Analogizing racism and sexism erases the specific experience of women of color

Evidence

Does this mean that these phenomena are the same? Ideologies of racial and gender domination, though (in)directly rooted in social constructions of biological differences, are both increasingly cultural in their discursive expressions (Hecht, 1998; Benokraitis, 1997). Gender and race are social constructions comprising a combination of ingroup favoritism and outgroup exclusions. Everyday manifestations of racial and gender discrimination have many similarities, such as being patronizing, talking down, assuming lack of confidence, hiring token blacks or women, or favoring white men (Human and van Schalkwyk, 1998). But there are also many differences. A prevalent form of everyday racism is contact avoidance, whereas everyday discrimination against women can take the reverse form: uninvited touching. A serious problem with analogizing is that women of color are made invisible in comparing “blacks” and “women.” Furthermore, analogies do not do justice to the fact that racisms and genderisms are rooted in specific histories designating separate as well as mutually interwoven formations of race and gender. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1472

Categorization

• XREF: The intersectionality critique echoes the ADDENDUM article on modesty panics, where class/identity signals compound — and the observation that contact-avoidance vs. uninvited-touching are opposite mechanisms is a sharp empirical asymmetry. — connects to: Career women face obstacles comparable to those confronting racialized newcomers — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1936; Women of color zines challenged the whiteness of mainstream feminist zine culture — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 93; Critical Race Feminism centers women of color facing simultaneous race and gender oppression — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1145 (+9 more)
• SEED: The contact-avoidance vs. uninvited-touching asymmetry is a vivid hook for an essay on how different forms of discrimination enact opposite spatial relationships to bodies.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1472