Violence Against Women of Color

Vriddhi Vinay
Jul 23, 2017 · 2 min read
Kimberle Crenshaw, professor at UCLA and Columbia Law School

Violence against Women of Color (WoC) is imminent. It’s so heavily embedded in our society that we accept it and are raised to melt to it. Racialized misogyny is its own subset that white women will never understand or be able to theorize — its deadly. Misogynoir is its own type of racialized misogyny that involves antiblackness. The intersection of race and gender makes WoC vulnerable to the violence of both men of color and whiteness. Take #blackwomenslivesmatter and #sayhername — they died because they were black women under state violence. Take the fact that indigenous women have one of the highest rates of sexual assault. Take into account that a lot of women of color are deemed unworthy or undeserving of respect.

Take into account WoC who don’t report workplace harassment because of how difficult solid employment is for marginalized women, like in education, the arts, business, etc.

Take into account that undocumented women are often afraid to leave abusive relationships due to a fear of immigration police. When state violence, deportation with no support in their country of origin, and no financial means is an option, that’s why a lot of black and brown undocumented women may be forced to stay in abusive relationships.

Creator of intersectional theory and critical race theory, Kimberle Crenshaw, has a really nice article about violence against WoC.

It’s important that we’re anticapitalist and intersectional in our feminism in order to prevent emotional and physical exploitation against WoC. It’s time that we treat them like people.

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poetry, nonfiction, fiction | Dravida | 18 | work: vriddhivinay.wordpress.com | ig/twr: @scaryammu | ♀☭ | (un)learning | laal salam

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