Glossary

If you are new to intersectional feminism, this glossary is made just for you!
We understand that feminist language can seem overwhelming or confusing at first, since there are just so many unique terms and concepts under the umbrella of intersectionality. This glossary is designed to clarify the terminology and theoretical concepts that are integral to the intersectional perspective THIS IS GENDERED advocates for. We hope it helps you better understand why we use certain terms in certain entries; the constituents of this glossary are not gendered themselves, but rather key to understanding and articulating how our everyday world is gendered, racialised, classed, sexualised, and more!

Feel free to skim the glossary to check if there are terms you aren’t familiar with or ones you have encountered but are unsure of their exact meaning. If you would like to see something added, contact us and we’ll work on including it in the glossary!

Gender binary

The gender binary is a social system of classification that constructs two distinct and opposite genders—male and female—while naturalising them as being determined by sex assigned at birth. These mutually exclusive labels are always accompanied by expected gender roles and this model for understanding gender often conflates interrelated yet distinct concepts like sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. The gender binary is one of the most omnipresent classification systems in our world, found in everything from birth certificates and passports to pocket sizes and soap. Interrogating the gender binary and its simultaneous damage to and erasure of non-binary people and identities can help expose the faults of similar classification systems. For instance, binary understandings of race in terms of black or white erase the experiences of marginalisation faced by groups such as Asians, Latinx, or Indigenous. Intersectionality is crucial for understanding and critiquing how the many binaries around us, not just gender, function as more complex hierarchies and tools of power that perpetuate oppression.

Heteronormativity

“It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve!”Perhaps you have heard or seen this phrase at some point in your life. It is a more well-known example of the type of argument drawn from religious texts and weaponized by those who impose their belief that romantic and sexual relations should only and always be between a man and a woman.This is a heteronormative worldview.

Such a view dictates a sanctioned mode of living, being, loving, and having sex, while functioning on a host of reductive and confining binaries: man or woman, male or female; heterosexual or homosexual; right or wrong. A term that was pioneered by Michael Warner and Lauren Berlant within queer studies in the 1990s, it encompasses the long-standing beliefs and assumptions that not only does a “default”, “natural”, or “normal” sexual orientation and expression exist, but also that this is heterosexuality. In a heteronormative social hierarchy, heterosexuality is privileged and constructed as a morally superior identity to all others. It is organised, institutionalised, surveilled, and reinforced, in various forms and by various practices: family, marriage, having children, monogamy; governments, schools, legal systems, and workplaces. Heteronormativity is thus descriptive as well as prescriptive, in that people are both assumed to be cisgendered and heterosexual and supposed to be cisgendered and heterosexual. Using an intersectional lens, many of the entries in our feminist encyclopedia explore how heteronormative structures converge with other systems of oppression to produce compounded experiences of discrimination and marginalisation.

Commodity Feminism/Girlboss Feminism/Mainstream Feminism

Commodification refers to the converting of objects, cultures, experiences, and even people, into marketable commodities. In feminist contexts, one often engages with discussions surrounding the commodification of women, bodies, or sex—but did you know that in the 21st century’s global capitalist economy, even feminism itself is hugely commodified?

You’ve probably heard of girlboss feminism or recall the #girlboss trend that took over social media in the 2010s, which is arguably the face of popular or mainstream feminism even today. At first glance, the idea of feminism being “popular” seems like a good thing because that would mean it is more accessible to more people….right?

Well, girlboss feminism is really choice feminism, and the central idea behind this branch of feminism is that all women have the freedom of choice and that they can achieve anything if they “set their mind to it”. The fundamental flaw in this ideology is its blatant disregard for how women are not one but many; in other words, it lacks intersectionality.
This feminism focuses on individual empowerment through the achievement of financial success and obscene levels of consumption, under the guise of self-care and self-improvement. It places the entire burden of this responsibility and expectation to become “the best version of yourself”, on the individual. Often, the image of a conventionally attractive, white, heterosexual, able-bodied, and often already wealthy young woman, is used to package the ideas of liberation, empowerment, self-fulfilment, and happiness. What we end up with is commodity feminism—one that can be bought and sold in the form of T-shirts sporting catchall terms like “Smash the Patriarchy”—emptied of any real political significance. That’s why many view it as superficial and performative. Really, the only relevant ‘isms’ here are capitalism and consumerism, which benefit existing dominant and privileged groups, reinforce their hegemony, and inflict the most harm upon the very marginalised groups who are most in need of true, intersectional feminism at the beginning and end of all of this.

I remember all the times I lay sprawled on the living room couch in pyjama shorts, in the summer heat and humidity of Mumbai, and the instinctual lashing out at my father for reprimanding my posture and telling me to “sit properly” while walking past with no shirt on (the hypocrisy!). I remember how long it took to swallow the hard pill that he will never untangle the spreading of my legs for mere comfort, in the privacy of my home, from the “inappropriateness” of it being done by a teenage girl in front of her father. It took even longer to digest the idea that “picking my battles” and not always outwardly reacting does not make me less of a feminist. So, I want to end by encouraging you to reexamine your own conceptualisation of feminism. Disembody it from notions of “empowerment” if that’s what you associate it with, for feminism is kept alive by the everyday injustices—both the fleeting and the persistent moments of rage, pain, sadness, and suffering, which most of us are all too familiar with—that can never be commodified. 

Microaggressions

Psychologist Derald W. Sue, who has authored multiple books on this topic, defines microaggressions as “the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalised group membership”. These messages are often hidden or implicit, concealed in casual comments made in passing,”‘jokes”, and “compliments”. While microaggressions are usually spoken of in the context of race, any marginalised identity can become a target. An example of a verbal microaggression is asking someone where they are “really” from. For more examples of microaggressions and the various hidden messages they relay, you can click here.

Microaggressions can inflict significant psychological harm, make school and work environments hostile, intimidate or threaten, and invalidate, demean, or exclude. It is important to remember that the impact they have upon the person they are directed at, matters far more than the intention of the perpetrator.

Objectification

Central to feminist theory, objectification can be understood as the viewing and/or treatment of a person—often a woman—as, quite literally, an object. One of the most prevalent and harmful forms is sexual objectification, which occurs in the sexual realm. Martha Nussbaum (1995) identified seven features or aspects involved in the objectification of an individual, which she titled as “Seven Ways To Treat a Person as a Thing. The list goes as follows:

1. Instrumentality: the treatment of a person as a tool for the purposes of the objectifier; 
2. Denial of autonomy: the treatment of a person as lacking in self-determination and autonomy;
3. Inertness: the treatment of a person as lacking in agency an possibly also in activity;
4. Fungibility: the treatment of a person as an object that is interchangeable with others;
5. Violability: the treatment of a person as without boundaries, in that they can be broken into or violated in some way;
6. Ownership: the treatment of a person as a commodity that can be owned and bought, sold, or traded;
7. Denial of subjectivity: the treatment of a person as without feelings or experiences, or feelings and experiences that don’t need to be taken into account.

Rae Langton (2009) expanded this list with three additional features: 

1. Reduction to a body: the treatment of a person as identified with their body or body parts; 
2. Reduction to appearance: the treatment of a person mainly in terms of how they look or appear to the objectifier’s senses
3. Silencing: the treatment of a person as though they are silent and lack the ability to speak

Some scholars like Lina Papadaki argue that Nussbaum’s list is far too broad and for it to be more meaningful, needs to be restricted. However, objectification is viewed as a morally contentious and problematic phenomenon by most feminist thinkers. Particularly in feminist discourse about pornography, scholars such as Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin argue that because of men’s pornography consumption practices, women as a collective get reduced to mere tools of male pleasure. Nussbaum herself has also challenged the notion that objectification is always and necessarily a negative phenomenon, suggesting that it is possible for a positive form of objectification to exist. This is in the context of scenarios in which objectification can constitute enjoyable and even valuable parts of life. To elaborate, the difference in the nature of objectification lies in the context of the relationship in which it is taking place. Objectification is negative when equality, consent, and respect are lacking. However, it can be benign or positive when those factors are present. The following is an example go benign objectification provided by Nussbaum (1995):

“If I am lying around with my lover on the bed, and use his stomach as a pillow there seems to be nothing at all baneful about this, provided that I do so with his consent (or, if he is asleep, with a reasonable belief that he would not mind), and without causing him pain, provided as well, that I do so in the context of a relationship in which he is generally treated as more than a pillow”.

Objectification remains a slippery concept to grasp, particularly regarding whether it should be restricted to a negative phenomenon or expanded to include benign and/or positive instances. What’s your take?

Oppression

Oppression refers to the unjust treatment, domination, control, or exercising of power over people. There are many different systems of oppression, such as gender oppression, which targets cisgender women, transgender, and non-binary people on an individual, cultural, and institutional level. Because it occurs when one social group has more privilege and power than another, and that privilege and power is used to dominate the other group or maintain the status quo, oppression can be understood as both a state and a process. 

Individual or interpersonal oppression occurs through stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination at a personal level, such as with sexist and racist jokes or threats.
Institutional oppression refers to the systematic mistreatment or marginalisation of a person on the basis of their membership to a certain social identity group, through social institutions such as governments, education, and culture, while simultaneously elevating dominant or hegemonic social groups. For instance, systems of gender oppression help maintain or reinforce patriarchal power for cisgender men. Interpersonal and institutional oppression are also closely linked, as stereotypes, prejudices, and discriminatory behaviours lead to the establishment of laws, policies, procedures, and practices that reflect, legitimise, and protect the other.
While oppression starts outside the oppressed group, the oppressive ideologies encountered at the interpersonal level or reflected by institutions can get internalised by the oppressed group. Not having the power to express their negative feelings and confront the source of their oppression (the dominant group), leave only the self and other members of the same oppressed group. Hence, internalised oppression is the “turning upon ourselves, upon our families, and upon our own people the distress patterns that result from the …oppression of the (dominant) society.”
These three forms of oppression work together and reinforce one another to perpetuate and produce systems of oppression.

Oppression can also occur in the forms of imposition and deprivation. 
Oppression by imposition is “the act of imposing on …others …a label, role experience, or set of living conditions that is unwanted, needlessly painful, and detracts from physical or psychological well-being …(such as) demeaning hard labour, degrading job roles, ridicule, and negative media images and messages that foster and maintain distorted beliefs”. An example of this is colonialism, wherein colonisers have power over the colonised or indigenous people. Colonisers impose their beliefs about what is considered as “important knowledge”, degrading or erasing indigenous knowledge systems and worldviews while propagating a distorted public view of indigenous cultures as being “old-fashioned”, “backward”, and obsolete. This maintains the subjugation of indigenous groups. 

Oppression by deprivation “involves depriving people of desired jobs, an education, healthcare, or living conditions necessary for physical and mental well-being …[such as] food, clothing, shelter, love, respect, social support, or self-dignity”. Using the same example of colonialism, this form of oppression can be understood with how colonisers deprive indigenous people of the right to self-govern, and position them as less deserving and autonomous than themselves.

Patriarchy

In its literal sense, patriarchy is the “rule of the father” or by the male head of a given social unit, like a family or a tribe, over women, children, and other (particularly younger) men. In the early 20th century, the concept of “patriarchy” was utilised by feminist writers to theorise the systematic oppression of women—a social system of male domination. A key concept within gender studies, patriarchy has contributed to the development of several theories for helping identify the bases of men’s domination and women’s subordination. 

Radical feminist theories posit that one of the main ways by which men achieve domination is the family and control over women’s bodies. In Marxists feminism, by contrast, patriarchy is theorised to be closely linked with systems of capitalist economy; it both requires and benefits from the unpaid labour of women in the private sphere. Further, class inequality is positioned as the centre of society and the key determinant of gender inequality. A third theory—the dual system’s theory—can be seen as a combination of radical and Marxist feminist ones. While Marxist theories are critiqued for over-emphasising upon capitalism and class, and radical feminist theories are critiqued for over-emphasising upon biology and/or patriarchy, some iterations of dual systems theory view patriarchy and capitalism as systems of oppression that are interdependent and mutually accommodating. Under this perspective, both systems organise and reap benefits from the subordination of women.

Patriarchy is no doubt a prominent concept in feminist theories and analyses, but is not without contention. It is important to understand what common criticisms aimed at theories and interpretations of gender relations using this concept are. For one, there is often an aspect of ahistoricism, in that variations in gender relations across history are not recognised or accounted for. Similarly, there is a tendency towards universalism and a failure to acknowledge cultural variations in gender relations. Another criticism is that some theories are reductionist, in that they boil the basis of patriarchy down to a few limiting factors like the family, capitalism, or biology. Third, and very important, is that patriarchy’s concept encourages extremely limited and binary understandings of gender relations, assuming that they only occur between women and men.

One of the more well-known theories of patriarchy come from Sylvia Walby (1990), whose work helps overcome some of the outlined issues with the concept. According to Walby, patriarchy can be understood as being made up of practices and structures in which women are exploited, oppressed, and dominated by men. She pinpoints six forms in which patriarchy operates, namely the home, the workplace, through male violence, sexuality, and cultural institutions such as media and religion, and the state (via laws and policies). Together, these structures can capture the breadth, depth, interconnectedness and pervasiveness of the subordination women. Walby argues that there are distinctive forms of patriarchy, that are private patriarchy and public patriarchy. While the former is seen in the household and an individual dominant male or patriarch, the latter refers to oppressive factors in the public sphere and how women are systematically obstructed from obtaining wealth, power, and influence with the same ease and access as men. 

Queer Politics

Circa the 1980s, the term “queer” was increasingly reclaimed and refashioned in both academia and activist spaces. Mobilisation by specific grassroots organisations such as OutRage, ACT UP, and the Pink Panthers led to the emergence of the political reclaiming of “queer”. This became the basis for Queer politics. This activism radicalised the lesbian and gay movements up till that point in the 1980s and 1990s, in three key ways: the destabilisation of the male-female gender binary and assertion of genderqueer identities, the deconstruction of the heterosexual-homosexual binary in favour of less rigid understandings of sexuality, and critiques of lesbians and gays whose activist efforts largely centred around assimilating into conventional heterosexual dynamics through advocacy for things like marriage and parenting.

This era of queer activism advocated for queer visibility in the public domain; this was emphasised by the slogan “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it”. Their methods of increasing visibility were more militant and disruptive, and targeted homophobia, heteronormativity, and heterosexism. They went on to critique heteronormativity that was so pervasive it had seeped into LGBTQ movements and was seen with the domination of gay villages by middle-class and White gay men.

Eventually, queer politics went beyond challenging the oppression of queer people on the basis of sexuality to acknowledge how different systems of oppression are interlocked with one another. This involved engagement with issues of gender, colonialism, race and ethnicity, capitalism and class, health, law, the structure of family, and more. For instance, queer activists who have adopted an anti-colonial perspective argue that queer is a Western concept that has colonising effects; indigenous communities utilise the term two-spirited that is nonequivalent to Western constructions of queer. Activist group Queer Nation advocates that the queer nation or the queer planet is not only a place for queer people but for everyone, in some capacity or another. They propose that sexuality needs to be freed of binaries and hierarchies, and notions of what is normal versus deviant must be more deeply challenged to eliminate sexual normativity.

Queer Theory

Queer theory emerged as a tangible field from lesbian, gay, and gender studies in the 1990s, when several scholars (primarily from the humanities) started theorising in ways that challenged dominant heteronormative understandings and assumptions (scientific as well as cultural) of sex, sexuality, and identity. Early scholars associated with queer theory include Michael Warner, Adrienne Rich, and Judith Butler. The work of Michel Foucault, who is widely regarded as having paved the way for queer theory, influenced many of these scholars.

It can be difficult to answer the question of “what is queer theory?” since the term queer itself hinges on not assigning confining labels and definitions to a wide spectrum of genders and sexualities. Queer theory does not encompass a singular established theoretical perspective, but instead engages with multiple and often contesting perspectives on sex, sexuality, and gender. This lack of consensus is viewed by many queer theorists as advantageous in unearthing unique insights about sex, sexuality, and gender across cultures.

Queer theory has been described as a theoretical and political stance that is deliberately provocative, foregrounding sexual identity and desire and pleasure, as well as the roles these play in knowledge construction pertaining to the self. Drawing from postmodernism and poststructuralism, Queer theory can be a useful tool for examining power relations and the political dimensions of sex, sexuality, and gender. It frequently resists the practice of categorising people, particularly into binary classifications such as heterosexual-homosexual. It interrogates the utility of gender binaries as a mode of distinction, reexamining how they contribute to bringing heterosexuality to the front and centre of everything.

Transmisogyny and Transmisogynoir

Although all individuals under the transgender umbrella face the risk of discrimination and hate violence, those on the feminine end of the spectrum often have intersecting and overlapping experiences of marginalisation due to both transphobia and misogyny. Not only are these individuals marginalised for transgressing the various norms, expectations, and assumptions surrounding gender, but additionally due to the particular direction of their gender expression and transgression.

Transmisogyny is a term coined by trans activist and feminist Julia Serano, in her 2007 book Whipping Girl, to better articulate and help recognise a certain type of anti-transgender prejudice that until then was only described as transphobia. Transmisogyny is rooted in the assumption that femaleness and femininity are inferior to maleness and masculinity; Serano pointed out that gender transgressions towards the female or feminine are stigmatised and sensationalised significantly more than transgression towards the male or masculine. Studies have shown that assigned-male-at-birth (AMAB) children who express an affinity for a more female or feminine identity are pathologised and perceived with fear and confusion to a much greater degree than the other way around. This is supported by the fact that feminine AMAB children are taken to psychotherapy much more frequently than masculine AFAB children.

The notion that women “get dolled up” and men only “groom” contributes to portrayals of trans women as “fake” and as nearly always hyperfeminine. This simultaneously adds to trans male/masculine invisibility. Transmisogyny also manifests through the sexualisation of trans people. Serano highlights prevalent stereotypes following the idea of sexual deceit; that trans women are gay men “impersonating” women to try and “trap” or “trick” straight men into having sex. Such sexual motivations are rarely attributed to trans men, who are assumed to be attempting to gain male privilege.

These disparities reveal how the individuals and structures that propagate such harmful stereotypes are well aware of the unequal power dynamics that exist between men and women, even if they often pretend otherwise. Transmisogyny crops up in instances of violence instigated at both individual and state levels; not only are many victims of anti-LGBTQIA+ homicides trans women, but a majority of them are also trans women of colour. This trend applies to cases of police brutality and incarceration as well. Racial prejudice against people of colour and Black people in particular, results in the compounded experiences of marginalisation due to transphobia, misogyny, and racism. It is an adaptation of the word “misogynoir”, which was coined by Black queer feminist Moya Bailey in 2010 to refer to the specific experiences of Black women due to the intersection of sexism and racism.  Transmisogynoir calls attention to this three-way overlap and serves as a way to conceptualise the oppression of Black trans women and trans-feminine people.