On intersectionality

A row on Friday night between Anna Chen and Laurie Penny has reminded me to get round to writing a white male economists' perspective on the hot topic of intersectionality.

This, it seems to me, is a fancy word for an obvious idea - that people experience inequalities differently. The experience of black women - to take Kimberle Crenshaw's original example (pdf) - is different from that of white women; working class women suffer a different form of inequality than richer women; and so on.

This matters, because there can be trade-offs when we try to promote localized forms of equality. White feminists are sometimes accused of marginalizing black or trans women, for example, and demands for more women in boardrooms or the media leave class inequalities unchallenged. And so on.

I have four observations here:

1. Inequalities are not always additive. Some evidence on this comes from a paper (pdf) by Hilary Metcalf on wage inequalities*. She shows that, controlling for qualifications, black Caribbean and Indian women earn more that white ones. Yes, there's a gender pay gap and an ethnic pay gap, but they cut across each other. And there's also evidence that lesbians actually have a wage premium - although, paradoxically, they tend to have live in households (pdf) with lower earnings.

2. There's a curious omission in the inequalities which identity politics worry about - that between good-looking and ugly people. One UK study (pdf) - which is consistent with international evidence - found that boys who were considered unattractive by their teachers at the ages of 7 and 11 earned 14.9 per cent less than averagely attractive boys at the age of 33, even controlling for qualifications; ugly women suffered a 10.9% penalty. This pay gap is bigger than Metcalf's estimate of the adjusted pay gap between men and women or whites and blacks, and I suspect it's not offset by uglies getting a good deal in other spheres of life. The inequalities we hear about, then, are only a subset of those that actually exist.

3. The danger with identity politics is that it can degenerate into narcissism, or what Phil calls a "project of individual self-presentation." As Dr Crenshaw said (pdf): "the moment where a different barrier affects a subset of us, our solidarity often falls apart." I suspect this isn't wholly the fault of feminists, but is instead exacerbated by a form of projection: there's a tendency to presume that Laurie Penny or Caitlin Moran are "speaking for women" whereas nobody assumes that, say, Nick Cohen or James Delingpole are speaking for white men.

4. Although there's a tendency to regard the many inequalities as different, they have a common link - power. The powerful use their power to favour their group and disfavour out-groups. The fact that there's more ethnic diversity in the City than in the arts tells us that we'll not achieve equality merely by ensuring that the powerful have "liberal attitudes". This, though, poses the question: what would a society without power inequalities look like?

And herein lies a paradox. Perhaps the most widely studied blueprint we have for such a society is to be found not in leftist literature but in the economic textbooks. Under perfect competition, employers wouldn't have the power to discriminate. Of course, this alone wouldn't eliminate all inequalities, but it'd be a start.

* Of course, these are only a subset of inequality, but they give us a measure of how capitalism produces some systematic inequalities.

Comments

[Paul Cotterill]

Of course it is Seth MacFarlane, America's answer to Chris Dillow, who cuts to the chase with on ugliness interectionality, with the Goldman family http://familyguy.wikia.com/wiki/Muriel_Goldman reaching back deep into East European stereotyping of the red-haired Jew but also forward to a post-intersectional solidarity between the powerless.

Or something.

[TickyW]

Perfect competition, eh?

I don't think capitalists would like that. Or, to be more realistic, anything approaching it.

[dilberto]

The assumption of equality is just as prejudiced as the assumption of superiority.

[BenSix]

I suppose it should relieve conservatives that "intersectional" activists spend so much of their time fighting but it also illuminates the power of tribal interests. The strange phrase "people of colour" is an example. In California, last month, there was a large and successful campaign against the introduction of affirmative action into universities. Privileged WASPs? No. Concerned Asian-Americans.

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=634170297]

Chris,

I don't understand why it's paradoxical that lesbians have a wage premium but live in a household with lower earnings?

Let's say two lesbians live together and, due to their lesbian-ness, they earm a bit more than the average woman - both perfectly average income for lesbians.

Compare with a house that has a heterosexual couple, both perfectly average earners. As long as the differential between men and women is more than double the differential between lesbians and heterosexual women (and I suspect this is the case) you'd expect this not to be a paradox. (Am I over labouring the point here?)

[rogerh]

I am pretty sure there has always been a subtle competition and needle sharp rivalry between women. Manifested in giving each other bad advice and making sure one of them does not get too far ahead of the pack. TBF much the same applies to men but women seem better at it.

But what would a society without power inequalities look like? Hard to know, inequalities seem built into our simian natures. A bit like an ant hill or beehive perhaps. Which leads to the idea that maybe the root cause of inequality is our sexuality. Good looks etc still count for more than brains. Up to a point, brains have always been sought by the rich and powerful insofar as brains can accentuate the existing inequalities. So are the rich and powerful good looking and sexually attractive? Is that their secret - not obviously - but a look at the Jeremy Kyle show may suggest a correllation.

[Luis Enrique]

I read that row, and wish I hadn't. I spend my life trying to minimize my contact with people who think like that.

[Chris]

Intersectionality is unnecessary.

Socialism is the movement for overcoming all inequality.

[jack johnson]

"...whereas nobody assumes that, say, Nick Cohen or James Delingpole are speaking for white men." i most certainly do assume it of them, as i do of you. i think: "...there goes the white guy again, spouting off while utterly missing the point". and i really do use the definite article, as though there were exactly one of you. just as the white man might say, "there goes the black man again, charging racism". -- is this what you mean by "speaking for white men"? close enough for jazz.

your definition of intersectionality is wrong -- not just flat, but wrong. may i suggest you actually read work in the area, i mean, beyond a few blog posts and news articles?

[Thornton Hall]

This sort of talk is a ouroboros: a snake eating itself. The clue is in the word "discrimination" which means something like "choosing between options based on reasons". If there's a clear list of "insidious discrimination" categories--race and sex, say--then it makes some sense to call it bad. But when you attack the notion itself, then it becomes clear that you are saying "choosing based on reasons" is bad. And what you are left with is a bunch of very tolerant, very indecisive, very dead people.

[Hoover]

I don't know about ouroborii, but the whole debate aboout intersectionality is baffling.

For example, the cartoon above of Bob as a stripey triangle who should be proud of his stripey-triangle-ness.

But why? The idea that somebody should be proud of being black, or white, or lesbian, or whatever sect, mystifies me. It's a fine illustration of the error of attaching labels to people, when actions are the only thing that counts.

So I don't even get in on the ground floor of the debate. People are human beings, so I don't even recognise the terms under which people are arguing.

As I read on, trying to understand what's eating them, I tend to conclude that they're engaged in a huge waste of their own time - time that would be better spent, say, fulfilling their potential as humans.