, eliminating harmful widowhood practices will be a challenge for a long time in Nigeria.</p>
<p>But in my view, all gender-based violence disguised as “culture” and “ritual” must be proscribed. Widows have needs and rights which demand a change in the relationships of power and control between men and women. </p>
<p>For a start, men can protect their wives and children by writing a will.</p>
<p>Nigeria must enforce and domesticate all <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/Issues/Women/WG/ProtocolontheRightsofWomen.pdf">international protocols</a> protecting widows, women and children. All existing <a href="https://www.nigeriarights.gov.ng/focus-areas/women-and-gender-matters.html">legal instruments</a> protecting widows should be enforced.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184934/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Blessing ONYIMA received funding from the African Humanities Program Dissertation Grant sponsored by the American Council for Learned Societies (ACLS) in 2016.
She also received a grant from The International Science Council (ISC) and the Network of African Science Academies (NASAC) with financial support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) for the Leading Integrated Research for Agenda 2030 in Africa (LIRA 2030 Africa).
Blessing also got the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) 2014 Early Career Travel Grant, United Kingdom. </span></em></p>Widows in Nigeria are still exposed to harmful practices.Blessing Onyima, Senior Lecturer of Sociology and Anthropology, Nnamdi Azikiwe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1827382022-06-12T12:11:27Z2022-06-12T12:11:27Z‘Y’all are coming at this like we’re racists’: How ‘Survivor’ highlights the pulse of socialization<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468049/original/file-20220609-24-sslflq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C0%2C4071%2C2918&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In Season 42, Episode 9 Drea Wheeler pointed out that Black players get voted off before white players which opened up a discussion about race. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(SurvivorCBS/Twitter)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>While <a href="https://horizon.westmont.edu/6065/oped/in-defense-of-garbage-why-reality-tv-is-a-positive-form-of-escapism/">reality television may be escapism</a>, <em>Survivor</em> highlights the pulse of socialization. </p>
<p>Since its premiere in 2000, <em>Survivor</em> has been a <a href="https://www.psychologyinaction.org/psychology-in-action-1/2015/01/05/outwit-outplay-outlast-the-psychology-of-survivor">social experiment</a> providing a window into the lives of how people live with each other amid social and physical challenges.</p>
<p>Players, however, are not disavowed from their lives outside of the game — who they are does not change. They’re not only battling each other for immunity, but players are also grappling with the ways in which social constructions of identity bleed into the game, like race.</p>
<p>If you look back at <em>Survivor</em> winners there is some <a href="https://www.globaltv.com/shows/survivor/articles/survivor-winners-list/">racial diversity</a>, however patterns remain and have often been pointed out by cast members. In Season 42, Episode 9, <a href="https://www.cbs.com/shows/survivor/cast/216609/">Drea Wheeler</a> pointed out that Black players get voted off before white players which opened up a discussion about race. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-does-critical-race-theory-make-people-so-uncomfortable-176125">Why does critical race theory make people so uncomfortable?</a>
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<p>In 1989, critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw gave a name to the experiences of injustice Black women are confronted with as they were often left out of policies meant to move justice forward for racialized people: <a href="https://www.cjr.org/language_corner/intersectionality.php">intersectionality</a>. The term addressed the ways in which Black women were oppressed by the dual identity of being a woman and being Black. </p>
<p>Since then, intersectionality has been expanded to other groups of people because it is “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2015/09/24/why-intersectionality-cant-wait/">a way of thinking about identity and its relationship to power</a>.” And when we think differently about relations of power, those who hold power begin to feel threatened as their power has been normalized <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/socialization">through our engagement with socialization</a> and the ways institutions and systems reproduce power. This is systemic racism.</p>
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<p>Also playing into this notion is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-critical-race-theory.html">critical race theory (CRT)</a> — another term Crenshaw helped coin — which recognizes that racism is embedded within our systems and institutions which are reproducing barriers to equity and inclusion.</p>
<p>Before children are born, they are socialized into gender stereotypes through gender reveal parties (really <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/07/04/its-a-boy-its-a-girl-its-not-a-gender-reveal-party/">sex reveal parties</a>), and moved through society that tells them who gets killed first in <a href="https://time.com/3547214/horror-films-who-dies-first/">horror movies</a>, the role of Black people in <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/black-character-history-video-games/">video games</a>, who can play professional <a href="https://www.theplayerstribune.com/articles/hockey-is-not-for-everyone-akim-aliu-nhl">men’s ice hockey</a> and who gets voted off <em>Survivor</em>.</p>
<h2>Implicit bias and racism</h2>
<p>On an episode of <em>Survivor</em> during a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8wQudHM77Q">tribal council</a>, a discussion about race emerged and a white male player, <a href="https://www.cbs.com/shows/survivor/cast/216613/">Jonathan Young</a>, responded to the dialogue saying: “I don’t feel this is right, because y’all are coming at this like we’re racists.” In doing this, he showcased the ways in which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/06/16/how-fluid-is-racial-identity/race-and-racial-identity-are-social-constructs">socialization constructs racial identities</a>. </p>
<p>The role of <a href="https://nccc.georgetown.edu/bias/module-3/1.php">unconscious or implicit bias</a> was implicated when Drea openly shared her frustration about her experience as a Black woman playing <em>Survivor</em> when she noticed two other Black players were voted off from a different tribe. </p>
<p>She called out the pattern of who gets voted off <em>Survivor</em>. This opened the conversation about what it means to be Black on the show: she has to <a href="https://youtu.be/bcBxPTirDak">question her identity</a> and the impact race has on the game at every moment whereas someone like Jonathan does not.</p>
<p>Jonathan pushed back stating: “that’s saying I’m subconsciously racist. And that’s not true.” This steered the conversation away from the trend Drea pointed out towards <a href="https://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/viewFile/249/116">Jonathan’s discomfort with the conversation about bias</a>. </p>
<p>This implied connection between implicit bias and racism result in more <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2022/05/03/no-survivor-not-everyone-is-subconsciously-racist/">accusations that CRT is hurting</a> white people and this is absolutely not the case.</p>
<p>The conversation between Drea, Maryanne Oketch and Jonathan was not referring to Jonathan or the other tribal members as racist, but calling out the ways in which socialization leads people to believe stereotypes about certain people and how patterns continue to be reproduced. </p>
<p>By not having these open discussions, what is left is fear mongering and misunderstandings of CRT. Jonathan may or may not be a racist, but unfortunately that is where the conversation was focused — on white people having to become aware of how whiteness permeates our media and causes harm to Drea, Maryanne and other racialized people. </p>
<p>This conversation shouldn’t have centred white people. It should have played out by the white cast members being willing take a step back and listen to Drea and Maryanne. The conversation shouldn’t have been about white people feeling uncomfortable but centred on identifying the patterns of racism which feed how we are <a href="https://theconversation.com/colourism-how-shade-bias-perpetuates-prejudice-against-people-with-dark-skin-97149">socialized into a hierarchy of skin colour</a>. </p>
<p>This is not a drastic approach or a political agenda, but a call to open up spaces for conversations about racism, about whiteness, about race with white people <em><a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-empowerment-diary/201708/deep-listening-in-personal-relationships">listening</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182738/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Teresa Anne Fowler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This is not a drastic approach or a political agenda, but a call to open up spaces for conversations about racism, about whiteness, about race with white people listening and not centring themselves.Teresa Anne Fowler, Assistant Professor, Education, Concordia University of EdmontonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1783812022-05-30T12:27:57Z2022-05-30T12:27:57ZRace, gender and the ways these identities intersect matter in cancer outcomes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463462/original/file-20220516-11-3il8v8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C51%2C5708%2C3742&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cancer care research usually focuses on just one of a patient's social identities.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/patients-in-infusion-room-royalty-free-image/522902646">Isaac Lane Koval/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em> </p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>Belonging to one or more groups with long-standing social and economic disadvantages increases the risk of cancer diagnoses and death, according to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/pon.5890">our review of 28 cancer studies</a> published between 2012 and 2021. </p>
<p>People who were both nonwhite and LGBTQ <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/pon.5890">received fewer cancer</a> prevention services and had fewer cancer screenings, we found, for example. </p>
<p>We started by searching for studies of groups with poor cancer outcomes. Then we narrowed our focus to cancer studies that specified the race, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic status, disability status or rural residency of study participants. We found just 28 that provided such information. We classified those studies according to the aspect of cancer care they covered. Some studies, for example, were about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.06.039">cancer screening and prevention</a>, while others <a href="https://doi.org/10.1245/s10434-020-09267-y">focused on treatment</a>. </p>
<p>Most of the studies focused on what people did to prevent cancer or to check for it. Examples include getting mammograms or a human papilloma virus vaccine. And we found some studies that were about specific kinds of cancer, like cervical or breast.</p>
<p>We found that sexual orientation and race influenced whether women chose to get screened for cancer or to take preventive treatments. Nonwhite women of low socioeconomic status also had lower cancer survival rates. We saw that these patients experienced fears of discrimination, a general discomfort with health care providers and more distrust of the health care system. </p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Despite advances in detection and treatment, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/dcpc/research/update-on-cancer-deaths/index.htm">cancer remains the second-leading cause of death in the United States</a>. And in communities with long-standing social and economic disadvantages, the risk of cancer diagnoses and death is higher than in the general population.</p>
<p>For example, Black women are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.a586">more likely than white women</a> to die of breast cancer. New diagnoses of prostate cancer occur more frequently <a href="https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/disparities">in rural Appalachia</a>, compared with urban areas in the same region. And bisexual women are 70% more likely to get a cancer diagnosis, <a href="https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/disparities">compared with heterosexual women</a>.</p>
<p>Cancer care research usually overlooks the multiple identities of individual patients. But most people have more than one social identity, and those identities are hard to separate from one another. For example, a gay Black man is not gay one day and Black the next; he’s both, all the time. And he has different experiences of discrimination and disadvantage compared with a straight Black man. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/intersectionality-how-gender-interacts-with-other-social-identities-to-shape-bias-53724">Intersectionality describes</a> the recognition and consideration of a person’s multiple, intersecting social identities. Taking these multiple identities into consideration could help improve cancer prevention and survival among those who belong to one or more historically disadvantaged groups. </p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>We did not look at lifestyle behaviors, such as smoking, that could increase the risk of getting cancer and contribute to poorer cancer treatment outcomes. However, cancer <a href="https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/understanding/disparities">disparities based on lifestyle behaviors</a> are well documented, and it would be valuable to look at how complex identities and lifestyle affect those outcomes.</p>
<p>As researchers we wanted to focus on identifying studies in the literature that focused on the interconnected, multiple ways patients self-identify and how this related to their health care. Unfortunately, only a small amount of data was available, and our current report suffered from these limitations.</p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>Our paper describes ways for scientists to take patients’ multiple identities into account when doing cancer research. This model includes recommendations for setting up studies, conducting the research itself and documenting the findings. Considering more complex patient identities could make future studies more consistent and understandable. It will help fill some large gaps we’re seeing in how researchers study cancer.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178381/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Belonging to one or more groups with long-standing social and economic disadvantages increases the risk of cancer diagnoses and death.Timothy Pawlik, Professor of Surgery, The Ohio State UniversityElizabeth Palmer, Research Scientist, The Ohio State UniversitySamilia Obeng-Gyasi, Assistant Professor of Surgical Oncology, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1812892022-05-03T14:43:34Z2022-05-03T14:43:34ZSix misunderstood concepts about diversity in the workplace and why they matter<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460974/original/file-20220503-17-f0pr6v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Understanding diversity concepts in the workplace is crucial.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/portrait-diverse-creative-team-looking-camera-2149071131">SeventyFour | Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Diversity and inclusion in the workplace is a sensitive topic. People are afraid to get things wrong or to use the wrong word. It doesn’t help that the words involved are confusing. </p>
<p>You have probably encountered these concepts at a mandatory training session, a workplace event, or on Twitter. They often involve decades of complex scholarship being reduced down to a single word, and, as such, they can easily be misrepresented. </p>
<p>But for any progress to be made, and for real diversity and inclusion to be achieved, getting to grips with what they actually mean is crucial. Here then are six of the most embattled concepts.</p>
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<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Quarter life, a series by The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/quarter-life-117947?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">This article is part of Quarter Life</a></strong>, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.</em></p>
<p><em>You may be interested in:</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/were-her-real-mum-lesbian-parents-face-healthcare-challenges-175382">‘We’re her real mum’: lesbian parents face healthcare challenges</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/how-racism-and-a-lack-of-diversity-can-harm-our-workplaces-73119">How racism and a lack of diversity can harm our workplaces</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/ceos-are-hindering-lgbtq-equality-in-the-workplace-181679">CEOs are hindering LGBTQ+ equality in the workplace</a></em></p>
<hr>
<h2>1. Allyship</h2>
<p>Once limited to LGBTQ discussions (as in “straight ally”), this term became popular in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd. As its 2021 Word of the Year, dictionary.com <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/e/word-of-the-day/allyship-2021-12-07/">defines allyship as</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The status or role of a person who advocates and actively works for the inclusion of a marginalised or politicised group in all areas of society, not as a member of that group but in solidarity with its struggle and point of view and under its leadership. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Allyship, then, isn’t about waving the correct flag during the correct month, or getting drunk at Pride with colleagues (well, not <em>just</em> that). It’s an action word that requires action; like education (of self and others), effective activism, consistent advocacy and using your platform or privilege (see below) to amplify the voices of marginalised others.</p>
<p>If, for example, your workplace did the <a href="https://theconversation.com/blackout-tuesday-the-black-square-is-a-symbol-of-online-activism-for-non-activists-139982">white-text-on-a-black-square</a> thing on social media in June 2020, and nothing else, they were probably engaging in performative allyship. This kind of superficial show of solidarity chiefly benefits those performing it, as opposed to the group <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09585192.2021.2023895">suffering the discrimination</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A person wearing LGBTQ rainbow wristbands types at a computer keyboard." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460985/original/file-20220503-19311-mf0kxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/460985/original/file-20220503-19311-mf0kxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=248&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460985/original/file-20220503-19311-mf0kxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=248&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460985/original/file-20220503-19311-mf0kxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=248&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460985/original/file-20220503-19311-mf0kxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460985/original/file-20220503-19311-mf0kxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/460985/original/file-20220503-19311-mf0kxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=312&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Allyship in the workplace is about actively signalling your solidarity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/inclusion-staff-diversity-work-workplace-equality-2074286245">Andrey_Popov | Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Class discrimination</h2>
<p>Within UK society, working-class people face inequalities related to, for example, access to sought-after <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01425692.2021.1886051">unpaid internships</a>, entering higher managerial and professional jobs and their average salary <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0003122416653602">once in those jobs</a>. </p>
<p>Yet the concept is easily understood – we have all seen snobbery in action (see John Cleese’s classic 1966 sketch with the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b009lt9r/clips">Two Ronnies</a>). However, the misunderstanding here concerns not the definition of the concept, but the legality of the discrimination. </p>
<p>Social class is not protected in the Equality Act 2010, the piece of UK legislation that outlaws discrimination in the workplace. This often surprises people, presumably because it feels like something that should be covered by legislation – and indeed it is, <a href="https://www.equalitylaw.eu/downloads/5568-a-comparative-analysis-of-non-discrimination-law-in-europe-2021-1-75-mb">in over half</a> of all European countries. Just not in the UK. </p>
<h2>3. Intersectionality</h2>
<p>This term is often vilified, but its meaning is actually straightforward. Every person has multiple intersecting identities (age, class, gender, sexuality, race and so on) which can lead to specific outcomes, particularly in relation to <a href="https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=uclf">discrimination or privilege</a>.</p>
<p>White women, Black men and Black women may face some common issues in the workplace – a <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/ethnicitypaygapsingreatbritain/2019#">pay gap</a>, for example. But research shows that the latter group often face challenges specific to how their identities as both women and Black people intersect. </p>
<p>The term <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2018.1447395?needAccess=true">misogynoir</a> was coined to designate the specific type of discrimination that Black women face. This can manifest as <a href="https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1471-0528.15692">medical misdiagnoses</a>; racial differences in <a href="https://www.ajog.org/article/S0002-9378(18)31334-6/fulltext#relatedArticles">pain management</a> after giving birth; <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19371918.2011.619449?casa_token=t-iOk4nsBs0AAAAA%3Azt5Cu9kpf0GYEBm4DKqrcIQhx0iXnv0MTdKqsNM7cjV2u8MRLfPSn0Zpgw4NQX_1Mj3yNx1oMal-kw">pervasive, harmful stereotypes</a> such as that of the “angry Black woman”; and <a href="https://medium.com/@AmnestyInsights/unsocial-media-tracking-twitter-abuse-against-women-mps-fc28aeca498a">gendered racist abuse</a> of the kind directed at former Labour Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott during the 2017 election. </p>
<h2>4. Gender pay gap</h2>
<p>Not to be confused with equal pay. “Equal pay” means paying a man and woman equally if they are doing the same work: this is a legal requirement. The gender pay gap, meanwhile, is the difference in average hourly earnings between all men and women in a specific company, sector or country. </p>
<p>Research shows that it can be caused by both <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1062976999000216?casa_token=FViUt_xNLQcAAAAA:4K64sb801QCwtiL42V3_4UMBDFl1OJV-lIu-_P1Zd_rEnD-YdNNdUSB2wc4yVgj7av_890ChMSw">old-fashioned discrimination</a> and also <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0095399716636928">differences</a> in what economists call <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/humancapital.asp">human capital</a>: the economic value of an employee’s education, training, experience, skills, health and other traits. Women’s experience and career choices are often affected by gendered expectations regarding child-rearing and the wider division of labour in the family. There are other pay gaps too, relating, among other characteristics, to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0003122416662958">race</a>, to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2524353?seq=1">sexual orientation</a> and to <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjir.12257">disability</a>. </p>
<h2>5. Privilege</h2>
<p>Often (and mistakenly) used interchangeably with “privileged”. To wit, the Conservative MP Jonathan Gullis, made headlines in October 2021, when he defied any “left woke warrior to visit Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke and try tell the people there that they are somehow ‘privileged’”. </p>
<p>As activist Janaya Khan <a href="https://nowthisnews.com/videos/politics/activist-janaya-future-khan-on-redefining-privilege">has put it</a>, privilege doesn’t refer to what you have gone through, but what you haven’t had to go through. It designates the advantages, and/or lack of disadvantages, that any one person might have <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1469-5812.2004.00057.x">because of who they are</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">US activist Janaya Khan on what activism – and privilege – really means.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“White privilege”, therefore, does not mean that white people are always privileged. It does mean, however, that a white person living in Kidsgrove will not have to consider whether they will face discrimination – whether <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-people-are-often-associated-with-deviance-but-i-never-understood-the-true-impact-until-i-was-racially-profiled-179259">out shopping</a>, going to <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-governments-report-on-race-gets-wrong-about-the-education-system-159494">school</a> or <a href="https://theconversation.com/racism-in-football-new-research-shows-media-treats-black-men-differently-to-white-men-160841">playing football</a> – simply because of their skin colour. That is a specific disadvantage they don’t have to even think about. And it is the not having to think about that is the privilege. </p>
<h2>6. Pronouns</h2>
<p>Gender identity and gender presentation are not always aligned. Sometimes one’s gender identity evolves over time. The move to be explicit about which pronouns we want people to use when referring to us in the third person – as the American singer Demi Lovato did <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-57169541">in 2021</a>, when they came out as non-binary – can be a way to signal one’s gender identity. </p>
<p>A recent viral video showed a man, when asked what pronouns they use, rejecting the whole idea by replying, “<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@lewisbuchanclips/video/7071340007830670597?_d=secCgYIASAHKAESPgo8S%2B0HFptg8BOr119CPKvty7lKYtfRaUmCqVEINkEE%2BeNfcl4VBh8DPTXT5xnrrVoQx9wdIYVp8ZrfFFHYGgA%3D&_r=1&checksum=1ab29ae040da95f731b9b82d69f4c6192ef26c87f4f78d353e2344517277362b&language=en&preview_pb=0&sec_user_id=MS4wLjABAAAATLpAjyU8PW1jLh3GEyxxJ05piRivNwMCUMZ5kS2l9BY2Pdu-W2ImIL4zbwhQ2-gM&share_app_id=1233&share_item_id=7071340007830670597&share_link_id=DA2A3D39-D367-4DB4-9C4F-E9D8045CB014&social_sharing=v1&source=h5_m&timestamp=1646612193&tt_from=copy&u_code=dh5436e595kag6&user_id=6929956997144052741&utm_campaign=client_share&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=copy">I don’t do pronouns</a>”. Sharing your pronouns if you are cisgender (that is, not trans) <a href="https://www.stonewall.org.uk/about-us/news/international-pronouns-day">is easy</a>, however, and signals solidarity with trans and non-binary people. </p>
<p>It is also helpful because we can’t always assume we know what someone’s gender identity is. Misgendering (calling someone by the incorrect pronoun) can contribute towards the stress a trans person experiences as a minority. Recent <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/60c1cce1d3bf7f4bd9814e39/Maya_Forstater_v_CGD_Europe_and_others_UKEAT0105_20_JOJ.pdf">tribunal decisions</a> have mentioned that regular, deliberate misgendering could be considered <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5d9b0c8aed915d35cff2225d/Dr_David_Mackereth_v_The_Department_for_Work_and_Pensions___Advanced_Personnel_Management_Group__UK__Ltd_1304602_-_2018_-_Judgment_and_reasons.pdf">discrimination</a>. If you make a genuine mistake, though, apologising and correcting yourself “<a href="https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/getting-pronouns-wrong">need be</a> no more complicated than correcting yourself after getting someone’s name wrong”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181289/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ciarán McFadden has previously received research funding from The Irish Research Council, The Fulbright Ireland Commission, and the Carnegie Trust.</span></em></p>Diversity terms often involve decades of scholarship being reduced to a single word. Understanding them – and knowing how to explain them – is crucial.Ciarán McFadden, Lecturer in Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior, Edinburgh Napier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1799912022-04-13T13:21:48Z2022-04-13T13:21:48ZHow ‘Euphoria’ challenges viewers’ expectations of what a television show should be<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/454436/original/file-20220325-15-1nvfuh8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C3%2C1110%2C711&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The series _Euphoria_, which has aired on HBO since 2019, continues to be a popular hit. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(@euphoria/Instagram)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Note: The following article contains spoilers about “Euphoria”</em></p>
<p>The series <em>Euphoria</em>, whose second season was <a href="https://www.hbo.com/euphoria">broadcast on HBO</a> in the winter of 2022, continues to be a hit. The series tackles the status quo head-on with an esthetic of transgression that works by shocking the expectations of viewers accustomed to certain narratives and themes. <em>Euphoria</em> surprises them with unconventional film making and in the way it addresses several social issues.</p>
<p>As a doctoral student in literature and film studies, my research is situated at the intersection of audiovisual and gender studies.</p>
<h2>Narrative infallibility</h2>
<p>The character of Rue, an anxious and cynical teenager with a substance abuse problem, dominates the narrative of <em>Euphoria</em>. Her view of the world is sensitive, frank and <a href="https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2020/6/explainer-intersectional-feminism-what-it-means-and-why-it-matters">intersectional</a>, an inclusive concept that refers to breaking down different systems of oppression.</p>
<p>Rue is conscious of delivering a television narrative. She frequently addresses the audience directly, even amusing herself by manipulating the order and tone of events. More than just an off-camera voice, she freezes some scenes to provide context, or presents alternative scenes of what she wished had happened. Her narration is one of the few spaces she can control.</p>
<p>But Rue also appears to suffer from bipolar disorder. Or at least that’s what the therapist she consulted as a child suggested, echoed by the extreme emotional swings she experiences. Coupled with her drug addiction, the teenager’s breakdowns sometimes lead to intense moments where she skids out of control. This is particularly evident in the Season 1 finale, where Rue starts using again after a several weeks of abstinence.</p>
<p>The scene unexpectedly turns into a musical number where Rue leads as a soloist with a haggard look and disjointed body. She is joined by a gospel choir performing an erratic choreography of the song “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5jWsM07fuI">All for us</a>” by Labrinth. The performance symbolizes repressed suffering. </p>
<p>The first few notes of the melody were heard several times during the season, though not for more than thirty seconds. Rue is usually able to suppress her distress, but she is overwhelmed by it in the season finale, which includes grief after her father’s death and a romantic breakup. Rue’s grief explodes and comes out as the entire song unfolds for the first time and she becomes part of the music.</p>
<p>Even when she knows she’s at fault, Rue relates her misdeeds with a biting humour that makes her endearing. When she confesses her relapse, she intersperses the story with a monologue and slideshow addressed directly to the audience (Season 2). She admits that as the main character she may be letting her audience down, yet she sets straight anyone who might have forgotten the many times she said she had no desire to stop using. Rue finds creative ways to connect with the audience, and let them know she cares about their perspective.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CaIIon7PNQv","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Even though <em>Euphoria</em> is built on the narrative of a flawed and irreverent protagonist, Rue elicits empathy because she doesn’t try to hide her fallibility. The series offers access to her subjectivity, for better or worse. The creator of the series strives for <a href="https://deadline.com/2020/07/euphoria-dp-marcell-rev-sam-levinson-hbo-interview-news-1202977123/">emotional realism</a>. <a href="https://www.theringer.com/tv/2021/1/25/22247780/euphoria-jules-special-episode-rue-recap-season-2">Two special episodes</a> were released between the two seasons providing a slight break from suspense, a sign that the artists behind <em>Euphoria</em> also use staging variations to give the audience some respite.</p>
<h2>From opioids to love addiction</h2>
<p>At the heart of <em>Euphoria</em> is the passionate relationship between Rue and Jules. In contrast to the other relationships in the series, which are heterosexual and steeped in violence, this love story appears to be based on affection and consent. But Rue doesn’t know the meaning of moderation, more so when it comes to love. The intoxicating feeling of falling in love becomes a substitute for her drug use — and an unsustainable responsibility for Jules. A break-up seems inevitable until Rue goes to detox, giving new meaning to the expression “<a href="https://www.womenshealthmag.com/relationships/a19739065/signs-of-toxic-relationship/">toxic relationship</a>.”</p>
<p>Love addiction also arises with two other characters, Nate and Cassie, who have a secret relationship in Season 2. When Nate loses interest in her, Cassie enters an obsessive spiral: her days are punctuated by compulsive beauty rituals, with their harmful nature emphasized in the repetitive montage. Cassie’s looks become more and more burlesque as her mental state deteriorates, to the point where her friends ask her one morning if she is dressed up for the school play. Even the other characters realize that Cassie is undergoing a transformation and that there is something off about her: At the climax of Season 2 she no longer seems to belong.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CZmnJ6RKTVJ","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<h2>The right tone</h2>
<p>Like the British series <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7767422/"><em>Sex Education</em></a> (Netflix), but in a different style, <em>Euphoria</em> manages to denounce and educate without adopting a moralizing tone. For example, the series contributes to normalizing certain situations of intersectionality for the public. </p>
<p>The series doesn’t feature storylines on Jules’s gender identity or any coming out, because its natural for Rue to be in love with a woman. Rather it denounces discrimination by contrasting the ease with which the protagonists embrace their gender fluidity with the stereotypical reactions of the men around them.</p>
<p>The series also excels in denouncing a culture of toxic masculinity that takes its toll on women. Their sexual violence, slutshaming and catcalls, makes it painful for the teenage girls in <em>Euphoria</em> meet the standards of femininity while developing their own identity and sexuality. In Season 1, the female protagonists are even denied orgasms. Kat, another main character in the show, develops a strategy to avoid letting others bargain for her sexuality: she creates her own web account where people pay her for erotic video chats.</p>
<p>To protect herself from the brutality of the boys around her, Kat vigorously pushes Ethan away in Season 1 even though he seems to have sincere feelings for her. When he confronts her about this and reiterates his romantic interest, she reveals her disbelief that he would want anything more than sexual favours from her. When he attempts to prove her wrong by offering her cunnilingus, it is the first time in the show that a man offers to give a woman something without taking anything in return.</p>
<p>It is also the first time in the series that an unfeigned female orgasm is shown on screen. Even more, to Kat’s embarrassment, it is revealed that Ethan has ejaculated in his pants. Kat’s experience with Ethan shatters an important glass ceiling in <em>Euphoria</em> by showing a non-penetrative sexual encounter where a boy derives pleasure from satisfying his partner.</p>
<p>However, when Kat later realizes that her relationship with Ethan is not working for her, she expresses her dissatisfaction by drawing on the esthetics of <a href="https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-a-slasher-film-definition/">slasher</a> and pornographic films. She fantasizes that Ethan is being put to death by a <a href="https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/Who-Dothraki-Game-Thrones-41416023">dothraki warrior</a> with whom she then has sex in front of Ethan’s bloody corpse. Far from sticking to its own narrative style, <em>Euphoria</em> has fun drawing on different fictional styles to personify the inner worlds of its protagonists.</p>
<h2>From tears to glitter: materializing paradoxes</h2>
<p>The series attracted early attention for its <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/labrinth-zendaya-euphoria-soundtrack-hbo-893594/">ethereal yet alienating soundtrack</a>, as well as for its <a href="https://www.elle.com/beauty/makeup-skin-care/a28576614/euphoria-makeup-tutorial/">unique make-up looks</a>, which were widely reproduced on social networks. Glitter under the eyes, multicoloured eyeliner, diamonds in their hair: the teenagers of <em>Euphoria</em> display daily <a href="https://www.insider.com/euphoria-hbo-best-makeup-looks-maddy-jules-rue-kat-2019-9">looks worthy of great fashion magazines</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/B03gpAAlWZU","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Given the pessimistic nature of the show, this extravagant esthetic is surprising, especially since the characters display it so casually. The reason for it is that <em>Euphoria</em>, despite its jovial-sounding title, proposes a dysphoric rather than euphoric experience. Tears and glitter are mixed on Rue’s face, who struggles to find balance between ecstasy and depression.</p>
<p>This ability of the series to make such paradoxes coexist is the cornerstone of its originality. The audience is witness to both the waves of happiness and the abysmal suffering of the characters. Nor does the show try to sugarcoat the pain to make viewing more enjoyable. The embodiment of such variation in emotions illustrates the complexity of the issues the protagonists are going through.</p>
<h2>Getting the audience used to the unexpected</h2>
<p>Human experience is full of contradictions. In using both realism and surrealism to show difficult realities, through both its narrative and audiovisual styles, <em>Euphoria</em> does not heed any thematic or artistic constraints.</p>
<p>In order to become engaged, viewers must be ready not to take anything for granted. A charismatic family man can be repressing a deviant sex life in which he abuses minors, just as the town’s drug dealer can be one of the show’s most empathetic and complex characters.</p>
<p><em>Euphoria</em> is an unpredictable series that deliberately flouts convention in order to challenge several stubborn taboos in an uncompromising way.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179991/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne-Sophie Gravel is a member of Réalisatrices Équitables. Her doctoral research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>Euphoria tackles the status quo head on with an esthetic that transgresses the codes of television, while criticizing several taboos and social issues.Anne-Sophie Gravel, Doctorante en littérature et arts de la scène et de l'écran (concentration cinéma), Université LavalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1795152022-03-31T13:38:31Z2022-03-31T13:38:31ZTransgender people of color face unique challenges as gender discrimination and racism intersect<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455275/original/file-20220330-5562-172vy7p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2121%2C1412&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Transgender people of color face more than their share of discrimination and violence.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/portrait-of-four-friends-embracing-royalty-free-image/1164940484">We Are/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Throughout history, <a href="https://www.hrc.org/resources/glossary-of-terms">transgender</a> people of color have had a <a href="https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/content/two-spirits_map-html/">place of honor</a> in many indigenous cultures around the world. </p>
<p>This changed in many places, however, as <a href="https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/des/article/view/18630">European colonizers</a> began forcing indigenous people to follow white social norms. These include <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/otherwise-worlds">anti-Blackness</a>, Christianity and a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-38273-3_2">gender binary</a> that reduced gender to just man and woman. Colonizers presumed that being <a href="https://www.health.com/mind-body/lgbtq-health/what-is-cisgender">cisgender</a>, or having a gender identity that is congruent with gender assigned at birth, was the only acceptable norm.</p>
<p>For trans people who refused or were unable to conform, colonial societies often used racism and <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/cissexist">cissexism</a>, or behaviors and beliefs that assume the inferiority of trans people, to invalidate their existence, limit their access to resources and threaten their well-being. For example, colonizers in some cases deemed people who expressed their gender outside the binary <a href="https://www.them.us/story/colonialism-black-and-indigenous-people-gender-identity">as sinful and deviant</a>, and punished them with <a href="https://doi.org/10.33972/jhs.47">emotional and physical violence</a>.</p>
<p>The reverberations of these colonial beliefs are still felt today. In just the first three months of 2022, there were <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/nearly-240-anti-lgbtq-bills-filed-2022-far-targeting-trans-people-rcna20418">over 154 anti-trans state bills</a> proposed across the U.S. seeking to limit the rights of trans kids and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/sgd0000495">their parents</a>.</p>
<p>And for trans people of color, the challenges they face because of gender discrimination are exacerbated by struggles they deal with because of racism.</p>
<p><a href="https://people.clas.ufl.edu/rabreu26/">We</a> <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jules-Sostre">are</a> <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Gabriel-Lockett">researchers</a> who study how LGBTQ people of color <a href="https://cheverelab.com">build resilience, resist oppression and promote wellness</a> within their communities. We look at how having multiple identities like being trans and a person of color <a href="https://www.feministsof.com/post/what-is-intersectionality">intersect</a> and interact with each other in ways that affect how someone navigates their life. </p>
<p>Trans people of color who have multiple marginalized identities face higher levels of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/19359705.2017.1320739">stress from being a minority</a> compared to those with fewer marginalized identities. While there has been a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000562">lack of research</a> on the experiences of trans people of color, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/soin.12341">many</a> <a href="https://doi.apa.org/doi/10.1037/a0023244">studies</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82250-7_4">suggest</a> that many of the challenges they face arise from the intersection of racism, xenophobia and cisnormativity. </p>
<figure>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Transgender people have existed for thousands of years.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Common challenges and barriers</h2>
<p>The health care system has historically been a fraught with danger for trans people of color.</p>
<p>Over the years, people of color have been <a href="https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/history/40-years-human-experimentation-america-tuskegee-study">experimented upon without consent</a>, <a href="https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/genetic-research-among-havasupai-cautionary-tale/2011-02">denied ownership</a> over their own test results and bodies and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15313204.2016.1242102">denied access to care</a>. Some have played <a href="https://www.npr.org/2010/02/02/123232331/henrietta-lacks-a-donors-immortal-legacy">critical roles</a> in transforming medical research and science without any knowledge of doing so.</p>
<p>Mistrust is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15532739.2015.1064336">magnified</a> for trans people of color, who may get <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/deadnaming">deadnamed</a> (called by the birth name they no longer go by), misgendered and be racially discriminated against all in one medical appointment. </p>
<p>Medical professionals and lawmakers have also mandated <a href="https://www.transhub.org.au/gatekeeping">gatekeeping measures</a> that require extra steps to qualify for gender-affirming care such as hormones and surgery. Trans people are asked to prove that they have a persistent experience of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1745691619872987">dysphoria</a>, defined as an incongruence between one’s gender assigned at birth and one’s gender identity. This treats being transgender <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.3390%2Fijerph16060978">as an illness</a> to be cured based on what cisgender people believe bodies should look like. It erases <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/26895269.2021.1915223">gender euphoria</a>, or a feeling of joy or satisfaction associated with a gender separate from what was assigned at birth, as a reason for pursuing transition.</p>
<p>With only a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/01/20/683216767/medical-students-push-for-more-lgbt-health-training-to-address-disparities">limited number of providers</a> who can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-019-05179-0">competently and respectfully</a> help them navigate these life-changing services, trans people of color are often left to fend for themselves. With <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/24/politics/arizona-transgender-health-care-ban-sports-ban/index.html">ongoing legislation</a> that outlaws gender-affirming treatment for trans kids, they and their families are forced to travel long distances to obtain care, or not have access to care at all.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26895269.2022.2020035">Continuous exposure</a> to stressors resulting from this discrimination have negative physical and mental health consequences for trans people of color. And these challenges are compounded by other common barriers, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/26895269.2020.1830222">homelessness</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F08948453211062951">employment discrimination</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/cou0000546">restricted access to legal documentation</a>, among <a href="https://www.ustranssurvey.org/reports#USTS">others</a>.</p>
<h2>Targets of violence</h2>
<p>Trans people of color face <a href="https://reports.hrc.org/dismantling-a-culture-of-violence">disproportionate rates of violence</a> as a result of racism and transphobia. Compared to their cis peers, trans people are <a href="https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/ncvs-trans-press-release/">four times more likely</a> to be a victim of a violent crime. </p>
<p>And trans people of color have been the overwhelming targets of this violence. The Human Rights Campaign has recorded <a href="https://reports.hrc.org/an-epidemic-of-violence-fatal-violence-against-transgender-and-gender-non-confirming-people-in-the-united-states-in-2021">over 256 cases of fatal violence</a> against trans people since 2013 in the U.S., 84% of whom were people of color. In 2021 alone, <a href="https://time.com/6131444/2021-anti-trans-violence/">57 trans people were killed</a>, and over half were Black trans women. Black trans women continue to have the highest risk for violence due to how their experiences of anti-Black racism, cissexism and sexism intersect (also known as <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a33614214/ashlee-marie-preston-transmisogynoir-essay/">transmisogynoir</a>).</p>
<p>The true numbers are likely to be much higher. Many hate crimes go unreported, due to both fear that one’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-11107-x">identity will be questioned</a> and <a href="https://publicintegrity.org/politics/lack-of-trust-in-law-enforcement-hinders-reporting-of-lbgtq-crimes/">lack of trust in law enforcement</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9_bre2DPD1A?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trans women of color face an epidemic of violence in the U.S.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Additionally, trans people of color often experience violence from police and other law enforcement officials. A <a href="https://www.ustranssurvey.org/reports#USTS">2015 report</a> by the National Center for Transgender Equality in the U.S. found that 58% of trans people reported being harassed, abused or mistreated during their interactions with police. It also noted that police frequently assume that trans women of color are sex workers. A <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26895269.2021.1938779">2021 study</a> showed that trans Latinx immigrants and asylum-seekers who enter the U.S. often experience torture and are denied basic medical care in detention facilities.</p>
<h2>Resilience and strength</h2>
<p>Trans people of color have found many different strategies to help them navigate and overcome these challenges. </p>
<p>One is to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0011000018787261">build resilience</a>, or coping with and adapting to stressors and adversities. Many trans people of color draw strength from supportive role models and members of their community. Being a positive role model themselves and having a strong sense of their own self-worth are also key factors to building resilience.</p>
<p>For example, one trans person of color who survived a traumatic event <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1534765610369261">shared in a study</a> that resilience for them meant having pride in their gender and racial and ethnic identity, while also recognizing and negotiating the challenges they face because of systemic oppression. They also built resilience by engaging in activism, advocating for themselves and connecting with trans communities of color. </p>
<p>Trans people of color continue to find strength in collective action. Trans women of color have been at the <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/trans-women-color-lgbtq-stonewall/">forefront of social justice movements</a>, and Black trans women have been a central <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/27/us/politics/black-trans-lives-matter.html">driving force</a> in the fight for LGBTQ rights.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455276/original/file-20220330-23-1tzgona.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Black trans woman of color holding flower at a Pride March event." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455276/original/file-20220330-23-1tzgona.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/455276/original/file-20220330-23-1tzgona.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455276/original/file-20220330-23-1tzgona.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455276/original/file-20220330-23-1tzgona.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455276/original/file-20220330-23-1tzgona.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455276/original/file-20220330-23-1tzgona.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/455276/original/file-20220330-23-1tzgona.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trans people of color have historically met the societal challenges they face through community engagement and collective action.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-an-unidentified-participant-dressed-in-a-blue-news-photo/1250531142">Mariette Pathy Allen/Archive Photos via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Toward liberation</h2>
<p>There are countless ways to support trans people of color working toward liberation.</p>
<p>One way is self-education. This includes <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/cou0000430">learning about privilege</a> and how it gives select groups power over others in ways that range from <a href="https://results.org/wp-content/uploads/Microaggressions_Learning-About-Power-Privilege-and-Oppression.pdf">microaggressions</a> to physical violence. It is important to note that self-education is a continuous journey that requires humility.</p>
<p>Another way is to keep up with attacks against marginalized communities and be a <a href="https://aninjusticemag.com/the-differences-between-allies-accomplices-co-conspirators-may-surprise-you-d3fc7fe29c">co-conspirator</a>. Instead of just being a passive ally, ask how you can leverage your privilege to support trans people of color. This could be working to provide inclusive and safe work environments, schools and medical systems, among others. It could also be <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/being-transgender-at-work">fairly and equitably compensating</a> trans people of color for their labor. </p>
<p>Finally, <a href="https://results.org/wp-content/uploads/Call-in_Call-Out_Resource_Guide.pdf">call in and call out</a>. Speak up when someone is being harmful to a trans person of color. Listen and take responsibility if you are called out.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Being both trans and a person of color comes with a unique set of challenges. Collectively working toward overcoming these barriers is one way this community fights for survival.Gabriel Lockett, PhD Candidate in Counseling Psychology, University of FloridaJules Sostre, PhD Candidate in Counseling Psychology, University of FloridaRoberto L. Abreu, Assistant Professor of Counseling Psychology, University of FloridaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1635962022-01-24T14:46:28Z2022-01-24T14:46:28ZOur global food systems are rife with injustice: here’s how we can change this<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411503/original/file-20210715-17-1i2nj57.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4403%2C2937&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Food systems can disenfranchise marginalised and vulnerable communities worldwide.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pxfuel.com/en/free-photo-obmpj/download">Pxfuel</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The pandemic – alongside growing threats from climate change, <a href="http://www.fao.org/africa/news/detail-news/en/c/1310100/">widespread malnutrition</a>, economic instability and geopolitical conflict – has heightened problems with the ways we produce, distribute and consume food. And it’s made clear the urgent need to make global <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.17269/s41997-020-00399-y">food systems</a> more just.</p>
<p>An example of modern food injustice is that if you’re poor or an ethnic minority in the US, you’re <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3482049/">less likely</a> to have easy access to healthy food. This situation, worsened by <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7893363/">COVID-19</a>, has been termed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/may/15/food-apartheid-food-deserts-racism-inequality-america-karen-washington-interview">food apartheid</a>. It’s also often the case that corporations, not local growers, <a href="https://grain.org/en/article/6069-corporate-control-and-food-sovereignty-issues-and-ways-forward">control</a> the food produced by communities: taking money out of their hands.</p>
<p>If this is to change, it’s important to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-021-00304-x">understand</a> who wins within existing food systems and, more importantly, who loses by being pushed to the sidelines and losing out on access to healthy food. </p>
<p>To do this, those who design food systems need to consider how different factors that determine if <a href="https://www.ukaiddirect.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Defining-marginalised.pdf">someone is marginalised</a> – like gender, age, disability, ethnicity and religion – can combine or intersect, making some people more vulnerable.</p>
<p>For example, international development programmes by governments and charities often focus on helping women because they are considered vulnerable. But this risks overlooking different causes of poverty including class and race issues, marginalising other vulnerable groups. </p>
<p>In Tanzania, this kind of oversimplification when deciding who receives resources has been found to reinforce existing <a href="https://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/handle/10568/113049/CCAFS%20Info%20Note%20Innovation%20Final.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">power hierarchies</a> within communities, meaning that those who had little social power to begin with – such as poorer women – don’t get to benefit from the resources provided.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of people dressed colourfully talk over a table" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411510/original/file-20210715-38837-sam1fr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411510/original/file-20210715-38837-sam1fr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411510/original/file-20210715-38837-sam1fr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411510/original/file-20210715-38837-sam1fr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=412&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411510/original/file-20210715-38837-sam1fr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411510/original/file-20210715-38837-sam1fr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411510/original/file-20210715-38837-sam1fr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Including people in the processes designed to help them is vital to ensure systems are improved.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2013_03_04_Burundi_OPD_s_(8550303189).jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In contrast, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/jid.1427?saml_referrer">research shows</a> that development projects tend to do better when they take local community norms into account. For example, in Bangladesh, men and women from Hindu and Muslim communities work in wetlands, but each group plays a different role. Researchers found that community wetland management projects did better when people worked in accordance with their traditional roles according to both gender and religion.</p>
<p>An intersectional approach helps us to move beyond <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0030727019884334">simplistic categories</a> like the “vulnerable woman”, instead drawing attention to the unequal flows of power that shape access to resources. This should be embedded at the deepest level within food science to ensure marginalised and vulnerable people are at the forefront of change.</p>
<h2>Power dynamics</h2>
<p>It’s also vital to understand how power dynamics structure decisions within food systems, whether that’s within households or inside government institutions.</p>
<p>When tackling issues faced by women and girls <a href="https://www.careevaluations.org/countries/burundi/">in Burundi</a>, <a href="https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/CARE_Gender-Transformative-Adaptation_2019.pdf">CARE International</a> worked with a network of local male gender equality champions to analyse power systems, reflect on gender roles and encourage equal, active <a href="https://world-changers.org/participatory-process-methods#:%7E:text=Participatory%20Processes%20(PP)%20are%20specific,equal%20opportunities%20for%20everybody%20involved">participation</a> by women in community decisions. Outcomes included improvements in agricultural productivity as well as increasing women’s empowerment and gender equality.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A person dances in green and white clothes" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411487/original/file-20210715-25-1tqxqol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411487/original/file-20210715-25-1tqxqol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411487/original/file-20210715-25-1tqxqol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411487/original/file-20210715-25-1tqxqol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411487/original/file-20210715-25-1tqxqol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411487/original/file-20210715-25-1tqxqol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411487/original/file-20210715-25-1tqxqol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Exploring food and social justice through dance or other creative methods can help engage more people.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.piqsels.com/en/public-domain-photo-jomoo/download">Piqsels</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Creating inclusive, safe spaces for marginalised voices is also critical. Creative approaches, such as theatre, dance and music, provide a powerful medium through which to achieve this. </p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://vimeo.com/148275787">Roktim: Nurture Incarnadine</a>, an <a href="https://www.ananyadancetheatre.org/about/">Ananya Dance Theatre</a>
production, explores feminist food politics through dance. Their performance highlights issues around sustainability and justice in food systems, and demonstrates the power of community action.</p>
<h2>Injustice</h2>
<p>Historical injustice has a large part to play in the ongoing failure of food systems. For example, when it comes to global food systems, we need to understand how colonialism has shaped food processes and how it continues to do so today.</p>
<p>During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the colonial government in Zambia <a href="https://pubs.iied.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/migrate/G04163.pdf">promoted maize production</a> over that of indigenous crops like millet and sorghum. Nowadays, maize production continues to receive substantial support, with almost 80% of the government’s annual <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/agec.12073">agricultural budget</a> spent on producing maize. Consequently, maize – which provides limited nutrients – dominates the Zambian diet, contributing to chronic food <a href="https://pubs.iied.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/migrate/G04163.pdf">insecurity</a> in the region.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A person holds an ear of maize" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411508/original/file-20210715-25-ovkird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411508/original/file-20210715-25-ovkird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411508/original/file-20210715-25-ovkird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411508/original/file-20210715-25-ovkird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411508/original/file-20210715-25-ovkird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411508/original/file-20210715-25-ovkird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411508/original/file-20210715-25-ovkird.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maize has a complex history that illuminates how food systems can carry historical bias.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cimmyt/7178688474">CimmyT/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Understanding how to better design food systems requires researchers to take into account how <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378020307640">colonisation</a> helped shape them in the first place. This allows us to acknowledge how colonial processes of exploitation and destruction, such as the transatlantic slave trade, are reflected in modern maize-dominated food systems across Africa. </p>
<p><a href="https://odi.org/en/events/odi-bites-decolonising-international-development/">Decolonising research</a> can also encourage us to identify and challenge power, privilege and inequality in research. For example, it’s usually scholars from developed countries, rather than their counterparts in developing countries, who set research agendas and determine how money is spent. </p>
<p>And research from across the world is frequently only published in <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2000933">English</a>, limiting the accessibility of that information within communities where English isn’t spoken. </p>
<p>Traditionally, science has seen itself as a process of <a href="https://www.livescience.com/21456-empirical-evidence-a-definition.html">impartial observation</a>. Yet all research reflects cultural biases, and as researchers we are profoundly influenced by our own values. Becoming aware of how our scientific knowledge is created is a key step in achieving justice.</p>
<p>From the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X16305637">co-development</a> of agricultural technologies to the design and launch of food programmes, researchers have a huge impact on what kind of science gets prioritised – and who benefits from it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163596/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article is the product of work supported by a grant from the UK Research and Innovation’s Global Challenges Research Fund (EP/T02397X/1). The work was also implemented as part of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), which is carried out with support from the CGIAR Trust Fund and through bilateral funding agreements. For details please visit <a href="https://ccafs.cgiar.org/donors">https://ccafs.cgiar.org/donors</a>. The views expressed in this document cannot be taken to reflect the official opinions of these organisations.
Harriet Smith is affiliated with the School of Earth and Environment, Sustainability Research Institute, University of Leeds, UK.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ruth Smith is affiliated with the School of Earth and Environment, Sustainability Research Institute, University of Leeds, UK. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Todd Rosenstock receives funding from UKRI and CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS). </span></em></p>Helping transform food systems so they serve people around the world starts with taking an active approach to addressing inequalities.Harriet Elizabeth Smith, Research Fellow in Climate Risk, University of LeedsRuth Smith, PhD Researcher in Agriculture, University of LeedsTodd Rosenstock, Senior Scientist, Agriculture and the Environment, Center for International Forestry Research – World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1724062021-11-24T03:10:46Z2021-11-24T03:10:46ZA law on workplace gender equality is under review. Here’s what needs to change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433609/original/file-20211124-25-vyit9w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C60%2C6665%2C4379&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In its <a href="https://ministers.pmc.gov.au/payne/2021/review-workplace-gender-equality-act">review</a> of the <a href="https://www.pmc.gov.au/office-women/workplace-gender-equality">Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012</a>, the federal government asked Australians for feedback on how the nation can improve workplace gender equality.</p>
<p>Our view, as workplace equality and diversity researchers, is two key changes are needed to how this Act operates – and they both relate to data collection.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-bullying-can-happen-to-christine-holgate-at-the-highest-level-then-what-happens-to-other-women-at-work-158956">If bullying can happen to Christine Holgate at the highest level, then what happens to other women at work?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>How does it work now?</h2>
<p>Under the current Act, it’s <a href="https://www.wgea.gov.au/what-we-do/reporting">mandatory</a> for all non-public sector employers with 100 or more employees to submit an annual report on gender equality to the federal <a href="https://www.wgea.gov.au/">Workplace Gender Equality Agency</a>. </p>
<p>They must detail statistics on issues such as how many women they employ, their pay and their level of seniority. The idea is that by collecting and reporting on such data, Australia can understand the challenges facing women at work – and respond to these barriers.</p>
<p>But, as we argue in our submission, that’s not enough. This approach fails to account for how challenges and barriers at work affect different groups of women in different ways. </p>
<p>For example, the <a href="https://www.dca.org.au/research/project/gari-yala-speak-truth-centreing-experiences-aboriginal-andor-torres-strait-islander">Gari Yala report</a> on experiences of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Australians at work (co-authored by one of us, Nareen Young) revealed many Indigenous women face daily workplace challenges and structural barriers non-Indigenous women do not have to contend with. </p>
<p>And <a href="https://www.dca.org.au/research/project/cracking-glass-cultural-ceiling">research</a> led by one of us (Dimitria Groutsis), in association with Diversity Council Australia, highlights the marginalisation of culturally diverse women at work.</p>
<p>In other words, an <a href="https://www.vic.gov.au/understanding-intersectionality">intersectional</a> approach is required.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433588/original/file-20211124-21-8z1esj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Findings from the Gari Yala report on experiences of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Australians at work." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433588/original/file-20211124-21-8z1esj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433588/original/file-20211124-21-8z1esj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=150&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433588/original/file-20211124-21-8z1esj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=150&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433588/original/file-20211124-21-8z1esj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=150&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433588/original/file-20211124-21-8z1esj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433588/original/file-20211124-21-8z1esj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433588/original/file-20211124-21-8z1esj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=189&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Findings from the Gari Yala report on experiences of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Australians at work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.dca.org.au/research/project/gari-yala-speak-truth-centreing-experiences-aboriginal-andor-torres-strait-islander#Video">Gari Yala report</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Two key changes are needed</h2>
<p>The two changes we recommend are:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the Act be amended to require employers to report data by taking an intersectional lens to include women, people with disability, people of non-English speaking background, Indigenous people, people who are LGBTQ+</p></li>
<li><p>the Act be amended to require employers to report rates of pay, taking an intersectional lens. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The Victorian government has a useful <a href="https://www.vic.gov.au/understanding-intersectionality">definition</a> of intersectionality, describing it as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the ways in which different aspects of a person’s identity can expose them to overlapping forms of discrimination and marginalisation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>You can’t properly contend with issues like gender and equal pay, workplace equality and discrimination at work unless you also factor in ethnicity, age, Indigeneity, disability, LGBTQ+, migrant and refugee status.</p>
<p>By properly understanding how all these factors conspire to hold certain groups of women, men and non-binary people back, we can better develop meaningful and appropriate policies to address labour market segmentation, barriers to senior leadership, the pay gap and pay inequity. </p>
<p>For that, we need good quality data, so we can update our policies and systems in line with best practice approaches exemplified by the <a href="https://www.pwc.co.uk/services/legal/insights/ethnicity-pay-gap-reporting.html">UK</a> and <a href="https://www.employment.govt.nz/hours-and-wages/pay/pay-equity/gender-pay-gap/">New Zealand</a>. </p>
<p>What gets measured gets done.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1456078845782671368"}"></div></p>
<h2>Overlapping challenges at work</h2>
<p>A growing body of research evidence shows people’s experiences in Australian workplaces are not shaped only by their gender. For example:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Indigenous women <a href="https://www.dca.org.au/research/project/gari-yala-speak-truth-centreing-experiences-aboriginal-andor-torres-strait-islander">experience</a> more pronounced barriers in the labour market, are in more precarious employment, and face a greater pay gap compared to Indigenous men and non-Indigenous women</p></li>
<li><p>only a <a href="https://www.dca.org.au/research/project/cracking-glass-cultural-ceiling">fraction</a> of culturally diverse women feel their leadership traits are recognised and their opinions respected at work</p></li>
<li><p>one in four culturally diverse women <a href="https://www.dca.org.au/research/project/cracking-glass-cultural-ceiling">reported</a> cultural barriers in the workplace had caused them to scale back at work</p></li>
<li><p>people with <a href="https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/9-barriers-employment">disability</a> face challenges gaining and keeping employment, due to discrimination or a lack of flexible work arrangements.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Of course, none of us are simply “one thing”. If you are an Indigenous woman with a disability, who is also LGBTQ+, for example, your challenges can be compounded by overlapping forms of discrimination and structural barriers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433590/original/file-20211124-13-1tqrfjl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Findings from the Gari Yala report on experiences of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Australians at work." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433590/original/file-20211124-13-1tqrfjl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/433590/original/file-20211124-13-1tqrfjl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433590/original/file-20211124-13-1tqrfjl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433590/original/file-20211124-13-1tqrfjl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433590/original/file-20211124-13-1tqrfjl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433590/original/file-20211124-13-1tqrfjl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/433590/original/file-20211124-13-1tqrfjl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=712&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Findings from the Gari Yala report on experiences of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Australians at work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.dca.org.au/research/project/gari-yala-speak-truth-centreing-experiences-aboriginal-andor-torres-strait-islander#Video">Gari Yala report</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The Workplace Gender Equality Agency needs better data</h2>
<p>The power of good data cannot be underestimated, and has been been key to the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s leadership and influence in driving real policy change. </p>
<p>Yet, much is missing in the questions asked, the information gathered and surrounding our understanding of the lived experience of <em>all</em> women workers.</p>
<p>It’s time we changed the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 to ensure Australia gets the data it needs to create real change.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/10-ways-employers-can-include-indigenous-australians-149741">10 ways employers can include Indigenous Australians</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172406/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nareen Young receives funding from National Australia Bank and Coles for Gari Yala. She is a member of the ALP and the NTEU. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Josh Gilbert receives funding from the Food Agility CRC. He is affiliated with KU Children's Services, the NSW Aboriginal Housing Office, Reconciliation NSW, and Bridging the Gap Foundation. Josh formally worked at PwC's Indigenous Consulting. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dimitria Groutsis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Many large employers must already report statistics on issues such as how many women they employ, their pay and their level of seniority. But that’s not enough; an intersectional approach is needed.Nareen Young, Industry Professor, Jumbunna Institute of Education and Research, University of Technology SydneyDimitria Groutsis, Associate professor, University of SydneyJoshua Gilbert, Researcher (Indigenous Policy) Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education & Research and Higher Degree Research Student at Charles Sturt University, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1670342021-09-10T12:28:08Z2021-09-10T12:28:08ZAmerican Muslims are at high risk of suicide – 20 years post-9/11, the links between Islamophobia and suicide remain unexplored<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419891/original/file-20210907-14-y57odp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2121%2C1412&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">American Muslims are two times as likely to attempt suicide compared to other major faith groups.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/indian-woman-royalty-free-image/854681654">MmeEmil/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>This year, 9/11 holds a dual significance for Americans across the country. It not only marked the 20th anniversary of the tragic events and lives lost since Sept. 11, 2001, but also <a href="https://afsp.org/national-suicide-prevention-week">National Suicide Prevention Awareness Week</a>. For American Muslims who are both victims of <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/157082/islamophobia-understanding-anti-muslim-sentiment-west.aspx">increased rates of Islamophobic violence</a> and survivors of suicide attempts, this juxtaposition is especially stark. </p>
<p>In the field of <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2105%2FAJPH.2016.303374">public health</a>, Islamophobia is recognized as akin to racism in how it leads to <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2105%2FAJPH.2018.304402">negative physical and psychological health outcomes</a>. But this definition misses the crucial elements of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119240716.ch7">structural violence</a> and social stigma that underlie the <a href="https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-releases-2021-mid-year-snapshot-report-on-anti-muslim-bias-incidents/">hate crimes and microaggressions</a> American Muslims face. These elements are not only the key ingredients in such acts of social violence, but also the same risk factors for individual <a href="https://www.mirecc.va.gov/visn19/docs/SDVCS.pdf">self-directed violence, which is the definition of suicide</a>.</p>
<p>I am the first self-identifying Muslim American to <a href="https://reporter.nih.gov/search/aPO5qRI4RUO2eEzUQ0BbWA/project-details/10156678">receive federal funding</a> from the National Institutes of Health to conduct grassroots mental health research within the American Muslim community. I identify as a victim of Islamophobic violence and a <a href="https://www.amelianooroshiro.com">survivor of a suicide attempt</a>. The hypothesis of my research is that the past two decades of anti-Muslim stigma in the sociopolitical climate of post-9/11 America have created the <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304419">necessary conditions</a> for young Muslims in America to internalize self-hatred and ultimately attempt suicide.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419887/original/file-20210907-14-qjwnoc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two people wearing headscarves looking at another person out of frame standing on a blurred out street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419887/original/file-20210907-14-qjwnoc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419887/original/file-20210907-14-qjwnoc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419887/original/file-20210907-14-qjwnoc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419887/original/file-20210907-14-qjwnoc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419887/original/file-20210907-14-qjwnoc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419887/original/file-20210907-14-qjwnoc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419887/original/file-20210907-14-qjwnoc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">American Muslims constitute a diverse group of racial minorities and immigrants with unique life experiences.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/muslim-women-in-discussion-after-run-after-work-royalty-free-image/1204464585">Thomas Barwick/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>Suicide disparities and risk factors in American Muslims</h2>
<p>Suicide is a <a href="https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide">major public health concern</a> worldwide. It is a top 10 leading cause of death in this country and the No. 1 leading cause of death in <a href="https://theconversation.com/asian-american-young-adults-are-the-only-racial-group-with-suicide-as-their-leading-cause-of-death-so-why-is-no-one-talking-about-this-158030">certain populations</a>. A July 2021 study revealed that American Muslims report <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2021.1813">two times the odds of a suicide attempt</a> in their life compared to other faith groups. These findings suggest a disparity and indicate that there is a unique set of factors that increases American Muslims’ risk of suicide. </p>
<p>In general, there are many elements that contribute to <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/factors/index.html">suicide risk</a>. Some of these include a past history of mental illness, knowing someone who previously attempted suicide and having access to lethal means like guns. Research studies on suicide risk in American Muslims, however, must specifically account for our distinct experience of being <a href="https://libguides.uwinnipeg.ca/c.php?g=370387&p=2502732">racialized</a>, stigmatized and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2017/nov/08/us-vs-them-the-sinister-techniques-of-othering-and-how-to-avoid-them">“othered”</a> in post-9/11 America. Given the unique <a href="https://www.ispu.org/thought-leadership/muslim-american-experience-bibliography/">experience of Islamophobia</a> that Muslims in America face, a scientific focus on these social factors is essential for studies on American Muslims. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2019/07/23/feelings-toward-religious-groups/">2019 Pew Research Center survey</a> measuring the level of warmth or coldness that U.S. adults felt toward certain religious groups found that Muslims were placed toward the extremes of the cold end of the scale. A 2017 survey from Pew found that <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2017/07/26/how-the-u-s-general-public-views-muslims-and-islam/">half of U.S. adults</a> said Islam is not a part of mainstream society and perceived at least some Muslims as anti-American. </p>
<p>These attitudes point to how being a Muslim has been stigmatized in America. There is abundant evidence that <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2012.301069">stigma is a fundamental cause of health disparities</a>, especially as it relates to <a href="https://www.apa.org/career-development/structural-stigma.pdf">suicide among people with minority identities</a>. I argue that the stigma of being Muslim in America results in exposure to Islamophobic violence that can lead to increased suicide risk and disparity. </p>
<h2>The intersectionality of Muslim American identity</h2>
<p>But being Muslim is not the only form of stigma and structural violence that American Muslims face. American Muslims are a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/01/31/worlds-muslim-population-more-widespread-than-you-might-think/">very heterogenous group</a> with <a href="https://theconversation.com/muslims-arrived-in-america-400-years-ago-as-part-of-the-slave-trade-and-today-are-vastly-diverse-113168">diverse</a> backgrounds as <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/17/black-muslims-account-for-a-fifth-of-all-u-s-muslims-and-about-half-are-converts-to-islam/">racial minorities</a> and <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/voluntary-migration-definition-1435455">forced and voluntary migrants</a>. Coming from over 77 countries, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2011/08/30/section-1-a-demographic-portrait-of-muslim-americans/">nearly 80%</a> of us are first- or second-generation immigrants, and the majority are racial and ethnic minorities. It is the combined identities of being a Muslim, a racial or ethnic minority and of immigrant-origin that results in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-018-1246-9">intersectional stigma</a>– these identities converge and interact with each other in ways that can negatively affect health. </p>
<p>Therefore, a more scientifically accurate understanding of Islamophobia endorses the intersectionality of our stigma as a key variable contributing to suicide risk. Research on American Muslims addresses the dearth of scientific knowledge on culturally specific social factors of suicide. Yet for American Muslims, what factors contribute to our risk for suicide and what protective factors build our resilience are still to be uncovered.</p>
<h2>Challenges in American Muslim mental health research</h2>
<p>Prior to 2006, the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=(muslim)%20AND%20(%22mental%20health%22)&sort=">PubMed</a> research database returned fewer than 70 search results on “Muslim” and “mental health.” Major grants for funding research on this topic were nonexistent. The launch of the <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1080/15564900600980517">Journal of Muslim Mental Health</a> that year attempted to fill this crucial research gap. Today, the over 700 search results with the terms “Muslim” and “mental health” still represent less than one-thousandth of a percent of over 320,000 results on <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=%22mental+health%22+">mental health overall</a>. Evidently, the study of suicide in American Muslims itself faces disparities.</p>
<p>A major barrier to expanding research on American Muslim mental health is access to federal funding. The <a href="https://www.nimhd.nih.gov/about/overview/">National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities</a> designates certain groups as disparity populations, which does not include faith groups. While Muslims <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/06/a-new-estimate-of-the-u-s-muslim-population/">constitute only 1%</a> of the U.S. population, we are projected to become the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/06/why-muslims-are-the-worlds-fastest-growing-religious-group/">world’s largest faith group</a> by the second half of this century. Even so, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2019.305285">data on American Muslim health is missing</a> due to a lack of research resources and scientific interest. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419888/original/file-20210907-19-ied5r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Close-up profile of person with beard on a dark background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419888/original/file-20210907-19-ied5r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/419888/original/file-20210907-19-ied5r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419888/original/file-20210907-19-ied5r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419888/original/file-20210907-19-ied5r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=621&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419888/original/file-20210907-19-ied5r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419888/original/file-20210907-19-ied5r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/419888/original/file-20210907-19-ied5r6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Because of how American Muslims are demographically defined in research, health data about this community is lacking.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/portrait-of-a-man-in-dark-background-royalty-free-image/1221419415">Jasmin Merdan/Moment via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Research on American Muslims relies on select elements of our identities as racial minorities and immigrants to qualify for research funding. But these qualities alone do not fully capture American Muslim lived experiences with Islamophobia and faith-based stigma, prejudice and discrimination. Without data and research on our community, American Muslims may not be considered a disparity group under current classifications and therefore miss critical funding opportunities.</p>
<h2>Suicide research on American Muslims may advance insights across diverse communities</h2>
<p>What will America look like by the time we mark the 50th anniversary of 9/11? </p>
<p>By 2051, the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/08/12/census-data-race-ethnicity-neighborhoods/">diversification of the American population</a> will reveal a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/24/opinion/us-census-majority-minority.html">majority minority</a> racial and ethnic demographic. Already, the majority of youth under 18 are people of color. Forty years from now, first- and second-generation immigrants will encompass <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/02/07/second-generation-americans/">over a third of the population</a>. </p>
<p>Alarmingly, <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.3390%2Fijerph15071438">second-generation immigrants</a> worldwide are considered an at-risk group for suicide. The diverse new generations in America are born into adverse conditions that expose them to <a href="https://www.ptsd.va.gov/publications/rq_docs/V32N1.pdf">race-based trauma</a> and <a href="https://www.apa.org/pi/aids/resources/exchange/2012/04/minority-stress">minority stress</a>, or the cumulative negative health effects caused by racism and by being a part of a stigmatized minority group, respectively.</p>
<p>The intersectional discrimination that American Muslims already experience today makes a strong case that we are a crucial reference group when it comes to future mental health research on diverse and marginalized communities. The immense value of culturally relevant research on suicide among American Muslims is evident from its substantial potential to apply across different racial, ethnic and immigrant groups. </p>
<p>Insights from the American Muslim lived experience may provide science with the tools to make sure suicide in minority communities becomes a thing of the past.</p>
<p><em>If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, please call the suicide helpline now at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) or visit the <a href="https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/">National Suicide Prevention Lifeline</a> website. You are not alone and there is hope.</em></p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167034/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amelia Noor-Oshiro receives funding from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.</span></em></p>Islamophobia increased post-9/11. Twenty years later, American Muslims are still dealing with the mental health effects – and research barriers limit what is known about what puts them at risk.Amelia Noor-Oshiro, PhD Candidate in Public Health, Johns Hopkins UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1654432021-08-09T12:25:55Z2021-08-09T12:25:55ZPeople living with HIV face harmful stigma daily – DaBaby’s rant was just more public than most<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414424/original/file-20210803-25-pwt48e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4256%2C2822&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">HIV stigma manifests in many ways, including microaggressions that could lead to a higher risk of depression, PTSD and suicidality.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/awareness-royalty-free-image/1282556694">ASphotowed/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-music-arts-and-entertainment-dababy-248557a1d881dbb6e1f0c7bbc2ccd589">Rapper DaBaby drew sharp criticism</a> after he delivered a rant during a concert on July 25, 2021, insulting people living with HIV or sexually transmitted illnesses. He not only disrespected women and same-gender-loving men, but also falsely equated HIV with a death sentence.</p>
<p>As an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=IG4tFvMAAAAJ&hl=en">associate professor of psychology and a clinical psychologist</a> at the University of Miami, I investigate and develop strategies to address the psychosocial and structural factors driving HIV health disparities. My research shows that not only were his comments disrespectful, but also directly harmful and dangerous to people living with HIV.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1419745351163076612"}"></div></p>
<h2>HIV is a chronic illness, but stigma rages on</h2>
<p>HIV is a chronic illness. As a result of <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/clinicians/treatment/index.html">highly effective medications</a> that first became available over 20 years ago, people living with HIV can take just <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/prep/index.html">one pill per day</a> and live healthy and long lives. I know many advocates, colleagues and friends who have been living fulfilling lives with HIV for decades. Further, HIV medication can reduce the amount of virus in someone’s body to levels so low that it’s suppressed or <a href="https://www.niaid.nih.gov/diseases-conditions/10-things-know-about-hiv-suppression">undetectable</a> - this means that a person cannot transmit HIV to someone else.</p>
<p>While ongoing medical advances have made living normal lives and thriving with HIV possible, stigma, racism and homophobia are persistent forces harming both people currently living with HIV as well as people who may contract HIV in the future. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/hiv-stigma/index.html">HIV stigma</a> appears in a variety of ways, including harmful words and behaviors; hostile home, work and social environments; and discriminatory policies and laws. One way stigma manifests is through <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/08/872371063/microaggressions-are-a-big-deal-how-to-talk-them-out-and-when-to-walk-away">microaggressions</a>, which include subtle words and behaviors that insult and demean a marginalized group.</p>
<p>These microaggressions often cut across the multiple identities that people have. Examples are comments suggesting that women living with HIV look a certain way (“She doesn’t look like she has HIV”) or acting surprised when women with HIV are thriving in work, relationships and other areas of life. Such words and behaviors can negatively affect the mental and physical well-being of people living with HIV. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8q21PG1CdNs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Medication can lower the levels of HIV in someone’s blood until it’s undetectable and therefore untransmissible to other people. This concept is called U=U.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My team and I in the <a href="https://shine.psy.miami.edu">SHINE Research Program</a> found that among Black women living with HIV, those who endured more microaggressions about being Black and female tended to experience more <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/apc.2018.0258">barriers to HIV care</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-020-00432-y">depression</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0000467">PTSD symptoms</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-021-01009-4">suicidality</a>. Similarly, higher levels of HIV-related discrimination were associated with higher levels of depression, PTSD symptoms and barriers to HIV care. </p>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic and racial unrest further increased distress from microaggressions, according to <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.1007%2Fs10461-021-03321-w">preliminary findings</a> in our <a href="https://news.miami.edu/as/stories/2019/10/dale-project-mmagic.html">Monitoring Microaggressions and Adversities to Generate Interventions for Change (MMAGIC) study</a>. We found that the likelihood that a Black women living with HIV would experience distress because of microaggressions about her HIV status, race, gender or LGB identity increased by 28% from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 through July 2020. Conversely, women who had suppressed levels of HIV were 64% less likely to experience microaggressions than those without suppressed levels. This may be because microaggressions can <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Microaggression+Theory%3A+Influence+and+Implications-p-9781119420040">adversely affect mental health</a> and make it <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2105%2FAJPH.2017.303744">more difficult for people to take their daily medication</a>.</p>
<p>Microaggressions can also have a negative effect on the lives and well-being of both people living with and without HIV. HIV stigma is the No. 1 challenge my team faces when we engage individuals in HIV testing and provide information about the HIV prevention pill <a href="https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/hiv-prevention/using-hiv-medication-to-reduce-risk/pre-exposure-prophylaxis">PrEP</a>. Because of <a href="https://www.glaad.org/endhivstigma">widespread stigma and inaccurate information about HIV</a>, some people are anxious about getting an HIV test or even being seen near an HIV testing vehicle.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414425/original/file-20210803-25-weevn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People participating in the 2017 Keep the Promise Concert & March in Fort Lauderdale for National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414425/original/file-20210803-25-weevn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/414425/original/file-20210803-25-weevn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414425/original/file-20210803-25-weevn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414425/original/file-20210803-25-weevn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414425/original/file-20210803-25-weevn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414425/original/file-20210803-25-weevn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/414425/original/file-20210803-25-weevn1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One way people living with HIV deal with stigma is participating in advocacy efforts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/AHFHostsKeepthePromiseConcertMarchinFtLauderdaleforNationalBlackHIVAIDSAwarenessDay/670e6dff5bff4e2b81a5b491ce16877a">AP Photo/Jesus Aranguren</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Larger systemic issues drive stigma</h2>
<p>Based on my work with people living with HIV, I found DaBaby’s words problematic and hurtful because he used his platform to further reinforce HIV stigma. This jeopardizes the well-being and lives of people living with HIV and the LGBTQ community. However, his individual words are a reflection of larger systemic issues including <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/policies/law/states/exposure.html">HIV criminalization</a>, <a href="https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/2021-officially-becomes-worst-year-in-recent-history-for-lgbtq-state-legislative-attacks-as-unprecedented-number-of-states-enact-record-shattering-number-of-anti-lgbtq-measures-into-law">anti-LGBTQ policies and laws</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-health-and-wellness/-will-shut-us-hiv-prevention-clinics-brace-gilead-reimbursement-cuts-rcna1346">inadequate financial support</a> behind efforts to tackle HIV stigma and empower people living with HIV, members of the LGBTQ community and women.</p>
<p>In the face of stigma and discrimination, however, many people living with HIV use <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000165">adaptive coping strategies</a>. One way Black women living with HIV have <a href="https://www.positivelyaware.com/articles/weathering-many-storms">coped with stigma</a> is through <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09540121.2018.1503225">social support</a> from their peers, friends, family and health care providers, and by seeking mental health services. Some women also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000165">selectively disclose their HIV status</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000165">strategically avoid harmful spaces and individuals</a>. In addition, women actively fight against stigma by <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000165">sharing accurate information about HIV</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/cdp0000165">engaging in advocacy</a> and claiming their power to not let HIV stigma dictate their lives.</p>
<p>Accountability and change are needed at the structural, institutional, interpersonal and individual levels to combat stigma. And centering the voices of people living with HIV, the LGBTQ community and women is required to achieve sustainable and meaningful change.</p>
<p>[<em>Insight, in your inbox each day.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=insight">You can get it with The Conversation’s email newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/165443/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sannisha Dale receives funding from the National Institute of Health. </span></em></p>Microaggressions are more subtle than outright discrimination. But they can directly affect HIV treatment outcomes.Sannisha Dale, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of MiamiLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1591882021-05-25T18:38:02Z2021-05-25T18:38:02ZBIPOC or IBPOC? LGBTQ or LGBTQ2S+? Who decides which terms we should use?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399866/original/file-20210510-5702-1rlbk0z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C3976%2C2850&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who is the person or committee invested with the power to decide which terms are the right ones and which should be put to rest?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Unsplash/Jason Leung)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It does not take a degree to notice that the names for groups of people sharing a common skin colour, ethnicity, gender identity, disability or racial background change frequently — and how the grammar of these names also change. </p>
<p>In many cases it is no longer acceptable to use a plain unadorned noun to identify someone from a marginalized group (<em>this person is a(n) X</em>). Nouns become adjectives (<em>a disabled/homeless person</em>) and those adjectives are then further embedded in modifying phrases (<em>a person with disabilities/experiencing homelessness</em>). </p>
<p>Longer strings of adjectives are gathered into acronyms, which can be pronounced as one word (<em>BIPOC</em>), or initialisms, which cannot (<em>LGBTQ+</em>). The issue of which letters should be included along with the order in which they should appear may be debated (<a href="https://www.primary-colours.ca/project_collections/21-ibpoc-artistic-practices#:%7E:text=IBPoC%20is%20a%20contemporary%20term,Indigenous%2Dfirst%20acronym%20%2D%20IBPoC."><em>BIPOC</em> vs. <em>IBPOC</em></a>, <a href="https://www.torontopflag.org/lgbtq2s-terms-to-know"><em>LGBTQ+</em> vs. <em>LGBTQIA</em> vs. <em>LGBTQ2S+</em></a>).</p>
<p>Capitalization may vary (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/black-african-american-style-debate.html"><em>black</em> vs. <em>Black</em></a>, <a href="https://zora.medium.com/im-a-black-scholar-who-studies-race-here-s-why-i-capitalize-white-f94883aa2dd3"><em>white</em> vs. <em>White</em></a>, <a href="http://cad.ca/issues-positions/terminology/"><em>deaf</em> vs. <em>Deaf</em></a>). Some of these new terms open up grammatical questions: should I ask my non-binary friend to introduce <em>themselves</em> or <em>themself</em>?</p>
<p>If you are the type of person who finds this baffling or intolerable, you probably hold the mistaken belief that names stay fixed over time, or at least that they should.</p>
<p>If, on the other hand, you are sincerely concerned with using the appropriate terms, you may wonder how to determine what is correct. Who is the person or committee invested with the power to decide which terms are the right ones and which should be put to rest? Who is the arbiter of contentious language? The answer, in the case of terms that refer to people, is <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Verbal-Hygiene/Cameron/p/book/9780415696005">the people to whom those terms refer</a>. </p>
<h2>Use the description the person has chosen</h2>
<p>On an individual level, it is common courtesy to ask someone what their name is with the intention of using that name for them. We do not <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/article-seven-questions-you-shouldnt-ask-an-indigenous-person/">meet a new person and decide what their name should be</a>. If we have only seen their name written down we may also check the pronunciation, although we may discover that we are unable to reproduce it. And if we forget someone’s name or mispronounce it, most of us instinctively apologize. When people change their names, as women who marry sometimes still do, we endeavour to call them by their new name. </p>
<p>This courtesy extends to the way we describe people. Taking nationality as an example, someone may have parents from one country (Iran), have been born in another (Great Britain) and have lived most of their life in a third (Canada). Whether that person thinks of themself as Iranian, British, Canadian or some hyphenated blend of the three is as much a personal choice as it is legally defined. Politeness dictates that <a href="https://kconrod.medium.com/pronouns-101-introduction-to-your-loved-ones-new-pronouns-3fef080266d0">we use the description the person in question has chosen</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Person holding up rainbow sign that reads 'Hello my pronouns are:'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399870/original/file-20210510-16-zl41zh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399870/original/file-20210510-16-zl41zh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399870/original/file-20210510-16-zl41zh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399870/original/file-20210510-16-zl41zh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399870/original/file-20210510-16-zl41zh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399870/original/file-20210510-16-zl41zh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399870/original/file-20210510-16-zl41zh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As we’ve begun asking for peoples pronouns, we should also begin asking how they would like to be identified.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Unsplash/Sharon McCutcheon)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Names and descriptions of groups of people are necessarily more complicated because groups can be smaller or bigger in size. Canadians can include Iranian-Canadians while Indigenous communities can include Anishinaabeg and Cree peoples. Asians are members of the BIPOC community and lesbians are members of the LGBTQ+ community. And all of these people <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/20/18542843/intersectionality-conservatism-law-race-gender-discrimination">can be members of multiple communities</a>.</p>
<p>It is incumbent on us to use the level of granularity that fits the context and when unsure, ask the people we are introducing or speaking about how they want to be identified. Where group membership is contested (for example, should women include people who do not menstruate? Should people who menstruate be called women?) opting for a superordinate term (<em>adults, humans, people</em>) is one way for non-members to avoid taking a side.</p>
<h2>Describing groups can be even more difficult</h2>
<p>Descriptions of groups of people can also be complicated by the fact that group members rarely all hold the same opinion regarding what they should be called. </p>
<p>Unanimity on virtually any issue is almost impossible to achieve. What do we call people who cannot agree on what to be called? If we are guided by politeness, we can check with a group member who we perceive to have influence or follow what seems to be the dominant usage of the moment. And courtesy goes both ways. If we use an outdated or disliked term in good faith, we are entitled to polite, not hostile, correction.</p>
<p>Politeness and courtesy are best practices when we use language as individuals. But some of us also speak or write as members of organizations. For example, teachers, professors, journalists, editors, politicians and policy writers all represent institutions that set standards for language use. </p>
<p>While the use of an older-term-now-replaced can be excused at an individual level, it is unacceptable at the <a href="http://assets.brand.ubc.ca/downloads/ubc_indigenous_peoples_language_guide.pdf">institutional level where power resides</a>. Institutions do well <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/05/insider/capitalized-black.html">to choose language carefully</a>, to be prepared to change often and to be fully open about how decisions around language have been made. Language acknowledgement statements, to the effect that the language chosen may not be used by all communities and individuals, can highlight, in a positive way, that choices are never perfect and that they are contingent on time and place.</p>
<p>People are not organized into neat categories <a href="https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/4510">and the names of categories are never static. Language is fluid and always moving</a>.</p>
<p>The sound of language change is the sound of people using language differently until the majority settles on one usage. The voices of people debating and arguing about which terms that apply to them are pejorative, inadequate, or inappropriate demonstrates the ways in which language choice matters deeply. It is a beautiful chorus and the best practice is to listen closely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159188/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jila Ghomeshi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Who are the arbiters of contentious language? The answer, in the case of terms that refer to people, is the people to whom those terms refer.Jila Ghomeshi, Professor, Linguistics, University of ManitobaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1610912021-05-25T05:33:34Z2021-05-25T05:33:34ZCarceral feminism and coercive control: when Indigenous women aren’t seen as ideal victims, witnesses or women<p>The SBS documentary series See What You Made Me Do aimed to spark a national conversation about criminalising coercive control. Instead it highlighted the stark power imbalances in conversations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous women.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>She wasn’t being a good victim, she wasn’t standing there in the sheet dripping in blood and trying to control all this emotion that was going on with her […] she said I want my Dad, I want my Dad and they decided she couldn’t have her Dad. The two policeman, one woman and one man, they said that Tamica spat and they said, ‘That’s assault and you’re getting arrested.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These were the words of Kathleen Pinkerton, a Widi woman from the Yamatji nation. Kathleen was describing the police treatment of her niece, Tamica Mullaley, who was a victim of domestic violence. Rather than being treated as a victim, the police treated her as an offender, which resulted in the most <a href="https://justice.org.au/wa-police-left-a-baby-at-the-scene-of-a-brutal-domestic-violence-attack/">tragic of consequences</a> for her baby Charlie.</p>
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<h2>The good victim</h2>
<p>Tamica’s story was at the centre of episode two of the documentary series <em>See What You Made Me Do</em>, which is based on journalist Jess Hill’s book of the same name. <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/see-what-you-made-me-do-is-must-watch-tv-here-s-what-needs-to-happen-now-to-address-domestic-abuse">SBS claims</a> the documentary “is not just about making TV content, it’s about making change”. </p>
<p>Indeed, Hill’s <a href="https://womensagenda.com.au/latest/criminalising-coercive-control-will-replace-the-broken-lens-we-have-on-domestic-abuse/">aim</a> to criminalise coercive control is part of a larger national agenda. It was the first priority set for the Queensland government’s recently established <a href="https://www.justice.qld.gov.au/initiatives/womens-safety-and-justice-taskforce">Women’s Safety and Justice Taskforce</a>. </p>
<p>The taskforce and documentary both call for a carceral solution to coercive control – coercive control refers to systemic domestic violence that operates through a matrix of subtle practices including surveillance, gaslighting, financial control, and fear of potential violence. </p>
<p>This plan for criminalising coercive control has been met with <a href="https://www.sistersinside.com.au/in-no-uncertain-terms-the-violence-of-criminalising-coercive-control-joint-statement-sisters-inside-institute-for-collaborative-race-research/">sustained critique</a> from a range of Indigenous women academics, activists and frontline workers. They argue such a solution would result in more Indigenous women being imprisoned than protected. </p>
<p>These concerns are evidenced statistically, by the <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/prisoners-australia/latest-release#data-download">staggering increases</a> in Indigenous female incarceration. They are also shown clearly in the story of Tamica herself, who was “misidentified” as an offender by the police (which included a female officer). </p>
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<p>In the documentary, Tamica’s tragedy is used to make a case for extending police powers and consideration of female-only police stations. Yet, her story negates the case being made by demonstrating how police-based solutions will harm Indigenous women. </p>
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<p>This has many rightfully questioning the function of Indigenous women’s trauma in narratives constructed by <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0090591719889946?journalCode=ptxa">carceral feminists</a> - those who see state institutions such as police and prisons as <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/652918">appropriate solutions</a> to gender based violence.</p>
<p>A key point we raise is the failure of this approach to understand how the state itself perpetrates abuse and coercive control over Indigenous women.</p>
<p>The terms of reference of the Queensland government taskforce <a href="https://www.justice.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/672706/womens-safety-justice-taskforce-tor.pdf">expressly state</a> Indigenous women should be considered as “victims <em>and</em> offenders.” While Indigenous women and children may be positioned in public debate as victims to lever emotional support for carceral solutions, it is clear Indigenous women are already considered potential perpetrators by the taskforce meant to protect them. </p>
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<p>Sadly, concerns raised by Indigenous women have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/18/racist-coercive-control-laws-could-harm-indigenous-women-in-queensland-advocates-warn">fallen on the deaf ears</a> of those who claim to care. Here, we see how Indigenous women make for neither good victims nor good witnesses. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/no-public-outrage-no-vigils-australias-silence-at-violence-against-indigenous-women-158875">No public outrage, no vigils: Australia's silence at violence against Indigenous women</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The good witness</h2>
<p>This was on display in Hill’s expert panel discussion that followed the airing of the final episode of See What You Made Me Do. Dr Hannah McGlade, a Noongar academic expert, lawyer and head of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, cogently challenged Hill’s call to criminalise coercive control. </p>
<p>McGlade spoke of the reality of Aboriginal people being over-policed. Hill responded by replying directly to McGlade about “what gives her heart and keeps her advocating for these laws” despite just having heard why they are deeply problematic. Later, she again responded to McGlade, telling her that actually Indigenous women advocate for the laws rejecting her claim that Aboriginal women are fearful of contacting police.</p>
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<p>In bringing her expertise to the conversation, McGlade interrupts what was meant to be Hill’s conclusion from the three part documentary - that a “revolution” is required to save women, which includes criminalising coercive control. But the dynamics of the panel reflected the dynamics of the debate: where Indigenous women and female academics are not only not believed, but ignored and told they’re wrong. </p>
<p>Indigenous women, much like in Tamica’s case, are not deemed worthy of protection. In Queensland, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/03/women-murdered-by-husbands-labelled-perpetrators-of-domestic-violence-by-queensland-police">nearly 50%</a> of Indigenous women murdered in domestic violence contexts have previously been named by the state as perpetrators. We argue that Indigenous women are framed as a threat to be contained, whether they seek protection for themselves in domestic violence situations or for other Indigenous women in public debate. </p>
<p>The current dialogue around coercive control troubles white Australia’s limited understanding of who can commit violence against whom, and who can be a victim and who is a perpetrator. </p>
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<p>Theorists such as Darumbal and South Sea Islander journalist Amy McQuire and Judith Butler, have examined who is <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/2339-judith-butler-precariousness-and-grievability-when-is-life-grievable">grievable</a> (the good victim) and who is <a href="https://meanjin.com.au/essays/black-and-white-witness/">believable</a> (the good witness). </p>
<p>White Australia tends to see both white women and state agents like police as fundamentally good, and both are almost always deemed grieveable and believable.</p>
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<p><a href="https://meanjin.com.au/essays/black-and-white-witness/">Amy McQuire</a> reminds us of the importance of recentering “the voice of the Black Witness”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Like the White Witness, the Black Witness also uses the language of war. While the White Witness uses it to stage an attack, the Black Witness will mount a defence, because it is not the White Witness’s war they want to talk about, it is the real war — the continuing resistance against an occupying force […] </p>
<p>While the White Witness thrives on accounts of the brutalisation of black bodies, most commonly of black women and children, the Black Witness pushes these same black women to the forefront — they are the ones with the megaphones in the centre of the Melbourne CBD — in the very heart of white, respectable space.”</p>
</blockquote>
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<p>When we listen to Indigenous women, it is clear they don’t necessarily want inclusion in the agendas of white women. They are insisting upon a broadening of policy development that ensures safety and justice for all women.</p>
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<p>Indigenous women shine a light on a form of violence that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0090591719889946">carceral feminism</a> continues to overlook. This violence is not only between the police officer (male or female) and Aboriginal women, but between the state and its citizens. It often manifests as exactly the kind of subtle entrapment Hill describes as coercive control - using isolation, surveillance, financial scrutiny, gaslighting, refusal of care and threats to children. </p>
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<p>The problem with criminalising coercive control isn’t only a matter of poor design or of perception of deserving victims. The problem is it results in an extension of power by the state. </p>
<p>In Queensland, this extension of state authority justified using the same kind of framing of female trauma Hill uses in <em>See What You Made Me Do</em>. It follows other <a href="https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/documents/committees/LASC/2021/YJandOLAB2021/submissions/050.pdf">concerning expansions of police powers</a> and resources <a href="https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/91070">in</a> <a href="https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/92097">recent</a> <a href="https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/91954">months</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-linda-burney-on-the-treatment-of-indigenous-women-158299">Politics with Michelle Grattan: Linda Burney on the treatment of Indigenous Women</a>
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<h2>The Good Women</h2>
<p>In this moment, it is Indigenous women who are refusing to aid an already authoritative state accrue more power. There is little that is revolutionary about carceral feminism. Hill herself acknowledges her calls to criminalise coercive control aim “to reform the current domestic violence law”. Yet, such a reform serves to further entrench abusive power relationships against Indigenous women. </p>
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<p>Gomeroi Kooma woman Ruby Wharton offers the revolutionary imagining required when <a href="https://www.lowitja.org.au/content/Image/Lowitja_PJH_170521_D10.pdf">she speaks of decarceration</a> and Black deaths in custody:</p>
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<p>it’s not about doing performative things within their system, but abolishing it […] we can’t demand incarceration of police when we are dying of the same system […] as long as we walk in love we will be able to seek justice.</p>
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<p>From Wharton, we see the kind of care so desperately needed in this conversation - in which all people are afforded care. The refusal of carceral feminists to think about care in its most inclusive sense is a refusal to “walk in love” alongside Indigenous women. This is because they exercise their virtue on the basis of an authority afforded by a racial order that exists within Australia, which privileges them above Indigenous women.</p>
<p>Distinguished professor Aileen Moreton-Robinson in her seminal text Talkin’ Up To The White Woman some 20 years ago concluded: </p>
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<p>the real challenge for white feminists is to theorise the relinquishment of power so that feminist practice can contribute to changing the racial order. Until this challenge is addressed, the subject position middle-class white woman will remain centred as a site of dominance. Indigenous women will continue to resist this dominance by talkin’ up, because the invisibility of unspeakable things requires them to be spoken.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161091/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chelsea Watego is affiliated with Inala Wangarra. She receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is a Director of the Institute for Collaborative Race Research. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alissa Macoun is a Chief Investigator on an Australian Research Council Discovery Indigenous Grant focused on Building an Indigenist Health Humanities. She is a Director of the Institute for Collaborative Race Research.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Singh is a Director of the Institute for Collaborative Race Research. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Strakosch is a Director of the Institute for Collaborative Race Research. She is a chief investigator on an ARC Discovery Grant on Indigenous-State Relations. </span></em></p>A documentary series aimed to spark national conversation about criminalising coercive control. However, it highlighted power imbalances in conversations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous women.Chelsea Watego, Principal Research Fellow, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit, The University of QueenslandAlissa Macoun, Lecturer - School of Justice, Queensland University of TechnologyDavid Singh, Senior Research Fellow, The University of QueenslandElizabeth Strakosch, Lecturer in Public Policy and Governance, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1579332021-04-07T16:24:05Z2021-04-07T16:24:05ZCOVID-19 amplifies the complexity of disability and race<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/392947/original/file-20210331-17-wlwbpp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2991%2C1935&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Veronica Lopez, who has spina bifida, gets vaccinated at COVID-19 vaccination site at the East Los Angeles Civic Center in Los Angeles. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In Canada, COVID-19 has exacerbated long-standing institutional and systemic inequalities for disabled people. And these inequalities are rooted in ableism. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.accessliving.org/newsroom/blog/ableism-101/">Ableism represents beliefs</a>, <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780230579286">social practices and policies</a> that (re)produce and privilege <a href="https://dsq-sds.org/article/view/60/60">expectations of able-bodiedness</a> and able-mindedness. Resulting in the marginalization, exclusion and oppression of people with mind/body differences. </p>
<p>Disabled people’s identities are also intersectional — they may be <a href="https://radssite.wordpress.com/2020/06/29/covid-19-race-discrimination-stigma-and-impacts-on-health/">racialized</a>, gendered, elderly, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01313-9">may live in poverty</a> and/or are part of <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-asylum-seekers-1.5575905">newcomer communities</a>. This viewpoint further reveals the persistent and <a href="https://www.vox.com/first-person/2020/4/4/21204261/coronavirus-covid-19-disabled-people-disabilities-triage">invisible injustices disabled people experience</a> and is important for developing policies, resources and supports for those affected by the pandemic.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-intersectionality-all-of-who-i-am-105639">What is intersectionality? All of who I am</a>
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<p>The term <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/kimberle_crenshaw_the_urgency_of_intersectionality?language=en">intersectionality</a>, coined by <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039">Black feminist legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw</a>, illustrates how the systemic oppression Black women experience differs from that of Black men or white women because of the intertwining effects of various systems of oppression (such as racism, ableism, sexism, ageism and others). </p>
<p>An <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/20/18542843/intersectionality-conservatism-law-race-gender-discrimination">intersectional lens</a> allows us to examine how peoples’ different social identities (race, ability, gender and age) <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pandemic-covid-coronavirus-cerb-unemployment-1.5610404">are interconnected</a>. How <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Black-Feminist-Thought-Knowledge-Consciousness-and-the-Politics-of-Empowerment/Collins/p/book/9780415964722">different contexts</a> create privilege (circumstances of visibility, value, access to resources and opportunities for upward movement), and/or oppression (circumstances of invisibility, devaluation, lack of resources/access to them and limited opportunities).</p>
<h2>Experiences and the intersectionality of disability</h2>
<p>The following are stories our colleagues have shared with us.</p>
<p>Jeff Preston is a white man who has lived with disability all his life. He grew up with the support of his family, attended school and earned his PhD. He is now an assistant professor in Disability Studies at King’s University College at Western University in London, Ont. He uses an electric wheelchair and requires assistance from his attendants. This assistance allows him to get out of bed, get dressed and get to work. </p>
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<p>“What has been important here is my day to day. My attendants and access to resources. On Day 1 of the pandemic one of my attendants resigned as they were heading home. Another one … now is not coming back, so I am down two attendants. If I lose another, I will be in a tight spot. How will I get out of bed? How can I work? What happens if I get sick?”</p>
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<p>Preston is privileged as a white man and a university professor who was raised in a family with financial and social resources to support him and his education. He receives direct funding to hire <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-75-white-coat-black-art/clip/15822896-people-disabilities-need-move-front-line">attendants to support</a> his daily activities, which the pandemic complicated. </p>
<p>Government mandates to stay at home and follow strict physical and social distancing guidelines assume that everyone can abide by them. For Preston, like other disabled persons, these mandates do not consider his need for attendants to get on with his daily life. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/partisanship-fuels-what-people-with-disabilities-think-about-covid-19-response-156607">Partisanship fuels what people with disabilities think about COVID-19 response</a>
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<p>Jheanelle Anderson is a Black disabled immigrant woman with a congenital disability and autoimmune disease. When her family immigrated to Canada, she was left behind due to being labelled medically inadmissible under Canada’s ableist <a href="https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/i-2.5/section-38.html">Immigration Act</a>. After receiving surgery to amputate her leg, she was able to rejoin her family in Canada. </p>
<p>Her initial <a href="https://doi.org/10.31274/jctp-180810-96">inadmissibility to Canada</a> reflects the entanglement of racism and ableism to keep some bodies out. While Jheanelle feels that she had an easier transition than most immigrants given her familial support, the feeling of burden has stayed with her. </p>
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<p>“I’m a disabled Black woman, you know, where all of that works in tandem with each other and it’s almost as if <strong>because like</strong> people are only focusing on a single story, I have to choose between either my Blackness or my disability. But I do not move in life like that. It is really important to highlight a holistic experience because … there are multiple things going on at the same time as I move through life. These structures are … very violent and they affect each and every one of my identities.”</p>
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<p>As the realities of COVID-19 set in, Jheanelle was finishing up her master’s in social work and waiting to be refitted for a new prosthesis. Her new prothesis was put on hold as it was not deemed an essential service during the pandemic. Jheanelle’s story provides insight into the complexity of navigating health services. Most organizations focus services and programs on single identity issues, viewing disability as a monolithic experience without an understanding of the ongoing impact of racism and ableism embedded in these programs. </p>
<p>Her experiences as a service user during this pandemic cannot be broken apart and separated into “disabled,” “Black” and “woman” — they are intertwined.</p>
<h2>Ableist assumptions and COVID-19</h2>
<p>Ableist assumptions that everyone can abide by social and physical distancing mandates, or that health and support services can be put on hold without any consequences, create <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1473325020981755">dangerous situations for disabled people</a>. </p>
<p>Media reports have documented the negative impact of <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-june-4-2020-1.5598110/thursday-june-4-2020-full-transcript-1.5598962">ableist pandemic policies on disabled people’s lives</a>. Many face living in isolation to protect themselves and others, despite no longer having adequate supports related to personal care, food access, communication, etc. </p>
<p>Parents of disabled children coping with school closures <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2020/03/28/families-of-children-with-special-needs-are-in-crisis-mode-says-milton-mother.html">are frustrated by the lack of resources for their children</a>. And fear from parents with disabled children that <a href="https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2020/03/31/should-the-life-of-down-syndrome-daughter-be-valued-less.html">ventilator shortages</a> may mean their child’s ventilator will go to an abled-bodied person instead. </p>
<p>These stories demonstrate the devaluation of disabled lives. Yet they are just the tip of the iceberg. </p>
<p>While they are very important, the diversity within the disability community, the intersectional stories of disability, race and other social locations are not always presented. Disabled people, BIPOC, women, LGBTQ2S+ and other communities —all marginalized before the pandemic — are experiencing even greater inequities as a result of COVID-19. Pandemic planning has not taken them into consideration. </p>
<p>Using an intersectional approach will help bring visibility to diverse disability communities and provide the support they need to be safe, recover and rebuild their lives. Now, and going forward, we need to attend carefully and critically to the effects of the pandemic on diverse disability communities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157933/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen Kume Yoshida receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. . </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ann Fudge Schormans receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chavon Niles and Susan Mahipaul do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Using an intersectional approach will help bring visibility to diverse disability communities and provide the support they need to be safe, recover and rebuild their lives.Karen Kume Yoshida, Professor, Critical Disability Studies, University of TorontoAnn Fudge Schormans, Associate Professor of Social Work, McMaster UniversityChavon Niles, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of Physical Therapy, Faculty of Medicine, University of TorontoSusan Mahipaul, Lecturer, Disability Studies at King's University College, Western UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1583162021-04-01T17:55:40Z2021-04-01T17:55:40ZRace commission report: the rights and wrongs<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/393163/original/file-20210401-13-4x23tj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4415%2C2167&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/silhouette-profile-group-men-women-diverse-1808618392">melitas/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Confusion and outrage greeted the UK government’s <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/974507/20210331_-_CRED_Report_-_FINAL_-_Web_Accessible.pdf">Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report</a>. As opponents grapple with some of the more alarming findings, such as its assertion that there is little evidence of institutional racism in the UK, critiques and questions about the validity of its claims have begun to circulate widely on social media.</p>
<p>So, what does the report get wrong about racism in the UK, and does it get anything right?</p>
<h2>The main arguments</h2>
<p>From start to finish, the race commission puts huge emphasis on the “agency” of people from racial and ethnic minority groups, explaining away racial inequalities based on the choices of certain groups, or in favour of other social factors like class. </p>
<p>Despite the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-and-wales-2019-to-2020/hate-crime-england-and-wales-2019-to-2020">findings of other reports</a>, it suggests that hate crime isn’t worsening but that perceptions of an increase have been influenced by internet trolling. It claims that the term “BAME” should be abandoned because it obscures specific issues among different groups; and that structural racism in work, education and elsewhere is hard to prove.</p>
<p>This finding on structural racism runs contrary to earlier findings such as the 1999 <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/277111/4262.pdf">Macpherson inquiry report</a> into the murder of Stephen Lawrence and other more recent <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/lammy-publishes-historic-review">evidence that</a> is yet to be adequately addressed.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most blatant issue is the report’s reliance on tactics that the government appears to <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-ethnic-minorities-death-rate-cases-latest-government-report-b1208012.html">have employed</a> time <a href="https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2020-10-20/debates/5B0E393E-8778-4973-B318-C17797DFBB22/BlackHistoryMonth">and again</a>: using <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/critical-race-theory-racism-kemi-badenoch-black-history-month-bame-discrimination-b1227367.html">Black and Asian representatives</a> to minimise the credibility of racism in its many forms.</p>
<p>The commission was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/15/dismay-over-adviser-chosen-set-up-uk-race-inequality-commission-munira-mirza">handpicked by</a> Munira Mirza, the director of the Number 10 Policy Unit, who has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/15/dismay-over-adviser-chosen-set-up-uk-race-inequality-commission-munira-mirza">said to</a> dismiss institutional racism as “a perception more than a reality”. </p>
<p>The commission’s chair, <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/tony-sewell-race-and-ethnic-disparities-commission-review-chair-937598">Tony Sewell</a>, has previously dismissed the existence of systemic racism. Co-author Samir Shah <a href="https://shirazsocialism.wordpress.com/">has expressed</a> similar views, and so has <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-race-lobby-is-peddling-lazy-generalisations-mkx09xs25">Mercy Muroki</a>. Another member, Dambisa Moyo, is <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/race-commission-report-uk-racism-b1824922.html">in favour of</a> ending foreign aid to Africa because it creates a dependency culture. And Kemi Badenoch, the minister for equalities that the commission directly reports to, has also <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52913539">previously denied</a> the existence of systemic racism. It is of little surprise then than institutional racism has been dismissed in the evaluation of the commission’s findings.</p>
<h2>A selective view</h2>
<p>Certain racial and ethnic groups have <a href="https://policyexchange.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/%20PEXJ5011_Bittersweet_Success_1116_WEB.pdf">become wealthier</a> in the UK in recent decades, and the commission is right to highlight that. Calls to prioritise social class are also important. But while the report appears to back an approach that looks at how class, race, gender and other social identities overlap, it stops short of accounting for how race intersects with sexuality and disability. </p>
<p>Singling out white underachievement in education throughout the report is striking. Yet it doesn’t account for what happens afterwards in terms of <a href="https://aura.abdn.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/2164/12563/DP_2019_2.pdf?sequence=1&amp;isAllowed=y">employment and increasing wealth</a> (long-term outcomes <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/feb/01/pay-gap-black-white-uk-workers-widens-more-qualifications">tend to be better</a> for white graduates, for example).</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-pakistani-students-benefit-the-most-from-going-to-university-158088">Why Pakistani students benefit the most from going to university</a>
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<p>Pitting white underachievement against outcomes for ethnic minority groups also echoes arguments often touted by the extreme right. Race equality think tank, the Runnymede Trust, <a href="https://www.runnymedetrust.org/uploads/publications/pdfs/WhoCaresAboutTheWhiteWorkingClass-2009.pdf">describes this</a> as playing “into cultural readings of inequality, which pitch [white people’s] interests squarely against those of ethnic minorities, and simultaneously allows middle class commentators to blame the ‘underclass’ for their own misfortunes”.</p>
<p>The report focuses on comparing different groups’ health, education, criminal justice and employment with what it claims is a data-driven approach. But we contend it’s ideologically driven. For instance, while <a href="http://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/54634">high levels of COVID-19</a> among racial and ethnic populations are acknowledged, the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/908434/Disparities_in_the_risk_and_outcomes_of_COVID_August_2020_update.pdf">roots of inequity</a> are said to lie in socio-economic factors like living in higher population density and deprived areas and working in higher-risk occupations. </p>
<p>While this is undeniable, the report also stresses that disproportionate COVID-19 levels aren’t down to systemic racism, overlooking the fact that race and ethnicity significantly affect the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/money/2009/oct/18/racism-discrimination-employment-undercover#:%7E:text=Undercover%20job%20hunters%20reveal%20huge%20race%20bias%20in%20Britain's%20workplaces,-This%20article%20is&text=A%20government%20sting%20operation%20targeting,with%20African%20and%20Asian%20names.">jobs and housing</a> some groups can get in the first place.</p>
<p>There are several other shortcomings. There’s hardly any mention of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-uks-working-definition-of-islamophobia-as-a-type-of-racism-is-a-historic-step-107657">racialisation of religion in Islamophobia</a>; one mention of the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/at-work-women-and-people-of-color-still-have-not-broken-the-glass-ceiling-115688">glass ceiling</a>”; nothing on white dominance in the <a href="https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-establishment/owen-jones/9780141974996">upper echelons of society</a>; and no attempt to critically examine or expunge the British empire’s legacies, for example the <a href="https://theconversation.com/racism-colonialism-and-slavery-why-empire-needs-to-be-removed-from-the-uk-honours-system-129311">names of national honours</a>. Rather, the report vaguely refers to the “inflows and outflows” that connect the British empire with Commonwealth countries, along with one controversial reference to the effects of the “slave period” on the “re-modelled African/Britain”.</p>
<p>Windrush campaigner Patrick Vernon <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75RcBXlRwlw">said the report’s</a> efforts to belittle slavery, colonisation and the resulting injustices to millions of people as “the equivalent of a Holocaust denier being asked to develop a strategy on antisemitism. Half the people on the commission do not understand the history of Britain, the impact and implications of enslavement, or modern-day racism”.</p>
<h2>Policing language</h2>
<p>The report erases the language used to understand how race works, such as recommendations to stop using the term <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zrvkbqt">“white privilege”</a> and to replace it with “affinity bias”, because it’s “alienating” to white people who don’t accept that they’re “privileged by their skin colour”. </p>
<p>It supports a divide-and-rule approach that propagates tensions within and between groups, such as suggestions that “minorities who have been long established in a country … in a context of racial and socio-economic disadvantage”, are held back because of a lack of optimism about social mobility and education, whereas “immigration optimism” from groups newer to the UK means they’re less likely to face prejudice.</p>
<p>In response, Dr Halima Begum, director of the Runnymede Trust, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75RcBXlRwlw">has said</a> that it seems that for ethnic minority groups, “if we succeed it’s on us. If we fail, it’s on us. The state has no collective duty of care on our outcomes if they are disproportionate”. </p>
<p>The timing of the report’s release couldn’t be more opportune in the wake of widely reported accusations of racism within British royalty and the establishment at large. Such rumblings threaten Brexit Britain’s international standing, especially with Commonwealth countries, with some <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/13/racism-claims-threaten-royal-rift-commonwealth/">reconsidering their continuing membership</a>. </p>
<p>All this just a few days before Boris Johnson makes his trip to India to <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/a323c7d5-91e6-4e2f-9965-4e6bb7f2ac41">cement alliances in the east</a>. As widespread criticism mounts, the bottom line is that although it gets a handful of things right, overall the commission’s report lacks credibility.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158316/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Raminder Kaur does not work for or benefit from any of the organisations mentioned in the article. She receives funding from the ESRC, AHRC and Leverhulme Trust for her academic research.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gill Margaret Hague does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The widely contested report has caused outrage across the UK. But is it inaccurate?Raminder Kaur, Professor of Anthropology and Cultural Studies, University of SussexGill Margaret Hague, Professor Emerita of Violence Against Women Studies, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.