ENGLISH LITERATURE II-LM. RESPONSE PAPERS: B.

EVARISTO
PAULA SANTOS NAVAJAS

INTERSECTIONAL FEMINISM IN “GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER”

Throughout the history of feminism, white upper-class bourgeois women, such as Marie
Wollstonecraft or Simone de Beauvoir, have taken the lead. Because of women like them, in
less than two centuries, women's social position has improved, by battling for rights that
belonged - but were not granted - to them. Even so, the struggle of feminism dominated by
white women has caused the marginalisation of the rest.

“Intersectional feminism” is defined as a kind of feminism that does not understand the
movement solely from the perspective of gender, as there are many other sources of
oppression. Thus, the oppression suffered by each subject will be in accordance with how
close the person is to the profile of a white, heterosexual, economically stable,
upper-middle-class woman. It was in 1989 that Kimberlé Crenshaw, a distinguished
African-American lawyer, coined this term that captures the idea that each person
experiences oppression in different categories: gender, race, class, disability, sexuality.... In
the following paper, we will delve deeper into this subject and how Bernardine Evaristo deals
with it in her novel Girl Woman Other.

The novel focuses on the stories of 12 black women, whose stories are interspersed
throughout the narration. Each woman has her own story, but they all have in common that
they suffer the oppression of being both women and black. In addition to this, some of them
belong to socially oppressed groups, such as the LGTBI community, or are working class,
which causes them to suffer more than those women who enjoy more privileges.

Amma, one of the main characters in the novel, is a very interesting character to analyse the
issue at hand. She is a theatre playwright and a lesbian. And she is interesting because,
through her plays, she presents her concerns on issues of racism, gender and sexual identity.
She does it as a way of revindication to give a voice to all women who feel as she does. One
of the most significant scenes in Amma's story, and in the novel in general, is the presentation
of her work in the London theatre. It is important, as Amma gets the audience to talk about it.
One could even think of Amma's play as an allegory for the novel itself, as Evaristo
encourages the reader's reflection.
 ENGLISH LITERATURE II-LM. RESPONSE PAPERS: B.EVARISTO
PAULA SANTOS NAVAJAS

In short, this novel is very interesting and up to date, as current feminism is progressing hand
in hand with society, and concepts such as intersectional feminism give rise to approaches
that as a society had not been thought about before. Evaristo manages to bring readers closer
to a new way of looking at feminism, above all through one of the most important characters,
Amma.
Character count: 2500