The Article, "Beyond Racism and Misogyny: Black Feminism and 2 Live Crew" by Kimberle Williams Crenshaw tackles issues of gender and racial subordination. She introduces the article by addressing the goals of feminism, and criticizing the ways in which racism and sexism are depicted as separate entities. This leads to an introduction of the intersectionality of race and gender. She then proceeds with an analysis of structural, political and representation intersectionality. Crenshaw then draws upon these conclusions and takes a Black feminist stance to address the prosecution of 2 Live Crew.
One of the central goals of feminism is the addressing violence against women. Feminist work to challenge the ways violence against women is viewed and disregarded in society. Crenshaw states that, "much of this challenge has occurred within legal discourse because it is within the law that cultural attitudes are legitimized." Feminism focuses on gender. But, by focusing solely on the commonalties of women, mainstream feminism overlooks issues surrounding race and class which play a role in how women experience gender subordination. Frameworks that focus exclusively on either race or gender overlook those who are effected by both. In order to addresses the racism and sexism that women of color face, Crenshaw introduces an intersectional framework. .
Structural intersectionality addresses the ways in which women of color are affected by both racist and sexist structures of discrimination. In terms of abusive situations, the discrimination they face, affect their ability to escape abuse, receive intervention and access crisis centers. Political intersectionality addresses how politics that treat race and gender as mutually exclusively leads to the marginalization of women of color. Politics of race and gender are sometime oppositional, while challenging one mechanism of subordination they sometimes implicitly of explicitly legitimize another mode of subordination.
