A Diagnosis of Intersectionality

Approx 2900 words = approx 11mins reading time

Written by Diarmaid Ó Conaráin

To begin we must examine what Intersectionality claims to be, as defined by its advocates. Intersectionality is largely the brainchild of Kimberlé Crenshaw, who is also considered a leading figure in Critical Race Theory. This matters because Intersectionality is essentially an extension of CRT, where it’s supporters found it to be lacking. The idea put forward states that oppression and discrimination must be examined on multiple intersecting levels, and not simply sex or race. That a black bisexual migrant woman may be facing layers of discrimination beyond a single presumption, which necessitate scrutiny. This is a fulcrum point of Intersectionality, the creation of layered victimhood which can only result in a societal hierarchy based on identity factors such as race, sex, religion, native/migrant status, etc.

Intersectionality is in truth the creation of political marketing groups. It essentially seeks to apply focused marketing techniques of appeasement to factions of the population for political gain. This will inevitably foster division, further Identity Politics and the polar opposite of the concept of creating laws and rights that apply to or benefit everyone equally. This has proven to be true with Intersectional Feminism creating fractures and further race based division in the modern waves of feminism. Essentially Intersectionality is opposed to societal equality, and like CRT it takes the Marxian stance that society should provide each group with what it needs to succeed. But succeed to what extent? Is Oprah Winfrey not proof that if a black woman has the skillset to be successful she will be? Is Elen DeGeneres not proof that if a gay woman works hard enough she can have her own show? Is Elon Musk not proof that immigrants can reach the top if they have the drive and talent to do so?

Once again, as with Critical Race Theory, we find that the only proof the advocates for Intersectionality have to offer is to work backwards from outcomes they personally find undesirable, insisting the root cause can only be varying forms of discrimination. Or to engage in often unprovable storytelling to share lived experiences. They have no law or policy to point to here in Ireland, nothing to base their allegations on. These ideologies are so clearly underwritten by Equality of Outcome that it becomes laughable that their supporters would deny it to be true. And yet they do, knowing that equality of outcome can never be supported through rationalism, meritocracy or individualism, etc. Yet these sophists persist with the allegation that racially neutral legal systems are to blame for outcomes they subjectively find displeasing. They have no interest in attempts to justify their worldview, and instead use emotive manipulation and minority groups as political footballs to further their subversive ideological aims. Equality of Outcome is a form of societal OCD. An individuals personal inability to accept the fact that all the colours and reproductive organs have not dispersed themselves equally to their liking.

The ideas themselves are divisive and racist, and place the native people in European countries as the default, while painting everything and everyone else as a type of desirable diversity among the defaults. This can be viewed in truth as a kind of societal fetish, and covert racism. Those who deem anything but themselves to be diverse, and innately placing that diversity as desirable. This may seem off topic, but the modern idea of diversity is based on identity and culture alone, and Intersectionality is identity politics personified. There is little dispute that the two are linked, just as CRT and Intersectionality are linked in their foundational aspects and approaches. There can be no CRT, Intersectionality or identity politics without diversity and multiculturalism.

In truth much of the over representation of groups considered to be minorities in advertising and entertainment is driven by Intersectional Representation, a branch of Intersectionality. It’s advocates seek not only legal change and equal outcomes, but insist that visual representation in varying forms of media must over compensate for what they imagine to be an inherent bias in white people. An allegation we’re all taking far too lightly.

Make no mistake, identity politics will ensure the highest levels of political division, and soon will replace politics as we know it. No longer will politicians or voters strive for progression that benefits everyone, but policy that buys a group of votes, or benefits your particular group. The gravity of this mistake cannot be underestimated. A society where black people only pursue black interests, migrants only pursue policy beneficial to migrants, gay people only push for policy benefiting them, etc, will be group warfare for resources in a political sense. As politicians make promises to certain groups while ignoring others. Already in Ireland we have migrants who ignore our homeless crisis, and do nothing but advocate for accelerated migrant benefits that undermine our laws. We have people from Afghanistan demanding our government act on issues on another continent, while our own Irish nurses await suitable conditions to return to their own home. We have Nigerian women agitating for more and more black studies, while Irelands own language is dying. We have no need for this division and selfishness. If people are so concerned with their homes and history perhaps leaving them wasn’t the right move after all. You do not arrive as a guest and demand everything is changed to suit you, that level of entitlement is staggering.

Intersectionality, again much like it’s older brother, is largely rooted in Standpoint Theory, which is the indulgence of subjectivity and has no bearing on the objective nature or reality of society. In a particularly dangerous fashion it seeks to hand moral authority to the smallest groups in society, labelling them as the only special outsiders or victims who might tell us ignorant insiders and defaults what we’re lacking. We simply cannot allow societal norms and foundational aspects of our civilization to be undermined because a select few people cast presumptions onto their interactions with others. This is not rational, and entertains the naive idea that every individual makes a completely accurate account of how a circumstantial situation has unfolded. Presuming they were denied a job based on identity when they hadn’t seen the more qualified candidate who interviewed later. A willingness to perpetually shrug personal responsibility and aptitude while placing any and all negative results solely on the shoulders of discrimination cannot be entertained. Injustice must be objective and observable, not subjective and attributed merely through accusation.

From the perspective of Intersectionalists the planet is full of horrible, judgemental people and discrimination, and only those with overlapping or intersecting identities approved for victimhood can effectively relay the truth of reality to the rest of us. Your experiences, whether personal or observatory, are entirely invalid the moment an Intersectionality approved victim disagrees with you. Of course they may disagree with each other, but those who do are regularly slandered as uncle toms, or having colonised mindsets. It is 100% about your lived experience and personal account, as long as that falls in line with the narrative.

Furthermore it presents itself in the manipulative manner I have mentioned before. In that it broadly makes accusations that almost never target or mention anyone in specific. This is manipulation that will drive endless activism through the constant regurgitation of previously established dogmas in the West. If there were individuals guilty of sexism or racism then those individuals could be addressed and society could move on. Instead the Critical Race Theorists and Intersectionalists will endlessly make the accusation that sexism, homophobia and racism exist, and hence we must not only conform to their ideas so as to be deemed a part of the solution and not the problem, but of course that we need to fund anti racist organisations, and promote integration and multiculturalism. In truth this can be summed up as chasing the boogey man. Endless accusations without specification or articulation can only be seen as the work of subversives, or the genuinely lost. These are subtle character assaults, a kind of reverse psychology. To declare that discrimination is toxic and ever present in society, forces those of a weaker character with a large need for acceptance to begin jumping through hoops to demonstrate, as mentioned earlier, that they’re not a part of the problem. Statements such as “Ireland is a racist country” are made by those so indoctrinated that they haven’t stopped to realise land masses are inanimate, and do not make conscious decisions that result in bias. This again highlights what the accusation truly implies, that the Irish people are racist. This is an entirely unacceptable slander of an entire population based on nothing, and one that should not be tolerated in the slightest. If we are to take unequal outcomes as proof of oppression, would the female dominance in teaching, childcare, nursing and the beauty industry etc not be taken as proof Ireland is matriarchal and discriminatory? Not by any serious person at least. As is the case with all those who advocate for equal outcomes under the guise of equality as we currently understand it, blatant hypocrisy is no issue at all. We can insist on 50% women in politics but not in waste plumbing or oil rigs. Beliefs are not to be selectively applied for personal gain. You either believe it to be worthy of becoming dogma or you are using the idea to further an underlying motive.

Again similar to the other related schools of thought, its narrative and methodology are entirely inconsistent, which presents only one logical conclusion, it is weaponized ideology with no genuine interest in equality. Intersectionality has never once felt that Christian conservative women who were pro life for example, and were often openly attacked and slandered, should be afforded equal representation. Often they were told they were traitors to women and feminism. Conveniently certain groups are recognized as minorities and others are simply shunned as backwards, again highlighting the selective advocacy and subjective nature of this weaponized set of ideas. Their only defence to criticism has been ad hominem, and accusations of your denial being proof of your guilt, the Kafka trap. In addition your denying the lived experience of others paints you as ignorant or uncaring, and acts as character assassination.

In truth these schools of thought are well planned out in one respect, but laughably inconsistent with regards to their theories, summations and propositions. Aside from ad hominem their one attempt at a rebuttal will be, how do we explain outcome disparities if discrimination is not the cause? This is a trap, attempting to lure individuals into hasty responses that can be turned into further ad hominem. For example if one answers, why would there be as many females as males in construction? The conversation will immediately shift to deeming you sexist, with follow up accusations such as, “Are you saying women cant do jobs men can do? How would you know what women want? They weren’t allowed do these jobs for years, and society is still enforcing gender roles”. And on it will roll, providing them both the opportunity to undermine your opinions due to an alleged moral deficiency, and the opportunity to broadly and namelessly attack society again, because of course that is the only possible reason for any imbalance whatsoever. It is simply unbelievable that women would find fighting each other in cages or getting filthy everyday less desirable than men, it has to be society’s fault. Or that men don’t feel inclined to seek work minding other peoples children all day, it must be patriarchal societal norms driving these disparities in outcomes.

Intersectionality, like CRT, is a subtle yet complete rejection of individualism. In place of merely division by sex or race, Instersectionalists seek to divide those groups further. Simultaneously disputing that women of all races share the same experience, yet proclaiming that women within each race will share the same experience. A new form of lived experience racism. The weaponized and tiered victim structure of these schools of thought is evident when lived experiences come into conflict with each other. A straight white woman will be told that she can’t possibly understand a gay white woman’s life. And hence she should be supportive, listen and learn. Apparently the straight white woman could have absolutely nothing to share, based solely on her sexual orientation, and this is to be viewed as fighting discrimination, not discrimination itself. Similarly the gay white women must yield the floor to a woman of another race. Should a gay white woman dispute the lived experiences and societal diagnoses of a black woman then neither CRT nor Intersectionality leave any room for the white woman being correct. If she believes society is not racist as a whole but the black woman says her personal experience of it has been, then the gay white woman is not being understanding of the black womans recollection of events as they may or may not have happened. This highlights the blatantly identity tiered system of acceptance, in which the so called victims hold the most sway, and the opinions of those deemed not to have been a victim are immediately put to the side in favour of other more allegedly valued groups. The lowest tier being the straight white male. Apparently incapable of being oppressed, while capable of oppressing everyone else. If that doesn’t make Intersectionality a white male supremacist theory I’m not sure what will. Allegedly the categorisation under Kimberlé Crenshaws system leaves us at the top of the guilty pyramid, and at the very bottom of the influence/credibility pyramid of victimhood. If that isn’t sexist and racist, I’m not sure what is.

Intersectionality will bring about precisely what it claims to be fighting but fails miserably to highlight, open systemic discrimination and racism. For those who have been led astray by these emotive manipulators I would implore you to acknowledge that these schools of thought are deliberate and subversive sophistry. Not only do they refuse to admit their true aims, they refuse to engage in any genuine discussion whatsoever. Critical theories claim to be self critical and self correcting, although it is clear to any who pay attention that they have no interest in an honest pursuit of genuine equality, and seek only state enforced outcomes. In the absence of logic or any coherent argument they turn to the age old tactics of accusation and slander. Any arguments or proof contrary to their narrative will be entirely ignored as if they did not exist, while these sophists march forward. The path to truth and objectivity has never been paved with ad hominem and censorship, but genuine engagement and cooperation.

Furthermore it places Intersectionalists and Critical Race Theorists in the position of making the boldest claim of all of history, entirely missed by many who both agree and disagree. Or indeed any advocate for equality of outcome. That claim being that the whole of human history, every civilization there has been, has gotten it entirely wrong. Lucky for us, people like Kimberlé Crenshaw have arrived to correct the course of human history, and ensure that all outcomes are entirely equal moving into the future. This is a simple point missed by many, but outlining the overwhelming arrogance of those who would preach these schools of thought in a genuine fashion. They would not dare state as much. Yet scrutiny of their ideas can lead only to this ultimate conclusion. They deem the entirety of humanity preceding them to have been incorrect, while asserting that they know best, above all the philosophers of history who have contributed to shaping civilisation. Their intolerance for scrutiny of their ideas is the marker of a narrative, not a pursuit of truth.

In summary, the dangers of accepting Intersectionality as a societal model ripple well beyond the inevitable and divisive identity politics, and the destruction of equality before the law. It will undermine individualism both legally and philosophically, and will create societal and institutional reinforcement of identity driven perspectives of each other. Meritocracy will be trampled entirely as discriminatory quotas are introduced to ensure equal outcomes, only achievable through state intervention. On a more global scale outside of Ireland, and hypothetically, countless examples can be found that demonstrate both the racist selective advocacy of these theories, and their restrictive nature in quite honestly laughably impractical ways. Policy for such an abstract goal will prove to be impossibly inconsistent, and as such cannot be taken seriously as an alternative for systems that made western civilisation so attractive for everybody to come here in the first place. If you disagree with the concepts of merit, the individual, equality before the law, and political governance for the benefit of all and not the few, then Intersectionality may suit you.

A final point to be made is that given it is clear Intersectionality is an extension of Critical Race Theory, we in Ireland can safely abandon this American school of thought entirely. The Irish state has never had race based laws in history as the United States did, and for this reason the claims made by CRT are entirely unfounded in Irelands racially neutral legal system, and by extension, also the claims of its offspring. Intersectionality is attempting to squeeze it’s foot through the door on the coat tails of feminism, and baseless, aimless accusations of racism. It simply cannot be tolerated. It’s advocates are either highly confused or deliberately subversive. In either case we must not allow the advocates of extremely subjective and vague ideologies to wreak havoc on our society without ever having been forced to justify their goals with any specificity, or having genuinely engaged with intellectual opposition without resorting to ad hominem. I would look forward to their open engagement with genuine intellectual opposition, but I doubt we will ever see it.