Unveiling the Intersectional Erasure Within Identity-Based Social Movements

Undergraduate Honors Thesis

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Citeable URL: https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/3f4627001

Abstract

This thesis explores the dynamics within past and modern identity-based social movements that contribute to the erasure of intersectional culture and identity. It posits that strategic essentialism, advanced marginalization, secondary marginalization, and a concept I introduce as Strategic Policy Focus (SPF), play pivotal roles in these movements' struggles with intersectionality. Through an analysis of three key case studies–ACT UP, Black Lives Matter, and #MeToo–I argue that these movements, as well as nearly every other social movement that has occurred within the last two centuries, engage with at least two of these dynamics, often with SPF emerging from advanced marginalization. This investigation sheds light on how movements simplify complex identities into monolithic categories, and how they inadvertently sideline certain groups, thereby compromising the movements' inclusivity and efficacy.

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