With
those words about the everyday nature of racism, I welcome you all to
this panel on intersectionality.
It
is a daunting word -- "intersectionality." Although it doesn't
sound like a word anyone would use every day, it describes an everyday
experience for many Australians. By intersectionality, we refer to the
connection between aspects of identity, and by "intersectional
discrimination", the different types of discrimination or disadvantage
that compound on each other and are inseparable.
An
intersectional approach asserts that speaking about race in isolation
from other aspects of identity results in concrete disadvantage. One
example that is all too common in my line of work is the sexualisation
of women from various ethnic groups in the workplace. Sexual harassment
affects particular groups of women quite differently, and in a way that
is about their race as much as it is about their gender.
Intersectionality
is not an arithmetic equation - you don't just add up the consequences
of race, for example, and the consequences of gender. Intersectional
discrimination means people are discriminated against in qualitatively
different ways as a consequence of the combination of their individual
characteristics.
As
Sex Discrimination Commissioner at the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity
Commission I am particularly interested in the way that gender compounds
other forms of discrimination: not only race, but age, disability, sexuality
and the myriad other ways that people have found to discriminate against
each other.
Many
of you here today have experience of working in human rights, as well
as personal stories of discrimination. We know from our experience of
working in discrimination, and from the stories that make it through
the institutional maze, that women from non-English speaking backgrounds
experience hostile attitudes in many workplaces.
However,
we also know that many incidents of intersectional disadvantage are
never the subject of a complaint, and are never redressed. There are
many institutional barriers to recognizing discrimination where is occurs.
But also, many of us are just starting to understand that intersectional
discrimination is the right place to start in terms of understanding
the subtlety of discrimination as it occurs in practice.
For
example, too often when we talk about issues of racism we are talking
about men's issues. It is not done deliberately, but it has the effect
of making women's issues peripheral. Australia is one of the most ethnically
diverse nations in the world. Women make up over half of Australia's
population. Without looking at how women, particularly different groups
of women, experience racism, we are unable to understand or properly
work to eliminating racism within our society.
This
was acknowledged by Mary Robinson, the UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights in a speech made earlier this year:
Of
course, gender is not the only characteristic that intersects with race,
and we are here today to discuss a range of experiences that will make
our understanding of racism more complex.
We
know from our experiences of working in discrimination and human rights,
that one way to combat discrimination is to "bring the outside
in": to listen to people whose voices are peripheral and to find
ways of including them and bringing them to the centre of discussion.
We
know too that despite laws and programs to combat different types of
discriminations, direct, indirect and institutional forms of discrimination
persist. Formal equality as expressed in laws and policies do not deliver
substantive equality in most instances. We need to ensure real equality
by devising strategies and programs that take account of the differences
that women and men experience and respond accordingly.
We
all have a lot to learn about intersectional discrimination and how
to combat it in practice. We are fortunate today to have the opportunity
to learn a bit more, not only about race and gender, but about disability,
age and religion and the way that these aspects of identity intersect
with racism.
This
is a constant challenge. Most people are aware of the need for inclusion
of different perspectives in human rights work. But the tendency is
still to "add on" the perspectives of others rather than making
them central. We assume a white perspective when we only have a footnote
about blackness. And we assume that the male perspective is the central
one when we add only a final chapter about women. As long as that is
the way we work, marginalized people will remain marginal.
I
challenge the people here today to adopt a gender-based approach to
the analysis of racism. And, of course, to do that while also taking
account of the other aspects of identity that intersect to create us
as complex beings.
If
that sounds like juggling a few too many balls, well, no-one said that
acknowledging intersectionality was easy. But it is the next step we
need to make in genuinely addressing the lived experience (the every
day experience) of discrimination. And luckily, we have panelists
here today who can help to show us the way.
