If you're at all interested in feminism or have happened to watch any form of media in the last few years, you've probably seen slews of female celebrities declaring themselves feminists and talking about gender equality. While all of this is great and represents progress, it doesn't mean that everything feminists say is automatically correct In fact, oftentimes feminists get it wrong. Why is this, you ask? Because many times feminists forget to use the lens of intersectionality in their work and words. But if you're wondering what intersectional feminism is or why it matters to the feminist movement, luckily Akilah Hughes AKA Akilah Obviously on YouTube is here to explain it to you using the best analogy ever: pizza!
So to give you a slight bit of context before getting into this brilliant video, intersectionality refers to the links between systems of oppression and discrimination. In other words, it examines how things like sexism, racism, and homophobia all work together to keep people down, rather than viewing all three of these systems as being separate. Too often we do look at these systems as being different and when we talk about women, we don't also talk about women who face other types of oppression that also affect the sexism that they face. To get a clearer idea of what this looks like in everyday life, let's look at this with pizza.
1. Life as a Cheese Pizza
If you're born as a cheese pizza in a world that prefers burgers, you're going to face some struggles in your pizzahood. Burgers are the go-to fast food and the world assumes that everyone loves them, which means it's a lot harder to be a cheese pizza. You'll probably want to stand up and say that pizza is just as satisfying as burgers and deserve equal rights — which is great!
2. Life as a Deluxe Pizza
Cheese pizzas aren't the only types of pizzas, however; deluxe pizzas with numerous toppings are also oppressed in a burger world. Deluxe pizzas face more problems than cheese pizzas do, though, and as a result, they can definitely have it harder. You can go to any pizza place and it's pretty much a guarantee they'll have cheese — but finding a deluxe pizza with sausage and peppers isn't so easy. In many facets of culture, cheese pizzas are the only pizzas that are even mentioned. "Cheese pizza is so celebrated that there are snacks that celebrate that flavor... cheese pizza is highly visible," Hughes comments. But the same is not true for deluxe pizzas, who are often seen as an afterthought or an inconvenience.
3. Pizza Equality
When cheese pizzas decided they wanted to team up with deluxe pizzas to fight for the rights of all pizzas, everything seemed fine and dandy... that is, until deluxe pizzas discovered that all of the pizza-based discussion and activism was based around cheese pizzas. Many cheese pizzas actually worked to the determent of deluxe pizzas, even saying saying something to the effect of, "Hey, deluxe pizza, we're going to get to your rights, but only after we achieve ours." Now the result is that the conversations around pizza in the media focus only on cheese pizzas. Then, when deluxe pizzas rise in pop culture and use their platform to fight for pizza rights, cheese pizzas shame them and then promote a cheese pizza who is saying exactly the same thing the deluxe pizza has already been saying.
4. How to Solve This Injustice
In order to rectify the problem, we have to use intersectionality when we talk about pizza rights. "We need to be talking about pizzas who are sexually attracted to other pizzas, pizzas who aren't sexually attracted to anything, pizzas who identify as burgers, and pizzas with different toppings."
Do you see how simple intersectionality seems when we use pizzas instead of people — and why it's so necessary? To get the full breakdown of pizza-based oppression in a burger world, watch the full video below:
Images: Smoothiefreak/YouTube (4)
