Intersectionality

Questions

​​1) How do you feel about this message? can you think of examples and concrete cases that resonate with the key message?

2) Do you think the text can be easily understood by young people like yourself? what challenges you see in circulating this message?

3) Do you think you would be interested in supporting the Campaign on intersectionality and the dissemination of this message? if yes: how would you do this?

4) Do you think you may include elements from this Campaign on intersectionality in your course activity and final project?

Answers

1. Intersectionality is an approach that emphasizes that categories such as gender, sexual orientation, class, race, nationality, disability and age/generation cannot be considered as independent categories. They are intertwined structures that define us. But we are more than our one basic feature, we can not be identified only with our gender, race, social status or so on. Also the system which prefers to categorize us under “labels” was an absurd and unrealistic idea from the beginning. People can not be judged by their natural features. As a group, we are aware that human beings are complex and getting more interconnected as every day is passing. Moreover, people should be treated respectfully as they are valuable, and not be judged by some prejudices. For example; in one club called “Factory” in Padua, you need to fill one document which indicates your gender and race in order to get the “entrance card”. Based on your gender and race the evaluation progress is starting and while some people get their “entrance” in seconds, some of them never get it. This is a one prosaic example from right out of our life and rancid society that we live in.
2. In our opinion, this text can be easily understood by young people to the extent that we all are facing this kind of challenges, no matter who we are. They explain the concept of intersectionality with simple and concrete words which allow us to apply this principle to ourselves and to others. The challenge could be that some people just refuse to face this reality basing themselves on prejudices and stereotypes and ignoring that each of us has interconnected identities.
3. We would like to support this campaign as we found the message impressive. Social media, which is the easiest way to reach young people, is an effective way to spread this message. We can start an organic discussion about this campaign on popular platforms such as Twitter and Instagram, including activist influencers and celebrities. In this way, we create a space where young people can also be involved and present their own ideas and solutions. This organic discussion can be supported by prepared images and videos.
4. We could perfectly include elements from this campaign on intersectionality in our final project given that we are focusing on women journalists of three different countries (Belgium, Turkey, and Brazil) so they are obviously all different in their age, culture, income, etc.
We think it is important to stress this concept so that people can realize how different women from different countries could face the same problem, namely violence against women journalists.