Intersectional status accounting generated internal conflict within progressive movements.

Evidence

The accounting model of discrimination, however, often spurred infighting among groups. After the resounding success of the Women’s March in 2017, the organization fractured due to internal conflicts. Accusations of antisemitism surfaced when organizer Tamika Mallory attended a speech by the Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Women’s March organizers told marchers not to wear the pink pussyhat, as it would be unfair to transgender women and women of color. “We did not choose the color pink as a representation of some people’s anatomy,” responded the Pussyhat Project. The hat, they explained, was just supposed to look like a cat. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 463

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: The pussyhat controversy and Women’s March fracture parallel the ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ piece’s theme of intra-movement policing over symbols — signaling dynamics inside a group.
• XREF: connects to: Social movement research has rarely applied intersectional perspectives so far. — Silke Roth, Intersectionality and coalitions in…, 40; the MOC “The Wound of the Label: When Knowing Someone Becomes a Way of Erasing Them”