As noted in Foss and Griffin’s “Beyond Persuasion: A Proposal For Invitational Rhetoric”, a “principle that undergirds most feminisms is a recognition of the immanent value of all living beings” (Foss, Griffin, 4). This is an interesting point because it highlights the importance of, and even the observation of intersectionality in the mid-nineties, when this was written. Something that tends to be forgotten by people of any background is that marginalized groups are all marginalized. Regardless of which groups you belong to, it is important to recognize the similarities between different marginalized ones. There will be differences, of course, but they should never be enough to get in the way of the ultimate goal, which is equity. In addition, “worth cannot be determined by positioning individuals on a hierarchy so they can be ranked and compared” (Foss, Griffin, 4). The classic argument that everybody matters. It is not fair that societies and systems of power get to decide who really matters and who does not, but that is the simple (extremely complex) truth. Although it can be said that life accolades such as marital status, occupation, or religion are indicators of who is most important- what matters is that people of all marginalized groups continue to focus on pushing for equity, and that they don’t get distracted.
An example I have of this is from last year. For context, I went to high school with these people, so we all thought it would be fun to hang out together at college since we were semi-buddies around freshman and sophomore year. Never close friends- just people I could say hi to in the halls, and ones with whom I could have a good laugh. I am half-Mexican, I could be considered gender-fluid, and they are both lesbian. Because of all these things, we naturally started complaining about things going on in the world as the night progressed. What I came to find honestly shocked me. They were so pretentious about the history of the group to which they belong, and had done no research about any other groups. Not that everybody needs to be a researcher by any means, but they knew nothing. They lacked serious amounts of respect for other people, and were also very mean. They were putting down other groups left and right and were actually quite racist towards me as well. I learned a lot that day about society’s knowledge on the subject of intersectionality. It is safe to say I left their dorm room as soon as I possibly could. The reason this really connects to the points in my first paragraph is because it is essential that marginalized groups don’t hurt each other. There is no way to strive for change if no minority group is significant enough to challenge the majority.
Foss, Sonja K, and Cindy L Griffin. Beyond Persuasion: A Proposal for an Invitational Rhetoric. EBSCO Publishing, 1995, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03637759509376345.
I found your point about intersectionality interesting, especially the quotes from the readings about how we cannot but marginalized groups on a hierarchy, because it's all a matter of relativity and perspective. It reminds me of the counter-slogan "all lives matter" that people starting saying as a sort of backlash to the Black Lives Matter movement during the 2020 protests. But this saying is intrinsically problematic because its sidelining and marginalizing the problems that black Americans are facing. All lives can't matter until black lives matter, and we need to understand that groups of people face different adversities.
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