Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women

of Color
Author(s): Kimberle Crenshaw
Source: Stanford Law Review , Jul., 1991, Vol. 43, No. 6 (Jul., 1991), pp. 1241-1299
Published by: Stanford Law Review

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1229039

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 Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality,
Identity Politics, and Violence Against
Women of Color

Kimberle Crenshaw*

INTRODUCTION

Over the last two decades, women have organized against the almost
routine violence that shapes their lives.1 Drawing from the strength of
shared experience, women have recognized that the political demands of mil-
lions speak more powerfully than the pleas of a few isolated voices. This
politicization in turn has transformed the way we understand violence
against women. For example, battering and rape, once seen as private (fam-
ily matters) and aberrational (errant sexual aggression), are now largely rec-
ognized as part of a broad-scale system of domination that affects women as
a class.2 This process of recognizing as social and systemic what was for-

* ? 1993 by Kimberle Crenshaw. Professor of Law, University of California, Los Angeles.

B.A. Cornell University, 1981; J.D. Harvard Law School, 1984; LL.M. University of Wisconsin,
1985.

I am indebted to a great many people who have pushed this project along. For their kind assist-
ance in facilitating my field research for this article, I wish to thank Maria Blanco, Margaret Cam-
brick, Joan Creer, Estelle Cheung, Nilda Rimonte and Fred Smith. I benefitted from the comments
of Taunya Banks, Mark Barenberg, Darcy Calkins, Adrienne Davis, Gina Dent, Brent Edwards,
Paul Gewirtz, Lani Guinier, Neil Gotanda, Joel Handler, Duncan Kennedy, Henry Monaghan, Eliz-
abeth Schneider and Kendall Thomas. A very special thanks goes to Gary Peller and Richard Yar-
borough. Jayne Lee, Paula Puryear, Yancy Garrido, Eugenia Gifford and Leti Volpp provided
valuable research assistance. I gratefully acknowledge the support of the Academic Senate of
UCLA, Center for Afro-American Studies at UCLA, the Reed Foundation and Columbia Law
School. Earlier versions of this article were presented to the Critical Race Theory Workshop and the
Yale Legal Theory Workshop.
This article is dedicated to the memory of Denise Carty-Bennia and Mary Joe Frug.
1. Feminist academics and activists have played a central role in forwarding an ideological and
institutional challenge to the practices that condone and perpetuate violence against women. See
generally SUSAN BROWNMILLER, AGAINST OUR WILL: MEN, WOMEN AND RAPE (1975);
LORENNE M.G. CLARK & DEBRA J. LEWIS, RAPE: THE PRICE OF COERCIVE SEXUALITY (1977);
R. EMERSON DOBASH & RUSSELL DOBASH, VIOLENCE AGAINST WIVES: A CASE AGAINST THE
PATRIARCHY (1979); NANCY GAGER & CATHLEEN SCHURR, SEXUAL ASSAULT: CONFRONTING
RAPE IN AMERICA (1976); DIANA E.H. RUSSELL, THE POLITICS OF RAPE: THE VICTIM'S PER-
SPECTIVE (1974); ELIZABETH ANNE STANKO, INTIMATE INTRUSIONS: WOMEN'S EXPERIENCE OF
MALE VIOLENCE (1985); LENORE E. WALKER, TERRIFYING LOVE: WHY BATTERED WOMEN
KILL AND HOW SOCIETY RESPONDS (1989); LENORE E. WALKER, THE BATTERED WOMAN SYN-
DROME (1984); LENORE E. WALKER, THE BATTERED WOMAN (1979).
2. See, e.g., SUSAN SCHECHTER, WOMEN AND MALE VIOLENCE: THE VISIONS AND STRUG-
GLES OF THE BATTERED WOMEN'S MOVEMENT (1982) (arguing that battering is a means of main-
taining women's subordinate position); S. BROWNMILLER, supra note 1 (arguing that rape is a

1241

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1242 STANFORD LAW REVIEW [Vol. 43:1241

merly perceived as isolated and individual has also characterized th

politics of African Americans, other people of color, and gays and
among others. For all these groups, identity-based politics has been
of strength, community, and intellectual development.
The embrace of identity politics, however, has been in tension w
nant conceptions of social justice. Race, gender, and other identit
ries are most often treated in mainstream liberal discourse as vestig
or domination-that is, as intrinsically negative frameworks in wh
power works to exclude or marginalize those who are different.
to this understanding, our liberatory objective should be to empty
gories of any social significance. Yet implicit in certain strands of
and racial liberation movements, for example is the view that th
power in delineating difference need not be the power of dominati
instead be the source of social empowerment and reconstruction.
The problem with identity politics is not that it fails to transcend d
ence, as some critics charge, but rather the opposite-that it freque
flates or ignores intragroup differences. In the context of violenc
women, this elision of difference in identity politics is problemat
mentally because the violence that many women experience is ofte
by other dimensions of their identities, such as race and class. M
ignoring difference within groups contributes to tension among gr
other problem of identity politics that bears on efforts to politiciz
against women. Feminist efforts to politicize experiences of wome
tiracist efforts to politicize experiences of people of color have f
proceeded as though the issues and experiences they each detail o
mutually exclusive terrains. Although racism and sexism readily int
the lives of real people, they seldom do in feminist and antiracist
And so, when the practices expound identity as woman or person o
an either/or proposition, they relegate the identity of women of
location that resists telling.
My objective in this article is to advance the telling of that loca
exploring the race and gender dimensions of violence against w
color.3 Contemporary feminist and antiracist discourses have faile

patriarchal practice that subordinates women to men); Elizabeth Schneider, The Violence
23 CONN. L. REV. 973, 974 (1991) (discussing how "concepts of privacy permit, en
reinforce violence against women"); Susan Estrich, Rape, 95 YALE L.J. 1087 (1986) (ana
law as one illustration of sexism in criminal law); see also CATHARINE A. MACKINNON
HARASSMENT OF WORKING WOMEN: A CASE OF SEX DISCRIMINATION 143-213 (19
that sexual harassment should be redefined as sexual discrimination actionable und
rather than viewed as misplaced sexuality in the workplace).
3. This article arises out of and is inspired by two emerging scholarly discourses.
critical race theory. For a cross-section of what is now a substantial body of literature, see
J. WILLIAMS, THE ALCHEMY OF RACE AND RIGHTS (1991); Robin D. Barnes, Race Con
The Thematic Content of Racial Distinctiveness in Critical Race Scholarship, 103 HA
1864 (1990); John 0. Calmore, Critical Race Theory, Archie Shepp, and Fire Music.
Authentic Intellectual Life in a Multicultural World, 65 S. CAL. L. REV. 2129 (1992);
Cook, Beyond Critical Legal Studies: The Reconstructive Theology of Dr. Martin Luthe
HARV. L. REV. 985 (1990); Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, Race, Reform and Retrenchm
formation and Legitimation in Antidiscrimination Law, 101 HARV. L. REV. 1331 (19

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July 1991] INTERSECTIONALITY 1243

sider intersectional identities such as women of color.4 Foc

dimensions of male violence against women-battering and rap
how the experiences of women of color are frequently the pro
secting patterns of racism and sexism,5 and how these experie

Delgado, When a Story is Just a Story: Does Voice Really Matter?, 76 VA. L. R
Gotanda, A Critique of "Our Constitution is Colorblind," 44 STAN. L. REV. 1 (1
suda, Public Response to Racist Speech: Considering the Victim's Story, 87 MI
(1989); Charles R. Lawrence III, The Id, the Ego, and Equal Protection: Reckoning
Racism, 39 STAN. L. REV. 317 (1987); Gerald Torres, Critical Race Theory: Th
Universalist Ideal and the Hope of Plural Justice-Some Observations and Question
Phenomenon, 75 MINN. L. REV. 993 (1991). For a useful overview of critical
Calmore, supra, at 2160-2168.
A second, less formally linked body of legal scholarship investigates the conn
race and gender. See, e.g., Regina Austin, Sapphire Bound!, 1989 WIS. L. REV
supra; Angela P. Harris, Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory, 42 ST
(1990); Marlee Kline, Race, Racism and Feminist Legal Theory, 12 HARV. W
(1989); Dorothy E. Roberts, Punishing Drug Addicts Who Have Babies: Women
and the Right of Privacy, 104 HARV. L. REV. 1419 (1991); Cathy Scarborough,
Black Women's Employment Experiences, 98 YALE L.J. 1457 (1989) (student a
Smith, Separate Identities: Black Women, Work and Title VII, 14 HARV. WOMEN
Judy Scales-Trent, Black Women and the Constitution: Finding Our Place, Asserti
HARV. C.R-C.L. L. REV. 9 (1989); Judith A. Winston, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall:
1981, and the Intersection of Race and Gendet 'n the Civil Rights Act of 1990, 79
(1991). This work in turn has been informed oy a broader literature examining t
race and gender in other contexts. See, e.g., PATRICIA HILL COLLINS, BLACK FEM
KNOWLEDGE, CONSCIOUSNESS, AND THE POLITICS OF EMPOWERMENT (1990)
WOMEN, RACE AND CLASS (1981); BELL HOOKS, AIN'T I A WOMAN? BLACK WO
NISM (1981); ELIZABETH V. SPELMAN, INESSENTIAL WOMAN: PROBLEMS OF EXC
NIST THOUGHT (1988); Frances Beale, Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Femal
WOMAN 90 (Toni Cade ed. 1970); Kink-Kok Cheung, The Woman Warrior vers
Pacific: Must a Chinese American Critic Choose between Feminism and Heroism?,
FEMINISM 234 (Marianne Hirsch & Evelyn Fox Keller eds. 1990); Deborah H. King,
ardy, Multiple Consciousness: The Context of a Black Feminist Ideology, 14 SIGN
K. Lewis, A Response to Inequality: Black Women, Racism and Sexism, 3 S
Deborah E. McDowell, New Directions for Black Feminist Criticism, in THE NEW
CISM: ESSAYS ON WOMEN, LITERATURE AND THEORY 186 (Elaine Showalter e
Smith, Black Feminist Theory and the Representation of the "Other" in CHAN
WORDS: ESSAYS ON CRITICISM, THEORY AND WRITING BY BLACK WOMEN 38 (C
1989).
4. Although the objective of this article is to describe the intersectional location of women of
color and their marginalization within dominant resistance discourses, I do not mean to imply that
the disempowerment of women of color is singularly or even primarily caused by feminist and an-
tiracist theorists or activists. Indeed, I hope to dispell any such simplistic interpretations by captur-
ing, at least in part, the way that prevailing structures of domination shape various discourses of
resistance. As I have noted elsewhere, "People can only demand change in ways that reflect the
logic of the institutions they are challenging. Demands for change that do not reflect . . . dominant
ideology . . . will probably be ineffective." Crenshaw, supra note 3, at 1367. Although there are
significant political and conceptual obstacles to moving against structures of domination with an
intersectional sensibility, my point is that the effort to do so should be a central theoretical and
political objective of both antiracism and feminism.
5. Although this article deals with violent assault perpetrated by men against women, women
are also subject to violent assault by women. Violence among lesbians is a hidden but significant
problem. One expert reported that in a study of 90 lesbian couples, roughly 46% of lesbians have
been physically abused by their partners. Jane Garcia, The Cost of Escaping Domestic Violence: Fear
of Treatment in a Largely Homophobic Society May Keep Lesbian Abuse Victims from Calling for
Help, L.A. Times, May 6, 1991, at 2; see also NAMING THE VIOLENCE: SPEAKING OUT ABOUT
LESIBIAN BATTERING (Kerry Lobel ed. 1986); Ruthann Robson, Lavender Bruises. Intralesbian Vio-
lence, Law and Lesbian Legal Theory, 20 GOLDEN GATE U.L. REV. 567 (1990). There are clear
parallels between violence against women in the lesbian community and violence against women in

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1244 STANFORD LAW REVIEW [Vol. 43:1241

to be represented within the discourses of either feminism or antir

cause of their intersectional identity as both women and of color w
courses that are shaped to respond to one or the other, women of
marginalized within both.
In an earlier article, I used the concept of intersectionality to de
various ways in which race and gender interact to shape the multip
sions of Black6 women's employment experiences.7 My objective t
to illustrate that many of the experiences Black women face are
sumed within the traditional boundaries of race or gender discrim
these boundaries are currently understood, and that the intersecti
cism and sexism factors into Black women's lives in ways that can
captured wholly by looking at the race or gender dimensions of tho
iences separately. I build on those observations here by exploring
ous ways in which race and gender intersect in shaping structural,
and representational aspects of violence against women of color.8
I should say at the outset that intersectionality is not being offe
as some new, totalizing theory of identity. Nor do I mean to sugg
violence against women of color can be explained only through the
frameworks of race and gender considered here.9 Indeed, factors

communities of color. Lesbian violence is often shrouded in secrecy for similar reason
suppressed the exposure of heterosexual violence in communities of color-fear of embar
members of the community, which is already stereotyped as deviant, and fear of being
from the community. Despite these similarities, there are nonetheless distinctions bet
abuse of women and female abuse of women that in the context of patriarchy,
homophobia, warrants more focused analysis than is possible here.
6. I use "Black" and "African American" interchangeably throughout this article. I
"Black" because "Blacks, like Asians, Latinos, and other 'minorities,' constitute a specif
group and, as such, require denotation as a proper noun." Crenshaw, supra note 3,
(citing Catharine MacKinnon, Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State: An Agendafo
SIGNS 515, 516 (1982)). By the same token, I do not capitalize "white," which is not a p
since whites do not constitute a specific cultural group. For the same reason I do n
"women of color."
7. Kimberle Crenshaw, Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex, 1989 U. CH
LEGAL F. 139.

8. I explicitly adopt a Black feminist stance in this survey of violence against women of
I do this cognizant of several tensions that such a position entails. The most significant one
from the criticism that while feminism purports to speakfor women of color through its invoc
of the term "woman," the feminist perspective excludes women of color because it is based up
experiences and interests of a certain subset of women. On the other hand, when white fem
attempt to include other women, they often add our experiences into an otherwise unaltered
work. It is important to name the perspective from which one constructs her analysis; and f
that is as a Black feminist. Moreover, it is important to acknowledge that the materials
incorporate in my analysis are drawn heavily from research on Black women. On the other h
see my own work as part of a broader collective effort among feminists of color to expand fem
to include analyses of race and other factors such as class, sexuality, and age. I have atte
therefore to offer my sense of the tentative connections between my analysis of the interse
experiences of Black women and the intersectional experiences of other women of color. I stre
this analysis is not intended to include falsely nor to exclude unnecessarily other women of
9. I consider intersectionality a provisional concept linking contemporary politics w
postmodern theory. In mapping the intersections of race and gender, the concept does engage
nant assumptions that race and gender are essentially separate categories. By tracing the cate
to their intersections, I hope to suggest a methodology that will ultimately disrupt the tendenci
see race and gender as exclusive or separable. While the primary intersections that I explore h

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July 1991] INTERSECTIONALITY 1245

only in part or not at all, such as class or sexuality, are often as

shaping the experiences of women of color. My focus on the inter
race and gender only highlights the need to account for multiple
identity when considering how the social world is constructed.'0
I have divided the issues presented in this article into three cat
Part I, I discuss structural intersectionality, the ways in which th
of women of color at the intersection of race and gender makes
experience of domestic violence, rape, and remedial reform qualita
ferent than that of white women. I shift the focus in Part II to
intersectionality, where I analyze how both feminist and antiraci
have, paradoxically, often helped to marginalize the issue of viole
women of color. Then in Part III, I discuss representational inter
ity, by which I mean the cultural construction of women of color
how controversies over the representation of women of color in p
ture can also elide the particular location of women of color, an
come yet another source of intersectional disempowerment.
address the implications of the intersectional approach within th
scope of contemporary identity politics.

I. STRUCTURAL INTERSECTIONALITY

A. Structural Intersectionality and Battering

I observed the dynamics of structural intersectionality during a brief fie
study of battered women's shelters located in minority communities in
Angeles." In most cases, the physical assault that leads women to th
shelters is merely the most immediate manifestation of the subordina
they experience. Many women who seek protection are unemployed or
deremployed, and a good number of them are poor. Shelters serving t
women cannot afford to address only the violence inflicted by the batt
they must also confront the other multilayered and routinized forms of dom
ination that often converge in these women's lives, hindering their abilit
create alternatives to the abusive relationships that brought them to she
in the first place. Many women of color, for example, are burdened by p
erty, child care responsibilities, and the lack of job skills.'2 These burde

between race and gender, the concept can and should be expanded by factoring in issues such
class, sexual orientation, age, and color.
10. Professor Mari Matsuda calls this inquiry "asking the other question." Mari J. Mat
Beside My Sister, Facing the Enemy: Legal Theory Out of Coalition, 43 STAN. L. REV. 1183 (1
For example, we should look at an issue or condition traditionally regarded as a gender issue
ask, "Where's the racism in this?"
11. During my research in Los Angeles, California, I visited Jenessee Battered Women's S
ter, the only shelter in the Western states primarily serving Black women, and Everywoman's
ter, which primarily serves Asian women. I also visited Estelle Chueng at the Asian Pacifi
Foundation, and I spoke with a representative of La Casa, a shelter in the predominantly L
community of East L.A.
12. One researcher has noted, in reference to a survey taken of battered women's shelters,
"many Caucasian women were probably excluded from the sample, since they are more likely
have available resources that enable them to avoid going to a shelter. Many shelters admit
women with few or no resources or alternatives." MILDRED DALEY PAGELOW, WOMAN-B

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