intersectionality musings
Once I was a TA for a first year gender studies class and they had to write a paper about their own intersectional experiences. It was a class almost entirely comprised of young, white, cis women who came from upper middle class backgrounds, with a few exceptions.
Not a single one of them included as an example an area where they are more privileged than others, despite the emphasis during lecture and tutorials on the fact that *all* of our contexts intersect
intersectionality musings
Not a single one of them mentioned being white, able bodied, cis, coming from a background where there was never risk of being unhoused or hungry.
Instead they would reach as much as they could to say, talk about being young and women and how those intersect.
Idk I just think about that sometimes, still.
intersectionality musings
@crash I wonder if the professor changed their course materials to try to account for that.
My favorite professor would say "if most students get it right, and you get it wrong, it's on you. If most students get it wrong, but some get it right, it should go on the final, and if everybody gets it wrong, that's on me, and I need to change how I'm teaching it."
Like, don't get me wrong, that sounds frustrating and heart-breaking, but they were in that course to learn.
What a thing to chew on, though. Oof.
intersectionality musings
@starless I also should probably mention that none of these people got bad grades because of this - it was a reflection assignment, so as long as they were engaging with the material in their reflections they did well. Talking only about how they were oppressed isn’t *wrong* in terms of what the assignment was, but it was I feel missing part of the point of the original material
intersectionality musings
@starless yeah, I mean, both the prof and I introduced the assignment and explained it
It was a shame bc the prof actually worked really hard to target these common misconceptions about intersectionality, we were using the original writing on it by Crenshaw, etc, but still everyone wanted to reach for ways they were oppressed rather than mentioning anything else.
I remember specifically at least referring to the fact that I’m white when I talked about my own example